But really, it's too early to say that the changes to the car have hurt the racing. Bahrain may have been a simple fluke, be it caused by the track configuration or some other unforeseen factor.

But rather than focus on what happened on track in Bahrain, I'd like to discuss some about F1 off the track. Specifically, the failure of USF1.

Up until January, indications were that USF1 had good hopes of getting a car on the track, even if it was likely to be a little late. Then things unraveled, and unraveled so fast many of us were left scratching our heads going, "WTF, mate?"

Many reasons for the failure have come about in recent weeks, some indicating that the problem had its roots planted before the announcement of the team was even made.

But ultimately, in the end, only one single factor guaranteed USF1's demise. If things had been different, there's no guarantee the team would have survived, but the chances would have been significantly improved. This same factor could have saved HRT some embarrassment, as well.

The biggest problem with creating a new F1 team is: Formula One requires full-season participation.

Here's the thing: BUILDING a running F1 car is not as costly as we think. It's not cheap, and I won't try to say such, but even most mid-pack NASCAR teams can afford to BUILD an F1 car. The expenses that make F1 difficult come when you have to run and develop the car you built.

One of the factors in NASCAR's big car count is the fact that do not require full-season participation. Same with IndyCars—the IndyCar Series in recent years has matched or exceeded the F1 car count on several occasions thanks to part-time entries.

The thing with a part-time entry is that they're cheaper. A sponsor who is frightened away by the price tag of a full-season F1 entry could be perfectly willing to pony up the smaller amount needed for just a race or two.

Sure, the part-time team almost certainly won't be competitive, but F1's prestige is so high that just proving you can make it to the track and compete at all is only going to increase your prospects at getting a full-time sponsor.

Friday practice at Bahrain was a SHAKEDOWN session for HRT. Adrian Campos even said it would have been best if the team could have skipped the race to help develop the car more before debuting it.

Requiring full-season participation from their new teams makes F1 look elitist to the point of absurdity. It has almost certainly turned away several prospective teams who could have produced reasonable vehicles. If F1 allowed part-time entries, they could find themselves once again in the day of 30+ entries, when pre-qualifying was necessary to weed out the REALLY bad ones.

And how can more entries be a BAD thing? It certainly guarantees you won't have cars running around ten seconds off the pace.

The 13-team limit is absurd.

The full-season requirement is absurd.

Jean Todt, if you're listening, just these little changes could improve F1 so much. Get it done. Now.

F1 needs it a lot more than it needs a US-based team, that's for sure.

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Both of the above are appalling用articularly the teams supporting it. They should know better than this葉hey WORK with this stuff after all.

I've been saying this since the day it was considered, and I've always been considered nuts for believing it, but I firmly believe that this refuelling ban will get somebody killed. With luck, something will happen to wake us up to this fact before it actually happens, and refuelling will be reintroduced.

Here's the simple truth: While fire in the pits is a serious danger when refuelling is allowed, a fire in the pits is far safer than one on the racetrack. When a fire occurs in the pits, firefighting gear is on it within seconds. In the last 20 years, I'm not aware of any deaths occurring from pitlane fires. Injuries, yes. Deaths, no.

Look at Tony Kanaan's fire at Edmonton last year. It took a few seconds to get water on it, but due to quick reactions, no injuries. De Ferran Motorsports' pit fire at Mid-Ohio in 2008 burned the refueller's hands and wrists葉hat's all. The fuel hose incident in the F1 race at Brazil burned itself out before it could do any real damage.

In a pit lane fire, there is a very limited amount of fuel to burn. This makes the fire easier to put out and also lowers the temperature at which it burns.

On the track, there is no guarantee of firefighting gear getting to the car quickly enough to put out the flames before serious injuries can occur.

"But today's fuel cells are pretty much invincible!"

24 Hours of Daytona 2009. Didn't a Mazda RX-8 have its fuel cell ripped open by the KERBING on the track, causing a rapid spilling of the car's fuel? Those fuels cells are built the same way and to the same safety specs as the ones in an F1 car. And now you're going to tell them to put a BIGGER fuel cell in the car? A bigger fuel cell is more susceptible to damage in a crash, which raises the risk of serious incident.

CART always required refuelling because they knew a pitlane fire was less dangerous than having massive fuel tanks in the cars容ven with the best fuel cells available.

As of last year, a full load of fuel in an F1 car provided enough fuel to run about half the race. They've had to double that size. Actually, MORE than double the size, since the start of the race will require the cars to burn more fuel to keep their speed up while the car is heavy.

I'm all for removing fuel strategy from the equation, but here's a safer way:

Mandate a smaller fuel cell耀ay one that should last about one-third of the race distance. Require the race to be started on a full fuel load and for the fuel cell to be COMPLETELY refilled during a pit stop. Telemetry can be used to verify compliance.

Still stuck on the issue of pitlane fires? We can take that out of the equation, too. That F1 hasn't thought of this before is rather surprising. Actually, considering most of their safety innovations were adapted from other forms of racing to begin with, it's really NOT terribly surprising.

Anyhow, after the aforementioned de Ferran Motorsports' pit fire, Honda Performance Development realized something had to be done about the problem. What'd they do? The Acura ARX-02a had a system that prevented the starter motor from turning while the fuel hose was connected to the car. It was very easy to implement since in Le Mans racing the engine has to be turned off in a pit stop. The system is being implemented on the ARX-01c, as well.

How do we adapt that to F1? Again, HPD has the answer: Beginning this year in the IZOD IndyCar Series, a system is being implemented in which the computer will stop the car from being shifted out of neutral until the fuel hose is clear of the car.

Are you going to sit there and tell me that installing a giant fuel cell is safer than that system? I didn't think so.

It's one thing to have no refuelling in ladder championships that run short races with small fuel cells, but I can only hope that the FIA will come to their senses and adapt a system like my much safer proposal BEFORE someone gets killed.

But based on how safety progress in the racing world tends to go (in general, not just in F1), it's not likely.

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