Brawn Expects More Exciting Racing in 2005

Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn expects the new tyre regulations to improve racing this season, with more on-track overtaking.

With the new regulations stating that cars can use only one set of tyres for both qualifying and the race, Brawn told Atlas F1 he believes the cars will be slower than last year when rejoining the race after a fuel stop, because they won't be carrying a fresh set of tyres.

"I think a more interesting thing that will evolve was that [last year] quite often a car, which was at the end of its stint, would try to race a car which just came out of the pits - which maybe had a lot more fuel on but had fresh tyres on - so it was impossible to overtake because that car, with high fuel but fresh tyres, was as just quick as a car with low fuel but worn tyres, and I wonder whether that will happen [this year] or not.

"When a car comes out of the pits, it will be carrying fuel but it won't have fresh tyres so it could be one to two seconds a lap slower than a car which is still on low fuel. So I think there is quite a lot of good opportunity for some better racing.

"We'd like to have a challenge, a likely new challenge, and I think this whole one race set of tyres will get frustrating at times. But for those teams which do it properly it will be a very interesting challenge.

"I'm very hopeful it's going be interesting for the public, because we're going to see a lot more overtaking during the race, and the end of the race will be interesting and exciting - if not more exciting than the beginning of the race."

Talking about pitstop strategies, Brawn told Atlas F1 he doesn't see a dramatic difference compared to last year.

"We're not completely sure how the strategies will work out until we'll start getting some experience with different tracks and sets of tyres that have been developed to suit this format, but I don't expect a dramatic difference in the number of pitstops that will be made.

"We'll still have one qualifying session with race fuel, which means that qualifying will therefore influence the amount of fuel we'll start the race with, so I don't think there will be many options where you go for one stop. I think two stops will still be the likely minimum number of stops, so I think again we'll have a series of two- or three-stop races."

Brawn further added: "The fuel tank won't be that different, because I don't see any race with only one stop. Maybe Monaco, but I don't really see any race where one stop is a practical option.

"Because qualifying is aggregated, maybe somebody else will do a fantastic qualifying then decide in the second qualifying they can carry the fuel, but I doubt whether they will have a sufficient margin for the first qualifying to be able to put that much fuel in the car for the second qualifying.

"This means you'll be making your fuel weight decisions for the second qualifying based on how well you've done in your first qualifying, so there is another element that's gonna come into it."