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And this will only serve to create a situation where typical top 10 qualifiers will try to not qualify in the top 10 in order to have additional running on Sunday morning to make set up tweaks for the race.

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Yeaa, you either have it for everyone or no one.

Following that logic, we'd have more mixed up grids and more exciting races.

You'd hope so but nothing is guaranteed. All I know we would have is the same confusing mess that we have in the WTCC.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
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With the Support races (GP2, GP3 & Porsche Supercup) running on Sunday morning's now im not sure there is time avaliable to bring back the Sunday Warm-Up anyway.

Sunday warmup means you have to get rid of the parc ferme rules, at which point costs go up again as teams start using qualifying only parts then swapping them for the race.

Nice ideas, but there's few buts in there.

Actually when the USF1 did not show up, the FIA did everything they could to drop the team limit down to 12 teams from 13. Therefore there has not been any rumours of new teams as there's no open spot for one at the moment.

Engine mounts can be easily changed, BrawnGP demonstrated that when they installed a Mercedes engine in Honda chassis. But there's a good point to have universal mounts, like there should be a rule to allow/force engine manufacturers to sell their engines to satellite teams. Also, it would help a lot to have new manufacturers if the rules would be opened up.

Teams shouldn't be allowed to skip weekends, that was a terrible rule in rallying when there was events with only few competitors. Sometimes an average mid-field driver who just happened to show up was able to take a podium finish, yet being almost a calendar year behind the winner in overall standings.

Also, we should have more open rules for alternative fuel/power innovations. The racing in 60's and 70's were great in most of the series when the rule books were pretty much wide open. We had turbine car and 4wd in F1, IndyCars had a front wheel drive cars, driver sitting next to the engine, unusual aerodynamical solutions. And the most of all, we had Can-Am, the series with a rule book almost literally saying just basic things like "there should be a driver in car" and "there needs to be four wheels".

Sure that could raise the costs, but FIA could still just ban some inventions. For me it's sounds silly that FIA banned a hole from the floor of Red Bull's car and they made a rule about how much the front wing can flex when the car is being inspected. It would have made a much cooler headlines when FIA would ban Ferrari to use 8,5 litre V12 or Red Bull from using a fighter jet turbine engines. Or HRT from using nitromethane fuel for their engines.

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The racing in the 60's and 70's routinely sucked, but the cars were amazing. Big difference there.

- The universal engine mount is good in theory, but I forsee Ferrari not selling a customer a tub if they intend on using a Mercedes engine, likewise Mercedes not wanting to power a Ferrari tub. The manufacturers don't usually care about the sport so much as brand recognition and their own wallets.

- Customer cars are the ticket. I don't see why the FIA simply won't allow a team to sell their car, current year or previous, to someone with the cash to pay for it. The teams don't have sell their A+ stuff, they could sell the current years car minus a few of the good bits if they don't want to be out shown by a customer. You'd have a defacto Factory team and then the customer teams. Customer teams don't get all the kick ass new parts for a while. The manufacturers also wouldn't have to supply the customers with 2 cars if the FIA removed the mandate of 2 cars per team.

I'm not massive on Manufacturers in the sport tbh, they're obviously their to suit their own needs and do little for the sport apart from self promotion.

As soon as the FIA wants or needs to change the rules for whatever reason, it becomes an endless compromise as they can only see things from their own blinkered point of view and not the good of a sport as a whole.

And of course, as soon as things don't go their own way, they're gone.

I'd much rather they stuck to what they're good at, supplying engines, and the sport was built around strong independent teams like Mclaren, Williams, Red Bull, etc.
Ferrari are great for the sport, no question, but they're almost the exception that proves the rule in that they're a racing team first and their cars are sold based off the mystique of that rather than the other way round, like most manufacturers.

F1 is great as it is and FIA has done a phenomenal job at making it a hell of a show in the past 2 years, the gap, the aids for passings, no one could have envisioned those things a decade ago. The only problem I see that needs improvement is they are racing less at great tracks in Europe and North and South America.
And I am not for a customer car or encouragement for small budget team entries. I am not saying F1 should stay an elite sport, but that's what keeps the field tight as it is today. I'd rather want 20 cars than having teams like HRT in the field.

