Brawn frustrated by teams' stance on shark fins

Formula 1's new managing director of motorsport Ross Brawn is frustrated by the 'shark fins' on this year's cars.

Brawn previously said that he wanted to review the new regulations that allowed the extra bit of bodywork. However it would take unanimous approval from teams to revise the rules before the start of the season. And that's not going to happen.

"Part of the sales pitch for these new rules was nicer looking cars," Brawn told Autosport magazine this week.

"We've only half achieved that haven't we, because we've got all these oddities - shark fins and T-wings and more bits.

"That's understandable with a new set of rules. But the next iteration has got to make sure that we don't, even if it's only for aesthetics."

Brawn added that the current situation was particularly frustrating given that teams had previously rejected the idea of shark fins when proposed by FIA president Jean Todt.

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"Todt has had this bee in his bonnet, which is valid in a way, to put the number on the side of the car so that the fan in the grandstand can see what car he's looking at,

"Not every fan is knowledgeable enough to recognise the helmet and all the rest of it," he pointed out.

"We came up with the shark fin, because that was the easy addition to put a big number on," he continued. "And half of the teams said we're not going to have that on our cars, that's terrible.

"It was tested. We had photographs and everything, and everyone said, 'that's horrible, we don't want that."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.