Brawn on F1's new direction: 'Sceptics are eating humble pie – we've got fantastic racing'

F1

F1's departing managing director Ross Brawn believes the championship is going in the right direction – and says the results are there to see

Ross Brawn

Brawn is confident F1 is now on the right path

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Back in January 2017 as Liberty Media completed its takeover of Formula 1, Ross Brawn was announced as a key member of the leadership team. Six years later he has slipped quietly into retirement and a yet-to-be-defined consultancy role.

Those years saw a huge transformation in the sport, and while Brawn certainly wouldn’t want to take too much credit, there is no doubt that he played a significant part in making it happen, backed up by the team that he helped to put together within the much-expanded F1 organisation.

Brawn was an inspired hiring. Bernie Ecclestone was eased out and Chase Carey, whose background was in the commercial side of TV, was given the top job, and the crucial task of sorting out a new Concorde Agreement.

Liberty needed someone on board who could focus on the sporting side, and who was steeped in F1 and respected by teams and drivers alike – and Brawn was the perfect fit for the job.

Chase Carey Stefano Domenicali and Ross Brawn

Brawn was brought in by Liberty to lead F1’s new technical direction

He played a role in introducing the cost cap and tighter aerodynamic testing restrictions, both of which have played a part in ensuring that the sport is in good health – and that the millions of new fans attracted by Drive to Survive have a good show to watch. He also helped to steer the sport through the COVID pandemic, which was no easy task, and championed the sprint race format.

However his key achievement has to be pushing through the new technical regulations, which were originally scheduled for 2021 but were delayed by a year thanks to Covid.

“Definitely the rules have worked,” Brawn tells Motor Sport. “I think even the sceptics in the F1 teams, and I won’t tell you who they were, have eaten humble pie and acknowledged that the data shows the cars could race, the cars are much less impacted by following another car. And I don’t think there’s a team in the pit lane who would deny that.

From the archive

“There’s a question of degree, but I think it’s pretty significant. I think the anecdotal evidence we see is significant. I think we must give Pirelli credit as well, because they’ve made a step forward with tyres.”

F1 tried to address the issue in the past with the Overtaking Working Group and adjustable front wing flaps and so on, but it was always a case of applying bandages. What Brawn and his technical leader Pat Symonds achieved together with the FIA was to push through a philosophy of taking a holistic view of the car package and what’s really needed from it.

“For me, the key thing is it’s in everybody’s mentality now that the raceability of the car is a vital factor and a vital characteristic that we have to pursue with any change we make,” says Brawn. “So for any change in the regulations going forward, how is it affecting the raceability? And can we improve the raceability, because we know what’s needed to make it even better?

“A racing car that you can’t race with is useless” Ross Brawn

“Teams have all come out with their solutions now, and those solutions are being digested by the aerodynamic team at the FIA. There are some changes next year which I think will go in the right direction. It’s now in our mantra when designing a racing car that it should be raceable. Because a racing car that you can’t race with is useless.”

He’s keen to point out that we have to think about where things would have gone in terms of overtaking in 2022 and beyond had the issue not been addressed: “You can’t forget if we hadn’t intervened the situation was getting worse and worse and worse. We’re comparing what we’ve got now with we what we had the previous year. Imagine what we would have had this year or next year [without rule changes].

From the archive

“In my mind we’ve made absolutely the right turn in terms of the type of car we want. We all know they are too heavy. We all know they are too big. And that’s definitely high on the agenda. But they can race, and that’s brilliant to see.”

One positive aspect at the start of 2022 was how different the cars looked. While there was some convergence on concepts during the season, and we might not see such obvious differences in this year’s crop, they are unlikely to be as similar as some had predicted.

“These lessons seem to have to be learned every time,” says Brawn. “We said the cars will be different. The teams said, ‘Oh no, they’re all going to be the same.’ Who was right? We’ve said the cost cap would bring closer racing, the teams said it wouldn’t. Who’s right?

“We’ve got fantastic racing out there, and some teams are spending half of what they were spending before. And it’s not made a lot of difference. In fact, it’s better. And we just need to learn to ignore the noise that teams make in their own self-interest. Have a view, have an opinion, and be prepared to push ahead.

