F1's new technical managing director Ross Brawn says that simplicity is the key to the sport's future.

It would be easier to list what Ross Brawn doesn't know about motorsport than what he does know, the Briton has won multiple world championships in F1 as well as playing a key role in Jaguar's Sportscar success in the early 90s. Indeed, his eponymous F1 team, having won the drivers' and constructors' title in 2009, was subsequently sold to Mercedes which continues to dominate the sport.

Despite his engineering background however, newly installed as the technical head of the F1 company, the Briton insists that keeping it simple is the key to building the sport.

"What I want to develop along with all the other stakeholders in F1, the teams, the FIA and so on, is to get a vision of where we want to be in the next few years," he told BBC 5 Live.

"I know from experience that F1 tends to be reactive," he continued. "It has a problem and it reacts and tries to find a solution, but very rarely has the vision of looking forward three-to-five years and deciding where it wants to be.

"So I think we know what fans want," he said, "they want entertainment, they want close racing, they want to be able to understand what's going on. I think everyone agrees on that, but it's finding the path with all the other teams and all the other people involved to achieve that.

"Simplicity is a key objective for the future," he continued. "I've watched for the last few years as a spectator, and there are times even I haven't been sure what's been going on.

"It's a great sport," he enthused, "it's a fabulous combination of the drivers and their personalities, their competition, and the cars and the whole thing... we just need to look at it and see how we can improve the show.

"The fans want racing, and we haven't seen too much of that. We've seen a great competition between two drivers in the same team for the last few years, and that's no fault of Mercedes. They've done a fabulous job. I think the fans want racing, they want to understand what's going on in the race.

"There are different types of fans of course, and that's where the complication comes. There are fans who come to the races, there are the fans who watch TV and the fans who watch through other media. It's finding a balance between all of those requirements.

"We want the race, for instance, to be as big a show as we can make it, so when you come to a race for a weekend, you're entertained from beginning to end."

Clearly, Brawn is singing from the same hymn sheet as Carey and has the same desires for Liberty's new purchase as the rest, but like Carey's insistence that the British Grand Prix will be safe there is no explanation of how this might be achieved. Furthermore, such changes, to the sporting side of things, are not the work of a moment and will take years, and in the meantime fans will to continue to drift away.

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by Spindoctor, 26/01/2017 14:50

"@Stitch431
The Premiership \ FA Model seems to work reasonably well. Something analogous where Clubs\Teams & "Regulators" all have a say might work in F1 "

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2. Posted by TokyoAussie, 26/01/2017 3:40

"Stitch431: I had forgotten about the Strategy Group. Mind you, that group is eminently forgettable."

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3. Posted by Stitch431, 25/01/2017 8:15

"@TokyoAussie: Not entirely since, in exchange for 45 million for a new headquarter "up to par", Jean Todt gave away the sole power to take decisions about the sport. That was the beginning of the Strategy Group, where also the richest teams can have their say, and... have the ability to VETO every new decision. Now since they are all competing with each other, it rarely happens that they agree on a new rule to be implemented and therefore, at best, the outcome is a lame compromise. A good example is the rules chnages for 2017. Ideally the rules would have changed so that there would be mechanical grip instead of aereo/drag to improve racing. The bigger tires provide for more mechanical grip but Red Bull and McLaren (both strong in the field of aerodynamics) prevented the aereo being reduced. Also Mercedes has achieved that the motor (their strength) will hardly change. Therefore we still need the "Super Mario Cart" artificial DRS which does allow overtakings but hardly a fight... So the best thing that can happen to us now is that Liberty, together with the FIA, finds a way to take back control and take it away from the teams as they are competitors and therefore by nature can never agree. In Tennis, soccer, or any other sport, the competitors do not have a say i the rules, as it simply does not work. So I hope that with the takeover, the agreements drawn up by good ol' BE can be reversed."

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4. Posted by TokyoAussie, 25/01/2017 3:13

"I have no doubt about Brawn's ability to identify the problems with the racing. But that is the purview of the FIA. If he can convince the FIA of changes to make, well and good."

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5. Posted by NS Biker, 24/01/2017 21:49

"In what is going to be identified as "The Trump Era" we should expect some things to happen quickly and decisively.
It will be interesting to see if anything will be done for the teams at the bottom of the financial pecking order. If Manor and Sauber are to be anything other than barely hanging on, something will need to occur quickly. My bet is RB is the man to get it done.
Going to be a very interesting next month and same for the next few years. This fan is certainly looking forward to it."

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6. Posted by Spindoctor, 24/01/2017 16:50

"Ross Brawn should bring some much-needed common-sense to F1 which has disappeared ever-further up its own exhaust pipes over the last few years of Bernie's reign.
But, I'm not quite sure where he's going with this.
If (as I hope) he means simplifying the both the Technical & Sporting Rules then Hoorah!
Fewer Technical rules = more innovation\less nit-picking. Fewer Sporting Rules = more racing\fewer "penalties", grid demotions and the endless litanies of such as "Track Limits".

Let's hope his notions of "simplification" aren't about some kind of "Indyfication" of F1, with old-fashioned technology and cars dumbed-down to ensure competition. Indycar is fun, but F1 it ain't!"

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Simplicity is the key, says Brawn

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