Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, Paul Ricard, 2019

Brawn welcomes Hamilton’s ‘expression of faith’ in 2021 rules

2021 F1 season

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Formula 1 managing director of motorsport Ross Brawn has welcomed Lewis Hamilton’s comments on the state of the sport’s plans for regulations changes in 2021.

Speaking after his dominant win at Paul Ricard yesterday, Hamilton revealed his concerns over the future direction of the sport following his presence at an FIA meeting on planned changes for the 2021 season.

Hamilton said F1 needs to “make some serious changes to the decisions that they’ve already made of how 2021 should be” because they are “nowhere near where it should be in my opinion”.

However he also said he was “encouraged” by Brawn’s an ongoing research programme on how to make it easier for cars to follow each other more closely.

Brawn acknowledged the need to improve the quality of racing in F1 after yesterday’s processional race in France. “We know well that Formula 1 needs to make an important change in direction if it wants to maintain its position as one of the most followed sporting spectacles in the world,” he said.

“All of the key stakeholders – ourselves, the FIA and the teams – agree on the objectives and there is broad agreement on the major principles, such as the introduction of the budget cap and a fairer distribution of the revenue, while on the technical aspects we, and the FIA, have worked together with engineers from all the teams. It will be great to have an input directly from the drivers.

“Now we have to refine the details and we are happy that Lewis has expressed his faith in the work we are doing, including on topics such as new circuits. For example, the new circuit in Vietnam has been specifically designed to create the conditions that promote spectacular racing and good passing moves.”

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Hamilton complained drivers had not previously been invited to give input into planned rules changes. “We are basically trying to get in the door and trying to be a part of it,” he said, “and for many, many years they have not wanted us in that room.”

However Brawn insisted “the door for drivers has always been open”.

“It’s a pity that so often in the past this opportunity has not been taken by all the parties,” he added, “and it is great to see this new initiative.

“Luckily, today we can now count on having a driver of huge experience as a member of the World Motor Sport Council in Felipe Massa, the FIA-CIK President, who can also make an important contribution. To sum up, Lewis, we are delighted with yours and all of the drivers contributions.”

Brawn added he is “happy Lewis has confirmed his willingness to make his own contribution in the coming months, and we can’t wait to work with him, particularly in each of the three meetings now scheduled.”

Hamilton has not yet indicated how many of the future meetings he will participate in.

“I don’t know because I lost a whole day,” he said. “It was a long meeting day. I don’t know if I want to be there or maybe Seb [Vettel] will go next time.

“But the great thing is that we [drivers] are all united so we all set an agenda and points and we agree on them. Various of us could go and deliver those points. Alex [Wurz] will continue to do that. But I am open to it.”

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15 comments on “Brawn welcomes Hamilton’s ‘expression of faith’ in 2021 rules”

  1. the new circuit in Vietnam has been specifically designed to create the conditions that promote spectacular racing and good passing moves

    Having watched the onboards multiple times, the only place where you’ll get overtaking is the mile long straight. The corners are horribly designed for overtaking. I think you’ll be able to add it to the list of terrible tracks.

  2. My idea for change: More ground effect. Bolt on complex front and rear wings for qualifying with freedom of design. Bolt on low turbulence simple front and rear wings for races with restricted design freedom. Harder non thermally sensitive tyres. Mandatory number of pit stops per race to force some in a race stops.

  3. Bring back tyre war, bring back refuelling and make less run off area. That would bring back the race excitement

    1. Anything but refueling. I think we have enough forced pitstops and would hate to have to go back to having more. Nothing worse than a racing flowing nicely and then the film crew decides we are going to watch a car travel at 50 mph down the pit lane.

    2. Refuelling kills on track overtaking. That is an undeniable fact.

    3. @normality78 What @geemac states below.

      1. I opt for refueling for ability to keep the weight down (smaller gas tank/lesser fuel to carry). That will also get rid fuel flow restrictions and enable push to max.

        That will also open for more different strategies as some may opt for more fuel, lesser stop or more stops but much faster pace to build gap

        1. @normality78, the thing is, that very rarely happened in practise – it was far more common for teams to converge on a fairly similar strategy for most races, since there was usually a single strategy that would be distinctly faster.

          For example, at places like the old Hockenheimring or Monza, you’d usually go for a single stop and a bit of tyre management because the tyre wear was not especially high and going for a lighter fuel load usually didn’t make a huge difference in pace: at venues which were a bit more tyre limited, such as Barcelona, you’d usually go for a two stop strategy.

          There really wasn’t a huge amount of strategic variation when refuelling was around, as most teams tended to run similar length stints and similar tyre strategies as a result. I note that you state you began watching F1 in 1994, and I wonder whether you might be biased towards that season because, being the first season where refuelling was reintroduced, there was more variety simply because the teams didn’t really know what worked best – after a couple of years though, most of that variety vanished because the teams then knew what worked best.

          The other aspect is that, when you needed around 200kg of fuel to complete a race back then, the difference in fuel load between a one and two stop strategy would be nearly double the magnitude of the difference now. As a result, the difference in fuel load then would have a more significant impact then than it would now, so I don’t think that it would create the sort of differences you think it would.

  4. Lol almost can’t believe what I’m reading. Paraphrasing…’we never get invited, never get to have our say, not for many many years, not wanted…’

    But then…’I LOST a whole day…I don’t know if I want to be there, maybe Seb can go next time…’

    Wow, just wow. Gee I guess he hasn’t missed not being asked after all. You’d think a ‘rare’ day like that would have been a gain, not a loss. Good thing we can trust Brawn to get the cars sorted. And anyway, what driver doesn’t want it to be easier to follow. It really all boils down to cars less sensitive to and dependent on clean air. Presumably totally different cars will require totally different (read better) tires, rim upsize aside. Those two things would take the cars a long way toward what most drivers likely want, not to mention F1 itself and us fans.

    1. Hamilton: Complains about the direction of the sport and wants more input.

      Also Hamilton: Complains that the meeting to provide such input took too long and was boring.

      Lewis, lots of us lose entire days in meetings we don’t really want to be a part of, but have to be. Welcome to the real world.

      1. Guess it depends if you go and feel no one wants the drivers there or cars to listen to their views. You can want to be there but feel it futile being there.

    2. Baffling indeed.

    3. Also got a kick out of that! Although I’m sure there’s no meeting on earth that has more red tape wrapped around it than an FIA legislating meeting.

  5. for a high speed driver a meeting let alone a whole day long meeting must feel like time is slowing down…but him expressing the length of the meeting is not realy important. his point was that its good they including the drivers that will b actually using the rules. and that driver input from other drivers besides him is equally important.

  6. Finally the drivers and GPDA are at least voicing opinions. For years we’ve just heard them saying that they are there only to drive the car…

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