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"The 2012 F1 season is well on its way to being one of the best in the 62 years of the sport&amp;#039;s modern era. It began with a record six World Champions on the grid, gave us a record seven different winners in the first seven races, and is only half over as I write this. Say what you want about the dashing &amp;#039;50s, the go-go &amp;#039;60s, the bell-bottom &amp;#039;70s or the tech-mad &amp;#039;80s\u2014this is some of the best competition Formula 1 has ever seen. The tension has been intense, not just from race to race but from lap to lap.   The sport has changed a lot over the years, but it&amp;#039;s the most recent changes that are now bearing fruit. The forces behind those changes date to the 1950s, when F1 defined itself as both a sport and an engineering exercise where breakthroughs trickled down to passenger cars. An altruistic ambition, yes, but perhaps also a rationalization for the series&amp;#039; appalling early fatality rate\u2014prior to three-time World Champion Jackie Stewart&amp;#039;s safety campaign of the 1970s, driver mortality rose as high as 33 percent. The prevailing attitude was that danger formed part of racing&amp;#039;s core appeal, and that idea hung on stubbornly until Ayrton Senna was killed in 1994.   Senna was an almost mythic hero, and the shock of his death galvanized F1&amp;#039;s leaders into doing everything possible to eliminate fatalities. Sweeping design changes were made to tracks and cars, and while those modifications were overwhelmingly successful from a safety standpoint, they brought about a subtle but critical shift in the internal workings of the sport. Over time, F1 found itself squarely in the entertainment business.   In 2008, the FIA formed the Overtaking Working Group, tasked with bringing passing back to pre-ground-effect levels. The group&amp;#039;s first initiative was to have Pirelli, F1&amp;#039;s sole tire supplier, design tires to degrade and lose grip at a rate that would be hard to predict, varying according to the nature of the track. The second was the Drag Reduction System (DRS): a movable aerodynamic element that, in designated zones of the track, can open a gap in the rear wing to reduce drag and boost top speed by up to 10 mph. Both elements function specifically to improve the show, and both are in open conflict with F1&amp;#039;s original mission of unlimited technological free-for-all.   But the rules have worked. The wheel-to-wheel driving this year has been thrilling, better than anything I&amp;#039;ve seen before. The DRS has added an intriguing new tactical dimension: the attacking driver trying to get close enough to use his DRS, the defender trying to fight him off. Meanwhile, each driver must contend with the possibility that his opponent will parry with his Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS)\u2014another technology-inspired new weapon\u2014which gives the driver a boost from energy generated while braking. The degrading tires maintain tension to the end, as a driver can come seemingly from nowhere to menace a leader whose tires are going off. And the DRS ensures that he can make a move when he gets there, as Mark Webber did against Fernando Alonso at Silverstone.           Television technology has kept pace with these changes and made the most of them. A display on your screen at home shows a driver&amp;#039;s KERS reserve, and you can listen to radio transmissions to and from cars and the pits. The onboard camera puts you in the cockpit, capturing the essence of the sport: the innate aggressiveness and dazzling skill of the modern F1 driver. Alonso&amp;#039;s qualifying run at Hockenheim, capturing the pole in a vision-obscuring downpour, was a stunning achievement and a breathtaking sight.   And the new rules have produced unexpected collateral benefits, starting in the pits. The determining factor in each stop used to be the 8 seconds spent in refueling, time enough to change tires at a comparatively leisurely pace. But since refueling was banned last year, it&amp;#039;s the tire changers who determine the length of a stop. Crewmen dressed like Darth Vader swarm over the car, and 3 sec. later (though McLaren is claiming 2.8) they spring away as the driver blasts back into the race. Races typically call for two or three stops, and with racing as close as it has been this season, even the smallest edge in a team&amp;#039;s pitwork can gain you a spot at the finish.   The FIA has also imposed a massive cost-reduction program, and the traditionalists have reacted with the skepticism you might expect. But these rules, too, have improved the show. Engines limited to 18,000 rpm? That&amp;#039;s hardly cutting-edge stuff. But the cars are more reliable\u2014the finishing rate is up from 50 percent in the 1970s to nearly 100 percent\u2014and reliability improves racing; you have to push harder when you know your rival is going to finish. Testing curtailed? Simulators have enabled designers to test components more comprehensively than they ever could in real life. And note that Ferrari, with its own track at the factory, was hit hardest by the test ban. Yet after a bad start the team has startled and impressed everyone with its resurgence. That certainly must please traditionalists, as no season would be quite the same without the charismatic red cars in contention.   A show depends on stars, and this year&amp;#039;s field has a record six World Champions with 14 championships among them. (Keep in mind the previous record of five has happened twice, in 1970 and 2011. These are good times indeed.) Jackie Stewart has called this year&amp;#039;s field the finest group of drivers ever to race in F1. Having six champions on the grid is partly luck, and we may never see it again, but it too may have something to do with the new rules. Michael Schumacher and Kimi R\u00E4ikk\u00F6nen, returning champions and diehard competitors both, certainly must have been swayed by the availability of competitive rides\u2014with so many constructors building good cars, this year was likely just too good for them to watch from the sidelines. We have seen battles between generations that until now we could only have dreamed of.   Have the rules stifled competition? Has addressing TV&amp;#039;s needs diminished the importance of the driver or designer? I&amp;#039;ll answer with another question: Has there ever been an era in which wins were harder to come by or valued more? I don&amp;#039;t think so. To me, this is the true proof that the focus on entertainment has taken nothing from the significance of the sport.   Finally, it has been a year of keen anticipation: F1 returns to the U.S. in November, in Austin, Texas. The track&amp;#039;s design makes me eager to see it in action, to see racing cars out there instead of bulldozers. Having an American race\u2014and with New Jersey next year, too!\u2014puts us one step closer to having an American driver in F1, a step closer to a potential champion like Phil Hill, Dan Gurney or Mario Andretti. An American racing for the World Championship\u2014now that would be a season. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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