While a lot of F1 people are trying to figure out what Ross Brawn will be doing in 2015, he himself appears to be looking forward to going off to do some fishing, as he did in the gap between leaving Ferrari and joining Honda Racing F1, back in 2007. The only thing that does not really make sense in terms of his career progression is that at time he was moving up from being technical director to becoming team principal – and consequently team owner. That made his a fortune when Brawn GP was sold to Mercedes-Benz. Going back to a role of being a team principal is not really a forward step in his career. It would also involve a period of rebuilding which ever team he might join and then perhaps – if things went well – a few years winning more championships before retirement.
However, there are other opportunities that might present themselves, the most interesting perhaps being a job with the FIA, as some sort of F1 Commissioner. Jean Todt envisaged such a person in his election campaign back in 2009.
“We will appoint a new F1 Commissioner to work with all the stakeholders, including the Formula One Teams Association,” he said at the time. “We want to further develop F1 so that it benefits all those involved, from teams to fans.”
No F1 Commissioner was ever appointed, apparently because Todt struggled to find a candidate who would be suitable for such a difficult job. Instead the FIA adopted a softly softly approach in F1 which allowed Jean to deal with other problems, leaving the sport to look after itself. Some argue that the lack of any great FIA activity cleared the way for the Formula One group and the F1 teams to get themselves into a right royal pickle over governance, the future and just about everything.
When you look at what such a role would require, one cannot help but feel that Brawn would be well-suited to the task. He is pretty well respected around the F1 world and talks good sense about what is best for the sport. He has been there and done it himself and so he knows what he is talking about. He and Todt worked together successfully from 1997 to 2006 at Ferrari, winning a slew of titles before each went his own way: Todt to the FIA and Brawn to mastermind another pair of championships with his own Brawn GP in 2009.
The up-side of such a job would be that Brawn would be able to have a positive impact on the sport and, if at some point, there was to be a stock market flotation, a man in that position would have all the credentials required to become the CEO. One might even say that he could be “the next generation Bernie”…
joeblogsf1 
But wouldn’t it be fun if Ross teamed up with Ben Ainslie and Adrian Newey and took on the Americas Cup – that would be a challenge worthy of the man.
Is that before or after Michael Schumacher dons a tutu and dances with the Bolshoi Ballet?
I think the Bolshoi Ballet is just too corrupt and full of political intrigue for F1 folk 😉
I’m now waiting for this rumour to pop up as a serious news item on other websites…
That sounds a great idea for Ross. Everyone know him to be a good bloke and able to get the job done.
Let’s hope for F1’s sake, that this will become a reality.
Hmmm although you could see the FIA job as a ‘step up’ I don’t know if it would have the same appeal of working in a team, the competition element must surely be an appeal. This may bring a lot of stress but it comes with a massive reward in terms of achievement and satisfaction. I can see the F1 Commissioner job having the stress but not the competition/satisfaction, would he need that in his life?
I fear that we can only dream that such a sensible person would be in charge of F1.
Toto Wolff has shares in Williams to sell….Ross Brawn has tens of millions of ££££’s of his own money to play with….Williams F1 is a team that needs an overhaul…”BW Motorsport”…(Brawn-Williams Motorsport)….
People in F1 do not spend their own money to buy racing teams. Besides Toto Wolff owns only a small minority of Williams. That would give Brawn no control at all. If he was given shares and power – plus suitable guarantees that there would be sufficient money to do the job properly – then perhaps he might choose to go down such a route, but this man has already won the title with a team bearing his own name. So why step backwards when there could be a much interesting challenge ahead with an FIA role?
I am confused. Since when does a machinist by trade make a good manager, never in my dealings. I think that he is totally out of his scope as a manager as witnessed by being tossed aside for a more rounded intelectual from Cambridge. I am not sure FIA or Team Ownership/mamagement are really his strengths.
I think you may have been asleep for 30 years
Or a snob?
Maybe chaz has worked under RB? first-hand, and I don’t mean as one of his jobs-for-the-boys mates. The team Ross headed won, he didn’t win on his own. Past and present, the are several very successful team owners admired from the outside, but not from the inside.
There are key figures, highly respected in the pages of journalism, who are not good to work under – due to their lack of man-management skills.
