Formula 1’s Ross Brawn has pledged to push for reversed-grid races to be introduced for 2021 to repeat the “drama” of the Italian Grand Prix.
AlphaTauri driver Pierre Gasly scored his first F1 victory at Monza on Sunday, holding off McLaren’s Carlos Sainz Jr with Racing Point driver Lance Stroll completing the first podium without a Mercedes, Ferrari or Red Bull driver since the V6 turbo-hybrid era began.
The shock result emerged as a result of Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton having to serve a penalty, his team-mate Valtteri Bottas and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen having poor starts and running down the top 10, while the lack of competitiveness of this year’s Ferrari has removed that team for the lead battle already.
Brawn had lobbied for a Saturday qualifying race during the second weekend at venues hosting two races this season, in which the grid would be set by reversing the championship order and the result of this race would set the grid for Sunday’s grand prix.
“Monza was a candidate for a reversed grid sprint race when we were considering testing the format this year,” said Brawn in his official Italian GP review.
“Unfortunately, we could not move forward with it, but the concept is still something we and the FIA want to work through in the coming months and discuss with the teams for next year.
“We believe that yesterday’s race showed the excitement a mixed-up pack can deliver and with next year’s cars remaining the same as this year our fans could be treated to the similar drama we saw this weekend at Monza.”
Brawn had the majority of teams’ support earlier this year but the proposal required unanimous approval to go ahead in 2020 and that was not achieved, so it was dropped.
But Brawn insisted it was still on the table for 2020, and while nothing has changed in terms of F1’s willingness to pursue the format there is a crucial development in terms of its governance structure.
As reported by The Race earlier this year, the new Concorde Agreement means the rulemaking process is no longer the same.
F1 now has a majority-based process in which there are 30 votes cast across the championship, FIA and 10 teams and even a so-called ‘super majority’ of 28 would likely be achievable given the rulemakers support the premise and all the teams except Mercedes and Racing Point did too.
For F1 to pursue this idea seriously the stakeholders would need to discuss a sensible framework around which teams could approach two very different races on the same weekend.
The Italian GP’s unexpected result was partly facilitated by the Mercedes drivers not having cars set up to run in traffic.
Bottas had to manage cooling issues in the pack while neither could make routine passes in the DRS zones as they were running more wing than their opponents.
Brawn said that would be a slightly different situation in a world with reversed-grid races as teams would set their cars up to overtake, knowing they are starting in the pack.
“Of course, with a reverse grid sprint race, teams will set their cars up differently,” he said.
“Right now, Mercedes set their cars up to achieve the fastest lap and then to control the race from the front.
“If they know they have to overtake, they will have to change that approach.
“We will continue to evaluate new formats with the aim of improving the show but always maintaining the DNA of Formula 1.”
