Brawn success has old team's DNA

[John S]

Ross shows us his modest side as well as talking up the old Honda outfit in this interview, It's no wonder he has turned things around. Man and resource management from the top drawer.

Ross Brawn says no major changes to his team's technical staff were needed in order to turn its fortunes around this season.

Brawn joined Honda Racing as team principal last year to try and revive the Brackley-based squad's hopes following years of underachievement.

Brawn completed a buyout of the team this year after Honda decided to pull out of F1 at the end of last year.

The team decided to focus all its efforts in the 2009 season last year and, after a very poor 2008, the outfit is now the team to beat.

Despite the change in performance, Brawn says no big changes have been needed to become a winning team.

"Well, I haven't made huge changes and that was the case when I went to Ferrari," Brawn said after Button secured his second consecutive pole position in Malaysia.

"There was some strategic changes, there are two or three people that have come in, but the technical office is fundamentally the same. It's just helping people with direction and helping them gain in confidence that there is no one out there doing it that differently to what they are doing.

"And if you have confidence and do the job properly then you can succeed as well. So no we haven't made any dramatic changes to the technical group. There is one or two areas where we were weak and we've brought people in, but it has not changed radically.

"And I think in some ways people were a bit surprised by that because I think they expected me to come in and turn the place upside down, but what I found was actually quite a good organisation. Quite good standards and a lot of capable people so there was no reason to turn the organisation upside down, it just needed a bit of direction in places."

Brawn said the BGP 001 car is the result of team work, not a designed pencilled by a single person.

"It's a team," he added. "There is not a Rory Byrne at Brawn GP. There are two or three key people who work together to design the car. People in aerodynamics, people in vehicle dynamics, people in chassis design.

"So it's a group and I think perhaps that's the way Formula 1 needs to go because the Rory Byrnes and the Adrian Neweys aren't around anymore, so you have to work differently."

By Jonathan Noble and Pablo Elizalde Autosport.com

[lkjohnson1950]

I still wonder how much difference the Mercedes Engine/tranny package made. No doubt it's a well designed car but if Honda's engine really was down on power then a small bow to Merc is in order.

Lonny

[Willy]

I agree with Lonny that the Merc engine should be given it's due.
Ross is smart enough to not meddle with things that work.
As I've said before, the Honda Execs tried to run the team by commitee.
Not possible.

[cosworth151]

Good point, Willy. I can't help but wonder is something as radical as the double diffuser could have made it through the Honda hierarchy. I'm sure mid-season improvements can make it to the car much more quickly now, too.

Most of us thought that the Honda was well down on power. It appears we were right.