How can F1 be more appealing to fans, still be of interest to car manufacturers and keep its teams in business? Maurice Hamilton quizzes Ross Brawn on his plans for the future of F1 in the first of ESPN's two-part exclusive interview with F1's new managing director of motorsport.
Ross, you were away from Formula One for three years. From a distance were you able to look at it and see things that perhaps you wouldn't have seen if you were in it? Do you think it's the case that people in Formula One are actually too close to it to see its faults?
It's a very good point and I think it was one of the motivations for me to get involved again, because with that distance, watching races on the television rather than being on the pit wall and seeing all the information, I realised that we do Formula One a bit of a disservice. You know I was deeply involved in strategy and the way the races work, but I would sit there on a Sunday afternoon and watch the race at home not knowing what the hell was going on!
And if I can't understand it and I was having to get my laptop out to look at the times and who had made a pit stop and so on and so forth ... and I know that can be a very interesting element of a race, but I started to believe that what you should be able to do is pick up a race at any stage and know what's going on. If you have got to follow a race from lap one to the very end and you've got to work out every nuance then we are getting a bit complicated. So certainly that period away, for me, made me realise that we do need to step back and look at the races and see what the fans are seeing. If you're at a circuit and you haven't got access to that information, if you're a fan in the grandstand, it must be difficult.
Is that not a product of our time because Formula One is more technically complex than ever before? How do you make it simpler if you can't avoid all the technology they have and the banks of people with keyboards in the back of the garage? How do you lessen that?
Well, I've got to get into this now, if I'm honest. I've obviously had lots of thoughts over the last few months about this topic -- when I started doing some consultancy for Liberty it started me reengaging again.
I want to talk to a lot of people and see how we can progress this, but I think there are different levels where we can offer Formula One to different types of enthusiasts. We can improve the access to the information that the real enthusiast needs to look at all the detail, but we have to go back to the point where the guy who turns up to a circuit on a Sunday can follow a race without the need to access a laptop and so on and so forth.
The tyre strategies are complex, there are different compounds, and unless you know what compound one car's on and how many pit stops they've made and where they are and work out the gaps and know how long a pit stop takes and you can work out if he's in the window and all the rest of it, then it's difficult to follow. I think that side we can make simpler and then the technology we can start to give access to fans who want to explore that side as well. Why not try to create the whole spectrum of appeal of Formula One. I think the technology is great, but it doesn't appeal to everyone -- in the same way that the fans of any other sport are all at different levels. We need to create that tier for people to choose where they want to enter Formula One as a fan.
You're, in effect, talking about a sea change in the way Formula One thinks because of all this secrecy that the teams have. What we really need to do is get that information out there, but I suppose if they are all doing it then it's the same for everybody...
Well, I hope so. I think the thing that I would like to achieve is to engage with everyone on this and if we do it over a sensible timescale when nobody is disadvantaged, then I would have thought that everyone would see the benefits to the sport of that approach. I don't have all the answers, but I want to work with the teams and the broadcasters and different partners in Formula One and try and find the answers. I guess what I'm advocating is at least a process to start that happening. It's not really been done before, it's been crisis management when we suddenly decide we've got a drama and something is not working -- there's a team dominating or there's a report that viewing figures have dropped -- and suddenly we have to change things. I never worked like that in the race teams I was in, I started the process and just constantly kept that process going so the thing kept improving.
Every decision that's made in Formula One in the future, I hope, will take account of what we are giving to the fans and how we look from the outside as well as what we are doing inside. We as a commercial rights holder, and in my position, every technical decision, every sporting decision, I'll be there saying 'What effect does that have on the show, what effect does that have on the fans' enjoyment on Formula One'. Okay, I know what it does for the engineers and I know perhaps what it does for the drivers or whoever it is, but let's start that process so that every time a decision comes up, part of that process and consideration is 'what does it do for the show and for the fans?'.
To do that you have to be, as you are aptly named, the managing director of motorsport, which is a new role that we are not accustomed to. When you were running Ferrari, Benetton and running your own team, would you liked to have had a managing director of motorsport? Would you have liked to work with someone who is doing what you are proposing to do?
On that side of the sport, yes I would. That's what was so appealing to me in this position. Bernie [Ecclestone] has done an amazing job but he has been very autocratic in the approach he's taken and looked at it from a certain perspective. Can we look at it from a few different perspectives now? Maybe we won't be as strong at doing what he was able to do, but maybe we can be stronger in other areas and hopefully take the sport forward.
Let's say you agree on a certain route you want to follow, will you be able to implement that with the FIA and are you confident that if you find what you hope will be a solution you will be able to carry it through? First of all, there won't be one single solution that makes Formula One great, it will be a process and culture and philosophy. The FIA are the regulators and have to make sure the sport is run fairly and safely, and of course they will have their ideas about what can be done to develop the sport, you have the teams, whose priority it is to compete, and then you have the commercial rights holder, ourselves, and we want to have a more consistent say in how good the show is and how the sport is shaped to make it as appealing as possible to the fans and the promoters and the broadcasters. We are going to have a more consistent input into that process. We can't do it ourselves, if these groups say no then we can force it through and there is no mechanism to say 'that's going to happen', but if we can present good arguments and keep consistently pushing then I believe it can improve.
The future of F1's engines
You've mentioned the word "show" a couple of times, but do you think there's an argument that Formula One should be relevant to road cars? Because that seems to be a way we've gone with the current formula, particularly with power units.