If only Henry Ford had attended Oxford, he might have succeeded at something…
I also know engineers are terrible managers and financial people are terrible engineers. F1 has way too much money being spent to let an engineer or maybe engineer run it. It just seemed like Mercedes did not like how Ross ran the F1 business, he was not fond of spending more time running the team like a real business so they got someone who was better suited for the job. Why would he want to be part of the FIA bureaucracy.
Henry Ford was a machinist with a financial background. He did not engineer great cars but good affordable cars. He always looked at cost first.
You forgot to add a few “in my opinion” and “in my experience” disclaimers in your post. Obviously you don’t know anything about Brawn’s management skills, and there is no way you could possibly know that all engineers make terrible managers. A tip for the future, making sweeping generalisations covering millions of people based purely on your own experience of a few dozen makes you sound a bit arrogant.
chaz, take it from someone who has learned (maybe) the hard way: you gotta know when to put down the shovel and stop digging…
Ron Dennis?
Where does Brawn fit into all of that? It’d be the same situation as at Merc. With Symonds, Frank Williams and Claire Williams and then Brawn there’d be too many chiefs. If Brawn could buy it lock, stock and barrel then maybe. But that’s an awful lot of his retirement sunk into an F1 team which may or may not succeed.
F1 people don’t use their own money to buy teams.
Isn’t that what Alain Prost did? And lost a packet as a result?
Joe – I don’t know if I am reading my own interpretation into this, but it appears from what you’re saying that Ross would only stay in F1 if he was able to take an upwards step up the ladder, rather than being a team principal or technical director, both of which he’s done before. To your knowledge is this actually the case, or is that just your own general feeling about the matter.
Brawn left Ferrari for a few reasons, the principle (pun not intended) being that he was not going to be promoted to the role of Team Principle, and he knew it. He has no reason to be TD again. I respect Joe’s insight to these matters and trust his instincts when he says Brawn doesn’t see a return to ownership/Team Principle as a challenge he must undertake again. In 10 months time, I think we’ll see Brawn in an FIA shirt as predicted here…
I certainly remember him (on more than one occasion) pointing out that a loop-hole the could be exploited exists and that it is bad for the sport. Then once nothing was done about it, exploiting it for himself. Perfect example of him being right for that job. Knowing what is right for the sport but still doing his vest within the regs.
He would be great.
While I agree that Ross would be ideal for the role you envisage, it is possible that a genuine and high paid position may become vacant if things do not go well for BE in the near future.
I think Ross would be good at maximising shareholder value for the suits, while being pragmatic with the FIA and banging collective heads of the teams.
BE has done a great job of selling the values of F1. Ross would be perfect for bringing back its credibility and ethics.
I like the idea of his running the F1 COmmission or the sport as a whole. He seems like a highly capable manager but with scruples.
You have not been watching the sport for long then…
I wish they had an official Smokey Yunick Award… engraved with the phrase “All those other guys were cheating 10 times worse than us, so it was just self defense.”
If there is any set of rules for trophies, the one named for him should outsmart it…
Perhaps GP+ could create such an award?
Let your colleagues in the media center nominate and vote… it would certainly get ample smiles… and attention!
What does this mean? Are you suggesting he’s not a good manager? Or did I miss use the word “scruples”? (I think it’s the latter)
Believe it was too!
If you mean he will screw any loophole for an advantage over everyone else, by scruples, Well then he certainly has them.
Another definition of scruples could be “things that prevent success in F1”.
Brawn is successful.
This is F1 we’re talking about. Brawn would not be the first to take advantage of oversights or ambiguities in the regulations. Gordon Murray built a car that was clearly illegal whilst out on the track at racing speeds but was perfectly legal standing still – the state in which it was measured. Don’t even get started on water cooled brakes.
” He is pretty well respected around the F1 world ” … which also, I venture to suggest, knows of a few supposed shadows in his past. However, poacher turned gamekeeper, perhaps …
Well it worked for Charlie…
I really don’t see him in a “Bernie” type of role. While he did briefly own his own team he hasn’t spent much time in commercial roles in F1. He’s an engineer through and through and could very likely do some work for the FIA before he ultimately goes back to Ferrari to sort out their ongoing mess. HAHA, how’s that……?
