Ross Brawn
There have been many rumours and speculations about Honda F1 future flying around since the car company announced the withdrawal from F1 back in December. Today Ross Brawn revealed a bit more on his new Brawn GP team. At least some of the speculations can now be set to rest.
On the choices:
If I am frank, there were no choices. If the management group, because it is not just myself, had not taken this task on, there would be no team. Then all of the staff would have been made redundant.
On what made the deal to finally happen:
Well, Honda finally reached a decision. And Honda considered all their possibilities, and I am very glad that they favoured this choice. The decision was made in the board meeting at Honda at February.
On Nick Fry:
Nick has been a key member of the team. He retains his position as CEO and will be a vital member for the future. Nick’s position hasn’t changed, despite the speculation, and he has been a vital part of putting this all together.
On the engines:
It was difficult. I cannot thank Mercedes-Benz enough. In fact, both Ferrari and Mercedes-Benz were exceptional in the support they offered, but it came down to the fact that the Mercedes-Benz engine fitted our chassis more easily than the Ferrari engine. Once we made that decision around Christmas time, the Mercedes-Benz people were fantastic in supporting the project.
On gearbox and KERS:
It is our own gearbox. We wanted to stick with our own gearbox. We don’t have KERS.
On the financial situation of the team:
We are comfortable for the season and it is the longer term we need to look for.
On the current livery:
It is just a benign neutral colour scheme that leaves plenty of potential for the future. Now we have got over the first hurdle of securing the medium term of the team, we now have to look at the long term and try and find partners and sponsors to support the team.
On team’s ambitions:
Our ambition is to be in front of everyone, whoever it is. That is our ambition – we have no specific interest in who it might be. We just want to do as well as we can.
In the meantime the Brawn GP car continues to show respectable pace in Barcelona.
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-We don’t have KERS.- so, they don´t have KERS and are making this lap times!
how is this going to affect in a real race? a lack of some horsepower is not going to be a big disadvantage?
KERS is too early in development to be a major advantage anyway. And maybe for the short term it will be an advantage as it is a unit that they don’t have to worry about failure or extra weight.
I do say yet as later in this season it may begin to have an effect on who is at the front as development goes on, but then remember next year, everyone will have a standardised system (probably made by BMW) and it will all be the same thing.
Only downside of that for BRawn GP will be that they haven’t had this year to test it or play with it and see how it suits their car.
Timmie, how much does KERS weight?, any way, if some team is not using it, they must use ballast in the place or not? if not, it must be the reason of Brawn´s excellent peace?
KERS weights around 40 kgs. The cars use ballast to help them to balance the cars. But with KERS there is less room for ballast left. The minimum weight of the car remains unchanged, 605 kgs. That is the reason why so many drivers are on diet this season, even the lightweight ones like Heidfeld or Massa.