Reverse grids "treacherous water" for Formula 1 - Mark Webber

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Reverse grids "treacherous water" for Formula 1 - Webber

The idea could be resurrected for next season

Ian Parkes

Tuesday 16 June 2020 17:47

Mark Webber fears Formula 1 would confuse fans if it pushed ahead with reverse grid qualifying races at any point in the future.

Mercedes recently blocked a proposal to introduce reverse grids for this season, with motorsport boss Toto Wolff insisting it went against the meritocracy of the sport.

The plan was that with Austria and Silverstone hosting back-to-back events, the idea for the second race at each circuit was to stage a reverse championship order sprint race instead of regular qualifying to determine the grid for Sunday's main event.

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Despite Mercedes' veto, F1's managing director motorsports Ross Brawn has stated that while the idea is off the table for this year, it could be resurrected for next season.

Nine-time grand prix winner Webber insists he is "not a massive fan", and has warned Brawn and F1 to tread carefully with such potentially bemusing plans.

"Next we'll have weight ballast, balancing performance. How far do we go?" queried Webber on the F1 Nation podcast.

"I love entertainment, I love a good race, don't get me wrong. I like seeing one or two guys out of position, we all do. It's quite a novel thing to go through.

"If you want to look at budget caps, well, that's one way of putting it all through the roof, watching guys smash through each other coming back through the field. That would be chopping off your nose to spite your face.

"Let's be careful. For the people at home, and let's keep in mind now that converting new people to our sport, and continuing to have new customers for our sport, it's not the easiest sport to understand.

"I think if we confuse the customer, it's treacherous water really. I don't think you want to over-complicate things."

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