F1 Managing Director Ross Brawn went back on his initial verdict of the new regulations, saying that 2022 may not be as closely contested as he thought.
2022 will see new regulations introduced into the sport. There will be changes made to the aerodynamic rules, meaning cars will be able to do wheel-to-wheel-racing and overtaking more often and with greater ease.
As a result, it was predicted that there would be very intense and close racing in the upcoming season. The midfield and the rear end will be able to take the fight to the top teams, at least on paper.
However, Brawn went back on his initial verdict of the new regulations, saying that in the beginning, there may be a tier list.
As quoted by GP Fans, when asked in an interview with The New York Times whether he was happy with the outcome of the regulations before the season begins, Brawn replied, “I’m very happy, yes. We’ve made real progress. It’s a platform for the future.
“There may be a little bit of disparity in performance when we start off because everyone’s going to come up with different solutions, but I think once we’ve settled down, this will be a much better platform for the cars to be designed around.”
Space to work with
“We had a comment when the regulations first came out that they thought they were too restrictive,” Brawn explained.
“But gradually that eased when they (the designers and engineers) explored the opportunities. The feedback we now get is the cars are probably going to look a little bit different.
“I think as long as we are able to control the critical areas and we don’t see any strong deviation in those areas, then we can allow that variation that’s great for Formula 1.
“If we see there are solutions that we haven’t anticipated, we’ll get back into our program and see what effect it’s having,” he concluded.
Read more: Brawn happy to see the last of 2021 F1 cars – “They weren’t very good for racing”