Analysis: Mosley, Team Bosses to Assess Changes

After three action-packed and entirely unpredictable Grands Prix, Formula One team bosses sit down with world motorsport head Max Mosley on Thursday to consider what needs changing.

'Very little' will probably be the answer.

An International Automobile Federation (FIA) spokesman said today that the long-awaited meeting at Imola ahead of Sunday's San Marino Grand Prix was expected to be about fine-tuning more than substantive change.

"But we will look at anything put on the table," he said. "It's a general discussion to see how the first three races have gone."

Mosley, architect of sweeping rule changes that have contributed to a shake-up of the sport this season, will be attending his first race of the year after calling off intended trips to Australia and Malaysia. He arrives boosted by television viewing figures showing revived interest in Formula One after a season of Ferrari domination had armchair fans increasingly reaching for the off switch on Sunday afternoons.

Britain's ITV network said last week that the chaotic Brazilian Grand Prix on April 6 registered the third highest audience for the sport since they won the rights in 1997. The new qualifying format, giving drivers one timed lap each on Friday and another on Saturday in a test of strategy as much as speed due to a ban on refuelling between the final session and the race, has received mixed reviews.

Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone has called the Saturday show 'horrible' while others revelled in the jumbled up starting grids thrown up by cars on different fuel loads.

Low Point

Ferrari's World Champion Michael Schumacher, who has yet to step on the podium this year after 11 wins in 2002, is not alone in wanting a return to the old days when he could start in a spare car or change settings overnight. But that is unlikely to happen.

The sport, needing a shot in the arm after a 2002 season that hit a low point with Ferrari's 'team orders' fiasco in Austria, has started the year firing on all cylinders. The sight of Schumacher's Ferrari sitting on the fourth row of the grid or Renault's young Spaniard Fernando Alonso becoming the youngest ever driver on pole position in Malaysia has certainly spiced up the show.

"Qualifying with different fuel levels certainly makes it hard for the spectators to work out what is going on," Canadian former champion Jacques Villeneuve said this week.

"But at the same time the race is more interesting and that's what really counts. The main thing is that grey areas should be cleared up such as the one that allowed Barrichello to drive in Malaysia without the HANS device or Frentzen to start in the spare Sauber when the rules expressly forbid it."

Tyres were a major issue in Brazil, with teams now only allowed one type of wet option and cars sliding uncontrollably on the flooded Interlagos track, and there were calls for the rules to be rewritten to allow two choices.

Ecclestone said at the time that such 'side effects' of the new rules would be studied and that may be the case at Imola. However FIA sources doubted whether there was a genuine consensus of opinion on the matter. The meeting was to have been held last week but was postponed to Imola to allow all parties more time to consider their positions.

"We all felt when we had a team principals meeting ... that we needed more time to analyse the better part of the regulations," said McLaren's Ron Dennis at Interlagos. "There are still strong views held by most people about every single regulation ... we need more time to try and come to a consensus because the next set of changes, if and when they are made, have to be clearly for the better."

The delay will allow the team bosses to brief Mosley personally on their own meeting in Munich last Thursday with the major European carmakers in Formula One and their plans for their own championship from 2008.

The teams signed a preliminary memorandum of understanding with the Grand Prix World Championship (GPWC) last week agreeing to work towards finalising the group's plans. The move was seen by some Formula One insiders as a manoeuvre to strengthen the teams and manufacturers hands in ongoing negotiations with Ecclestone.