F1 needs less consent from teams: 'The sport functions so much better'

Ross Brawn has decided to end his 46-year career in Formula 1. In his column for Formula1.com, he looks back on the changes he has helped make to make the sport, in his view, better.

Less consent needed from F1 teams

An important change has been made in the way F1 is governed, according to Brawn. The FIA now no longer needs consent from all teams to make changes: a majority of eight teams is enough to get things done in the short term. "With five teams and the FIA and F1, we can get things done in the long term," says the Briton.

He continues: "We don’t have the constraint of the old governance system and there are now lots of things we’ve moved in the right direction which has made this sport function so much better than it did before."

Among other things, the FIA and F1 managed to expand the number of sprint weekends, something not all teams were initially in favour of. This is partly to do with the budget, which can take a big hit if there is a crash in the sprint. Brawn himself thinks doubling the number of sprint races is a positive development.

A sprint race every weekend like in MotoGP?

"The sprint was an initiative which seems to have worked. We’re expanding to six sprints next year. I don’t know what will be the optimum number we will settle at long term. Some argue we should have it at every race," the former F1 director of motorsport continued. "We’ll see if that is how it evolves."

A taste of how that scenario would play out can be seen in MotoGP from next year. There, there were no sprint races yet, but the third free practice counted towards the qualifying set-up. The sport decided earlier this year to organise a sprint race during every GP weekend in 2023.