Brawn: Active suspension would spice up overtaking

Apr.13 - Allowing 'active suspension' could be a neat way to spice up the overtaking spectacle in F1.

That is the view of Ross Brawn, who is F1's new sporting boss in the new Liberty Media era.

In Australia, it seemed the faster 2017 cars had meant F1 has taken a step backwards in the overtaking department. But then in China, passing moves were shown to be difficult, possible and genuine.

Brawn said: "The goal must be that overtaking is basically possible but still difficult."

But he is concerned there will be more races like Melbourne in 2017, with the main problem being the way the cars currently create a big aerodynamic wake.

However, F1 is fundamentally stuck with the basic overall car concept until 2020.

"In the long run, we have to make sure that the wings don't create so much turbulence. But in the short term we need other ideas," he told Auto Motor und Sport.

One potential solution is bringing back active suspension, which in the purest sense was banned in 1993.

"The problem with following a car is that the balance changes," said Brawn. "That could be prevented with active suspension."

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Leopold

Leopold Pleijsier founded F1-Fansite.com in 2001 and has followed Formula 1 since the early 1980s. He writes about daily F1 news, race weekends, drivers and the sport’s history.

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