Buzzin F1 - Formula One Blog

Ross Brawn believes the new rules for next season will allow a lot more possibilities for overtaking.

There will be new aerodynamic rules plus the ban on tyre warmers.  The Formula One cars are too have the downforce levels dramatically reduced to enable the drivers to run closer together and allow overtaking.

Mr Brawn said to autosport “The cars will have a lot less downforce than they do now so it’s definitely going to go back the other way.  And the feeling was that if we could have a higher ratio or tyre/mechanical grip and a lower ratio of aero grip then intuitively you think that would be much better for one car to follow another.”

He added “And the type of car we’re trying to have should mean the cars can follow each other.  And we have an adjustable  front wing so when a driver gets behind another front wing, he can adjust the balance of his car so he doesn’t lose the aero balance in the corner when he’s following another car.  There are a lot of reasons why it should be better but whether there’s a second or a third effect we’ve not anticipated, we’ll have to wait and see.”

Drivers will now face a difficult couple of laps after tyre changes until the tyres are up to temperature because of the ban on the warmers.  However, this has led to speculation that the teams will now try to save fuel and do less pit stops to avoid the tyre changes and losing time to cold tyres.

Brawn said “I don’t think that will happen completely.  I think there will be very interesting strategies because obviously when you leave the pits, you’ll have cold tyres and might not be able to defend against somebody who’s attacking you but imagine you’re being held up by a guy who’s on a long stint.  You come in early to get your fuel and tyres and get them up to temperature and the other guy comes in three laps later and has to change tyres, and if you stay in touch you’ve got the hot tyres and can attack him.  I can see lots of different scenarios,  I don’t think it’s as simple as saying ‘whoever goes longest is going to win’ - it won’t work like that.”

He added “And if tyres have a moderate degree of degradation, they’re getting slower all the time so there will be another imbalance there.  It’s going to be fascinating when you go out on the cold tyre, you’re going to have two or three laps of getting the things to work properly and you’ll be very vulnerable.  And people will be able to overtake.  And that’s what we want.  We see it a bit in GP2.  There’s potential for a lot more opportunity.”

Many of the drivers have already aired their views on the ban on tyre warmers.  David Coulthard, for example, has criticised the move saying he can see “another Senna situation”.

One of the main problems I can see, is when the cars are exiting the pit lane on cold tyres being much slower than cars already with tyres already up to temperature.  However, tyre warmers are not used in most of the other motoring series, it is left to the skill of the driver to get them up to temperature as part of the racing, so maybe, Mr Brawn is right.