F1 relief at "massive task" completion

Ross Brawn believes F1 has been taught lessons by Covid and the cost cap not previously imaginable that led to "closer competition" and "a brilliant season".

This year the sport managed to deliver a record-breaking 22-race campaign in the face of the ongoing pandemic, and with all 10 teams forced to work within a $145m budget whilst also focusing on the all-new 2022 cars.

The culmination was a title fight between two teams and two drivers that will go down as arguably one of the best seasons in F1 history.

Reflecting on the past campaign, F1 managing director motorsports Brawn said in an interview: "It's been a brilliant season, and pleasing in that we've created a great environment. The cost cap can't be underestimated this year.

"Covid, funnily enough, brought stability in that a lot of the designs were frozen on the car so they [the teams] couldn't change them and that's had a benefit.

"Of course, none of us wanted Covid but in freezing the cars, stopping the teams doing so much work, we've brought closer competition and it's taught us quite a lot of lessons.

"The teams were not allowed to change their monocoques from last year to this year, and they all suddenly realised they could quite happily manage without changing the chassis every year.

"But it's been a great year, we've really seen the benefit of the cost cap, we're seeing a very strong market evolve in North America, all our numbers are up.

"Every parameter we can check is strong, and we're very proud to have been the only international sport that commenced after Covid and we're able to travel around the world and leave places as we found them.

"We didn't leave any legacies where we travelled to, hopefully just enjoyment for fans, and that was a massive task and a credit to all the people in Formula 1 that we were able to do that.

"It's been a great, great period in Formula 1, and I'm really optimistic about the future."

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