Formula One news

Ferrari hail F1 revamp

Ferrari has hailed the changes to formula one's rulebook for 2006. At the end of the worst season for the Maranello team in more than a decade, president Luca di Montezemolo saluted a new 'knockout' qualifying format for 2006, and branded the axing of the one-tyre-per-race regulation a 'good move' for formula one.

"We could not go on arriving at Monza on the Saturday to be greeted by empty stands or have people turning on the television for only the final 10 minutes," he told the Corriere della Sera newspaper. "It seems to me to be a good solution as a spectacle and a challenge."

Montezemolo, a staunch critic of the 2005 formula, said the new qualifying format should reinvoke the 'last second' dash for pole as seen in 'Lauda or Senna's day', and heralded the return of tyre changing because he said tyres had become 'too important'. He added: "Being unable to change tyres made races more dangerous. The drivers were forced to drive like taxis over the closing laps." Unsaid, meanwhile, the change will also allow Bridgestone the opportunity to relive the dominance of the pre-2005 period.

Luca insisted: "The drivers, cars and engines should make the difference -- not the tyres."

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