Ross Brawn: ‘my dream is more Verstappens in F1’

You may remember Ross Brawn from such hits as winning world championships with Benetton in 1994 and 1995, six consecutive world championships with Ferrari and of course, winning the world championship in a Hollywood-esque 2009 season with his own team. So the man knows his way around a paddock.

He's now the new Motor Sports MD of Formula One, working with F1’s new owners Liberty Media, alongside CEO Chase Carey. And he is a man with a five-year plan. Speaking to Formula One's official website, Brawn pointed to the “fascinating” competition between Ricciardo and Verstappen, “with Verstappen obviously an exciting element of Formula One”. He wants to see a system that sees only the “best drivers in Formula One”. 

“My dream for this five-year plan is that we have more Verstappens in Formula One,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong,” he added, “there is a good standard of drivers in Formula One, but if we didn’t have the commercial requirements that some of the teams have regarding their drivers, we could raise the standard even higher. But to do that you have to remove the commercial dependency that small teams have on drivers.”

On Nico Rosberg, Brawn noted that it wasn’t “ideal” to have the current world champion retire. “From a sporting perspective, it is good to have the world champion on the grid as a reference,” he said. “But it is better that Nico retired if he felt that he didn’t want to face up to it anymore.”

For the full interview, head over here to F1’s official site. And just, for a moment, imagine a grid with more Max Verstappen-esque drivers...