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Stop moaning, Bernie tells teams
FORMULA One supremo Bernie Ecclestone told teams to stop moaning and focus on improving after complaints rocked the start of the new season.
Ecclestone said he was looking at ways to make F1 more competitive and interesting, with ideas including a “grand slam” of races and awarding points for qualifying.
But he said teams were also spending too much time blaming complex hybrid engines, mastered by Mercedes but giving problems to others, rather than “getting the job done”.
“I’ve no complaints or problems about Mercedes doing what they are doing. The complaint I’ve got is the others not doing the same,” he said. “A lot of them tend to be blaming the engine and perhaps its only 50 percent of the problem. The other 50 percent is that they, themselves, are not getting the job done.”
Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg ran away with the season’s first race in Melbourne, in a clear sign the Silver Arrows will dominate again this year.
Only 15 cars started in Melbourne, the lowest for a season-opener since 1963 and, as Ecclestone admitted, the recipe for a “shitty race.”
Mechanical and financial problems are rife, but Ecclestone said he found it difficult to get all the teams to agree to changes. He said the engines were currently too expensive and he also supported the idea of banning the use of costly wind tunnels for aerodynamics testing.
Ecclestone said Force India was one team which agreed to the idea of using a standard chassis, but that McLaren boss Ron Dennis had called the idea “degrading” and “not Formula One.” His most radical idea was shaking up the points system by awarding 10 for a race win and 10 for qualifying, rather than earning pole position on the starting grid.
“The one that’s on pole starts maybe 12th on the grid, so you’re going to get a whole bunch of decent guys starting in the middle of the field,” Ecclestone said.
Ecclestone also said he was prepared to let the Italian Grand Prix follow Germany by dropping off the Formula One calendar, in a stark warning for organizers. The F1 supremo told reporters “What goes, goes,” when asked whether the historic race at Monza, first run in 1950, could also fall victim after this year’s German race was cancelled.
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