Dennis doubts merit of grid shake-up

Although some have argued Fernando Alonso's first-ever pole position is precisely what Max Mosley and the FIA set out to achieve when it created the new qualifying procedure, Dennis has taken the purist's view.

"There is still a desire to introduce mechanisms that create even greater abnormality to the grid, even more random processes," Dennis said in Malaysia. "When I am party to those discussions, the opinion I have is that the primary opinion-formers in F1, are the experts in the media. If you move towards F1 being a show to the detriment of the technical challenge, you lose the fundamental fabric of F1. The experts will recognise that, start writing about it as a show and not F1, which will put us in a negative spin.

"I can see the value of a mixed-up grid, no question, and especially that the media can stimulate the story until Sunday. But at the end of the day, if we take out important fundamental principles of F1 you will no longer have F1.

"We just need racing. The only thing we had in Melbourne was a motor race - a few minutes after the start, you'd forgotten all about qualifying. Yes, it does jumble things up but it goes away from the purity of grand prix racing which I don't think is in the long-term interests of the sport."