Debate: Would Ross Brawn’s non-championship race help to fix F1?

Formula 1’s new sporting director Ross Brawn has outlined his first ideas for changing the championship in the coming years.

Brawn, whose official title is managing director, motorsports, was appointed by F1’s new commercial rights holder Liberty Media to take charge of the series’ sporting direction and shape its future rules.

The former Benetton and Ferrari technical director and Honda, Brawn and Mercedes team boss stated when the news of his new job was first announced that he wants grand prix races to be easier to understand, for the series to get a grip on costs, and keep traditional elements in place.

But in the time that has passed since then he has been able to start formulating ideas for changing the direction of F1 – nudging the “oil tanker” as he described it in an interview with Sky Sports that was filmed at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya during the first F1 pre-season test of the 2017 season.

Brawn explained that for the first time in his career he wants to see close competition between the teams, but wants to achieve that without resorting to artificial gimmicks.

He said: "If I'm honest, my objective for thirty years was not to have close racing and my objective was to compete at a level where nobody can beat me. I'm poacher turned gamekeeper now because my priority is closer racing."

"But we must not do it artificially and we must not penalise a team because they are doing an exceptional job. Someone has suggested that if a team is winning then they should have their development frozen until the rest catch up. The fans will just see straight through it and become disillusioned."

Brawn also explained that he wants to hire a team of engineers that he would task with creating F1’s new technical rules, which have previously been drafted from suggestions from the teams and agreed by the F1 Strategy Group and F1 Commission before being formalised by the FIA.

He said: “My plan is to build a small group of engineers and specialists who will be working under my direction and our task will be to try and bring a bit more logic and application to where the sport should head.”

During Bernie Ecclestone’s reign as F1 boss the championship had a reactive attitude to rule changes, which led to sudden alterations and turnarounds, such as the early 2016 qualifying debacle.

When asked about the possibility of shaking up F1 race weekends – and widely discussed idea to try and attract new fans and viewers – Brawn suggested that if such changes were to made he would be in favour of organising a non-championship race rather than trying out a new format during points-paying events.

He said: "I'm a bit nervous about that. When we change format we have to be very sure we have it right. My dream is a non-championship race once a year so that we could try a different format in that race.

"A non-championship race would enable us to vary the format and try something different - and evolve it. You can't take the risk of swapping a format in a championship race and not getting it right."

F1 has a history of non-championship races and the last one occurred at Brands Hatch in 1983, which was won by Keke Rosberg.

The idea of a non-championship F1 race is interesting and is a sign of Brawn’s promise to implement a longer term strategy than the series has had in recent years.

The thinking behind F1’s high-degradation tyres – which have been abandoned in the new-for-2017 rules – was that the entertaining racing created when the drivers found their Bridgestone rubber was wearing much more than they expected at the 2010 Canadian Grand Prix was what the series needed at each round as it led to more pitstops and overtaking in Montreal.

A non-championship race would provide the opportunity to find what would improve F1 events, and also what would not, without impacting a title battle.

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Lewis Hamilton, who was asked for his thoughts on Brawn's ideas after the third day of winter testing in Barcelona, explained that he thought the F1 weekend format did need changing and expressed his pleasure at Liberty Media's initial plans to improve the reach of the championship.

"That doesn't sound like a terrible idea - a new format is definitely needed for Formula 1. Thursday to Sunday has been the same for the last 11 years, since I've been here.

"It's great they are coming up with new ideas. The potential of Formula 1 is not reached in terms of global success, it's far from [reaching] it to be honest.

"I'm hoping with the help of everyone here these guys will be able to squeeze out that extra bit to take it to the masses. I don't know if it'll ever be as big as football, but closer to those guys."