Ross Brawn is confident Formula 1’s new era will lead to a “more balanced” championship in the years to come.
On Thursday, F1 officially unveiled the first full-size model of a 2022-spec car, featuring vastly different wings and bodywork, along with the new underbody created to increase the ground effect.
The main aim of the new design is to dramatically reduce the impact of turbulent air, which has prevented drivers from running close to other cars for decades now.
Indeed, predictions say the new 2022 concept only loses 18% of downforce when within 10m of another car compared to 47% with the current cars.
The expectation is this significant improvement will result in more on-track action and potentially even end the need for DRS, which F1 first introduced 10 years.
Commenting at the launch of F1 One Begins at Silverstone, Brawn said: “It feels like a very long time ago the FIA officially unveiled the regulations for the future of the sport, but after the one-year delay due to the pandemic it’s only 170 days to go until the start of 2022 when we will see the next generation of Formula 1 cars take to the track.
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“There is huge excitement ahead of this new era, and while 2021 has been a great battle we still have cars struggling to follow each other during the race. The regulations for 2022 will address this problem and create an opportunity for closer battles and more wheel-to-wheel racing.
“The combined effect of the new aerodynamic regulations and financial rules, in the form of the cost cap (which will be $140m in 2022), will create the conditions for a more balanced championship and for the gaps across the grid to close.”
While there are high hopes for the new regulations to promote a more competitive era of F1, initially, Brawn accepts the opposite could occur should some teams do a better job than the rest.
“Yes, I think that is exactly what could happen,” he told PlanetF1 earlier this year.
“We are enjoying a vintage year, but the cars are still incredibly difficult when they are following each other, so we could potentially take a step back in terms of closeness of the field.
“But then I think we will see in the next couple of years some great racing.”
This year, as a cost-saving measure, teams only had three days of testing before the first race in Bahrain, something that proved detrimental to those drivers joining the grid or changing teams.
And Brawn confirmed more running is being planned for teams to understand the new cars.
“I think for 2022 we will have a longer pre-season test or a series of tests,” he said.
“Because with the new car we have to give the teams time to really understand and settle in, so I think we are anticipating having at least two tests pre-season.
“So any drivers who do change [teams] will have a little more time, and certainly the teams will have more time to understand their cars.”