Formula One managing director Ross Brawn led the creation of new regulations for the sport
Ross Brawn has hailed Formula One’s new regulations as a step forward for the sport.
The managing director, who previously spent 20 years managing and owning several Formula One teams, has worked since 2017 honing the new rules, which cover everything from car design to racing format and, most controversially, a budget cap and will be introduced for the 2021 season.
Brawn admits he enjoyed tackling this challenge from a different perspective.
He says: “It was a fascinating challenge. No longer was I concerned about lap times, I was concerned about identifying what we believe would make a great race car, what were the characteristics?
“What would be the things we believed would improve a Formula 1 race car and make it better?
“If I’m honest, this is the first time it has been done properly. There were attempts in the past, but there were never the resource or efforts put in that we had this time.”
In order to reach these agreements, which are arguably the most revolutionary in the history of the sport, Brawn had to work on finding compromise between each of the teams. There still remain issues to be resolved around engine cost that were raised by Ferrari, while Mercedes boss Toto Wolff refused to commit his team to the sport beyond 2021.
Having wanted a cap of $150 million on spending per team per season, after discussions with each stakeholder the limit was raised to $175 million, in context of the current average spend per season being $312 million.
Brawn says: “It has been a real inclusive process. It hasn’t been a team of engineers locked in an office in London and out it comes.
“It’s been a very involved process for all teams and I am pleased with the way that went and I think the car we have got undoubtedly will need some evolution but it is a massive step forward in terms of a racing car over what we have now.”
Brawn also revealed that, in planning concepts for the new vehicle, some radical ideas were quickly shelved in favour of prioritizing function over form.
“We looked at things that were quite distorted, Batmobile style, they made an impact but you thought well that doesn’t make sense, why are you doing that and that is just tuck on there.
“We moved away from that very quickly and thought function has to be the prime objective and we will see how form follows function. We think we have a very elegant solution.
“If we put a very dramatic-looking car out there, it would get a lot of press coverage but people would tire of it very quickly and it would feel false and feel artificial and what we are trying to do is maintain the integrity of the spot and say this we believe will be a great racing car and that is the prime objective."
The new car design is aimed at improving the spectacle of the sport for fans
Brawn and his team also called for close collaboration between competitors in order to produce the best possible racing car.
To this end, working parties were established and six to eight technical meetings were held with the teams, each one involving presenting results, discussing them and deciding what the next objectives should be.
This process was particularly effective for addressing the aerodynamic issues in Formula One cars, with Brawn contacting his former drivers and analysing other motorsports to find the best solution.
The likes of Alexander Wurtz, Anthony Davidson and Nico Hulkenberg, were consulted on their experiences in both F1 and other motorsports series.
Brawn says: "The current cars due to their aerodynamic complexity throw off a pretty unfriendly wake and flow behind the car and equally the car itself is very sensitive to the flow conditions.
“You have a double whammy, you have a car throwing off a very unfriendly wakes and then the car itself is very sensitive to flow conditions.”
Each F1 team has collaborated closely in creating the new regulations
There is also a focus on streamlining the design and making the car more durable to bumps and minor collisions.
Brawn adds: “We have designed this car very much in mind to make sure we don’t have fragile appendages that can be knocked off as the cars are doing battle or when the car leaves the track.
“We are not building tanks, these things are still proper racing vehicles, but we have tried to take those things into consideration and make sure we give the drivers the best opportunity, if someone eases them off the track, that the cars are not ruined for the rest of the race which is what happens now.
“I have been on both sides of the coins, those appendages and those aerodynamic devices and micro-designs that go around them are fascinating to the engineers and when you are on that side of the coin you somehow think everyone else is fascinated by it too but they are not.
“One thing I suspected and I have now learned since I have worked for the commercial side of this business, there are very few fans who know the detail of that stuff, it is a tiny percentage, but what the fan will see is when the car goes off the track and it can’t race anymore. Every fan will see that.”
Brawn is now confident that these adjustments will help improve the racing experience for the fans.
He adds: “How many times after a race do you hear that the reason he didn’t go very far because this fell off or that got damaged.
“Even Lewis Hamilton in the last race, there were comments that his race wasn’t very good because some piece fell off when he got pushed off at the start.
“We have got to stop that because the starts are eventful occasions, there is a lot of barging going on and we need cars that can survive a much higher level.”
