Ross Brawn will work for a simpler Formula 1 in which more teams and drivers can win. The British engineer became the sport’s Motorsport Managing Director after new owners Liberty Media shuffled its managing structure
Brawn said the gap between the top F1 teams and the ones at the bottom of the grid has to be narrowed. That is how according to him F1 could get a broader appeal.
“I have ideas we should study and perhaps use in 2018 or 2019”, Brawn explained for BBC Sport and BBC 5 Live.
“We all know the analogy of Leicester City – that would be the ideal in F1. A good team on a great year with a great driver could really mount a challenge. But at the moment that’s not really possible. That is something we need to discuss with the teams. They have made a huge investment in these engines so you can’t just discard them and say: “We are going to change the engines”.”
In 2009 Ross Brawn did exactly what Leicester achieved. He rescued the Honda team after the company withdraw from Formula 1 and went on win both the drivers’ and constructors’ titles. But the fairytale was not good enough for some viewers like Flavio Briatore for example.
“Our [Ferrari, McLaren and Renault] drivers are, or have been, world champions, and then you have a [Brawn] driver who was almost retired (Rubens Barrichello), and another who is a paracarro (Jenson Button; the word in Italian means a roadside post), fighting for the championship. I don’t know how we can say we have credibility”, said the Italian.
“It is impossible to recover the ground we have lost on those teams. “In three or four races the championship will be decided and I don’t know what the interest of the TV viewers will be when Button has 60 points and (then Williams driver Kazuki) Nakajima 50. It will be better to listen only on radio and watch something else”, Briatore added.
Ross Brawn did not make any predictions after the official announcement of his appointment
But he mentioned that his “nirvana would be you get slightly odd circumstances and suddenly a team from the back wins. But at the moment you have two or three teams who can win and we need to spread that.”
According to him the budget cap idea should at least be discussed but was not sure if it could work in F1.
“I think simplicity is a key objective for the future. I’ve watched F1 for the last few years as a spectator, and there are times where even I haven’t been sure what’s been going on in the race”, Brawn said.
“So I think we know what fans want: they want entertainment, they want close racing, they want to be able to understand what’s going on. And I think everyone agrees on that. It’s finding the path with all the other teams and all the other people involved to achieve that.”
