It is understood that F1's powers-that-be are considering making two pit stops in each race mandatory.
One of the most depressing things when reading Pirelli's preview of an upcoming race is the claim that "overtaking is difficult", even worse is when the Italian tyre manufacturer predicts that the event will only require one pit stop.
In yet another attempt to 'spice up' the show it is understood that the sport is considering making it compulsory for each driver to stop twice during races, a move that might cause concern at McLaren based on recent experiences.
A mandatory two-stop was tried at Monaco this year but it failed dismally. Indeed, other than slowing down proceedings, thanks to the strategists - who were merely doing their jobs and working for the benefit of their own teams - a number of teams' races were wrecked from the outset.
While the British Grand Prix was compromised by the changing weather conditions and Zandvoort suffered a late Safety Car, the last race won using a genuine two-stop strategy was at the Red Bull Ring in mid-July.
Pirelli, which has always made clear that it can produce tyres that last an entire race, is constantly under pressure from F1's powers-that-be to produce tyres that deliberately degrade in order to force drivers to stop, with the Italian manufacturer also obliged to provide different compounds and even skipping compounds, all in a bid to 'spice up' the show.
However, as is the case with almost all aspects of the sport, the teams work flat-out to overcome every obstacle thrown at them, and as a result, despite the skipped compounds used in Austrin all bar Alex Albon was able to complete the race making just one stop.
"Teams always maximise what they have, and that means they try to reduce the number of pitstops," says Pirelli's Mario Isola, according to Motorsport.com. "It makes sense because during a pit stop you can make a mistake and when you go back on track, you can get in traffic and lose additional time.
"Teams always try to minimise the number of pitstops because they don't care about the show," he admits.
"What we are doing is try to make something good for the show," he continues, "and I believe that a two-stop is better for the show because you have more unpredictability.
"But you can't force anyone unless we accept that two pit stops are defined by regulation," he admits.
The issue was discussed by the drivers in Mexico and is understood to be on the agenda for the upcoming meeting of the Sporting Advisory Committee (SAC) and may well be discussed by the F1 Commission.
"Yes, we spoke about this several times," says Isola. "I remember that last time we had some simulations from the teams. We had a chat with the other stakeholders, with the FIA, F1, and the teams, and said, okay, if we select these three compounds for event A, B, C, D, E, what is the predicted strategy for you? We asked the teams to make those simulations and come back to us, not making this public, but only providing the information to us.
"What we realised is that the majority of the teams were converging on the same strategy, because you have a soft that is able to run five laps, a medium that is good for 20 laps, and a hard that can go longer. They were basically replicating the same strategy. So, when you put more constraints, the risk is that everyone is going in the same direction.
"The best races are the ones in which the two-stop has an advantage, but someone brave can still try a different strategy," he insists. "We had a good example of that in Monza last year, when Charles was able to win on one stop and others were on two stops. It was like that in Spa with George as well, but unfortunately, this doesn't happen every time."
However, the Italian insists that Pirelli is open to other options.
"We can also consider two stops without any obligation to use different compounds, so then they can use whatever they want," he says. "You can do medium, medium, medium if you have the tyres. If you are at the back, you probably want to start on the hards because you want to go longer at the beginning of the race. If you are in the middle of the grid, maybe you want to start on the softs and get rid of some traffic. There are many combinations.
"My personal suggestion, it's not me making the regulations, so I can just talk from my experience and what I have seen in 15 years, " he continues, "is that if there is a common agreement or idea for the future, that we identify a number of races and ask the teams to simulate. If we choose this, what's your reaction? Then we'll see if they come back with different approaches. And if they do, that's probably the way to go."
Referring to Monaco, he admits: "We shouldn't take Monaco as an example, because there you had the risk of going off-road.
"In general, if we want to consider a regulation change, we should work together to avoid unexpected consequences. Next year is all different. We don't know what to expect, but when we have an idea, there's at least a possibility to react. But we should consider that we have a good championship now, so don't take the risk to damage what we have."
Unpredictability does indeed usually produce some great races, but as we have said so many times is has to be just that, unpredictable, not a deliberate manipulation in order to create scenarios.
At present we have Pirelli taking three dry compounds to each race, whereas in the past we made do with slicks and wets, and quite often the racing wasn't too bad.
Why can't we go back to providing tyres that can last a race distance but will degrade accordingly, leaving the contemporary Alain Prosts to manage their tyres from lights to flag, while rivals go hell for leather knowing that they will almost certainly have to pit for fresh rubber.
We know from experience that whatever F1, the FIA and Pirelli come up with, the boffins and strategists will be focussed on turning things to their advantage, it's what the sport is all about.
And what happens when two stops don't work, three... four... drivers change their own tyres or maybe the old fashioned Le Mans starts where drivers run to their cars...
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