> My dad said the same thing. (He follows F1. I used to too - before they 
> started changing the rules once per season...)

As far back as I can remember they have always changed part of the rules 
every season.

From around 1980 onwards F1 suddenly became very popular, the teams had huge 
amounts of cash and so started developing all these weird and wonderful ways 
to go faster.  The new rules were basically to keep all the whacky ideas at 
bay (eg no 6-wheeled cars, no fans to suck the car onto the tarmac, no 
rocket fuel, no 3 foot wide tyres).  Before this time teams didn't have the 
money to invest in this stuff, so the rules weren't needed.

After 1994 suddenly the emphasis changed to safety after the deaths of Senna 
and Ratzenburger.  Each year stricter and stricter rules were introduced to 
make the sport safer. More severe crash tests, wheels that are tethered to 
the chassis, that neck support system.  Now in F1 hardly anyone gets 
seriously injured, even if they hit a wall or roll over at 150mph.

In the last few years the gap between the top and bottom teams has been 
widening because of the amount of cash the teams have.  The top teams would 
be bringing 10 or so engines to each race, with engines specifically for 
3-lap qualifiying that would be useless afterwards.  The bottom teams could 
not afford to do this.  So since then the rules have been changed to reduce 
the performance gap between the teams, like only allowing one engine every 
two races, no engine re-design during the season, only 4 sets of tyres per 
event, etc.

Who knows what will happen next, but for sure the rules won't ever remain 
the same.

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