FROM AUTOSPORT: Ross Brawn has taken his hat off to the Michael Schumacher-type qualities that have helped Jenson Button emerge as the dominant force in Formula 1 this year. With Button taking a brilliant last-gasp pole position for the Monaco Grand Prix, Brawn says that although the world championship leader has a different personality to Schumacher, they are showing remarkable similarities in their approach to the job in hand. "I worked with Michael for 15 years and this is only my second year with Jenson, so it is very difficult to make comparisons," said Brawn. "They are different types of character, but both are obviously highly talented. And I think this opportunity that Jenson has got has made him focus very hard on what is happening, what it is and why it is happening - so he is similar [to Michael] in that respect." Brawn acknowledges that Button has upped his work ethic this year with the Briton claiming earlier this weekend that success has turned him into a 'boring bastard'. "Any competitive sportsperson, if he gets an opportunity, focuses on that opportunity," explained Brawn. "Of course it is like all of us when you are at the sharp end and thinking about things, then it is in your thoughts all the time. "Probably last year to be honest he was glad to forget about it, whereas this year he is enjoying thinking about it. I think both drivers do spend a lot of time discussing things with their engineers away from the track, so it is nice to hear but it doesn't surprise me because last year he would be glad to forget what is going on. This year is different." Brawn admitted he thought his team had lost the chance of pole position in the closing stages of qualifying but that Button once again shocked him with his late effort. When asked by AUTOSPORT if Button kept surprising him, Brawn said: "He does in a way. He kind of portrays an air of not going to do it, and then he does it. That is the thing that keeps surprising me. "He just keeps doing it, and up until final qualifying I thought maybe first/second row of the grid, but the car did not look bad in race spec, so we could have an interesting race."
One major difference to the Shue: Michael knew how to pick the right team and group the right people around himself. All through his career Button managed to always pick the wrong team (and even pay for it). Except for this year. Another difference: Button looks like a genuinely nice guy also in the car. (probably not a strong point in F1)
+1. Brawn says it himself. Last year he wouldn't compare Button to Schumacher because Button wanted to get away from everything. Schumacher on the other hand did his best even with a bad car (Ferrari wasn't competitive when Schumacher came to them in 1996).
+1 on both accounts. Brawn isn't giving himself enough credit though. He ran a masterful strategy that ensured nobody would touch Button, from starting the race on softs to get immediate first and second position to stopping Rubens a lap after Kimi when his softs were in the tank. Rubens holds up the field, Jensen wins. Rubens stops before Kimi can exploit his tire issue, Rubens gets second (knowing he's done with the crappy tires). Of course, MS had the very same strategic advantage with the dream team, but he showed his mettle by challenging for titles in an inferior car. Nobody on the current grid has really done that (although I don't know if you can with all of the technological advances in today's racers). EDIT: This is not to demean Button's driving...he's certainly getting the job done and gives the team what they demand from him. In that light I think he's performing like MS. But if you put Alonso, Raikkonen, Hamilton, Webber, Massa, and probably Vettel in that car you would have the same story. I would even add in Kubica and Rosberg. Guys like Trulli, Glock, Kova (despite his obvious issues), and Heidfeld are more like Rubens.
From the interview Brawn gave after the race he seemed to suggest the strategy was being called by others on the team.
Button needs to qualify at the back and finish first and I will be a believer. You could never count Shumey out in a race, he just kept coming and pushing.
+1. IMO, as of right now, there are only two drivers in today's lineup that has prove that they can still be competitive even with inferior cars, one is Alonso and the other is Kimi. I think Ross Brawn is only doing what a great boss will do in this situation. He is standing behind his driver and helping by showing that he has confidence in him, even if he has to stretch the truth a bit. In doing so, he is not only giving Button the extra boost, but more importantly, he is uniting the team behind Button. It is a real shame that Ferrari did not let him take over Todt's post as team principle, he has proven time and time again that he is a true master of his craft.
lets not compare...Brawn of this season looks like us in 04(my favorite year)..Looking at Monaco with a FERRARI 3-4,I think we are a huge step closer to ending this dominance.