Brawn is a highly competitive animal – he’s not interested in some ‘quasi-FIA-admin-overseer’ role and I doubt he’ll want to be the next ‘Bernie’ either…
And you are his next door neighbour? AS drinking partner? Someone who actually knows him? Or just someone who has an opinion based on nothing in particular?
I know a few people in F1 / FIA-circles…my sister is PA to Graham Stoker for example…
And so you know all about Ross Brawn…
I know enough to know that he won’t be working for the FIA…
We will see.
Looks like I was right after all….
About what?
Have you ever met Ross? If the answer is no it would be a bit arrogant to tell someone who has (many times) that he is wrong, don’t you think?
As I said…he won’t be working for the FIA…arrogance has nothing to do with it.
You cant possibly know that for certain.
…because being “the next ‘Bernie'” wouldn’t be competitive??
I think the point is this, engineers in F1 tend to be only interested in engineering and have very little patience for those who are into the commercial aspects of the sport.
I seem to remember Ross being very comfortable explaining engineering problems…but hopeless at dealing with any politics…
Perhaps he could be the Sky technical correspondant? Gary Anderson’s enemy?!
Or…with more than enough money in the bank and a long career of success, the Bahamas would be a better idea.
I thought it was common knowledge that Michael Schumacher used ballet training methods. Ballet dancers are hard as nails and have massive upper body strength. They can lift a woman above their heads in one swoop and glide around a stage making it look completely effortless. Can you do that with your partner?
Being a mere 6 stone weakling myself the nearest I ever came to this peak of fitness and strength was as a student in my late teens working for Victoria Wine in Purley as a driver, dogsbody. (It was here that I was taught the art of the downhill four wheel drift in a heavily laden Austin J2 van, something I would have thought impossible, a rollover being far more likely) When I started there I could barely lift a 12 pint crate of beer, but at the end of the summer I could throw it on top of a stack 8 feet high. Thus if not ballet training, then all drivers should work for an offie. Never mind all yer personal trainers 🙂
Anyway I would just love to think that Ross can do it all again, Honda are re-joining as engine suppliers in 2015 Will they also field a team? Who would they buy? History could repeat itself most gloriously. Toyota should be thinking about joining too as they are probably the most advanced in hybrid vehicles.
Could Ross go to Formula E? A new technical challenge, a pity they did not get the rules right, having car changes instead of battery swaps and it does not appear to be on telly in the UK, else it has been kept a secret.
lol at the downhill 4-wheel drift!
hope toyota rejoins but cant see it happening. super aguri is in electro f1, but there is still one more place so you never know.
for some reason i see this competition as one for the nerds, putting together solar panels linked to 100s of car batteries, but of course it is much more than that. just boring is all…but good on you to the participants and their enthusiasm. ambitious design, promotion and concept. just lacking that tingling feeling we all first felt when we heard those internal combustion beasts wailing at the limit.
in reality it really was almost comical to watch lucas di grassi try and psyche himself up. “but at just 25% of the power, it will be amazing at full development”, or something along those lines. and we thought the 2014 turbos were wheezy lawnmowers…they must have had mics strapped to the flywheels
i digress! look what you made me do rpaco, actually thought you were serious about ross to f-e for a second. man, i’m easily provoked!
ross to fia though, makes sense. he’s wealthy, so doesn’t need a paycheck, and is well aware of the grey areas and how teams exploit them. would be good for the teams too, to have someone who can empathise with their positions. also gives him an opportunity to put his cunning to good use.
He successfully argued the bargeboard issue, managed to fully exploit double diffusers and got away with a mid-season tire test, so I’d say he knows a thing or two about politics.
Actually, the FIA told him how to argue the bargeboard case so that Ferrari would not be excluded from the results and McLaren win the championship by default, rather than on the track. And anyway the real problem was not the bargeboards but hidden traction control which the FIA knew but could‘nt. prove. The scrutineers were doing their job correctly but it did‘nt suit Max and Bernie. I can’t remember who was responsible for Ferrari having illegal traction control ….
