Brawn expects interesting races in Austria and Silverstone
Despite Spielberg hosting two races on the same track configuration, Formula One’s motorsport boss Ross Brawn remains hopeful that the season-opening two grands prix at the Red Bull Ring will deliver an exciting start to the delayed 2020 F1 season.
Formula One presented the initial phase of the disrupted 2020 F1 season at the beginning of June with eight European races forming the start of the 71st running of the Formula One World Championship. The first eight races will take place on six different locations with the Red Bull Ring and the Silverstone track playing host to double-headers.
With the coronavirus situation showing only slow progress in the Americas where four races are scheduled to take place, the sport might stay in Europe for longer with arranging rounds on locations that were not part of the original F1 calendar.
During FIA E-Conference, Brawn said that he hopes the 2020 F1 season will get underway in an exciting way after the coronavirus-induced delay. He said: “I suspect Austria is going to be pretty exciting. [It’s the] beginning of the season, nature of the track there, everyone settling in, and I think we will find that we have two exciting races there without doing anything to it.”
Bahrain revealed earlier that it could host two races in December with the grands prix taking place on different configurations of the circuit located near Manama.
“One or two tracks later in the year have the added attraction they can run in a different configuration, so that might be an opportunity if we have a second race there to run the track in a different configuration and create some difference between the two races.
“There are some small things we can do with the selection of tyre compounds, and one or two other things, but I think they’re quite minor. [Reverse grids] were a bigger step,” Brawn added.
Ferrari’s former technical director has also revealed that different scenarios have been considered to create exciting racing at venues where two races take place, but all innovative ideas have been turned down in the end.
“We introduced the concept of a qualifying race, which was based on reverse championship order, and then that would take you through to the main event which would be the race on Sunday. We discussed that last year, and we had pretty good support for that, but not unanimous. And it’s been the same case this year. There have been some teams who haven’t felt that’s something we should be doing.
“Our concern was simply where we have two races at the same track, because of the situation this year. We’re going to have two races in Austria, two races in Silverstone, possibly two races later in the year at one or another of the tracks,” Brawn added.
