F1: Brawn Plans to Reduce Advantage of Richer Teams

[Bethonie Waring]

Ross Brawn’s plans for the future of Formula One threaten to turn the sport on its head. He wants to reduce the advantages teams get from investing heavily into research and development and stop the sport trying to remain relevant to road car technology.

At the moment, teams like Mercedes and Ferrari can invest heavily into research and development and, if that’s done right, the advantage they find on the race track is huge. Meanwhile, smaller teams struggle to invest enough to stay within the 107% needed to be able to compete.

Since Liberty took over the sport, CEO Chase Carey and motorsports managing director Brawn have been sharing their plans to make Formula One more competitive. In order to narrow the gap between the front and back of the field, Brawn wants to flatten the steep performance against investment slope.

“What we really need to do is reduce that slope and find ways within the technical regulations of rewarding less for heavy investment,” he told ESPN. “That’s the concept, achieving that is more difficult.

“Every decision that’s made, we have to take that into account. Are we giving more scope for heavy investment to go further or are we reducing it? We just need to keep thinking about it and making sure that all the discussions that happen are going in the right direction to pull the slope down.”​

Brawn also believes a budget cap should be discussed again. He didn’t go as far as saying it is completely necessary, but believes it would solve a number of problems that Formula One faces.

One thing that would do would limit the amount manufacturers can develop their engines, but Brawn isn’t concerned about what that would do to the sport. In fact, that might just be for the best, he believes, as F1 can’t stay relevant to the road cars manufacturers would be trying to develop.

“If we say Formula One has to align itself with road cars, then logically we end up with an electrical car that drives itself, and nobody wants that in Formula One,” he said. “We have gone partway into the hybrid route, and they are fabulous energies in terms of the technology, but I want to engage with the manufacturers and get their views on what is the racing engine of the future.

“I don’t have the solution. I’m not saying we should go back to where we were because that would be a shame if we just went back to where we were five years ago because these engines are amazing pieces of technology… but I don’t see how we can carry on on that path, so I want to sit down with the manufacturers and understand what their objectives are, because they invest a huge amount in Formula One, and see what the path is with the engines in the future. It’s another key element.”​

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Is this the right direction for Liberty to be heading in, and is it even possible? Let us know in the comments below!

 

[howitzer155mm]

Makes sense to me, it's not really the "pinnacle" of engineering or motorsports when you have the budget of a small military to simply bypass problems with low efficiency. Teams will be forced to stretch technological limitations and improve within their means.

With enough money, you could just strap Saturn V Rocketdyne F-1 engines to the front and back of the car and make it completely out of titanium and carbon nanotubes.

 

[Slyfrequency]

Making it fairer for other teams will help them stay in the mix a bit more, no drastic changes are needed, just some here and there to make it interesting. Maybe it will bring more teams in since the demand for r&d and investment of money isn't as high as it is now.

 

[Nick Hill]

I welcome the change because things clearly can't keep going on this way, but I for one would welcome continuing to evolve towards electric powerplants. They are the future and this is where the biggest room for innovation is within the auto industry today.

I do believe the technology will solve this, however. Meaning, within a decade the performance/efficiency of electric powerplants will advance to the point where people will be complaining if F1 *isn't* using them.

 

[Will Mazeo]

Getting rid of complicated aero, leting teams focus more om mechanical grip would help smaller teams a lot, this is the only "limit" that is acceptable IMO. Anything else sounds like going spec...

 

[aka2k]

I've seen this movie before. And the ending is - spoiler alert - more boring races. It's ridiculous. I've hear those budget cap things and increase competitiveness since the early 1990's, way before Senna died carrying the fun in F1 with him.

You can't recapture the golden years of Formula 1 like that. F1 was all about cutting edge engineering solutions and huge car pile ups. You get neither anymore. Paint all the cars white and you can't really differentiate them. Race on tracks that doesn't allow overtakes and battles. It's So. Darn. Boring. Sadly.

 

[Deleted member 130869]

F1 was about innovation that ended on road cars decades later. The sport has too restrictive regulations and budgets must be respected, no work around like Newey's contract for example. And better distribution of revenue with teams, drivers, and actual venues. I wonder if the prizes will still only be paid two seasons later.

 

[Tobiman]

It's going to be a hard task but the goal would be to create a level playing without harming innovation. There still needs to be incentive to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into R&D but it shouldn't result in the huge difference in performance we are seeing today.

 

[ThatRacingGuy]

2 clowns. 1 genuis. What could possibly go wrong?

 

[F_B]

It's funny: I've never seen F1 as the pinnacle of technological invention (I'm watching it since 1993), for me it's all about the drivers competing against each other. However during those years I watched this sport I came to the conclusion that you just have to sit in the right car to become champion and that's what bothers me most in F1. Not a problem if there are several cars of similar/same performance on the grid but the Red Bull and Mercedes dominance since 2010 destroyed it for me. Now if Brawn and co can manage to get some kind of balance into F1 so that we have teams fighting at eye level against each other that would be nice.

 

[RichardHessels]

Throw away this whole energy recovery program for the F1 cars. These things use 100 liter of gasoline in a race, they get transported all over the globe by loads of trucks, planes and big boats. There is hundreds or even more than 1000 people working on 2 cars, they all go to work in their own car. Than storing a little bit of energy to save some on just one car for a few bursts in 1,5 hour is total nonsense.
Want to make F1 cleaner, start with everything around the transportation of materials and personnel.
No spoilers other than front, back and a diffuser.
Make more generic parts and make them available to smaller teams.

