In the wake of the stir caused by the dramatically narrow sidepod openings of the revised Mercedes W13 in Bahrain testing, F1 boss Ross Brawn has admitted it was not an interpretation Formula 1 considered as it was conceiving the new regulations.
Brawn, F1’s Managing Director, Motorsport, has always maintained that any designs which circumnavigated the aim of the regulations in improving the raceability of the cars will be liable to be outlawed – something he repeated again in Bahrain on Thursday.
He points out that with any such changes now only requiring an 80% majority team agreement (from changes in governance made in 2020), it would be feasible to make changes if it was considered necessary.
Brawn noted that the Mercedes design looked impressive.
“It’s a very extreme interpretation of the regulations, and I think there’s going to be a lot of inevitable debate about their interpretation,” he added.
“That’s what happens with new regulations: however hard you try to close off the options – and, believe me, we closed off hundreds of them – the innovations in F1 are always extreme.
“From our perspective, it’s largely about, does it affect the objective of the regulations? The teams want to be sure that no team has taken an interpretation which they feel is correct. I think there will be a lot of debate.”
As yet, it’s far too early to gauge whether the Mercedes sidepod interpretation in any way circumvents the intent of the regulation but if it’s perceived that it is conferring a performance advantage there could be claims from rival teams that it does in fact do so, even though that may not b e the true motivation. That’s a delicate line F1 and the FIA need to tread.
“In the past, we needed everybody to agree to a change in the season but now you can make a change with 80% of the teams agreeing as long as the FIA and F1 also agree,” said Brawn.
“So I think once the interpretation Mercedes has made has been understood, then we can get a balanced view on its impact and what impact it’s going to have.
“Spirit is such a grey area. At the end of the day, you have to go on the wording of the regulations. But that wording can be changed with an 80% team majority, we can change the wording.
“If something has slipped by, then the teams are aware that that can happen. So that could happen live during the season so we’ll have to see how this one plays out.”