I think he is a past master at the well-known post hoc process known as “asking for forgiveness”…
Absolutely! Brawn is not just a technical guy. He’s the complete package – mechanics, management, politics…what more could one ask for in F1?
agree he has talked his way out of some difficult technical minefields, in front of some heavy hitters, but i don’t think that was a mastery of politics, rather a mastery of talking your way out of detention after school, or an ethics committee convened to discuss your code of conduct.
running f1 is major, major league, much nastier than public, private politics and i just cant see ross having the cunning and multiplicity that is required to run f1 today. duplicity on occasion, but divide and conquer amongst all the stakeholders n f1? that is a massive leap! cannot see ross doing that.
not that divide and conquer should remain the status quo, it is only that the incumbent is the master of said stratagem, and most believe any replacement requires at least approaching that masters skills. come to think of it, when he is gone, how in hell are all these bandaids going to stay adhered?
any cvc-nominated replacement will be a super ceo, or committee, and the first thing that they will want is a bindng, multilateral agreement signed in one document by all concerned, ala the original concorde. oh dear, i dont even want to think about it…so cvc can forget about any ipo dreams should bernie end up in cuffs…true catch-22. the only exit for cvc is a minted sovereign/ pension fund, and they would need the body-formally-known-as-FOCA’s support to do so. well at least ferrari’s anyway! however bernie exits f1, i cannot see any outcome that does not involve more power to the teams.
So could this somehow explain or link the fact that the FIA only gave Mercedes (with Brawn at helm) and Pirelli only a reprimand
No.
If Ross Brawn decides he wants a new technical challenge how about Formula E? It is probably a vast step down but if he wants to have a technical play it would seem more likely than Americas Cup.
He’d be a masochist to dive into that rat hole. Certainly he has enough money and a year off might show his options don’t include the chaos of F1?
My overriding feeling about Ross is that he’s fair, tough, clever, honest, and tends to behave as a “Gentleman”. He has been one of the largest influences on F1 as I’ve known his Superb name and reputation since when he started.
– It’s sad he’s not in the Sport next year but all that flying (and you Joe have given me a new understanding of the drudgery of flying) and a life of standing around paddocks has not done his figure much good. A year of fitness and properly caring about his health (and his wife who I believe has been unwell) is what’s needed just before 60 – not instant thoughts of a new job and there is a massive world out outside F1 waiting to be explored and –
– Best Wishes Ross and if it turns to a more Relaxed Retirement then ……Enjoy !
You were not a race fan in the 1990s…
Your superior inside knowledge will always better my “Feelings” Joe of perhaps Ross being more ruthless and cut-throat than we tend to see or be portrayed in the press or on TV……………. Somehow I seemed to get the feeling (but of course, I could be wrong) that your heart just wasn’t in reporting Korea this year Joe ???
My heart is in F1 wherever I go.
Joe, I like your reasoning and there is also an element of “set a thief to catch a thief” in there? After all, Ross has seen more than a few regulation “avoidances” from the inside! One would never accuse him of being a vindictive fellow, but can also imagine a few F1 Supremo’s that crossed swords with him in the past, fervently hoping that he will have a short memory if he takes on an FIA role. It could be huge fun to see it play out – though secret diplomacy will no doubt stifle any hope of us being flies on the wall!
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Joe, do u think the writing is on the wall for Stefano Domenicali if Ferrari does not manage to deliver a respectable performance next year? If so (granted that it’s a step down the career ladder) could Ross be back at the helm? Surely next season is a do-or-die for the Prancing Horse…if they struggle, Alonso could leave the team…
You never know with Ferrari.
If Alonso would switch teams after next season without being fired, it would be a breach of contract. He’s done it once, doing it twice would ruin his reputation completely. Especially now, since people start to realise that Vettel is probably the same ‘most complete driver on the current grid’ package that Alonso is, such a move could be very bad for the future of Alonso’s career.
In F1, a contract is nothing more than the starting point of a negotiation…
Well said Joe…
@banteamorders – no driver of world championship calibre is expected to keep dragging himself in an noncompetitive machine. Sometimes a driver may have to leave earlier than expected, and in cases where the paddock knows the reason why the driver has left, it hardly affects his reputation.
Aside from the fishing, I seem to remember a few years back, seeing an interview with him in his back garden at home? He was pruning his roses; fine looking ones as well; evidently a keen gardener as well as being a fisherman. Have lot of respect for RB. I hope he’s not lost to the sport and finds something in the future worthy of his achievements and experience.