Brawn defends token system: "One team already came forward with cooling problem"

For the coming seasons, Formula 1 has agreed with the FIA and the teams to freeze the development to a large part of the cars. Nevertheless, the teams will be given so-called 'tokens' in order to be able to make adjustments. Ross Brawn explains why to Motorsport-Total.com.

"The problem with freezing technologies was that there is one team that will change engine supplier before 2021. You can't ignore that. It's hard to prohibit McLaren from switching from Renault to Mercedes. So we had to find a solution in which this switch was possible."

And so in the coming years the teams will have the opportunity to make two adjustments to the power source or chassis per season. In addition to giving McLaren the opportunity to drive with Mercedes engines, it also gives manufacturers the opportunity to correct any errors. This should only improve the competitiveness of the engines.

"There is already a team that has reported a cooling problem with their car to us. They can't drive it like that for the next two years. The bottom line is that this is a good compromise," said Brawn, who admits that this solution is also due to the limited time they had to implement it. The corona crisis is forcing Formula 1 to be flexible at the moment.