If Brawn GP really are that fast??

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The two Brawn GP cars were fastest in the final pre-2009 test session

??Honda made a huge blunder by selling the team over the winter. After the disastrous years of 2007 and 2008 their decision to throw all their efforts into the 2009 campaign would have been vindicated.

??Their livery won’t stay plain white for long. Plenty of people have suggested that their stunning pace in testing was achieved because they were running light in a bid to attract sponsors. But would they really waste so much of what little testing opportunity they had to post artificial lap times?

Recession or no, there’s an F1 car that looks like being a race winner hammering around with no sponsors on it. Form an orderly queue??

??Button versus Barrichello will be a fascinating battle. Button was largely the quicker of the two in 2006 and 2007, but Barrichello had the upper hand last year.

They also had some very close fought duels, such as at Fuji, but because they were going on at the back of the pack they didn’t get much attention.

??It’s terrible news for McLaren. For as long as they’ve had Mercedes engines they’ve never had to share them with another team.

Now, in the first year Mercedes are supplying other teams (Force India as well as Brawn GP), McLaren are lagging behind a team which spent two months of the off-season looking like it might not exist. Not good for the defending world champion’s team.

Do you think Brawn GP’s testing pace is genuine? Have your say in the comments.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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83 comments on “If Brawn GP really are that fast??”

  1. hats off to brawn GP, but i still woudn’t be too excited, mclaren have been testing parts for other tracks – like monaco which is a slower max downforce track, so their times are going to be much slower than brawn gp, which is getting setup for higher speed tracks like melbourne.

    either way i’ll be wearing my honda shirt at the first race in support for them :)

  2. They did seem to be strong not only in one-lap performance but also in long stints, during which they couldn’t play with the fuel in that effect. They are strong, no doubt about it but will they be “that” strong on the day? I don’t know.

    As they don’t use KERS, they have an advantage being lighter than those of KERS users enabling them to tune car balance much better. Given that Rubens have lost weight, they might have gained that much amount of lap time advantage.

    The one thing I doubt that if they are using an already developed car by Honda’s effort and sources in 2008, which means, can they improve car over the course of the season? It is told Honda was developing this car since the end of 2007 so that much of performance should have expected. The question is if Brawn GP can continue with what Honda left them.

    1. Actually – having or not having KERS won’t have impact on overall weight of the car. The current cars with driver included are below the minimum weight limit and they use the ballast weight to ”fill up” placing it strategically to improve weight distribution. KERS will have impact on weight distribution as ballast weight would have to be smaller but the cars would be weighting the same…

    2. @gabal, You’re right. But the fact that a non-KERS car has more ballast that can be moved around the car to get closer to the ideal weight distribution means that a team without KERS could have a slight advantage.

      This really is the big unknown going into this season, how much of a difference will KERS make?

      I wouldn’t be suprised if a team without it can be gentler or their rear tyres due to the better weight distribution and so might be able to make up the difference over a race distance to negate the KERS-effect.

      It will be especially interesting to see what happens as the season progresses if the KERS units can be made smaller and lighter so the teams with them can start to carry more ballast too…

      Of course there’s also reliability to think about. Will the teams running KERS suffer from gremlins which again give the advantage to teams without them…

      One thing is for sure; for anyone interested in the technical and strategic aspects of F1, it’s going to be a fascinating season..!!

  3. the pace can easily be genuine, they were qualifying times, not race distance times, their race distance times we’re on par with everyone else, 1-20, 1-21.

    i don’t doubt any other team could low fuel a car with their best tires and go head to head with them.

  4. I remember Williams being very quick in testing in last few years , and they have been reasonable this year in testing too , but come races , they seem to fade as the year progresses. For that reason , I would not bet on Brawn GP winning the 2009 championship , but nevertheless all credit to them for turning the last two years’disasters and producing a car that presently is highly competitive and should enable them to “hit the ground running” for 2009.

    1. You forget though that Brawn GP have a very good budget for this year (~ $150,000,000), are making staffing cuts/wage cuts (so that will go even further) and have world class facilities than Williams lack.

      For this year they are a privateer team in name only.

  5. I find it hard to believe that Brawn is deliberately going faster than they reasonably can go. That’s not something you’d expect from a professional like Ross Brawn. So if they really are that fast, good for them… and bad for Honda.

