Dennis calls for just racing

Ron Dennis is still not convinced that the new qualifying system is a good thing and believes Formula One should be pure racing, not a 'show'. An all Renault front row, which happened on Saturday in Malaysia, with Fernando Alonso taking his first pole position, is certainly not par for the course. While some would say it is what the new rules set out to achieve, shaking up the grid positions, Dennis thinks it detracts from motor racing.

"There is still a desire to introduce mechanisms that create even greater abnormality to the grid, even more random processes," he explained with his usual clarity. "When I am party to those discussions, the opinion I have is that the primary opinion-formers in F1, are the experts in the media."

"If you move towards F1 being a show to the detriment of the technical challenge, you lose the fundamental fabric of F1. The experts will recognise that, start writing about it as a show and not F1, which will put us in a negative spin."

"I can see the value of a mixed-up grid, no question, and especially that the media can stimulate the story until Sunday. But at the end of the day, if we take out important fundamental principles of F1 you will no longer have F1."

"We just need racing. The only thing we had in Melbourne was a motor race -- a few minutes after the start, you'd forgotten all about qualifying. Yes, it does jumble things up but it goes away from the purity of grand prix racing which I don't think is in the long-term interests of the sport."

Team bosses and the FIA are due to meet early next month to discuss how the changes are affecting F1 and what, if anything, needs to be done. Although the quailfying and no refueling rules have shaken up the grid, they are still regulations that some are not happy with -- while Renault being on the front row is certainly an intriguing result, it wasn't very exciting to watch compared to the old system.