I have ran a long debate on this idea at
http://forum.planet-f1.com/index.php?t=msg&th=58309&start=360&

here is my proposal to solve ALL problems:
(making corrections to the aero regulations is OK for me)

1) Use of the WDC points standings to form the starting grid but reversed.
2) Reward saturdays with WDC points
3) use the Q1, Q2 and Q3 elimination system on saturdays and fridays in order to reward success with more track time.
4) (optional but likely) reward every finishing position on sunday and saturday with an exponential WDC points scale.
5) (if and only if drivers want) protect them for the event of an accident in any way you can think. Make racing safe by protection and not by keeping cars away from each other.

Consequences:
1) fare competition (read the thread please)
2) spectacular and interesting racing
3) more fans, more money
4) tech regs can give more design freedom
5) top teams get more recognition for their achievements
6) mid field teams get more chances to get a good result (but they have to be consistent)
7) bottom teams get at least more TV exposure and more financial success

Max and Bernie will do what they like… as usual, but i would like to see it tried if only for a season, we need something to spice up the sport… Other than that you would have to go in the NASCAR direction of making all the cars run the same?

As Alianora said, having the slower cars in front of the faster cars is probably asking for first lap trouble given the differences in speed! I can’t see it happening either, although you never really know what wacky idea Bernie and co. will come up with next!

The other problem you have to consider is at Monaco or somewhere where overtaking is really difficult you are going to end up with someone who has never come close to winning a race trying to hold off KImi or Lewis. You just know that at some point someone in this position is going to make a really stupid move and cause a big accident.

I don’t think too much overtaking can ever become boring. People still rave about the Monza slipstreamers of the 60s and early 70s where almost every position changed every lap. There used to be a site which listed every lead change for every GP. It only listed the positions at the finishing line so anything that happened anywhere else on the track was not considered. There were GPs at Monza with 30 or 40 changes of leader at the finishing line and I have never heard any of those races described as boring. Some of the processional garbage we have been fed over the last twenty years is soporifically boring but not races where you don’t know who is going to lead at the next corner. It is for this very reason that so many of us have become Moto GP fans. In the 5 years when Michael Schumacher won consecutive championships the word boring was thrown round like confetti. Valentino Rossi won the Moto GP championship or its equivalent for the same 5 seasons and I never heard the word boring used once.

Surely teams will entail a stragetic element to their qualification programming – simply running slower to a predesignated extent in order to achieve a desired grid position. But then If suspicions rise that this is in evidence, rule-abiding teams may complain that competitive outfits may be purposefully slowing. The teams in question would then deny this, possibly excusing themsleves from any wrong doing with reliability issues being a result of their reduction in pace… the list of potential debates and enraging scenarios is endless. In my mind it isn’t feasable or useful for the sport.

Maybe in the virtual world, but not in reality.

Worth noting that the Sunday morning GP2 results are not taken that seriously. While a win on Sat will get a driver noticed, Sunday, not so much.

While the 2005 Japanese GP is remembered for some great overtaking, it’s only the overtaking on similar cars that’s remembered – nobody cares about the backmarkers Alonso and Raikkonen flew past.

I know you aren’t a football fan

You’re not wrong there!

can you imagine the FA relegating Manchester United and Chelsea just so they could play weaker teams

I can’t and that is a good comparison between the potential issues the sports could face.

The only way to improve overtaking is by allowing the cars to run closer together, and not muck about with the actual GP weekend any further than the constant qualifying tinkering already has.

I know you aren’t a football fan Ollie, but imagine if there was a season where hardly any goals were scored – can you imagine the FA relegating Manchester United and Chelsea just so they could play weaker teams and score lots of goals against them?

Never going to happen, and neither is this reverse grid idea – unless it happened in a separate race, such as happens in Touring Cars I believe – one “proper” race and then another in reverse order of the first race results.