F1 faces "painful" period but will emerge stronger

Formula 1

F1 faces "painful" period but will emerge stronger

Ross Brawn believes the coronavirus crisis has "created an opportunity" for teams to be sensible over a budget cap

Ian Parkes

Sunday 12 April 2020 18:45

Formula 1's teams have been urged to brace themselves in order to get through a "painful" period and make the sport much stronger.

Further cuts to the budget cap are currently under discussion, with the hope that a figure of $125million can be agreed upon from its present $150million level.

F1's managing director of motorsports Ross Brawn has revealed the initial $175million was "higher than we wanted. I won't pretend it was ideal, but that's where it was".

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Brawn, though, believes the coronavirus crisis has "created an opportunity...for people to really take a second look at what's a realistic and sensible level of the budget cap".

Speaking in a Sky Sports F1 vodcast, Brawn added: "It's allowed us to renegotiate again with extra determination and extra commitment, and a statement that this is what we told you the budget cap was for guys, that when we have this crisis we can turn the dial down.

"We said that when it was introduced, and we're there sooner than we would have hoped or wanted, but we are there now and we can't ignore it. It would be irresponsible to ignore it.

"We've all got to readjust to these new levels. It's going to be painful, but the sport will have a future.

"I think, actually, we will come out of it in a much stronger place once we've been through this."

Brawn claimed that "fans want to see true competition, which is vital", and cited Manchester United - of which he is a lifelong fan - as an example.

"The fans want to go and see a Manchester United game, if they're not a Manchester United fan, and think their team has a hope of beating them, and occasionally they do," said Brawn.

"In Formula 1, you don't do that. No-one is going to win a race apart from the top three. We've not had a race winner outside of the top three for I don't know how long, and that's not ideal. That's not what we really want.

"So we want meritocracy, and we want the best teams to win, but we want more people to prove they are the best team."