 

[fortyfivekev]

Ross is a top guy so I hope we see some good stuff from him.

It's a small change but one thing I would do is ban car to pits telemetry. The big teams now all have 50+ people back in the factory monitoring telemetry over a race weekend. It costs a fortune and adds nothing to the racing. Drivers should be monitoring tyre/brake/engine temps/etc. themselves. It might add a bit of variability to the races as well as rewarding smarter drivers. There should be more to being an F1 driver than just being quick which is all that counts at present.

 

[grahamw]

Formula 1 has ceased to be about the drivers as much as it is about the engineering and thankfully with some one like Ross Brawn in the mix he recognises this.

If you try and find ways to level the playing field you risk those teams with more money just having an even bigger advantage the budget cap never really happened and it was always just a hunch it might work.

The way forward has to be getting more competiveness back but finding the answers isn't easy the sport is so darn "safe" that when Verstappen was doing those crazy overtakes in the wet in Brazil everyone was horrified yet probably the most exciting race in years not at the front so much but hey ho can't win them all.

What made that so exciting was great driving and unpredicability for once you didn't sit watching the leader drive off in to the distance with the race all but decided after the first lap if not before.

Conditions like that are what really give all teams a fighting chance may be there needs to be some form of handicap like horse racing or golf. Yes the cream still rises but it becomes a partnership driver skill and car combined and not an engineering battle
with a winner takes it all result.

In truth put a top driver in the best car he will win more often than not but put a top driver in an average car and he probably won't win some how that has to be achieved or like most sports it becomes less and less entertainment for anyone.

Lets face it who actually believes bigger tyres and more aero is going to make next years F1 a close championship let's pray for more rain if we want to see some excitement because sure as hell it's not going to be a whole lot different next year.

You need a F1 equivalent of Leicester winning the Premiership to make the sport worth paying the cost of pay per view or attending a Grand prix. It strikes me that GP2 and GP3 are much less predictable so may be there are lessons to be learned there?

Any one who is an F1 fan trying watching GP2 and GP3 and even other types of the sports such as Australian Super Cars to see how exciting motor racing can be it just needs to find the right mix or formula (and I don't mean F1 lol)

 

[Boby Kim]

Missing Trump in that picture

 

[Thomas Lambaerts]

F1 should allow hydrogin engines. Then it would be relevant for road cars again. The entire world cant run on fully electric vehicles, like trucks. But going hydrogin only would be to expensive.

 

[james]

F1's downfall began the moment they started taking on sponsers. Now it's just a big corp. advertisement tax right off.

 

[UMC 22]

When I landed on RD's homepage and caught a glimpse of that photo, I immediately thought it was some weird article about gentlemen racing in the 1800's or something. I mean, what's with that moustache? And those eyebrows? Brawn is the only "normal" looking one of the bunch!

 

[Alx^]

Look at that corporate-ness of that photo To me it feels like F1 sold out years ago to the highest bidders. I don't see how anything will make it better as long as massive rich corps are involved/controlling it. It needs to be driven into the middle of nowhere, soaked in petrol and set fire to, then the scarred soil and molten metal beneath needs to be gathered up and emptied into Mount Doom. Hopefully by the time that's finished, the world will be back to the stage of 3 blokes that like cars, pottering about in their garage to see if they can squeeze an extra horse power out of that old engine they bought for £50, then getting their mate who isn't a rich spoilt brat but just likes ragging the nuts off cars, to drive it for them at some races. F1 needs to be about the people, not money. Sigh

 

[MoerasGrizzly]

Throw away this whole energy recovery program for the F1 cars. These things use 100 liter of gasoline in a race, they get transported all over the globe by loads of trucks, planes and big boats. There is hundreds or even more than 1000 people working on 2 cars, they all go to work in their own car. Than storing a little bit of energy to save some on just one car for a few bursts in 1,5 hour is total nonsense.

I'm not entirely onboard with this: That energy recovery program does mean that those F1 cars can accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in 1.5 seconds. That's rad!

Look at that corporate-ness of that photo To me it feels like F1 sold out years ago to the highest bidders. I don't see how anything will make it better as long as massive rich corps are involved/controlling it. It needs to be driven into the middle of nowhere, soaked in petrol and set fire to, then the scarred soil and molten metal beneath needs to be gathered up and emptied into Mount Doom. Hopefully by the time that's finished, the world will be back to the stage of 3 blokes that like cars, pottering about in their garage to see if they can squeeze an extra horse power out of that old engine they bought for £50, then getting their mate who isn't a rich spoilt brat but just likes ragging the nuts off cars, to drive it for them at some races. F1 needs to be about the people, not money. Sigh

I get the sentiment, but motorracing and especially Formula 1 has always been about car manufacturers. Massive rich corps being involved is inevetable as that is what car companies are and always have been.

 

[arniesan]

A good start to an even playing field would be making Cosworth engines a compulsion. One of, if not the most successful engine in F1/GP.
Ok, the works teams will be up in arms; but it puts them on an even playing field with the rest of the grid, as far as the power unit is concerned.
The teams then, should be able to concentrate on the rest of the car and if the works teams don't like it, too bad, F1 is about the sport, not about selling more Ferrari's or Renault's etc.
They have threatened a breakaway in the past, let's call their bluff this time, if it happens.