front row of the grid

[audifan]

was just watching a video clip of the 1961 monaco GP on the stirling moss website [ sorry SIR stirling moss ]
the front row of the grid WAS the front row ! 3 in a line !

now with modern cars only 2 would be possible because they are wider, but why don't we still have a front row ? the pole sitter gets the advantage of the best side which seems to me to be enough advantage , and this will apply to the following rows ;it would overcome the problem demonstrated last week where it looked better [ to me] to start 3rd instead of 2nd , 5th instead of 4th etc ; if you like you can give the pole sitter a choice of sides , the rest to follow

why and when was the ' front row ' abolished anyway ?

couple this with using soft enough tyres to make one stop marginal so we can avoid the ... same strategy for all ...debacle of last week and possibly we could have better racing without any technical change to the equipment at all ; changes CAN be made as the FIA demonstrated this week

oh , and stirling [ in case you are reading this because you are stuck in bed with nothing better to do ], can't see you making LM24 this year . but look forward to your return in 2011 ! maybe with a porsche this time ?

[WhiteBlue]

36.4 The grid will be in a staggered 1 x 1 formation and the rows on the grid will be separated by 16 metres.

AFAIK they introduced the staggered 1x1 formation in the late 60ties.

Probably several reasons for the sporting regulations to be done that way.

• the more cars you run in parallel the more problems you get to squeeze them through the first corner
• not all tracks have enough width to arrange more than two cars side by side at the finish line
• wish for a standardized way to start a GP in order to avoid complaints

[Giblet]

I just watched the '70 season review, and they started 3 side by each as well.