The reverse experiment we will still get in Austria

While many in Formula 1 still lament the missed opportunity to try out reversed-grid qualifying races at the double headers this year, it doesn't mean that there will not be some great learning opportunities that can come our way in these unprecedented times.

In fact, the Styrian Grand Prix, which takes place at the Red Bull Ring just one week after the Austrian Grand Prix, should deliver us some fantastic answers on what contributes to the F1 spectacle. It's almost a reverse experiment, in not changing things to better understand things.

We should be given an answer on whether ever expanding team knowledge and data analysis is something that does kill the spectacle, or it's something that is perhaps over-egged in debates about the elements that influence a thriller over a borefest.

On the face of it, running the same grand prix at the same track with the same cars and the same drivers just one week after the first event should be the perfect tonic for delivering a pretty predictable outcome. Teams will already have had the previous weekend to set up their cars, understand their strengths and weaknesses, and find the optimal tyre life and the best strategies.

They won't make the same mistakes twice either. They can learn where they went wrong during the weekend, can see what their rivals did better and then have a few days to put all that data through their computers to come up with the perfect approach for their next attempt. By the time the cars roll out for the second weekend, the expectation should be that teams will be at the optimum of their performance potential. There should not be too many unanswered questions and the cars should fall into a natural order.

Ask Tim: The three keys to success in Austria

It has all the ingredients needed to help deliver a two-by-two grid if everyone has done their homework properly. History has taught us that if you want things mixed up, then you need to give the teams and drivers less data to go from, so there are more uncertainties and there is more jeopardy in the system.

Earlier this year, Ross Brawn talked about a quest to limit data, and the benefit that could come from teams not being able to have rows of staff looking at computer screens going through millions of data points over a weekend.

"At one stage we wanted to get rid of the virtual garages," he said. "But we haven't worked out how we would do that in an effective way. I do wonder if all that analysis is actually helping the sport or not? I don't think it is. But it's something that teams are so engrossed in now that they can't give it up."

In the end, the virtual garage ban idea fell away, and Brawn has admitted that it would be a very difficult thing for the FIA to police effectively.

"[What do you do about] a guy taking his laptop back to a hotel in the evening and working on it? How do you control that? And once he does that, with some network, it's a very difficult thing to control," he said. "I don't think fundamentally, this is a good thing. I don't see how it helps the racing.

"I don't think it would change that much if you would restrict that more, because our engineers would simply find other ways of how to compensate for what we would lose" Andreas Seidl

"The occasions when we've missed the day, sometimes we miss the Friday for weather or something other, you always get the feeling it shakes things up a little bit, you know, we turn up on a Saturday and they're a bit more unsettled. They are not quite as refined as as they are in the normal weekend. I'd like to see it a bit more hairy-arsed! Weaning them off that is difficult."

It was fascinating earlier this week then hearing how Supercars had taken the need to cut team personnel at races as an incentive for trimming back the data use at the venue. Brake temperature and g-force sensors were removed from the cars, while access to the Supercars data logger wasn't allowed until after the race.

While it meant less data for teams to work with, and a harder time for engineers, the drivers loved it. As one of the race winners Scott McLaughlin told Fox Sports: "I really enjoyed being able to tell the guys which bar positions I was in, rather than them just telling you where to go. I was able to experiment myself and not be scared of that.

"It's just little things like at the start of the race we [normally] have a g-force sensor to see how much clutch load we've got, to figure out the start. But I had to feel that, I had to get my starts better. And thankfully I did throughout the weekend."

But with F1 sticking to its normal data levels, and restrictions on team personnel trackside forcing teams to intensify their efforts back at base, then how the second Austria race turns out will offer us some insight into what the future should be. It could be a boring two-by-two procession, or it could serve to close up the field - just as stable regulations do over time - to help produce an even tighter pack where the margins between the front and the back are smaller and drivers are having to fight ever harder for positions.

One thing is for sure though, teams will not give up the data streams without a fight. McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl pointed out earlier this week that, with a future budget cap in place, there shouldn't actually be any need to limit what teams want to spend their money on.

"I'm not a big fan of further restrictions to be honest," he said. "I have to hope that most of the job is done by the budget cap. And in my ideal racing world, there will be no other restriction, although I know that is a bit naive or not realistic at the moment.

"I think it's also important for Formula 1 in the future that we always have the quickest car on the planet, which we have, and that also in terms of technology we're clearly having leading edge technology.

"These cars nowadays, they're quite complex, which I also like. And in order to operate these cars, and also in order to operate them safely, you simply need a certain number of sensors and data acquisition on the car.

"And to be honest, I don't think it would change that much if you would restrict that more, because our engineers would simply find other ways of how to compensate for what we would lose."

Let's see how the Styrian GP turns out to judge whether or not the matter can be left alone. If just as entertaining as the first race of the championship, then it's clear that greater data isn't influencing things as much.

But if not, then it should be used as a reason to give F1 extra impetus to cut those data channels.