A special report from our Wales correspondent Dai Laffin

As the Formula 1 circus flies into Wales for the next round of the Grand Prix at Machynlleth Raceway, our Wales correspondent, Dai Laffin, managed to get an interview with F1 supremo, Bernie Ecclestone. As many of our readers will be aware, there have been allegations that watching fast cars on TV makes drivers want to go out and use public roads as racetracks. What follows are the factors that Mr Ecclestone claims F1’s governing body will be introducing from next year to prevent such events from happening.

Speed all cars will be limited to a maximum speed of 60mph, this will be achieved by reducing the engine size to 700cc and fitting speed limiters. All the tracks will also have police radar traps at strategic positions around the circuit. This will have the double advantage of discouraging speeding and giving the police more practice at catching drivers. Any driver caught speeding will be stopped on the track, given a ticket and have a championship point deducted.

Fuel to be more environmentally friendly, all cars will have to use standard unleaded petrol and for safety reasons refuelling will be done by the driver himself, all the teams will be paying standard fuel prices like the rest of us.

Rest Breaks as a result of the cars going slower, the race will take much longer. The FIA have decreed that drivers must take a meal break every 3 hours. So as not to interrupt the flow of the race, a drive-in McDonalds will be built at each track for the exclusive use of the drivers when racing.

Passengers as a means of injecting more money into the sport, because Mr Ecclestone doesn’t have enough already, cars will be carrying up to 3 passengers who may be picked up at specified positions around the track. In fact the team owned by British American Tobacco, BAR, proposed that the cars could be made as a double decker, this would allow them to not only have more passengers but also give them more advertising space for their cigarettes. This idea has been thrown out on the grounds that they would be driving a bus, and this breaks the FIA rules about seat belts.

After the interview our correspondent went snooping around the Ferrari garage when he saw was he believes to be next years F1 race car.

Ferrari 2001 F1 car