The pointer is a good idea but F1 doesn’t like to admit learning anything from other forms of racing – doubt we’ll ever see it unless someone can come up with a variation that enables F1 to claim originality.

Occasionally I “accidentally” stumble upon a NASCAR race for a few minutes (Montoya’s doin’ okay). Sometimes an on-screen electronically rendered “pointer” indicates one car or another in the mass of 40-odd juggernauts that all look more or less the same. Perhaps F1 could occasionally do the same thing, with the sponsor’s logo on a “balloon” at the top of the pointer. Maybe they’d trade that for wing banishment.

Yes, they could lower the rear wing, Dan, and it would alter the car’s aerodynamics quite a bit. But the teams hate doing it because they know it will mean yet more work in the wind tunnel, trying to get back the downforce somehow. And you can bet that they’d succeed, just as they do every time the FIA changes the rules.

As for the Hamilton/Massa contest, it’s very much a matter of personal opinion. My own is that we witnessed a fascinating meeting of GP2-learned racecraft from Hamilton and sheer desperation from Massa. Basically, Massa expected the superior Ferrari performance to enable him to breeze past the McLaren and he became frustrated when it proved a little more difficult than that – the result was the mistake that put the Brazilian back in fifth spot (where he proved unable to pass Heidfeld either).

Had it been Raikkonen in the same position (with a new engine that didn’t need nursing, in other words), I think Hamilton would have been passed sooner or later. Massa has improved, thanks to his year with Michael, but he is out of his depth when attempting to compete with Raikkonen.

That’s my opinion but the race itself gives good reasons to think so. I keep hearing that there was no overtaking but that is not true – how else did Alex Wurz get from 20th on the grid to finish 9th? In fact, Wurz had a tremendous race and passed all sorts of respected drivers, showing that it is quite possible to overtake these days. Sure, he was in a very good car but so was Massa. The difference was that Massa failed to wait for the right moment to pass.

I had somewhat an understanding that the wings are regulated, but compared to other single seat series, they are still very high on the car. It seems like that they could still lessen the effectiveness of the wing without sacrificing the overall surface area.

I am not biased to any one team, and as great as Hamilton seems to be(possibly the best first turn driver in the sport), I don’t believe he would have been able to hold of Massa had the cars been more group friendly. There are 200+ turns in the race, it seems like only the first one counts at the moment.