FIA president Jean Todt has warned Formula One's new owners against making radical changes to the sport.
Liberty Media completed its purchase of F1 last week and has already replaced Bernie Ecclestone with a new management structure at the top of the sport. Former Mercedes team principal and Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn has been put in charge of improving the sporting spectacle and, in an exclusive interview with ESPN, outlined his vision for the series.
But Todt is not convinced major change is needed, saying the new regulations for 2017 should be given a chance and that the recent domination by Mercedes is nothing unusual.
"I think, for me, Formula One is great," he told the Sports Business Summit in Dusseldorf this week. "The championship we enjoyed last year was a fight until the last corner. I think it would be the wrong message [to suggest F1 needs to be made much better].
"We need to have a sport which is unpredictable. Maybe sometimes people complain that the domination of Mercedes over the last years maybe creates some disinterest, but it is part of the history of Formula One. You have at the moment the domination of Mercedes, before that it was Red Bull, before that it was Ferrari, before that it was McLaren, Williams, Lotus -- it's part of the history. It happens in other sports too: look at athletics, look at soccer -- you have domination.
"If you want to stop the domination you need to be better. We need to congratulate Mercedes and hope that the others will be able to do something even better.
"There are new regulations this year and the idea is to have cars with more downforce, to have cars wider, quicker. I don't know what that will mean on track, but in my opinion we need to wait not for testing, which will start at the end of the month, but for the first race at the end of March in Melbourne.
"There is a lot of expectation and I'm sure that Liberty Media will allow different access through different means of communication, which could probably encourage new fans to get into Formula One. Of course, we [the FIA] will sit as a regulator and legislator of Formula One, with the new people and with the teams to see what should be the vision for the future to make the sport better."
Todt and Ecclestone did not always see eye to eye during their time at the top of the sport, but the FIA president hopes Ecclestone finds a new opportunity now that he is no longer running F1.
"Bernie had been doing so well at being the best dealmaker in Formula One, and now it's a new chapter and I hope Bernie will have some opportunities to do some great things," he added. "You have some new people who decided to change the chapter and are doing something else.
"When I stepped out at Ferrari [as team boss], I went to try to be elected as the president of the FIA and do something different. I already hope that Bernie is still fit, still has his passion and will do something else that will be good for society."