Ross Brawn may be leaving his Formula 1 role as Managing Director of Motorsports, but insisted the legacy he leaves, F1 cars that can race, will continue within the sport.
Ross Brawn was the main driving force within F1 behind the introduction of the new ground effect F1 cars in 2022, with the aim of promoting closer racing, and from what we have seen from this new generation of cars, it seems the target has been achieved; the sport is now far more unpredictable than online roulette, unlike in the recent predictable past.
Speaking to F1’s official website after announcing his departure; Brawn said: “The cars will evolve now, we’re going to make sure that they don’t move away from that [the key principles that allow them to race closer together].
“But I think now we see the rewards of taking that approach with the design of the cars, then we won’t let that go again – we’ll always make sure the Formula 1 car can race. It’s called a racing car, and that’s what we wanted to do,” he insisted.
In his final column on F1’s official website, in which he announced his departure, he detailed how he and his team approached the development of he new generation of F1 cars.
“The technical regulations were a big change,” he wrote. “We came at the regulations with a fresh view. The priority was building a better racing car because that has never been a priority in the past, which was one of my frustrations.
F1 teams developed regulations before
“In the past, the teams were allowed to develop the car regulations,” he revealed. “The FIA’s priority was safety, making sure the speed of the cars was always within a reasonable range. They never had the resource to look at how you design a racing car – it was left to the teams to do that work.
“With the best will in the world, the teams won’t have raceability as a priority,” the British engineer pointed out.
Adding, he said: “We created a group whose priority was to build a better racing car, that can race another car in close proximity, is consistent to drive, and doesn’t have bits fall off if there are touches.
“The mindset came from a different direction: raceability, and that will be the priority in the future – it’s one of the changes to the mindset of F1 that I’m really pleased about.
“It was a huge thrill for me when I saw the 2022 cars first race and we experienced two or three cars racing alongside each other – we hadn’t often seen that before.
“Now you can run hard behind another car for several laps without issues,” the 68-year-old concluded.