Brawn on F1's new direction: 'Sceptics are eating humble pie – we've got fantastic racing'

“There’s a question of degree, but I think it’s pretty significant. I think the anecdotal evidence we see is significant. I think we must give Pirelli credit as well, because they’ve made a step forward with tyres.”

F1 tried to address the issue in the past with the Overtaking Working Group and adjustable front wing flaps and so on, but it was always a case of applying bandages. What Brawn and his technical leader Pat Symonds achieved together with the FIA was to push through a philosophy of taking a holistic view of the car package and what’s really needed from it.

“For me, the key thing is it’s in everybody’s mentality now that the raceability of the car is a vital factor and a vital characteristic that we have to pursue with any change we make,” says Brawn. “So for any change in the regulations going forward, how is it affecting the raceability? And can we improve the raceability, because we know what’s needed to make it even better?

“A racing car that you can’t race with is useless” Ross Brawn

“Teams have all come out with their solutions now, and those solutions are being digested by the aerodynamic team at the FIA. There are some changes next year which I think will go in the right direction. It’s now in our mantra when designing a racing car that it should be raceable. Because a racing car that you can’t race with is useless.”

He’s keen to point out that we have to think about where things would have gone in terms of overtaking in 2022 and beyond had the issue not been addressed: “You can’t forget if we hadn’t intervened the situation was getting worse and worse and worse. We’re comparing what we’ve got now with we what we had the previous year. Imagine what we would have had this year or next year [without rule changes].

“In my mind we’ve made absolutely the right turn in terms of the type of car we want. We all know they are too heavy. We all know they are too big. And that’s definitely high on the agenda. But they can race, and that’s brilliant to see.”

One positive aspect at the start of 2022 was how different the cars looked. While there was some convergence on concepts during the season, and we might not see such obvious differences in this year’s crop, they are unlikely to be as similar as some had predicted.

“These lessons seem to have to be learned every time,” says Brawn. “We said the cars will be different. The teams said, ‘Oh no, they’re all going to be the same.’ Who was right? We’ve said the cost cap would bring closer racing, the teams said it wouldn’t. Who’s right?

“We’ve got fantastic racing out there, and some teams are spending half of what they were spending before. And it’s not made a lot of difference. In fact, it’s better. And we just need to learn to ignore the noise that teams make in their own self-interest. Have a view, have an opinion, and be prepared to push ahead.

“I had one or two prominent technical directors telling me that this new car would be a disaster, we’ll all be the same. There was no scope for development, there was no this, no that. To their credit they’ve acknowledged that that wasn’t the case. But if we took their view at the time, we might not have done what we did.

“And it just shows if you’ve got a reasonable understanding of it, follow your views and principles, and it’s the best way. I’m really pleased the way things have evolved. And we need to keep going in that direction.”

The one big hiccup in 2022 was porpoising, which has been addressed with some tweaks for this season. Brawn hopes that they won’t impact following.

“I think those changes have gone through the system to make sure they don’t have any significant impact. The next steps will be keeping an eye on these cars to make sure they don’t veer off with any developments.

“We’re focusing on the 2026 car now, to see how we can make another step in the right direction, maybe make the car a little bit more compact, maybe see if we can get some weight out of it.

“It’s not easy with the weight, if you have a hybrid engine and the level of safety that’s paramount, with things like the halo, weight is a struggle. But anything we can do to lose weight, and definitely we can make the cars a bit more compact in the future. So that’s on the agenda.”

Brawn was involved in framing the concept of the cost cap, although the detail work was done by others – including Nigel Kerr, the former CFO of Honda/Brawn/Mercedes, and one of his key allies, who worked with the FIA’s experts.

It was clear in 2022 that the big teams were suffering the pain of having to rein in their spending, and the Red Bull case showed that the monitoring is ruthless and effective.

“The FIA team, along with Nigel Kerr at F1, did a fantastic job with such complex regulations. To create those regulations in the time they had, and for them to be so effective, of course there’s hiccups, of course there’s bugs in the system.