Now the real action begins off the track: how to slow down Schumacher and Ferrari, make F1 races competitive again, and stem one of the worst crises in the sport's half-century history.

Ferrari and Schumacher were too good, and Formula One was the loser.

With Ferrari winning 15 of 17 races and Schumacher claiming a record 11 victories, TV ratings slumped, sponsors griped, two small-budget teams disappeared and several others flirted with bankruptcy.

Schumacher came as close to winning every race has anybody has, becoming the first to finish in the top three in every grand prix.

"What we need for Formula One is simple - a race," McLaren-Mercedes team director Ron Dennis said after Schumacher won last weekend's Japanese Grand Prix.

But how to get one?

Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley, the two most powerful men in F1, have proposed radical changes - including giving a weight handicap to the fastest car or having each driver race once for every team.

"After what happened with Ferrari this year, we have to put a cap on it," Ecclestone said. "We have to do something to keep the sponsors and viewers happy. We have to be prepared to do something to protect the sport."

Both proposals are seen as trial balloons that Ecclestone, the head of F1's commercial side, and Mosley, the president of world governing body FIA, will drop in a trade-off for other changes when the rule-making Formula One Commission meets Oct. 28.

One thing seems certain: Without change, Schumacher and Ferrari will dominate again.

"For Ferrari to fail, they will need to make a major error in the design of next year's new car, which won't happen," said Niki Lauda, the three-time series champion and team director at Jaguar.

Schumacher piled up F1 records this season: most season victories (11), most points in a season (144), largest winning points margin (67), most career wins (64). Schumacher also won his fifth series title - and third straight - to match the record set in the 1950s by Argentina's Juan Manuel Fangio.

Schumacher and teammate Rubens Barrichello finished 1-2 in nine races, with the Brazilian winning four. The constructors' title went to Ferrari in a landslide with 221 points, followed by Williams (92) and McLaren (67).

And Schumacher gives no hint of slowing down.

"Winning is like a drug, and I am still hungry for it," the 33-year-old German said. "This is my motivation. I don't know when the next generation of drivers is coming or who will be No. 1 because I will be around for quite a while."

Schumacher's suggestion to other teams? Get faster.

"It's for the others to keep up and improve their game, it's not our fault," he said. "In all honesty, I would rather be criticized for being dominant than being too slow."

Schumacher touched off criticism when he let Barrichello win last month's United States Grand Prix in Indianapolis. He said he was simply paying back Barrichello, who at an Austrian race in May had pulled over and allowed Schumacher to win in order to pile up points in quest of a title.

The last time racing's richest sport was this lopsided was in 1988, when McLaren's Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost won 15 of 16 races. McLaren won the next three seasons, too, before Williams ended the run.

Schumacher or no Schumacher, Mosley said F1 must "improve the show and reduce the costs" as carbuilders like Ford, Honda, Toyota, Renault, Mercedes and BMW have pushed up spending.

With an estimated budget of $390 million, Ferrari dwarfs the opposition. By comparison, a tail-end team such as Minardi spends about $47 million.

Big-budget teams such as Ferrari, BMW-Williams and McLaren are outspoken against the proposals for weight handicapping and car-swapping. Smaller teams, headed by Jordan, support radical changes to stay afloat.

"These insane proposals put Formula One's image at risk," Ferrari president Luca Cordero di Montezemolo said. "I don't think they'll go forward because a sense of responsibility will prevail."

But in calling the proposals "bizarre," Montezemolo seems ready to accept other lesser changes. These include two-day qualifying, and limiting drivers to only one engine per race weekend.

Other proposals that could be offered to the F1 Commission:

- Using different tire compounds provided to all teams.

- Reducing testing, estimated to cost about $450 million yearly.

- Limiting aerodynamic and engine changes during the season.

- Putting fastest qualifiers in the middle of the pack.

Because a technical change in F1 requires the unanimous vote of the teams, new rules seem likely to be pushed through as "sporting regulations," which require 18 of the 26 member votes. The F1 Commission consists of team directors, certain sponsors, promoters, and engine and tire suppliers.

BMW-Williams technical director Patrick Head called adding a weight penalty "distasteful," comparing it to making Pete Sampras "play with two strings cut from his racket."

McLaren's top driver, David Coulthard, called the most radical ideas "a bit silly" and said the teams with the "cleverest minds and the best budgets" should be rewarded.

"We do need to do something," said David Richards, team director at BAR-Honda. "But in doing that, we also need to be very careful what we do."

Jordan called the weight penalty "an economic and quick" way to level the field, warning of looming financial problems.

"We have all had delusions of grandeur in this sport, but Formula One is not immune from the downturn in the world economies," he said.

Mosley, who admitted the season "could have been better from a spectator point of view," knows all F1 needs to win back its audience is a revival of rivalries. A new superstar driver would also help.

"We are at a crossroads, there is no doubt about it," Mosley said, admitting some of his ideas were "extreme."

"The costs are increasing, the receipts are decreasing and this has put the smaller teams in danger and will eventually put the bigger teams in danger," he said. "My message to the teams it that there is a serious problem in this sport. If you don't like our solutions you'd better come up with one of you own. And quickly."