Jon Noble

I think F1 would have loved it if all the drivers had come out and said, these regs are amazing.

This is fantastic.

I love this battery world championship.

It's brilliant.

They didn't.

And Max Verstappen started that ball rolling.

Others have spoken up and had some confidence.

And I think what he says does matter because it sets the...

sets the mindset of the fans as well, because what the drivers think is often taken on board by the fans as what they see and feel as well.

So I think getting Max into a happy place has been viewed as an important thing for F1.

And it's also, I think, quite fundamental that if you read about the FIA's approach to these rule changes, you read the press releases, that

There is an awful lot of references now to feedback from drivers, the dialogue with drivers, that the relation of the drivers has never been closer.

They've been listening to the drivers.

They want more impact, input from the drivers.

So I think Max is feeding into this quite a bit.

So what he thinks does matter.

And I think this is what's been shaping this move.

I think it would have been impossible...

to think if we'd gone into Melbourne, all the drivers were gagged and saying happy things about these regulations, couldn't complain about power limited pending and accidental overtakes and qualifying being terrible and your soul being sapped away as the car speed falls away.

We wouldn't have ended up in a scenario where potentially the 50-50 split that was the beacon of these regulations is effectively binned and trying to get shifted away for the start of next year.