Ross Brawn

"The Bear."

After successes in Sportscars with Jaguar, Ross Brawn moved to Formula One with Benetton, where his strategical understanding of how to use refuelling pitstops effectively helped Michael Schumacher to his first two titles. He then moved to Ferrari, helping Schumacher to another 5 titles, before going on a sabbatical for 2007.

He showed up at Honda in 2008, quickly deciding to abandon the season in favour of being the best placed to capitalise on the 2009 rule change. Though Honda pulled out, Brawn GP (as they became) had easily the best car at the start of the season, largely due to the Double Diffuser loophole Brawn had pointed out to the FIA and the FIA had decided to ignore. This allowed Jenson Button to rack up enough points early on that the inevitable decline of the under-budgeted team failed to cost them either title.

Enter Mercedes. Schumacher came out of retirement to join Brawn, but he has thus far been outperformed by his team-mate Rosberg. Has Brawn allowed sentiment to woo him?

The biggest credit I think you can pay to Brawn, though, is that the leading two cars after a major regulatory rethink have been from the teams containing him and Adrian Newey. And that is quite the company to keep.

 

[FB]

Where does this leave Ross Brawn?

Very rich, very fat and probably not giving a monkeys after the recent arrival of Totto Wolf and all the discussions about Paddy Lowe. Think he's just hanging about for a pay off before he teams up with Flavio at Force India.

 

[Il_leone]

Brogan

He outsmarted Newey who even overlooked the double diffuser

2009 I think people should remember the team operated freely without having interference from the men in suits from the boardroom once they were given the finances

If Nick Fry was managing that team it would have been a midfield runner

 

[Bill Boddy]

Why do people use "men in suits" as a derogatory term? Colin Chapman was a suit wearer and he was a top engineer/designer.

 

[The Pits]

I wear a suit, and I'm a total numpty.

 

[Slyboogy]

He outsmarted Newey who even overlooked the double diffuser

Actually, Adrian Newey didn't overlook the double diffuser, his idea of the double diffuser got rejected by the FIA while the others while getting built got approval. (It's in the January issue of the F1 Racing Magazine).

Hence why he was raging that year.

 

[Il_leone]

Slyboogy
I should rephrase that as he outsmarted Newey who misinterpreted the double diffuser

 

[RasputinLives]

Ross Brawn giving out team orders? Who'd have thunk it?

Well.....Rubens for one I'm guessing.

 

[racecub]

You think Ross Brawn favoured Jenson over Rubens??

 

[RasputinLives]

I think Ross is a genius at constructing strategies to win championships and races that involve having a number one and two driver. I also think Rubens has played the role of number 2 in these strategies for a long period of time.

Ross has shown clearly in all his roles he knows what needs to be done tactically to acheive results and that he focuses his energies into the team leader to do this whilst not being afraid to use the other driver as a sacrificial pawn.

This is not taking away from any drivers who have been his team leader as Ross choses the one he knows can get the job done more frequently but this is Mr Brawns nature and I do not believe it will change.

 

[Brogan]

Do I like his approach? Not particularly.

Do I like the fact that he is explicit in his statements and very clear in his actions, so both drivers know exactly what is expected of them? Yes.

Christian Horner take note.

"Come on Seb, this is getting silly."

 

[RasputinLives]

Yes. I completely agree with you Brogan he diesn't hide behind code words and PR.

Even with the double diffuser he told everyone he was going to do it before he did it.

Just a lot of people seemed shocked he chose to tell Rosberg to stay behind Lewis. I'd havr been more shocked if he hadn't.

 

[Jen]

His honesty is commendable, his intentions obvious, strategy is imperious but his morality dubious. He is consigning one driver to the ranks of 'also ran' and that is questionable.

 

[RasputinLives]

With so much pressure from a massive organisations above him and with a media ready to rip his reputation to shreds should he falter can you blame a man in that position for being somewhat ruthless in getting results.

"but sir I wanted to be fair" has never been an excuse in the business world and I'm afraid F1 is a business not the Olympics.

 

[Jen]

Yes

 

[KekeTheKing]

He is consigning one driver to the ranks of 'also ran' and that is questionable.

How could this possibly be the case after a single, solitary incident?

Until Nico finds himself in a similar predicament (That is: outqualify your teammate, lead him the whole race, suffer from under-fueling), and is unceremoniously shuffled behind, then statements like the above simply don't carry any weight.

And boy are Mercedes glad that they can tolerate P4 as an "also-ran"!!!

 

[RasputinLives]

Mr Brawn has a deeper history in this aspect than just telling Rosberg junior to stay and I'm sure Jen was refering to that.

 

[KekeTheKing]

Reads like present tense to me.

And is "driver preference" really a hallmark of Brawn's tenures as Team Principal? Others have already noted that RB cannot be blamed for Ferrari policy when he was Schumacher's engineer.

 

[Jen]

KekeTheKing, Raspy got it in one, I was referring to his history in the sport.

 

[KekeTheKing]

Jen

Who has Ross Brawn consigned to the ranks of "also-ran"?

 

[Brogan]

To be honest I thought I had stumbled into the Alonso thread by mistake...