Balestre listens!

Sir,

Can it be that the redoubtable Jean-Marie Balestre actually reads Motor Sport? The question inevitably arises given the remarkable similarity between the new World Sportscar Formula limiting fuel-tank capacity and rate of refuelling, and that proposed — admittedly in a Grand Prix context — in your correspondence columns some nine years ago (Motor Sport September 1979).

If my surmise is correct, it is perhaps understandable that M Balestre should have forgotten the point of the original proposal, namely that it would render other restrictions, such as engine-capacity limitations, unnecessary. Thus both supercharged and unsupercharged cars of unlimited capacity (not to mention rotary-engined ones, or even diesels) could compete on equal terms.

What a pity M Balestre’s Gallic logic did not lead him on to such a bold step; as it is he has merely added unnecessary detail to an already over-restrictive formula.

IJG Berry, Enfield, Middlesex