Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has warned his fellow Formula One bosses that urgent change is needed in the sport and has proposed ex-Mercedes boss Ross Brawn as a possible saviour for the regulations.
F1 came under fire over the Austrian Grand Prix weekend, not least from its hosts at the Red Bull Ring, who were particularly vocal about the direction it has taken in the last two years. The energy drinks company made a concerted effort to flag problems with the sport over the three-day event and even threatened to quit if things do not change.
Power unit problems for Renault and Honda resulted in penalties for both Red Bull and McLaren teams, which in turn snowballed into an attack on the engine and sporting regulations. The F1 Strategy Group - made up of leading teams, the FIA and Formula One's commercial rights holder - is attempting to devise a new formula for 2017 to make racing more exciting, but Horner is concerned it will be too little, too late.
"F1 has a huge amount of following around the world and the product we have at the moment, we need to do a better job of it," he said. "The cars need to be more of a challenge, there needs to be more competition and we don't have that at the moment.
"There is a lot of discussions for 2017, but can we afford to wait until 2017? I think we need to accelerate some of those. Decisions need to be made so people know what's coming. I think we need to simplify a lot of these rules, because taking penalties and then further penalties ... it's not right what the grid is not decided until 10pm after qualifying, then further penalties in the race, it's too complicated. For the teams to follow it's complicated, so for the fans we need to keep it simple and go back to the basics of what F1 is."
Horner believes the current rule making bodies, such as the Strategy Group, the Technical Working Group and the Sporting Working Group, are no longer fit for purpose and instead proposed an independent authority such as ex-Mercedes team principal Brawn to take control.
"The results of the Sporting Working Group are the penalties we are seeing here, that become too complex. The Technical Working Group is the engine rules that we have, so take it out of those groups, come up with a product and then place it in front of the teams. Maybe you need an independent, someone not involved, someone like Ross Brawn that understands the challenges, knows the business, to write a specification for what a car or set of technical regulations should be."
Horner believes the self-interest of F1 teams has prevented Formula One from taking the decisions it is crying out for.
"Whatever we look at, we are looking at it for 2017, but it is important we get it right and it is important that everyone recognises we need to put on a better show and create a better product. We are all going to have to give a bit to achieve that and we can't be precious about where we perceive what our strengths and weaknesses may be, I think it will take all parties to give a bit to end up with a better product for everybody in the longer term.
"I think the Strategy Group is fairly inept. I keep saying it and I will repeat it again now: It needs the commercial rights holder and the governing body to decide what F1 should be and then put it on the table to the teams and say 'this is what we want the product to be, these are the rules, this is the entry form'."
When it was put to Horner that Red Bull's dissatisfaction has only emerged since it started to struggle for results, he responded: "I think you will find that Red Bull opposed the current engine regulations. There are a couple of teams that opposed it and we didn't believe it was the right direction then for the sport to be heading in. Unfortunately, I think when you let a group of engineers, with no clear directive about cost or what the product should be, of course they are going to come up with something highly complex and sophisticated. Perhaps we have gone too far and it is too complicated. We need to bring it back to basics."