Ross Brawn has said that he doesn’t want to solve Formula 1’s problems with artificial solutions like DRS.
New F1 chief Ross Brawn already has an idea of how he can improve F1. Although he hasn’t mentioned anything specifically he uses DRS as an example of what’s wrong, suggesting it could finally be on the way out.
Speaking to the BBC he said: “We need to make sure there is no artificial solutions. The drag reduction system; everyone knows it’s artificial. We need to find purer solutions. We need to think through the solutions. I have ideas – I can’t share them all with you because I want to share them with the teams first – but I have ideas of things we should start to study and perhaps use in ’18 or ’19.”
It would be too much to expect any changes for 2017 with the first race being less than two months away (although F1 making sudden mid-season rule changes would be nothing unusual), but 2018 isn’t that long to wait – although the axing of DRS as it is now can’t come soon enough.
He said much the same thing in an interview with Gazzetta dello Sport: “We must avoid, as has happened in recent years, falling into the temptation to artificially create the show. But I agree on the need to make sure that there is more competition. To do this we need patience, we can not overhaul everything. To switch from black to white would be a mistake: this is a complex sport.”
Brawn also warned about the danger of making sudden quick fixes and mentioned that a five-year plan would be the best way to improve things.
“There will be change, of course. In recent years I have seen that F1 is unresponsive [to change]. To deliver continuity is obviously important to everyone, but we must be careful to preserve the essence of grands prix.
“For my part, after a period of study, we must think of a three to five-year plan and introduce innovations gradually. Acting quickly could be counterproductive.”
All of this sounds a bit too much like common sense, which leads me to think that we might actually be dreaming. At some point we’ll all wake up and discover that Bernie is still in charge and that he’s going to make the tunnel at Monaco tube-shaped so that cars can overtake each other on the ceiling.
Don’t believe me? Brawn continued with the common sense by saying that it was important that fans’ views were taken on board when it comes to the future. After all, the 2015 fan survey revealed that fans would like to see a more competitive F1 with fewer gimmicks – and that’s essentially what Ross has said he’d like to achieve.
Yep, definitely dreaming.