Bernie calls for calm after dull opener

Date published : 16 Mar 2010 - 10:49:54

Bernie Ecclestone insists Formula 1 does not need to take immediate action to spice up the show despite the widespread criticism the sport has received following the processional season-opening race in Bahrain.The return of German superstar Michael Schumacher to add to an all-star list of drivers in the four top teams created huge fan and media excitement during pre-season, with many tipping the 2010 campaign to be the most action-packed in years.However, last weekend's curtain-raising round proved to be a big letdown with virtually no wheel-to-wheel action among the leading cars as the refuelling ban appeared to only exacerbate F1's perennial overtaking problems.But while some team principals are already calling for an urgent re-think of the regulations, Ecclestone, F1's commercial supremo, is adamant the sport should avoid making rapid changes. There is no panic, no crisis for F1, he was quoted as saying by The Times. I think there is nothing we can do immediately and we should not just knee-jerk into changes.The much-heralded radical technical changes made to the cars for the start of last season are already regarded to have made little significant impact on the ability of cars to follow each other closely.Ecclestone thinks that the longer-term solution to improving the racing will be to sideline the teams and their technical chiefs from the rule-making process.   I had a meeting with the teams and tried to explain to them what our business is about ” racing and entertaining the public, not about playing with computers and going fast over one lap, he said. The problem is that you cannot really have teams in any shape or form having a part in the sporting or technical regulations. You cannot have the inmates writing the regulations.But while Ecclestone has advised the sport against pushing though emergency changes to the rules in the forthcoming weeks, Red Bull driver Mark Webber has warned that lots more races could follow the processional nature of the season-opener if teams continue to make just one pit stop for tyres.Webber, who spent the whole 49-lap event stuck behind significantly slower cars, told Australia's Daily Telegraph: "I was quicker than him [Jenson Button in the second stint] but I was unable to find a way through."He didn't make a mistake and if I'd tried to force the issue it would have ended in a crash."I was pretty shocked by how hard it was to overtake and it doesn't bode well for any of the one-stop races on the calendar, when everyone is going to be following pretty much the same strategy."We can only hope that other circuits will lend themselves to overtaking more than Sakhir."