Big difference between Button and Schumi----Schumi can go to an uncompetitive team, and make them world champions, he did this twice. Button never has and probably never will.
To state that Ferrari was "uncompetitive" or "wasn't competitive" is not even the case, why would Schumacher go get in a crap car ? The answer is that he wasn't going to an uncompetitive team at all, he was moving to the only team that was improving year after year and were clearly on the upswing after finishing a solid 3rd to the 2 Renault teams in '95'. Ferrari was the ONLY team to win a Grand Prix that didn't have Renault power in '95', so I guess according to you boys winning a race and finishing 3rd in the constructors championship in uncompetitive ? Give me a break ! If you didn't have the revolutionary Renault engine you had NO CHANCE in '95', have a look at how all the other teams did, now that's uncompetitive. This year may be the most lopsided Championship in history and Max and Bernie are loving it. If they wanted to stop Brawn they would have already. No comparisons can be drawn to the old days IMO, unless they start to nitpick the Brawn chassis to slow them down, that's going to be hard to do at this stage of the game. It's blatently obvious that the Brawn car is a freak, allowing a driver who was all but washed up to be World Champion, Button can thank Bernie and Max and their idiotic rule changes for his trophy (assuming he holds on to win it), more so than any past Champion in history...
I think you are the first and to my knowledge only person who thinks of the Ferrari team that MS went to as not uncompetitive. I'm simply stunned. Do you have an axe to grind with MS? Are you afraid he gets too much credit and Ferrari not enough? The Ferrari and the team he joined after his two WDCs at Benetton were the laughing stock of F1. He and his dream team (Todt, Brawn and whoever else he brought along from Benetton) turned Ferrari into the unbeatable machine 5 years later (5 years! It took them that long, that by itself says it all). And this year it is painfully obvious what happens after that dream team left again. Ferrari is the circus again they were before MS joined.
Yes and no. As talented as I think Vettel is, it is still too early in his career to say what type of driver he is or will be. I think he needs to show that he can finish consistently in the point scoring position and challenge for the podium regularly first before I will put him in the same catagory as Alonso and Kimi.
Sorry but I have to disagree with you on this one. Monaco is a track where mechanical grip is king and aero does not play into the equation quite as much. Ferrari's problem is a lack of high speed aero downforce. Brawn has good mechanical grip and great high sped aero downforce, this is why they are dominating this season. JMHO
Like I said, Schumacher wouldn't have joined an uncompetitive team, Ferrari was on the upswing in chassis and engine development in '95' and statistics for the year show this. How do you call a race winning team that finishes 3rd in points uncompetitive ? Beats me. My point is that Ferrari was the logical team to look at if you're a driver wanting a team on the rise. Afraid ? That's not the right word. No axe to grind, Michael was quite a driver but I would say that people seem to put a cape and a big red S on his chest. He was just the driver Ferrari needed to get the job done. Brawn wasn't employed by the Scuderia in Schumacher's first season with them and he won 3 races and gave the Renault a run for it's money. The potential was clearly there and Brawn and Byrne were quite ready to come on board after seeing the successful '96' season. It's a TEAM, hundreds of people who are responsible for the success of the Scuderia, Schumacher would be the first to agree with me. Well, once again your comments about Ferrari are quite inaccurate, laughing stock ? Quite obviously you weren't around as a fan of F1 those days, by most accounts Ferrari was improving nicely with Alesi and Berger driving. The car was quite competitive, snagging an occasional pole position as well as podium finishes and an occasional race win . Schumacher no doubt could see that he could do better than Alesi or Berger. Jean Todt was already at Ferrari when Schumacher came on board, not brought along by Michael as you say. I imagine he had something to do with Micheal signing on, I know that he and Michael both had a lot to do with getting Byrne to come out of retirement. It's a TEAM, not just Schumacher like most uninformed folks are fond of saying. A decent team was in place when Schumacher came on board, he deserves credit but let's not put that big red S on his chest. Like I said, he would agree with me that Ferrari deserves as much credit. EDIT: Just to keep on topic, Brawn can say whatever he wants to jack up Buttons ego but I don't believe it for one minute ! This is a rather childish comment, it would seem that you're the one with an axe to grind...
