Ross Brawn hopes to make F1 viable for small teams
Last year only 10 of the 11 teams scored prize money
By William Esler
Last Updated: 24/01/17 3:19pm
Ross Brawn hopes to make F1's revenue distributions more even to help secure the long-term futures of the smaller teams.
Brawn is part of a new three-man management team put together by F1's new owners Liberty Media, with the Englishman taking the position of motor sport managing director.
Last year only 10 of the 11 teams scored prize money and, having finished 11th, Manor entered administration during the winter.
"We need to find solutions where the small teams can stand on their own two feet and put up a good challenge to the hierarchy of Formula 1 and stand on their own two feet commercially," Brawn told Sky Sports News HQ.
"At the moment it is a big challenge for them, it is too big a challenge, and we need to find ways in future of having a healthy Formula 1 from top to bottom. Perhaps finding ways of making sure those small teams become an attractive and valuable element of Formula 1, not only on the track but as businesses."
However, due to contracts signed during the previous administration, changes could be slow to implement.
"We have a contract with the teams until 2020 so nothing is going to change substantially before then unless all teams agree," Brawn added.
Looking long-term is key according to Brawn, who is hoping to secure the future of F1 and give more back to the fans and race promoters.
"Sometimes you have a problem that you have to fix there and then, but too often we have made changes which have not had the effect they should have had and have not brought the benefit they should have had," he said. "We want to try and avoid that in the future.
"There is any number of initiatives we can take in Formula 1 and I have ideas and I have thoughts about what they could be.
"I am not ready yet to share those with everyone, but I want to share those with the teams and the FIA and start to develop and evolve a plan for the next three to five years in Formula 1 where we can look back in three to five years and say we are now substantially ahead of where we were in terms of the appeal of the sport and the way it interacts with the fans and what it gives back to the fans and the promoters."
