Brawn has high hopes for driver pairing
#1
01-27-2010, 04:29 AM
Brawn has high hopes for driver pairing
Ross Brawn is confident Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg will form a “fantastic” partnership at Mercedes in 2010.
The Brackley-based squad’s team principal – who joined the team’s all-German driver pairing at its livery launch in Stuttgart on Monday – has a long-standing relationship with Schumacher having overseen all of the 41-year-old's seven world titles at Benetton and Ferrari.
However, this year will mark the first time he has worked with 24-year-old Rosberg – a prospect Brawn admits he is looking forward to, the Englishman revealing he had made previous attempts to sign the ex-Williams man since taking the helm of the former Honda team at the end of 2007.
Brawn believes the team’s German driving duo will compliment each other well and expects that while they will naturally want to beat each other on track, they will form a working relationship that helps drives the team's development.
“Well we have been trying to get Nico to join the team for a number of years,” he said.
“When we were our previous team we tried to get Nico to join because we see a huge talent with Nico.
“Very fast, same level of dedication [as Michael].
“I think they are going to make a fantastic partnership because I think Nico will learn so much from Michael and I’m so pleased we have got the two of them together. “So they will be the raw talent of Nico, and a driver of his age still needs some development…so it is a very exciting pairing.
“They are obviously going to want to beat each other, but we want to build a team where they want to help each other as well and bring the team forward, and do the things that they need to do as a team.”
Since Schumacher announced he was coming out of retirement to race for Mercedes there has been suggestions that the seven-time world champion will be installed as the team’s clear number one driver, having enjoyed such a status for most of the first part of his career.
Brawn, however, has stressed that both the team’s drivers will be given equal treatment in 2010, while arguing that only the driver that consistently emerges as the fastest in a team could ever lay claim to the #1 position anyway.
“I would dispute this title of the number one driver,” he was quoted as saying at Monday’s launch by F1’s official website.
“The number one driver is the fastest one.
“Whoever is the fastest driver and winning the most races, you can argue is the number one driver.
“We will give maximum support to both drivers.
“Of course if a championship starts to develop, where one driver has a greater chance of winning the championship, or it becomes numerically possible only for that driver to win the championship, then there may be different priorities.”
He points to the handling of the intra-team title battle between its drivers last season as an example of how the Schumacher/Rosberg on-track dynamic will be allowed to develop.
“It will be absolutely evenly split and I think we demonstrated this past season that we gave both Jenson [Button] and Rubens [Barrichello] absolutely equal support," Brawn added.
“That will be the case this year and it is there for both drivers to establish their positions, beat each other, compete with each other but do it in the correct fashion and in a constructive way.
“That will be the strength of the team to achieve that. We don't have a number one driver and we don't intend to have a number one driver.”
The Brackley-based squad’s team principal – who joined the team’s all-German driver pairing at its livery launch in Stuttgart on Monday – has a long-standing relationship with Schumacher having overseen all of the 41-year-old's seven world titles at Benetton and Ferrari.
However, this year will mark the first time he has worked with 24-year-old Rosberg – a prospect Brawn admits he is looking forward to, the Englishman revealing he had made previous attempts to sign the ex-Williams man since taking the helm of the former Honda team at the end of 2007.
Brawn believes the team’s German driving duo will compliment each other well and expects that while they will naturally want to beat each other on track, they will form a working relationship that helps drives the team's development.
“Well we have been trying to get Nico to join the team for a number of years,” he said.
“When we were our previous team we tried to get Nico to join because we see a huge talent with Nico.
“Very fast, same level of dedication [as Michael].
“I think they are going to make a fantastic partnership because I think Nico will learn so much from Michael and I’m so pleased we have got the two of them together. “So they will be the raw talent of Nico, and a driver of his age still needs some development…so it is a very exciting pairing.
“They are obviously going to want to beat each other, but we want to build a team where they want to help each other as well and bring the team forward, and do the things that they need to do as a team.”
Since Schumacher announced he was coming out of retirement to race for Mercedes there has been suggestions that the seven-time world champion will be installed as the team’s clear number one driver, having enjoyed such a status for most of the first part of his career.
Brawn, however, has stressed that both the team’s drivers will be given equal treatment in 2010, while arguing that only the driver that consistently emerges as the fastest in a team could ever lay claim to the #1 position anyway.
“I would dispute this title of the number one driver,” he was quoted as saying at Monday’s launch by F1’s official website.
“The number one driver is the fastest one.
“Whoever is the fastest driver and winning the most races, you can argue is the number one driver.
“We will give maximum support to both drivers.
“Of course if a championship starts to develop, where one driver has a greater chance of winning the championship, or it becomes numerically possible only for that driver to win the championship, then there may be different priorities.”
He points to the handling of the intra-team title battle between its drivers last season as an example of how the Schumacher/Rosberg on-track dynamic will be allowed to develop.
“It will be absolutely evenly split and I think we demonstrated this past season that we gave both Jenson [Button] and Rubens [Barrichello] absolutely equal support," Brawn added.
“That will be the case this year and it is there for both drivers to establish their positions, beat each other, compete with each other but do it in the correct fashion and in a constructive way.
“That will be the strength of the team to achieve that. We don't have a number one driver and we don't intend to have a number one driver.”
#2
01-27-2010, 05:03 AM
Nico is a good driver, and if he can sponge in some wisdom from Shumie and Brawn we will see him on the podium a lot this season and for many seasons to come. but them fighting all the time will make fro some great TV!!
43 days to go, can't wait.
43 days to go, can't wait.
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