Brawn doubts 2022 silver bullets, but ‘there’s bound to be disputes’

Formula 1 managing director of motorsport Ross Brawn doesn’t expect to see any “silver bullets” on this year’s new cars, but is certain there will be disputes about different solutions.

2022 brings a radical change in the philosophy of an F1 car, with ground effect permitted once again and significant new aerodynamic rules. With a number of cars already having been launched, Brawn says there will always be arguments over what is and isn’t legal, but he doesn’t believe there is scope for a clear solution that would give one team a massive advantage.

“There’s bound to be disputes, it wouldn’t be Formula 1 without disputes!” Brawn said. “So there’s going to be lots of disputes, it would be naive to think we’re not going to have arguments.

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“You don't know about silver bullets. If you knew where the silver bullet was you would do it, or you would have stopped it. There's no guarantee that something may occur that we just haven't anticipated. And I think if it is going to occur, you won't see it in Barcelona (testing). Probably someone will spring it on Formula 1.

“But actually, I don't think that will be the case. I think the regulations are pretty robust. But you can never say. But that’s part of the reason why the governance has changed, and it has not just changed in order to be able to change the rules at short notice, the governance has changed because teams know you can change the rules at short notice, so they’re far more likely to want to be comfortable with their ideas or concepts before they release them.

“It’s a circular thing. If you know that eight teams and the FIA and Formula 1 could stop you doing something if they feel it’s wrong, then you’re a bit more circumspect in doing it knowing that could be an issue. So I think the governance is something which also gives another layer of protection.”

Brawn does expect to see the field spread to some degree due to the new regulations, but believes any designs that prove detrimental to racing can be addressed by the FIA and F1’s joint teams working on the rules.

“Due to the nature of new regulations, inevitably when we start the season we may see some scatter in the performance of the teams," he said. "I think that;’s unavoidable but I think that’s also unavoidable to go that route. Staying where we were was just going to get worse and worse.

“We’ve had a little hiatus in a way with COVID because the teams have been constrained in what they’ve been able to do, they’ve had to use the same chassis and various other parts. But there’s no doubt that the cars would just continue to get worse and worse and worse.

“So I think there will be a bit of disparity at the beginning, we all know that with new rules, but I’m not expecting huge disparity unless somebody makes a complete cock-up. But I’m confident these rules and this regime and this culture will lead to much better racing.

“And the thing to remember is Jason (Somerville) and Nikolas (Tombazis) and the team are not stopping here. So as soon as the cars start to appear and we can analyze how they’re achieving their performance we can evolve it, we can start to tune the regulations to keep it going in the right direction.

“Even things like the governance system, where we don’t need 100% agreement to change the rules during the season, that will have an impact on our ability to adjust things during the season. If something comes along that is horrible and we definitely don’t want and is causing problems, well theoretically – as long as eight teams agree, and the FIA agree and Formula 1 agree – we can change it, which we couldn’t do before.”