Formula 1’s Managing Director of Motorsport Ross Brawn claims the introduction of cheaper, simpler engines, two of the aims targeted with the 2021 proposals, would be the best way to end the sport’s current farcical grid penalty system.
With the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix left this season, an incredible total of 730 places have been given out with more than half given just to McLaren with 380 places such has been the problems for engine supplier Honda.
If one driver, Fernando Alonso or Stoffel Vandoorne had taken that number alone and it was applied literally by the number of grid positions over a season, that driver would only just be taking the start in Australia.
Every manufacturer has been impacted with Renault totalling 310 while Ferrari and Mercedes the remaining 40 and it has led to an outcry of frustration that teams like Red Bull and McLaren have been unable to take the rightful places on the grid at so many races.
But with the sole reason for the system being as an effort to reduce costs, Brawn insists rather than change the penalties, it is the engines themselves which need altering to make the system pointless.
“What I think we should try to achieve with the new engine is componentry that is economic to change whenever you want,” said the former Benetton, Ferrari and Mercedes man to Autosport.
“If we go towards a different design of turbocharger, a homologated turbo, and it costs $2-3,000, why would you bother to even worry about limiting the number you use? It is not worth it in terms of the scale of the racing.
“But when your turbocharger is as expensive and complicated as it is now, then that’s why we have the limitations. The engine is an incredible demonstration of engineering competence, but it is not a great racing engine.”
One of the debates surrounding the 2021 proposals, which Brawn recently defended, is that it is taking F1 away from being the pinnacle of technology, something it has always been considered to be, but the Briton pointed to the recent decline in WEC participation, with two of the three manufacturers leaving in consecutive years, as proof of what happens when you get the rules wrong.
“It has been interesting because Porsche have been in the meetings and they have been able to add their opinion because they have seen both sides,” he explained, with the German carmaker ending its stint in the hybrid LMP1 category after this weekend’s 6 Hours of Bahrain.
“They have been able to add that understanding of what went on and it did become too much of a technical exercise. Sportscar racing has its fan following but even in the environment where the fans were not the biggest thing, it faltered and it failed.
“In this environment, where the fans should be the biggest thing, we can’t afford to have that sort of failure where we get so extreme we lose contact with the fans because only a very few people can afford the technology and excel in the technology.
“We are four seasons into this technology and we are still getting so many grid penalties. All credit to Mercedes they have done a fantastic job but no-one else can catch up. That is the reality.”