2 2022 Red Bull F1 driver Max Verstappen celebrates winning the F1 title

Though there’s still room for improvement, Brawn insists the racing has improved in F1

DPPI

“I had one or two prominent technical directors telling me that this new car would be a disaster, we’ll all be the same. There was no scope for development, there was no this, no that. To their credit they’ve acknowledged that that wasn’t the case. But if we took their view at the time, we might not have done what we did.

“And it just shows if you’ve got a reasonable understanding of it, follow your views and principles, and it’s the best way. I’m really pleased the way things have evolved. And we need to keep going in that direction.”

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The one big hiccup in 2022 was porpoising, which has been addressed with some tweaks for this season. Brawn hopes that they won’t impact following.

“I think those changes have gone through the system to make sure they don’t have any significant impact. The next steps will be keeping an eye on these cars to make sure they don’t veer off with any developments.

“We’re focusing on the 2026 car now, to see how we can make another step in the right direction, maybe make the car a little bit more compact, maybe see if we can get some weight out of it.

“It’s not easy with the weight, if you have a hybrid engine and the level of safety that’s paramount, with things like the halo, weight is a struggle. But anything we can do to lose weight, and definitely we can make the cars a bit more compact in the future. So that’s on the agenda.”

Brawn was involved in framing the concept of the cost cap, although the detail work was done by others – including Nigel Kerr, the former CFO of Honda/Brawn/Mercedes, and one of his key allies, who worked with the FIA’s experts.

Christian Horner answers questions on Red Bull F1 cost cap breach

Former Ferrari and Merc tech chief says cost cap complaints from top teams show it’s working

Red Bull

It was clear in 2022 that the big teams were suffering the pain of having to rein in their spending, and the Red Bull case showed that the monitoring is ruthless and effective.

“The FIA team, along with Nigel Kerr at F1, did a fantastic job with such complex regulations. To create those regulations in the time they had, and for them to be so effective, of course there’s hiccups, of course there’s bugs in the system.

“But it’s an amazingly complex set of regulations that have had a remarkable effect so soon, and then they can be smoothed out, they can be developed. I think they did a great job and should be commended for what they’ve done – and it will cement the future of F1. I mean, most if not all the teams now are what I would describe as economically viable. And I think the big teams are making a healthy profit. I think the small teams now are starting to be able to cover their costs. And economic sustainability is just as important as environmental sustainability. Because then we can afford to introduce the changes we need for environmental sustainability as the teams can afford it.”

The historically top-spending teams still dominated the results in 2022, but the theory is that over the next couple of years the performance gap to the rest will close.

“I hope so,” says Brawn. “There was no doubt that for the teams who already had the vast data banks of information, already had all the expertise, you can’t take that away from them. But if you added twice the budget that another team had to that vast data bank of information, and that last expertise, how on earth can you ever compete?

“We’ve got 10 teams, probably a majority of which are now bumping their cost cap limit. And I think in the next few years we’ll see that start to really bite. And we’ve got the aero testing slope, which is a compensatory mechanism. And I must be blunt, I’m quite pleased to hear the top teams complaining about it!

F1 tech director ROss Brawn at the 2022 Italian GP

Brawn will now likely operate in a consultancy role for F1

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“Efficiency is now a key part of their operations. A designer designing a part now has to have a much stronger consideration for the cost of that part against its performance.

“When they say ‘We’re really struggling, because we don’t have as wind tunnel much time as the guys at the back,’ fantastic – that’s what should be the case! Because it’s a self-levelling mechanism. That’s exactly what it was supposed to do. So I have lots of optimism for the future.”

Things have changed at the F1 in the past couple of years, with Brawn’s former Ferrari colleague Stefano Domenicali replacing Carey, and ensuring that the organisation is led by a veteran of the sport rather than an outsider.

That and the fact that the original job list has been completed has allowed Brawn to step down. He may have given up his fulltime position and with it the necessity to travel to most of the races, but he will remain involved in a consultancy role. He will be able to choose what projects he lends a hand to, with tweaking the sprint format likely to be one area on which he will focus. Having turned 68 in November he can take a breather – and no doubt find more time for fishing…

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