F1 technical guru Gary Anderson has called on the sport to think outside the box in solving its overtaking crisis, following a dull Bahrain Grand Prix last weekend. The Irishman, who was technical director with Jordan for many years and is now a technical consultant and pundit, said he wasn't surprised by the lack of overtaking in the season-opener but encouraged the power brokers of the sport to go radical in solving the problem.

Writing in his column in Autosport, Anderson said the lack of overtaking was 'entirely predictable', due in part to the refuelling ban and the narrower front tyre. “There has been a lot of talk since the Bahrain Grand Prix about the lack of overtaking in the race – but I think the situation was entirely predictable,” wrote Anderson.

“Last year the racing was a bit better [than 2008] because of the re-introduction of slick tyres. These produce grip even when you are following another car and they are not affected by turbulence. Fast forward to the winter, however, and Bridgestone made some smaller front tyres to better mechanically balance the car.

“The FIA also put the minimum weight limit up to 620kg to allow the teams to get better weight distribution – so the cars can look after their tyres better,” he continued. “Would these two factors make the racing better? No.”

One of the 'quick fix' ideas put forward by Anderson to improve the show was a mandatory two pitstops, but with drivers being forced to pit on specific laps as determined by a random number generator on-the-fly.

“If I was looking at a quick fix, what about going for a mandatory two-stop strategy but with a random number generator to decide which lap each car has to pit on?” he suggested.

“The computer will randomly select a car as it goes across the start finish line, send a message to that team on the pit wall prat perch saying 'car number five pit at the end of this lap'. It would mean you wouldn't know when to protect your tyres, and force you to race.”

He also suggested determining Sunday's grid by reverse championship order, whereby the championship leader starts at the very back of the grid and pole position goes to the driver who's last in the championship. Fans who witnessed Kimi Räikkönen come from 17th on the grid to win the 2005 Japanese Grand Prix will understand where Anderson is coming from.

“Or, what about starting the grid in reverse championship order?” he added. “You start the race in championship order backwards with the championship leader at the back of the grid, this would give you a true champion, someone who not only has speed but discipline and racecraft.”

There have been many suggestions put forward over the past week as to how to improve the racing in F1, but few could argue with the suggestions put forward by someone as experienced and knowledgeable as Anderson. While some may call some of his ideas too 'artificial' for Formula One, there is nothing 'natural' that can be done in the short term to drastically improve the show.