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Plans to introduce standing restarts after safety car periods in Formula 1 next season have sparked debate over whether sporting parity and safety is being sacrificed for 'the show'.

Amid growing concerns over a declining TV audience, and failure to engage with a new generation of fans, teams have been working on ways to improve the spectacle of F1.

There have been trials of 'sparking' titanium skidplanks, moves to increase the noise made by the V6 turbo engines, and a new plan to spice up restarts by making the cars reform on the grid - which was ratified by the FIA World Motor Sport Council on Thursday.

The move is bound to influence how races will play out next year. Here, AUTOSPORT examines the implications.

SAFETY

Safety is a paramount concern for the sport's governing body, but some leading F1 drivers are concerned standing restarts will be more dangerous than rolling ones.

Lotus racer Romain Grosjean said: "I don't know if they will let us change tyres on the restart or not, but if they don't safety is going to be tricky, because the tyres may be old and cold.

"We need to improve the show but maybe in a different way.

"We drivers are the first ones that love the show and love overtaking, but we don't want any dangerous things."

Jenson Button reckons standing restarts will improve the spectacle, but is also concerned about the safety implications of standing restarts on old tyres.

"It will be tricky for all of us to keep the car pointing in the same direction off the start and it could cause mayhem," he warned.

"It will make for better TV but there perhaps needs to be a rule about the tyres."

TECHNICAL ISSUES

Some drivers have raised fears that cars will break down if asked to do repeated standing starts, but Williams head of vehicle performance Rob Smedley reckons F1 will easily adapt to the new demands.

"It's not like the old days when your clutches were fragile - everybody has fairly robust clutches now," he said.

"You might lose performance in that second start, because you do have clutch wear, but everybody will be in the same boat.

"It's Formula 1, so everyone will work on making their restarts better than everybody else. It's the nature of the competition.

"We will face technical challenges, but all the teams are big enough to get around that."

TOO ARTIFICIAL?

Standing restarts are likely to disadvantage the race leader even more than the current safety car procedure, and Canadian Grand Prix winner Daniel Ricciardo feels they could potentially take too much away.

"It's probably not the most fair idea," he said.

"It may be more exciting, because there's a bit more variability with a standing start, but for me that's a bit too artificial.

"If it goes to the standing start you could go down to third or fourth. That's just a bit too much of a disadvantage for someone who has earned the lead in the first place."

Both reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel and current championship leader Nico Rosberg emphasised the need to ensure the best drivers still rise to the top.

"I understand that the start is one of the most exciting times for the fans, but that's going too far with things," said Rosberg.

"I like the pure racing, the way it's been for the last 50 years. It should stay the way it is now."

Vettel added: "It is debatable what the advantage is in terms of racing or show.

"It is not as if the racing this year has got any more exciting than in previous years.

"F1 has always been the peak of motorsport, and you want to make sure that the fastest driver is winning - so you need to create a formula that gives room for a driver to show his skills."