After the penalty imposed by Lando Norris at the Austrian Grand Prix last weekend, Brown fears that it will open a world in which tough races are no longer allowed.
And he fears above all that if Norris Perez had to give way just because the Mexican was next to him at the entrance to the corner, that would change the rules of the game completely.
In an exclusive interview with Motorsport.tv Brown said: “The alternative now is that you have set the precedent. All you have to do is get up next to someone and then they have to stop for you. And I think it will be very difficult to race like that. “
Brown said he still doesn’t understand why Norris was viewed as unfair in the incident, and said he hasn’t found many drivers who agree with the FIA’s stance.
“I thought that was nonsense,” he said. “I think, since I’ve been in racing, it’s been around 35 years now, if you drive past on the outside, certainly on the first lap, then it’s ‘Passer-Aware’.
“It’s been a great wheel-to-wheel race for 50 years. But you run the risk of running out of space at the exit.
“I thought it was a great, firm, tough race. And I think sometimes we have to let the drivers go. We have to make sure they do safe things and drive within limits.
Lando Norris, McLaren MCL35M
Photo by: Alessio Morgese
“But from everyone I’ve talked to, I don’t think there is a racing driver in the world who didn’t think that this was just a good, clean race. And if you pass or try to pass outside, you take that risk. “
Brown thinks there has been a creeping overregulation of racing in recent years that doesn’t add anything to the spectacle.
“Motorsport has been around for a long time and we didn’t have these penalties until recently,” he explained.
“In my memory of my years growing up with Formula 1 and all kinds of motorsports, the races were great, it was tough, there were incidents.
“But you know, those five-second penalties for not giving someone enough space, they didn’t exist 5/10/15 years ago and the race was fine, so I’m not sure why we had that “to somehow over-regulate the activity on the track.
“Of course, when someone does something dangerous [it is justified], but I certainly didn’t think it was dangerous. That was just a good race. “
Brown’s comments on the Norris incident are part of an important interview he gave Motorsport.tv about McLaren’s F1 season, as well as his involvement in IndyCar and Extreme E.
