Brawn seems at ease: 'It's hard to find loopholes now'

New F1 regulations always create bandits lurking around the corner

When we think of F1 designers and loopholes in F1 law, we quickly think of Mercedes who in recent years not only had a very dominant engine, but also always managed to come up with an interesting system to overcome the smallest setbacks on the track and sometimes outsmart the opponent by as much as tenths per lap. One of the last great examples of this was the German racing team's DAS system.

With the introduction of the new technical and sporting regulations, Brawn believes there are always bandits lurking; teams trying to find loopholes in F1's new prevailing laws. The risk of a team finding something that is not properly explained in the laws and taking advantage of it is high. In 2009, the Brawn team with Jenson Button behind the wheel became champions by the same wave of insight and inspiration that came from loopholes in the regulations.

Brawn expects watertight regulations

Brawn is now on the other side of the game and says to The New York Times: "If it happens again like it did in 2009 it will have an extreme effect." Brawn says that he and a large group of people looked closely at the different possibilities in which the rules could be interpreted, "We even deliberately broke the rules in some areas to find out if there were any weaknesses in the regulations."

However, the Briton is quite comfortable with the rulebook that will be in place starting this year. Good research has been done, according to Brawn: "It's very difficult now to find loopholes." Still, there will always be a small amount of room for manoeuvre. In Bahrain, it will become clear which team has worked in the right direction. Ultimately, the equalization of expendable budgets will ensure that it is not the biggest team, but rather the smartest or most efficient team that is the fastest.