Formula One starts a new season today in Australia and 2016 will be the year fans will remember as that time when the series took yet another step from sport to spectacle.
Yes because, faced with their own inability to come up with technical regulations capable of providing close racing, the FIA and FOM have increasingly resorted to creating artificial obstacles to trip up teams and drivers.
This started years ago with track designs ( the trademark Tilke hairpins) and has now progressed to the latest qualifying format, one that will substitute the notion of the car turning the absolute fastest lap starting on pole with a musical chairs game designed to create chaos.
Add to this the new tire regulations which force teams and drivers to choose their tire allocations way in advance of the race ( and in the case of Australia, before the new qualifying format was introduced).
2016 Formula One is looking more and more to Takeshi's Castle for inspiration.
While on the subject of tires, it's important to remember F1, "the pinnacle of motorsport", has for years delegated to Pirelli the task of creating a tire designed to fail in order to create "a show"/
Radio communications have been further curtailed and two stage clutches have been eliminated.
The first will likely mean team and drivers just have to come up with more code words and the second might result in some errors at the start.
The question becomes a philosophical one, is the sport better served by creating more sporting regulations rather than technical ones? Flavio Briatore has been saying it for years, there's no way he could be wrong, could he?
Or is it the leadership just throwing its hands up in the air and capitulating? It's the key battle facing the future of the sport in the opinion of many fans.
Still, pass the popcorn.
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