Weight Penalties Not Right for F1, Says Coulthard

McLaren driver David Coulthard has warned against proposed ideas to change Formula One rules in order to have a more competitive field.

In a series of ideas aimed at bringing the excitement back to racing, Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone suggested that ballast could be added to a car once a driver had reached 20 points in a season, and an extra kilogram would be added for every point earned by that driver.

Scot Coulthard said the idea goes against the spirit of Formula One and claimed any changes to the rules should be well thought out before they are implemented.

"I know that there have been speculative ideas, some of them a bit silly," said Coulthard today in Japan. "At the risk of giving a quick answer is that they need the thought that they probably require. But the knee-jerk reaction of putting in ballast and trying to handicap [those] that have done a better job to improve the show, I don't think is right.

"I think it goes against what Formula One stands for which is a set of regulations of which the people with the cleverest minds and the best budgets do the best job."

British American Racing driver Olivier Panis agreed with Coulthard.

"We need better ideas to be fair to everyone," added Panis. "I don't think ballast is the solution. Maybe it's a bit too quick to say that. Maybe it's the easy answer, the quicker one but for the future of Formula One, maybe it's not the best."

Ecclestone said that the proposal was not aimed at penalising World Champions Ferrari, who have won all but two races so far this year. German Michael Schumacher clinched his fifth world title in a record time this year, and television audiences have taken a slump.