Chiefs give their views

The team bosses were shown the results of the survey at last weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix where they gave varied responses.

"If people want to be constructive and really influence F1," said McLaren's team chief Ron Dennis, "write to those parties who they feel are the most appropriate, whether it's the FIA or the teams, but take the trouble to copy it to the other parties. Then we'll have maybe several thousand letters which do constitute opinion. This survey is a good starting point. It's in the public domain and hopefully people will listen.

"I think the people who read Autosport and other magazines are the hardcore audience of grand prix racing," he added. "But their opinions, which are valuable, do have to be tempered by the fact that they are sometimes not in the position to have all the facts.

"The biggest area in which that is apparent is people's views in respect of other driver aids. They are prolific in standard production vehicles, and in most cases are there to enhance safety. So-called driver aids on grand prix cars are mostly concerned with reliability."

Meanwhile, Eddie Jordan believes the survey should be taken to more people who aren't die-hard fans of the sport.

"Someone who buys Autosport and then reads and replies to this is already a fanatic," he said. "I've never filled in a questionnaire! This is fine and it's a very good indicator of how the real hardcore fans feel. But it's hard to get new ideas from people who are already sucked into where the sport is, and it may need somebody outside who has a broader view.

"You can't really do a survey in a pub about what you drink - you have to talk to the people out on the street, a random survey, and compare that to this."

Renault's engineering chief Pat Symonds agreed with Jordan in that getting the opinions of a wider audience we be useful. "We should go out on a Saturday while qualifying is on and ask people in the street, 'Why aren't you watching, what's wrong with it?'" he said. "The die-hard enthusiast is going to watch, whatever."