Brawn: We are targeting 24 F1 races per year

This year with 21 races, teams have been stretched to full capacity and the mid-season tripleheader was a gruelling logistics exercise which few want to repeat.

This and despite a school of thought that suggests more races cheapens the overall F1 product, Brawn sees it differently, "We want to increase the amount of races – the number we have said we are targeting is 24 – so we need to reduce the impact of a race weekend on the teams so that we can fit those races in."

"We believe Formula 1 can accommodate more races though the message is very clear: they have to be 24 quality events. We don't want races just because they're adding numbers, we want them because they really add to Formula 1."

"We’re looking at how we achieve that and are currently in discussion with the teams on how we can configure a race weekend to make it more effective, efficient and entertaining."

Brawn also revealed additional tweaks are on the cards, "We’re looking at the format for qualifying; how the points system works. We’re in deep discussion with the teams and the FIA on how we could improve those."

"We've had feedback from the fans and they feel, below tenth, nobody’s racing for anything and that teams might be preserving their cars due to constraints of PU elements and gearboxes, etc."

"The teams tell us otherwise, and personally I would agree with that, but fans don't perceive it. So we’re looking at whether taking the points to 15th place would alleviate fans’ concerns that there is nothing to race for beyond P10."

"We are very sensitive to making too many changes, however. When you alter elements a lot it can almost become the new norm – that things get changed all the time – and I don't think that’s a good thing."

Last time Formula 1 toyed with qualifying it backfired to the point that it was ditched after a couple of races.

When asked if he feared a similar scenario, Brawn replied, "Qualifying is very good at the moment and the fans like it. They particularly enjoy the sort of build-up to the crescendo at the end. But can we enhance it?"

"Put it this way: there's qualifying for qualifying’s sake, and there's qualifying for the sake of the race. What I mean by that is this: taken as a stand-alone event, you definitely want qualifying to be about the very best fighting at the front to see who’s the quickest."

"But when you think about qualifying as an element of how the race pans out, then you want qualifying to stir it up a bit and create some disorder so that you’ve got strong cars out of place. Then qualifying improves the race."

"So the level of jeopardy in qualifying is something we want to look at, where perhaps by reducing the number of runs a car does in each session, teams can't optimise everything. I think we’ll move very cautiously, though, because the current format is popular and successful," reckoned Brawn.