Formula 1’s managing director of motorsport, Ross Brawn has rejected a claim by former CEO Bernie Ecclestone that the sport would struggle to maintain its profile if Ferrari were to leave.
The Briton has been exerting pressure on the Italian team insisting the new F1 bosses would not back down in their desire to introduce significant changes to the engines and in other areas despite chairman Sergio Marchionne threatening to quit if he did not agree on the direction being taken.
One of the arguments being used to determine how seriously Ferrari’s threat should be taken is whether Ferrari’s brand would retain its prestige outside of F1 and vice versa would the sport cope without their most historic team.
“Formula 1 will always survive whatever the teams are in it,” Brawn told Sky Sports. “It will carry on whether I am in it, whether Liberty is in it or whether Ferrari is in it.”
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The former technical director at the Scuderia would admit losing Ferrari would be a significant negative for the sport, however, maintains the interest of everyone involved in F1 has to be considered.
“We have to find solutions with Ferrari but it has to be around the right parameters,” Ross said. “We can’t have a situation where we do anything a team wants whether that is Ferrari, Mercedes, Renault etc. We can’t just run a sport on what a team wants.”
Brawn does remain confident solutions will be found in what will be an important year for the future of F1.
“I think they [Ferrari] are saying that they have important elements of F1 that have to be maintained and I think we have common ground on that,” he concluded.