I'm the exact opposite to that, even with 20 cars someone has to be last and the more cars on the grid the more opportunities you give to drivers, engineers, mechanics, team principles, PR people, etc, to learn at the bottom and work their way up.

Fernando Alonso had a year in Minardi, a year which they nearly didn't show at Melbourne (well, like most years then... )
without them, would Flav have been able to give him the shop window for him to prove his talent without shoving him into a Benetton too early and risk him being overwhelmed?

No, the tail end teams may not cover themselves in glory sometimes but their role in the sport is justified, at least in my opinion, otherwise all those junior series grooming the next generation of F1 talent are just aiming for one or two F1 rides a season as various drivers are dropped or retire, etc. and that makes them a bit of a false economy too.

They should give points for every finishing position, then the battle between the lower teams would have some significance. The 3 new teams haven't even scored a point yet. Caterham has made the most progress, but HRT or Marussia could outscore them this year if the get a lucky point in a crazy wet race. Not fair at all if Caterham has outraced them for most of the year.

No, they shouldn't. A point should be worth something, not something you would get just to finish. I don't even like the current format, where you get a point for finishing 10:th.

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as Lucasjeha pointed out, if we had a 10-6-4-2-1 points system, the championship would have been even hotter.

edit: also in the past, one could easily calculate during the race who moves into what position in the standings.

Why isn't a point worth something then? It would give drivers more to race for, now if your in 13th or 14th, it doesn't matter. But if you get points in those positions it would become more interesting to watch those fights. Expanding from 6 to 10 points paying positions has greatly spiced up the action in my opinion. If you start from last place due to a penalty you still can race for points, if it were only 6 points places it was very unlikely. If every finishing position gets points, it's worth fighting for every spot. And the battle between the smaller teams would become much more interesting (resulting in more TV time for those small teams)

I can't work out the scores during the races because I keep forgetting what the new system is. I do miss 10-6-4-3-2-1, but I think it's fair that at least 8 cars score points because of the superb reliability we now have. 12-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 would have been fine.

I can't see any problem with having more than 24 cars either. There's often been an argument that you'd get some slow joke teams ruining the image of the sport, but they simply wouldn't qualify, and you'd have them out of the race by Saturday afternoon. Maybe have some NASCAR style rule, where the top 12 or so cars in the championship are locked into the race. The others have their own qualifying session earlier on the Saturday, and the fastest 12 from that would qualify into the usual Saturday afternoon session of 24 cars. More on track action for the fans, more seats for more drivers (loads of talented guys run out of money short of F1, or the seats just don't become available for them). More jobs created. The only 'negative' is that the teams might have less garage space and smaller motorhomes.

Some of the teams in the late 80's were awful, but you'd get the occasion where a Coloni/Rial/Onyx/Andrea Moda/Eurobrun would make the race. Maybe it's unrealistic. I just like big entry lists.

Yeah, the more entries the more potential "stories" the race has (crashing bringing out a safety car, being in the middle of a Senna/Mansell or Hakkinen/Schuey backmarker overtake, getting a surprise good result a a Minardi Melbourne 2002, etc ) and as I said before, the more opportunities for young drivers to learn exactly what an F1 car and race weekend is like without the pressure of the spotlight demanding immediate results.

I have a question relating to tyres.

Can teams use the same set of tyres during the same Grand Prix race? The reason I ask, they only have 3 full wet sets. Imagine during the race, the race goes from very wet to dry to very wet again, are they able to use the same set again later the race?

And a relating question, Imagine a driver locks up his left tyre and is terribly flat spotted, can they use a tyre from another set (but from the same compound) to complete another set again?

I don't know a lot about the rules. But I thought you could use the same tires again later in the race. But in normal races there wouldn't be a reason why you should choose to use old tyres over new ones.
And to answer your other question, I thought you were not allowed to use tyres from other sets to complete 'broken' sets.

I know it's risky and infact Can-Am died because it became too expensive for most of the teams.

But what I meant was that the rule book should be opened on sensible level. Big teams are spending insane amounts of money to take of a half kilogram of weight from a gearbox, we don't see that change, the only changes we see is aerodynamical bits. I'd like to see more changes than that.

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"Indy doesn't give you a second chance. You have to earn it."