I'll Do My Driving In The Rain

I've mentioned before that I don't think highly of Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone. I think it would be accurate to describe him as being like FIFA president Sepp Blatter, but without the selflessness.  So a few years ago, when he proposed making races more exciting by having sprinklers around the course randomly spray water on the track, I was neither impressed nor surprised.  Indeed, the idea got a lot of jeers from the racing community.

While that was a crazy idea from a terrible person, I can actually understand the thinking behind it. Today's American Grand Prix was one of the most entertaining Formula One races in recent years, and that was largely due to Hurricane Patricia, the edges of which dumped rain on the track in Austin, Texas. 

And that's nothing new: Formula One races have long been more exciting in the rain.  In perfect conditions, it's just a fast parade, with the cars ending up in order of who has the most money.  The lack of traction makes things unpredictable, cancels out a lot of the technology advantage, and rewards driving skill. In fact, today's race seemed to get noticeably less entertaining through the race as the rain stopped and the track tried out.

But sprinklers?  Surely there's a more sophisticated way to approach the problem.  Besides, I have the feeling that if all races were in uniformly wet conditions, the engineers would start to adapt and turn it into a predictable competition of technology again.

So here's an idea.  I have no idea if this makes sense or not, but I feel confident enough to put it forward, since it's already guaranteed not to be the dumbest suggestion anyone's made.  For a while now, Formula One has had just one tire supplier, currently Pirelli. They make a few different types of tires with different rubber compounds (crash course on racing tires: the tire compound is a trade-off, where softer rubber gives better traction, but wears out quicker.)  Currently they bring two different compounds to each race, and the teams are free to choose between them (aside from the rule that they have to use each type at least once during the race.)

So hows this: They bring just one type of tire to each race, but they don't tell anyone what it is. Qualification and practice could be done with standard tires, but the ones supplied for race day are a random formulation that no one knows until the race starts. Everyone has to figure out how much traction they have during the race, and adapt their driving and strategies to it.