Ross Brawn has quashed points change as it defended the shortened 2020 F1 season, while opened up on various scenarios with grand prix and more.
Due to the weight of any one result in a short F1 championship season, critics have called into question the legitimacy of the thus-far eight-race-long 2020 championship, long before it has even been decided in favor of any prospect.
As a solution to balance this, and reward consistency more than good fortune – a factor that would be the deciding one in the current format – an overhaul of the points system has been suggested by some along with reverse grid races.
Additionally, the idea of teams being able to wipe away selected results due to the coronavirus, has been thrown at the wall. According to Brawn, the points system change didn’t stick and as we know the reverse grid was shot down for 2020 but he insisted that it can still happen in 2021.
“We did talk at one stage of feasibility of perhaps dropping one or two results in the current circumstances,” he said to F1 website. “The problem with that is the teams could ‘game it’. They could work out how they could take advantage of an opportunity and you might find they get to a race where they aren’t likely to score point because they are having problems, so they decide not to finish.
“That would look bad for Formula 1. There’s all sorts of gamesmanship that would go on if there was an opportunity to drop a couple of results, so we concluded, particularly as it will be a shortened calendar, it was better to leave all results in place.”
Brawn added: “It will be a pretty exciting championship with a reduced number, so I think it will be a valid championship. The best guy will win. We’ll go to a great range of tracks and it will be as valid a championship as any other.”
This shortened F1 season, though, remains a worst-case scenario in the eyes of Brawn and F1, as they continue to explore the options for flyaway races, and calendar expansion as a whole – something the Brit says is difficult for a number of reasons.
The former team principal of Brawn GP stressed that the street races will be the most difficult to recover, due to the difficulty of throwing up a temporary race track with short notice, however he also stated that things are slowly falling into place, particularly with Abu Dhabi and Bahrain.
“Things are moving fast, but we still have time,” said Brawn. “We have lots of different options and we’re very confident we’re going to have a great second half of the season, but there is no point making the statement yet as there are still some moving parts we need to put together.
“There is a contingency to have an extended European season with another one or two races if needed. I think Bahrain and Abu Dhabi will be the backstop of the season from what we can see at the moment. That gives us 10. We’ll find at least five or six good races in the middle.
“Every aspect has been considered, and I think we can have a very good second half of the season. There will be some races which don’t happen, might be some races we put in, but there’s lots going on.”
As Brawn alluded to early in the latter half of the above statement, there have also been rounds at other European circuits proposed to meet the 15-18 race quota set by F1. Some tracks rumored to fill out the calendar have been Hockenheim, Imola, Portimao, and even the Ferrari-owned track of Mugello.
Brawn suggested that such venues are in consideration, but reiterated that any plans they may have are still immature. “There are a number of good European tracks where we could add another one or two races on to make sure we have a comprehensive season.
“We’re not going to declare it yet, as it’s still a work in progress,” said Brawn. “What we really want to avoid is announcing and changing it. We also need to announce it in enough time so people can make plans. We hope some races in the second half of the season will have spectators, so we need time for ticket sales and promotion to take place.”
Another solution to give the calendar more substance has been double-headers at one circuit. However, there is perhaps no better way than this to breed predictability, and so to counter this, and spruce things up, track layout changes have been offered up at circuits at which they were available.
In some cases, this is impossible, but in Bahrain, Brawn says it might just happen. Conveniently, all of Bahrain’s layouts have the FIA’s Grade 1 license, permitting them to host F1 races. “One of the nice attractions of Bahrain is it has many configurations, so we could go to Bahrain and race on two different tracks there,” he said.
“There’s a nice sort of almost oval track that would be quite exciting, and all the layouts have a Grade 1 licence with the FIA, so that is an option in the pocket,” summed up Brawn. In terms of the tracks, apart from Bahrain, the chiefs at Imola confirmed about renewal of its license, which puts it in the jar as well to host an event, if needed.
“With the renewal of the homologation, we are in a position to also host a Formula 1 grand prix,” said Imola chief Uberto Selvatico Estense. “We hope that this dream can become reality with the teamwork of institutions and territory.”
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The story was edited by Darshan Chokhani