Brawn hits back at Wolff over reverse grids

Ross Brawn has hit back at Toto Wolff’s reasoning behind blocking the introduction of qualifying sprints and reverse grids for next month’s ’ghost races’.

It is believed Racing Point, whose owner Lawrence Stroll is now in business with Wolff in the Aston Martin project, joined Mercedes in blocking the move.

"Personally, I don’t understand why old ideas are being dug up again that have already been analysed and found to be misguided," Mercedes boss Wolff said.

"A fan survey carried out by Formula 1 itself found that only 15 percent of fans said they wanted to see reverse grids.

"We believe that the fastest man should win in the fastest car and that we should be very careful with these types of gimmicks," Wolff is quoted by German media.

He also thinks some teams will play strategic games with the reverse grid approach.

"Just imagine someone sacrificing himself in one race to start from pole in the qualifying race the following Saturday and then probably also being on pole on Sunday," said Wolff.

"Then a strategic game like that starts up."

However, F1 sporting boss Ross Brawn thinks Wolff is not being totally up-front about the real reason behind his decision to block the proposal.

"In the first instance, Toto was very frank and said ’I think I’m in a very strong competitive position and I don’t want anything that is going to upset the chances of me winning races’. And that’s his prerogative," he said.

"But since then, all sorts of things have come out as to why we shouldn’t do it. I still prefer to stick to his first reasons, which I respect, and I might even be the same in his position," Brawn added.