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Success ballast F1's most likely equaliser?

With driver swapping not being taken seriously (see separate story .) it seems that weight penalties for successful teams - one kilo per point ballast - is the measure most likely to be adopted in F1. Even so, it would need 18 votes out of 26 in the F1 Commission (comprising team owners, circuit promoters, sponsors, tyre and engine suppliers, Max Mosley and Bernie Ecclestone) for any motion to be carried.

"The kilo per point suggestion is a serious idea," Max Mosley said in Japan. "At first it seems to say that you are trying to slow down the best driver and I was quite distressed to see a headline 'Even Mosley Is Against Ferrari.' That is completely false.

"The best team would win the championship but it will take them longer and it will be more difficult. They will win at the end of the season rather than the beginning." This would be much appreciated by TV companies with declining viewers.

"If, say, a team has half a second a lap advantage at the first race, they will win the first race but will then get 10 kilos, so will be 0.3s slower at the following race. Then, at the third race, they lose another 0.3s and now have a disadvantage. If they then come second, the next best team gets the 10 kilos, and when they start losing it goes on to the third team, so the small teams at the back will get closer and closer and they will start scoring points. It will be much more exciting.

"Some of the teams have done computer simulations of what would have happened this year and there is no question Ferrari would still have won, but not by so much and not so quickly.

"Provided it doesn't interfere with the result you cannot object to it. It's a perfectly acceptable system. And Bernie is arguing very strongly that it is a sporting regulation. If it was a technical one, it would be impossible to get it in (for next year).

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