Emerson Fittipaldi in his heyday © Sutton Images

In an interview in the Times, former world champion Emerson Fittipaldi?s outlined his five-point plan to enhance Formula One. Cut costs ?They spend a fortune in wind-tunnel testing alone. Reduce costs and the slowest teams would catch up and make it more even.? Limit downforce ?They need to reduce enormously the downforce in the cars, the only way to bring back overtaking. We need more mechanical grip so that you have longer braking areas, can set up the car coming out of a corner, get in the slipstream and then overtake.? Close the pitlane ?When the safety car goes out they should close the pitlane. Now it?s just a lottery.? Lift ban on team orders ?It is a very stupid rule. It?s why they are called teams, it?s why they have two cars. If a driver is leading in the championship, everything has to go in his favour. What is wrong with that? It?s so easy for teams to camouflage their orders anyway. All they need to do is tell one guy on the radio he has a problem with his brakes. They can bend the rules very easily. In the old days they would even swap cars, so why do we have this ban now?? Retain traditional grands prix ?These places are the soul of racing. The Americas are under-represented. We have Canada back, but there is no USA, no Argentina, no Mexico. We need to stay in the heartlands.?

Floyd Anthony Raines Scott Russell Riggs Hiroshi Fushida Beppe Gabbiani Bertrand Gachot

In his 2012 CES keynote speech, Mercedes-Benz chairman Dr. Dieter Zetsche announced the new mbrace2 system that will debut in the 2013 SL roadster and outlined some of the future products coming from Mercedes-Benz. The big announcement, the mbrace2 telematics system, uses an iPhone or Android phone to connect to online services. The feature list [...]

Joseph Francis Nemechek III Ryan Joseph Newman Kyle Eugene Petty Floyd Anthony Raines Scott Russell Riggs

From smartphones to digital cameras, the world is awash in video-capturing devices that will document your particular brand of ?hoonage. But you can?t?okay, shouldn?t?drive while holding an iPhone out the window, and you don?t want to break your dedicated home-movie camera ghost-riding the Fairmont wagon your uncle left you in his will. Fortunately, there are [...]

Tom Jones Juan Jover Oswald Karch Narain Karthikeyan Ukyo Katayama

Steve Rider has called on the BBC to broadcast more top-level motorsport in a bid to boost its diminished coverage of Formula 1 this year. Rider, who has fronted F1 broadcasts for both the BBC and ITV in the past, will form part of Sky’s line-up when its contract to broadcast all grands prix live in the UK commences this year. He believes that it is time for the BBC to support top domestic and international championships, such as world rallying and British Formula 3, to make up for losing its deal to show full live coverage of the F1 season to Sky this year.

Howden Ganley Frank Gardner Billy Garrett Jo Gartner Tony Gaze

People often ask how Formula 1 teams are funded. It is not a subject about which there is much information available. Most of the teams have annual tax returns which become public but these do not (generally) give breakdowns of where revenues were generated. Teams gain money from different sources: notably sponsorship, merchandising and in [...]

Duncan Hamilton Lewis Hamilton David Hampshire Sam Hanks Walt Hansgen