Purnell still chases excitement injection for F1

Purnell may have been relatively unknown in F1 circles when he first took the helm at Jaguar Racing, but that did not stop him quickly becoming well respected. Undogged by the emotional baggage about the sport's recent history, Purnell was only too keen to put forward some fairly radical views on how to make the sport better - and because he had been outside the sport for so long his dreams often found support among fans and media.

Chief among these plans was to replace F1's still under-fire qualifying format with a series of mini races over the grand prix weekend - with a lottery to decide the grid for the first qualifying race and the positions then reversed for the second event.

The idea was swiftly thrown out by his rival teams and, although it appears to have little chance of winning a reprieve despite a change of heart by a few team bosses, Purnell believes the sport may need to look at such left-field suggestions if it is to maintain its popularity in an intensely competitive market.

"I still perceive F1 as a big business but under-pinned by entertaining people," says Purnell. "The suggestions I made for qualifying were wholeheartedly aimed at providing better entertainment for people who go to the races, especially on the Friday and Saturday, and for television viewers in general.

"I thought that to have Schumacher show he is the best driver in the world in every circumstance would be great. The public love it when Schumacher qualified badly because there is real interest there. So I am not saying the qualifying was a panacea but it was meant to be a constructive idea to entertain the public with."

Purnell readily confesses that he sees almost no chance of team bosses coming around to his idea - although he still insists that the scheme would be great for the sport.

"Absolutely," he declares. "I thought it was a good idea and no-one has told me why it was a bad idea.

"The surprising thing is that what a lot of people were side-stepped by was that it was a bit leftfield, but I have been surprised by the number of people who have said, 'now I have thought that through and actually given where we are, it could well work rather well'. The only constructive criticism I have heard is that it could be more expensive because we have more crashed cars and I think to myself...what does Joe Public love and would we be able to cope? Of course we could."

The ultimate problem with the ongoing debate about how to make qualifying better is that people are arguing about the wrong thing. So much focus is placed on how to make a replacement fair yet at the same time ensure mixed grids that not enough attention is actually given to the real problem: the racing at the front of F1 is simply not exciting enough.

MotoGP does not get itself involved in endless debates about its qualifying format because it produces top entertainment almost every Sunday afternoon - so grid positions do not need to be artificially stimulated. If F1 produced full-on edge-of-the-seat races more often than not then there would be no argument against going back to a simple one-hour free-for-all to decide grid positions.

"I think you are alluding to a root cause problem," admits Purnell when asked about whether the real problem about qualifying is the lack of racing on Sunday afternoons. "There would be no need to have fuel stops, tyre changes and the sort of things that have been introduced to the sport if the base product is fabulous.

"Actually the base product is not that bad, it is just that I think there are lots of people who feel it could be a lot better and it is very hard for teams to compete on a completely level playing field when Team A spends three dollars for every dollar that Team B spends."

So does Purnell believe there is an answer? The jury is clearly out on the specifics of what is needed, but it is clear that some minor tweaking is needing.

"I think to improve F1 there are a few things I am sure of - first of all we must provide red hot entertainment for the public. Team budgets will then come if the sport is fabulously entertaining.

"I think F1 is inherently entertaining. Could it be more entertaining than at the moment? Probably, but then again we have got the hero factor with Michael.

"What we would all like is a three or four way shoot out to the last race. We have had in the past and it becomes electric - and make no mistake McLaren, Williams and BAR are working on that.

"Then again it is nice to deal with facts. Some produce data that television figures are holding up, and if that is the case then you would have to agree that there isn't such a big problem. I myself think that F1 would be more appealing with a little bit more unpredictability but I would never want to get away from the best car and the best driver winning. I just want to make it harder work for them."

It all sounds easy. But deciding how to achieve that is clearly not going to be the work of the moment.