F1 'shortcuts' and other ill-advised plans from big Bernie

Bernie's the man. I have to say I now have a begrudging admiration for Ecclestone because he sure can come up with the most bizarre ideas. He, and he alone, has kept Formula One in the news for God knows how many years when the racing has been dull, boring and uninteresting.

Be honest, hands up how many of you F1 watchers and self proclaimed fans, in truth, watch the entire race. I bet most watch the first five to 10 laps, go and do something else, then come back and watch the last five?

The middle bit is as boring as bat guano - even I, who am a life-long fan of all things motorsport, have a tactical snooze during the middle portion of an F1 race. So, along comes the puppet master to give it a global boost in all forms of the media.

Bernie is a great believer in the phrase 'any publicity is good publicity'.

Think about his comment that women should be like kitchen appliances - dressed in white and kept in the kitchen. Or, when he mentioned what Max Mosely does in his spare time is his business.

Who could forget his idea of handing out gold, silver and bronze medals at each event - Jenson Button would have the F1 championship after six races.

Maybe it was his statement to the Weekend Herald that F1 was like homosexuality - dodgy stuff had been going on for ages but now we all know about it. Did I mention he's changed the points system?

Winners now get 25 points, with 20 and 15 for second and third places respectively. The next seven get 10, 8, 6, 5, 3, 2 and 1 point respectively. It replaces the current structure of the top eight drivers scoring 10, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 point.

A bunch of boffins worked back and allocated the new system to previous championships and found in nearly all cases the result would have been the same - so nothing new there then.

Don't forget Bernie also had a hand in the idea of deciding the top 10 starting positions on the grid should be done by a lottery.

By this stage I was just beginning it was all some cunning plan to keep F1 high profile and now I'm totally convinced. Bernie wants to introduce short cuts into racing. I'll let him explain in is own words.

"I've tried to push the teams with a number of proposals. Imagine a shortcut which a driver can use five times every race. It would stop people getting stuck behind others. It would be good for TV," said the 79-year-old at Ferrari's pre-season ski retreat.

He went on to say the brakes on F1 cars were too efficient and reduced the amount of overtaking which fans like to watch.

You've got to hand it to the dude; he comes up with absolute out-there ideas. But short cuts. What I want to know is, which country's rules on rejoining the track he's going to use. Do you give way to the right or left after the short cut, or is Bernie going to install a roundabout?

Former Ferrari driver Eddie Irvine told BBC Radio 5 live, "It doesn't make sense. It's not even a gimmick really, it's horrible. The whole point about Formula 1 is that it's difficult to overtake, it's something special."

Not really Eddie, it's pretty boring with no overtaking but I agree with you, short cuts are a damn odd idea. Maybe F1 shouldn't have banned refuelling in 2010, thus reducing the ability of drivers to change position.

If the sport had been left alone as it was 10-12 years ago, there would be no need for Bernie to be lobbing in strange but interesting ideas. If it ain't broke - don't fix it.

If the sport really wants to gee things up, it should adopt Flavio Briatore's idea of telling drivers to deliberately crash, or, take a leaf out of Michael Schumacher's book and T-bone anyone who gets in your way.

- Eric Thompson