F1's 2014 rules: If it ain't broke...

Hands up if you've enjoyed the 2012 season so far. Quite a few arms in the air out there? You've enjoyed the unpredictability, the different winners, sometimes a quarter of a second covering the top 10 in Q2?

Well, it strikes me that as we prepare to pull the plug on F1's 2.4-litre V8s at the end of 2013, the baby might just slip out with the bath water.

Undeniably, the show has been a good one this year, although some will argue that it's been achieved artificially. Formula 1, they say, should be the pinnacle - in everything.

And yet, the engines are specified in just about every dimension and their development frozen; and we race on Pirelli's stock control rubber.

It's about cost limitation, of course, but the two biggest performance differentiators on a racing car are thus negated.

Then, if common decency prevents you from attacking Adrian Newey with a baseball bat, you write rules to stifle his genius, such as the heavily prescribed exhaust exit locations on this year's cars.

And lo and behold, everyone races at pretty much the same speed. Some might even call it GP1.

And then the time arrives when we have to go green. Max Mosley told us there was no way that the big corporates, the types that spend money on F1 sponsorship, could be seen to be supporting an activity that so overtly stuck two fingers up to the environment.

Piquet flying at Brands Hatch in 1983 © LAT

There had to be some everyday relevance. We couldn't be dinosaurs, we had to change with the times. And it was the only way to keep the manufacturers.

I was always a bit sceptical about that, but what do I know? For me, as long as car manufacturers are still making big, fast, high-performance cars - which they are - and three-quarters of America still drives pick-up trucks, why does F1 need to worry?

F1 is as different from everyday motoring as it could possibly be. What next? Everest expeditions with inhalers and flip-flops instead of oxygen and crampons?

Unfortunately, I'm old enough to remember the 1.5-litre turbos of the '70s and early '80s and, you've got to say, there wasn't a lot wrong with them. They sounded fine and by the mid '80s had been developed to the point where, with qualifying boost, they were brutal.

I still have a picture in my mind of Nelson Piquet accelerating out of Clearways at Brands Hatch, his Brabham valiantly attempting to go straight on as he gave it a bootful.

The car bucked viciously as he pulled a higher gear, which itself sounded like a controlled explosion, and a hazy black cloud enveloped the rear wing. It was an awesome sight.

They sounded impressive too, funnily enough, so I'm not worried that 2014-spec F1 is going to be so audibly dull that nobody's going to come.

It's just that a while ago I had a chat with Renault's Rob White about some of the challenges facing the engine and energy recovery men.

Rob outlined some very real challenges and was obviously enthusiastic about the task. Engineers love this sort of thing and, clearly, there's plenty of scope for someone to cock it up.

Or, let's just say, do a significantly poorer job than the opposition.

There always has been, of course, which is not a justification for freezing the rules ad infinitum. If you really do believe that F1 should be as unrestricted as possible, then bring it on.

Will the new engine formula pay off for F1? © XPB

It's just that coming, as it does, on the back of a period of unparalleled competitiveness, however achieved, you get the feeling that a generation of relatively recent F1 converts simply won't understand. And could switch off.

Let's say that we have the same F1 engine suppliers in 2014 as now. It's quite feasible, in fact probable, that either Ferrari, Mercedes or Renault will turn up in Melbourne with more than a second's advantage in their new drivetrain package. Anyone who doesn't have it will be battling for a slot on row four.

At a stroke, you have made F1 an engine formula.

As I understand it, the plan is to allow some alterations in year one as everyone gets up to speed with the new technology, then freeze things going forward, similar to the way it is now.

At Mercedes, Norbert Haug believes there's no reason to suspect that F1's existing suppliers will not all do a very solid job and that we'll continue with the current close levels of competitiveness.

But not everyone agrees. It would be remarkable if that were the case immediately.

So, if you're worried about an engine formula, why not throw in another variable at the same time and free up the tyres?

I don't for a minute think it will happen, but why not? Pirelli has done a good job for F1 and it's debatable how many tyre companies in the current financial climate would have the stomach for the investment needed in a tyre war, but it would certainly be interesting.

The problem with tyre wars in previous times is that everyone knows that the contact patch is the biggest performance variable on a racing car. And so you had a test team that was almost twice as big as a race squad and drivers pounding endlessly around a test track on 199 different sets of rubber.

"Okay, Jarno, this is set 15B, five timed laps and in, please..." By mid afternoon you could see his eyes glaze over as the umpteenth set of the day was bolted on and he tried to evaluate any minute difference with this latest compound or construction.

A tyre war is unlikely to return to F1 anytime soon © LAT

But now, of course, we have no testing. Tyre companies would have to turn up at a track and go racing with an untested product. And that, as Ross Brawn said some time ago with a big smile on his face, would be pretty exciting...

By that, he meant potentially disastrous, not to mention a bit dangerous. The nature of competition is that you push the boundaries, and tyre companies would be no different.

You could end up with some Indianapolis 2005 scenarios on your hands, not to mention a greater incidence of tyre failures in races. Not a welcome prospect for drivers, admittedly, and one that could be questioned as a retrograde step safety-wise.

But, like all these things, could it not be accommodated? A few years back, who would have believed that F1 would have no in-season testing?

You could, for example, specify a set number of tyre tests during a season with a test driver/car, and 'fall-back' tyres at races in case a company has been a bit too racy - just to avoid any Indy-style debacles.

If engines and 'boxes have to last a prescribed time, why not introduce a five-place grid drop at the next race for a tyre failure? But looking ahead, would anyone fancy taking on Michelin?

Bernie doesn't think these new engines are a) necessary, or b) desirable. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, is what he seems to have been saying. But if you're still going to fix it, why not fix it properly?

Of course, if someone's got the right drivetrain and the right tyre, he's going to disappear into the far blue yonder, but a second variable might just be a blessing on the interest scale.