30/09/2020
NEWS STORY
Along with Mercedes boss, Toto Wolff, most drivers have poo-pooed Ross Brawn's suggestion that F1 give fresh consideration to the trialling of reverse grids.
While F1 bosses have been proposing the idea almost since the day Liberty Media bought F1 at the beginning of 2017, it was the events at Monza earlier this month that caused Ross Brawn to call on the sport to give fresh consideration to the idea.
"Monza was a candidate for a reverse grid sprint race when we were considering testing the format this year," he told the official F1 website at the time. "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.
"Of course, with a reverse grid sprint race, teams will set their cars up differently," he added. "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."
Along with many drivers, Toto Wolff was aghast at the idea.
"I don't think that we should mess with the format," said the Austrian. "We see racing series that have tried to change formats that have historically been understood by the fans, NASCAR and the Chase comes to my mind, and I don't think we should be messing around.
"This is not because I have a Mercedes bias," he insisted. "On the contrary, I like the variability and the unpredictability, and we will have races that will be very different such as the Monza race.
"But nobody wants a winner that has started from a reverse grid," he insisted. "I don't think we should be designing freak results where it is almost impossible to overtake, just because we believe that the pecking order should be a different one. This is a meritocracy, this is a sport where best man and best machine wins, this is not WWE where the outcome is completely random.
"If you want to do random, let's make it a show. But I think the core DNA of the sport is being a sport, and then an entertainment platform. It's not a show. It's not a reality show, it's not Big Brother, and I don't think we should be going there."
At Renault - soon to be Alpine - Cyril Abiteboul agrees.
"I believe that the reverse grid is a great opportunity for mixing things up and offering a show," said the Frenchman over the Sochi weekend, "but I still believe it's an artefact and we should have the ambition of offering exciting races without that artefact.
"We've had fantastic races this year, we've had fantastic races also last year with lots of things happening without reverse grid. We just need the field to be more competitive. I think that should be the focal point.
"If you have 20 cars within half a second, or a second, that will offer you a great show in my opinion - providing you have the opportunity to overtake. We don't' want to turn Formula 1 into DTM. So, I think that we are near enough 2022 not to have to use that artefact at this point in time."
"We've only just started looking at again," added Williams' Simon Roberts. "We had a look just over a year ago. Didn't do much work on it from that. We're just starting to model it now.
"It introduces some jeopardy," he admitted, "but there are two side to that. As Cyril said, the pace of the cars currently, we're not really sure how much difference it really makes on the feature races.
"It's early days. Things have already shifted, as Cyril said. The pace of the cars is different. We don't have the normal three at the top. We kind of reserve judgement and still want to study it in detail before we make any decisions on that."
Ever the contrarian, Christian Horner doesn't agree.
"I suppose it's conflicting in many ways," said the Red Bull boss, "the racer in your and the purist says it's absolutely the wrong thing to do and then of course you see a race a little bit like in Monza and that brings the point to the fore again, of mixing things up and obviously the best way of mixing things up is something like a reverse grid.
"That is artificial but inevitably, when you have the fastest car starting at the front of the race, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to work out that in many cases they will stay in grid order.
"So I think that Formula 1 shouldn't be scared of perhaps trying something different. If there was an occasion or a type of venue or an invitation race or maybe even a non-championship race, that something like that could be tried, it would be very interesting to see what the outcome of it would be because if you don't try something you never know.
"I think it's very easy that we get stuck into a rut of saying 'that's ridiculous, it wouldn't work'," he continued. "The purist in me says the same but sometimes in life you've got to try things and see what the outcome is and if that could be done in a manner that didn't affect the championship, because I can't see how you can have a different rule for one race to the other events, but maybe a non-championship race, an invitation race... We've got all these great new circuits that are pushing for races this year, that we won't be able to accommodate in future years but if one event was selected to try a different format, to try something totally different, what would we have to lose?"