F1 urged to hand driving 'power' back to drivers not 'computers'

Nigel Mansell has called on Formula 1 to give "more power to the elbow" of its drivers after witnessing "computers" take over the sport this season.

F1 has been heavily in the spotlight following the introduction of new regulations incorporating a 50-50 split between combustion and electrical energy, leading to stinging criticism from its leading stars, spearheaded by four-time F1 champion Max Verstappen, over the first three races in Australia, China and Japan.

The response sparked a range of discussions over the past few weeks between F1, the FIA, the teams and drivers, leading to a raft of changes to be implemented for the next race in Miami on May 1-3.

As to the whether the changes have gone far enough remains to be seen.

Nigel Mansell has at least hailed the fact that "everyone's talking" as a "fabulous thing", and F1 and the FIA have not simply urged the teams and drivers to get on with it.

The 1992 F1 champion, speaking to aceodds.com, said: "It's been a massive change in regulations, both with the car and the engine.

"I think there's going to be improvements with the harvesting of power. Hopefully, they won't be slowing down too much into some of the corners now.

"I think it is so vitally important for the drivers to be able to drive the cars to the maximum, as opposed to having a computer telling them when they can brake or can't brake. Fernando Alonso made us all laugh by saying that his chef could drive the car better than he could at the moment.

"We have to get back to normality. Formula 1 is the grand stallion of all racing worldwide and we mustn't lose sight of that. And as technology gathers pace, they can do these other tweaks to 50/50 later but they just need to give more power to the cars at the moment to go racing."

Bring back the V10s

Whilst Mansell can understand the advancement of technology and F1's lean towards a 'greener' way of racing, he feels it has lost its way when it comes to the purity of racing.

"In engineering terms, if it's not broken, you don't try to fix it," he said. "People don't understand that there's major changes which have been in place for some time. It takes a lot of time for all the teams and manufacturers to put it all together.

"The complexity of the rules is enormous and if you don't get it right, along with the combination of the power units, harvesting of electrical power, and so on and so forth. It's a minefield.

"Drivers can fall foul of so many regulations and yet it's the computers doing it all. I'd just like to see more power to the elbow of the drivers, as opposed to computers doing it."

Mansell would also like to see F1 return to a V10 engine. The idea has been mooted by FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem for the next decade but has so far not gathered traction.

"Going back to the '70s and '80s, 90-plus percent of the engines were Cosworth DFV," said Mansell. "Everyone had the same engines pretty much and we had fantastic racing. You knew the cars, the drivers, the tyres, the mechanics and the engineers made a huge difference.

"Yes, we're in the computer age but racing should be as stable as it can be, for everyone to be able to catch up to compete.

"Everyone's mooting it would be great to have the V10s back for the noise. If you're a purist, the answer is yes. Everybody makes their own V10 and it'll sound fantastic because it's the pinnacle of motorsport."