Unfortunately it is true. In the last couple races we've seen almost no common sense in qualifying, leaving the cars in the pits and not having the team get out of Q1. Massa lost 2 positions last race because the engineers didn't calculate the fuel load correctly. Ferrari didn't start the season with the double diffuser. The reliability hasn't been there and the drivers haven't been that great. When Schumacher was at Ferrari, mistakes were simply not made. The race strategy was the best among the teams. The cars were bulletproof and they were fast. Not to mention Michael was the fastest driver out there. While maybe not a full blown circus, the team has evolved into something that a prestigious team like Ferrari should not be and that is sloppy.
Actually I have been following F1 since 1979. A few comments about what you consider a team on the rise: "1992 was even a worse year...above all that was due to the deficiences of the F92A...its predecessor had been dogged by aerodynamic problems...But what was brilliant in theory did not work in practice. 1993...again the car did not keep up. 1994: John Barnard's Tipo 412 TI, upon which much premature praise was heaped, appeared to be promising indeed. Then all euphoria was scattered by the biting wind of reality. 1995: Officially, the morning gift of former Honda engine specialist Osamu Goto was 200 hp less potent than the last-generation 3.5 litre units, which had just been thrown on the scrap heap of history by the FIA. The car was good-natured as a callous war-horse. 1996: Deeply worried by the lasting title drought, FIAT supremo Gianni Agnelli decided on a kill-or-cure remedy. The medicine prescribed for the lame Maranello stallion was Michael Schumacher., the best and the most expensive on the market. It worked at once. With the German at the wheel, John Barnard's chunky F310 notched up wins at Barcelona, Spa and Monza." All excerpts from Rainer W. Schlegelmilch's "F1errari" book.
In 1993 the car was all over the place, litterally. Remember Berger exiting the pits and going straight across the track into the barriers? Ferrari couldn't design a decent active suspension, that's why. In 1994 and 1995 they were considered outdated with the use of a V12. They were late to the V10 party in 1996 which was the way to go. Still in 1996 they had their akward moments with I think in Canada the car desintegrating after a pit stop (bits flying off). But it was a learning year and in 1997 they were actually challenging for both titles for the first time since 1990. But I will also say that the early nineties weren't as bad as it was in 1980, where they sometimes even failed to qualify (after a championship winning year!) They were there somewhere, but not quite at the top. One victory in 1995 isn't exactly championship winning stuff.
The common element between 1980 and 94/95 was the outdated use of a 12 cylinder engine. Of course the engine is the holiest of Ferrari cows and the last to be slaughtered when change was needed.
I think most of Button's success this year is due to the car and not to him. In another car he would be a middle of the field finisher....as he has been most of his career
Well they certainly weren't in Schumacheresque form for basically all of the '80s and most of the '90s, were they? Their success skyrocketed soon after he arrived, much like Benetton. Indeed, and it is obviously and absolutely NOT because Jenson became brilliant overnight after being a never-was for years. Should Brawn somehow not be his ride next year, I would fully expect Jens to instantly return to the rank of whatever his car happens to be. Unlike Schui or Alonso, Jens has never risen above a lousy car. Jens wouldn't have been qualified to even be a towel carrier for Hamilton last year, but has lapped him on two different weekends this year.
Self congratulatory comments are not particularly British. Anyone will look good in a car 1 sec or so faster than the rest. Of course a driver would have confidence if they knew they could not lose...so what is the point of this statement?
LOL!!! I think I blocked that out of my mind, but that was unfortunately a hilarious incident (can't remember if it was Canada or another circuit though).