I think we are at a bit of a crossroads. Cars are developing more quickly at the moment than probably any of us can remember. We've got hybrids, full electrics, we've got fuel cells and we've got autonomous cars, self-driving cars. I've got a car now, which doesn't let me, but I could take my hands off the wheel on the motorway and it will keep going perfectly happily, watching the lanes and controlling everything. Clearly that's not what we would want in Formula One, so are we reaching a stage where those things are starting to come apart? If we say Formula One has to align itself with road cars, then logically we end up with an electric car that drives itself, and nobody wants that in Formula One. We have gone partway into the hybrid route, and they are fabulous engines in terms of the technology, but I want to engage with the manufacturers and get their views on what is the racing engine of the future.
They must all recognise that if we just keep aligning ourselves, we are going to end up with an electric car and I don't think that's what Formula One needs to be. But I don't have the solution. I'm not saying we should go back to where we were because that would be a shame if we just went back to where we were five years ago because these engines are amazing pieces of technology -- and I think that is another thing we didn't sell very well, how much they have achieved. But I don't see how we can carry on on that path, so I want to sit down with the manufacturers and understand what their objectives are, because they invest a huge amount in Formula One, and see what the path is with the engines in the future. It's another key element.
Aren't the manufacturers, such as Renault and Mercedes, likely to say that they have to justify the budget they are putting into F1 by relating it to road cars? Is that not the reason they are there?
I think R&D is definitely one of the justifications for why some of the manufacturers are there and we respect that -- we have to find a solution somewhere. But I don't believe any of them can genuinely sit there and say we should continue to follow the technology of road cars, because we know where that is going to end. We know that can't be where Formula One wants to be, with milk floats running around.
The noise is part of the emotion and it's one of the more constant feedbacks we get, that the noise and passion has disappeared, so what can we do to regain that? Maybe we can't, maybe with the way we've gone we will have to live with that and find some solution. I think it's a very important debate over the next period, but we have to respect the amount the manufacturers have invested in Formula One and the engines. It's huge investment and not that sort of thing you can write off.
Cutting costs
The manufacturers are also likely to say to you, 'is there any way that Formula One can have a situation where it's easier for more teams to win and where we don't have a period of dominance?' Now, you know all about that from Ferrari at the beginning of the 2000s, is there any way to change that so we can a more fluid competitive order?
What we still have, and undoubtedly what we will have with these new regulations, is a pretty steep performance against investment slope. It's still there so that the more money you put in, the faster you go. Of course, to keep the gap down as narrow as possible you want that as flat as possible -- you can pour the money in but you won't get the rewards.
The return on investment, in terms of performance, is still steep, so the more money you invest the faster you go -- as long it's done properly like when you get a competent team like Mercedes doing it then that's what happens. What we really need to do is reduce that slope and find ways within the technical regulations of rewarding less for heavy investment. That's the concept, achieving it is more difficult.
But again, this idea of this process going on all the time, of chipping away and getting back to where we want to be, there won't be one solution where we can say 'if we do that we can halve the slope'. But every decision that's made, we have to take that into account. Are we giving more scope for heavy investment to go further or are we reducing it? We just need to keep thinking about it and making sure that all the discussions that happen are going in the right direction to pull the slope down.
Budget caps have been discussed. People say that they don't work, but they have never actually been tried. There was a voluntary budget cap or resource restriction that didn't work because not everyone volunteered to it in reality. So that is never going to work if you have got some of the teams doing it and some of the teams not. I would still like to have a discussion about budget caps and control and see where people stand on that and if we feel it could be a solution. That, for sure, would then bring a limitation to what people can do. But maybe it's nirvana, maybe that is something that can't be achieved because of the range of teams in different countries and all the different considerations. I'm not saying that we have to have a budget cap, but I think we should certainly discuss it because that does address many issues. But you've got all the nuances to it because do the drivers come into the budget cap or not and so on and so forth. A huge amount of debate went on a few years ago and I think that could be picked up again to just see if that is a solution that could work.
Then, of course, we've got the issue of the distribution of funds to the teams, which we can't do anything about now because we have contracts with the teams and there is no proposal to change that, but they are coming up for renewal in 2020 and we need to look at that and see if there is a better way for Formula One overall to distribute the funds. My personal view is that a healthy Formula One is where there is a good stock of teams that can stand on their own two feet, not be manufacturer teams, not be funded because there is a different set of objectives, but the Williams, to some degree McLarens, Force Indias and Saubers -- so those teams can stand on their own two feet in a respectable way and put up a decent job. If those teams spend far more money than they have and go bust then we can't stop that, but you want to get them over the breadline so at least if they do a sensible job with good management then they are going to have a good business and the businesses are going to be attractive and we are going to get new teams in.
Attached to that is young drivers having to bring money to get into F1. Would you like to see a way of having a meritorious system whereby if you're really good you get in?
Absolutely, yes. It's a legacy of the fact that the smaller teams need drivers with funding to balance their books. The ideal situation is the smaller teams are the nursery grounds for young drivers to come through, and maybe even a compulsory nursery ground where you have a draft pick system, so that the guys coming through then have to drive for a small team for the first season of their career before they then have a move up to the top teams.
If you could imagine a scenario where we have Formula Three, Formula Two and Formula One, to have those championships as the path you have to go through to get into Formula One and you have to be in the top number of each championship to get your pass to go into Formula One, you would again start this process of having the best drivers in Formula One. You may have to look at some other formulae that qualify for F1, but those races could be taken around with Formula One so the fans get to know these young drivers. On a Sunday morning there would be a Formula Three and Formula Two race and the fans see those young drivers and start to engage and they see them coming up so that then, great, they get their chance in Formula One. That would be a wonderful way of broadening the entertainment, engaging with the young guys coming through and making sure that we only had drivers on merit in Formula One.
Check ESPN tomorrow for Part Two of the interview, in which Brawn talks about overtaking, blue flags and the relationship between FOM and the FIA.