Daily Update Formula1 News

Ross Brawn thinks it inevitable that Ferrari and McLaren will recover from their disastrous start to the campaign and soon start putting his dominant team under pressure.
Jenson Button has taken victory in the first two races of the year for Brawn GP, with last year's title front-runners McLaren and Ferrari having scored just one point between them.
And although people are hailing a 'new world order' in F1 this year, Brawn is convinced that the current formbook is not indicative of how things will pan out for the rest of the season.

Instead, he believes that what is happening at the moment is simply the result of those teams who switched development onto their 2009 cars early having a head start on those that kept pushing with their 2008 machines until the end of the year.
"It is a reflection on what has gone on in the last year or two," said Brawn. "With such a big change in regulations, McLaren and Ferrari had a championship to fight and I can understand that it was very difficult for them to say, 'look we'll stop pushing this year and put our effort into next year'.
"For us it wasn't even a clever decision, it was a very easy one - we didn't have a very good car so why waste time on it? For them it was a much more difficult decision, but they are both very strong and fantastic engineering companies, so they will sort it out.
"I think they are just paying the price for winning the championship last year. Because normally you develop a car and, if you are fighting for the championship, that same car goes forward into the next championship, so you don't lose things.
"Everything they did last year for the championship was in the bin after the last race, so it was gone. We now have slick tyres and new aerodynamics, so everything they did at the end of last year they could virtually throw away."
Although Brawn is delighted by what his team has delivered in the first phase of the season, he admits the start to the year has been ‘difficult' off track – with the outfit needing to make 270 redundancies.
"It's a very unfortunate process," he explained. "Obviously it has been going on while I have been away so I have not been involved first hand in the process, but it is just very difficult.
"Especially with everyone at the factory having produced such a good car, to say to people 'We can't give you a future anymore' is very difficult. But we had over 700 people and that's not viable for us to continue at that level.
"We have treated everyone with respect and we have done everything that we can to give them a good chance of a future. We have all of our employees on the same terms and conditions as they would have got if Honda had closed the company.
"They were fairly reasonable, and certainly above statutory, but they deserved it. They have done a great job, it is just a shame that we can't justify keeping so many people.
"So it is a very difficult period. Just now try to look forward and put that side behind us and try and build the company for the future. I think in reality if we had kept 700 people we wouldn't have been around very long, it just was impossible."
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World championship leader Jenson Button has played down Brawn GP's chances of winning in Malaysia this weekend - saying Ferrari is the team to beat at Sepang.

Alhough his Brawn GP outfit was dominant in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, and rivals have said he and Rubens Barrichello are untouchable, Button reckons the competitive picture has already changed at the second race of the season.

With Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa leading the way in Friday practice, Button believes his team is no longer favourite – especially as it does not have a KERS system

"I think we have got a lot more competition this weekend," said Button, who won from pole position in Melbourne.

"We are not there with the balance yet. I have a lot of areas to work on, where I am not happy. That is a good thing because I don't think our pace is as good as we would have hoped.

"I think if you look at the cars and their long runs, you can see the Ferrari is very quick and you can see the Red Bull is quick. Especially, the Ferraris are a lot quicker than I expected, so they are very competitive. I am not sure if we can do the same times as them, so we have to wait and see."

He added: "At the moment we are not in a position that I am happy with, with the car. I think Rubens is the same. There are areas where we really need to improve to be at the front, and you might think it sounds crazy or that I am trying to talk us down – but I think Ferrari is the team to beat if you look at the times at the moment. And that is not just over one lap; it is over the long runs.

"So if they are running a reasonably normal fuel load, which I think they probably are, they are very quick. They are going to be the cars that we have to beat."

Button is especially wary of Ferrari because it is one of the few teams running KERS – which will provide an advantage on Sepang's long straights and at the start.

"You cannot compete with KERS cars on the straights here," said Button. "I was behind [Fernando] Alonso here in practice and he was annihilating me on the straights. So they are gaining a lot on the straights, probably more than they have let on in previous tests and what have you. But that is an area where they are going to be strong.

"So even if I do qualify in front of them, it is going to be difficult to keep them behind. It is tough when you are racing against KERS cars, and when KERS cars are your main competitors, it is going to be very difficult."

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