  6. Honda sold not because they had to but because they had to be seen to be doing something to cut costs, especially if they were making hundreds of people redundant around the world. It’s the same with ING pulling out – as Martin Brundle said a few weeks ago on the radio, the exposure they got from team and race sponsorship was immense, but with government money being used as a bailout, and redundancies there too, they couldn’t go be seen to be going on with the ‘frivolous’ sponsorship programme.

    1. But so long as they were winning races or at least scoring well, no one would criticize them for it.

      As it is, Honda will now have to grin and bear it.

  7. Brawn are testing in Jerez next week – isn’t that Mclaren’s private test slot???

    1. No, McLaren, Brawn and Renault are all in Jerez.

  8. I really do hope the Brawn is as quick on race pace as it has been in testing.
    .
    However, I doubt that it will stay quick for long if it starts embarrassing the rest of the field; Briatore is already making noises about the legality of their diffuser so it would only be a matter of time before they were ordered to change it if they consistantly showed the rest of the field the way home…

    1. This is the first I’ve read of any questions over the legality of the BGP001’s diffuser… Where have you seen this mentioned?

    2. its just Briatore complaining because once again Renault has missed a trick!

    1. @ Adrian & Dr Jones:

      I saw Briatore mention that there were 3 teams with suspect diffusers; Williams & Toyota were two that were named, but the third wasn’t. I then trawled a couple of forums where posters were making comments about how the Brawn diffuser looked remarkably different to those on the other cars on the grid & so I assumed – possibly erroneously – that Flav was alluding (a great Blundell word, there) to the diffuser on the Brawn without actually mentioning their name.

  9. One thing I haven’t seen mentioned yet: with increased overtaking opportunities, we’ll be seeing far more skirmishes on the track, with a corresponding increase in controversial moves, culminating in massive discussion and debate here and at other sites.

    If last year was controversial, this year can only be more so, with far more opportunities for seemingly arbitrary and subjective punishments from the stewards. We’ll see where that goes.

    Good to be back and can’t wait for the first race!

  10. Honda didn’t pull out of F1 last year because they weren’t fast enough. It pulled out because the Japanese company could no longer justify spending hundred of millions of dollars to not be fast enough against a background of falling car sales and smaller profits. Honda may still be funding the team formerly known as Honda Racing in 2009, but it’s probably less than the cost of shutting down the team and Ross Brawn will have to find the money to continue from 2010 onwards.

    In the wider context, Honda have probably made the right decision – albeit at the relatively minor cost of handing over a seemingly competitive F1 team for peanuts. Honda’s real F1 blunder was failing to get the right technical leadership and structures in place until it was too late, while abandoning traditional sponsorship and funding the team on its own.

    Could the Brawn be running light to impress potential sponsors? It isn’t impossible. If I were Ross Brawn and I had to choose between meaningful testing or securing the financial future of my new team I’d probably pick the latter – Brawn has said that his job is to look out for his staff. That said, Brawn GP has spent more time than anyone else working on its 2009 car and that it’s fast straight out of the box is much easier to swallow than Prost or Arrows topping the times as happened in days gone by.

    Jenson Button has generally struggled when his car has been difficult to drive. Jenson has a very smooth, fluid driving style which is incredibly quick when he has the right car underneath him. But he finds it difficult to bully a reluctant car into putting in fast times, unlike Rubens Barrichello. If the Brawn chassis handles well enough, I would expect Jenson to emerge as a clear team leader. If not, then he’ll struggle to keep up with Rubens as in 2008.

    1. I don’t think they’re running light – I think that with the old Honda Lump they would have been lower midfield and had designed the aero of the car to compensate and get them there. With the Mercedes engine giving then 60-80 bhp extra, the fantastic aero means they are lightning quick. Add to this they aren’t running with KERS installed and they can ballast/balance the car perfectly.

      It’s not surprising they are quick!

  11. I think the Brawn GP car really is one of the fastest at the moment.

    Some say they are running light to attract sponsorship but with the start of the season so close if they turn up at Melbourne and are at the back then it would just scare sponsors off again. The only sponsorship deals which could be signed before the start of the season are ones which are already virtually done, and these would have been lined up before the takeover. Brawn has already said they are financially okay for 2009 so it is sponsorship for 2010 and onwards they will need and performance in races not tests will be what affects these.

    Also having started late they have such limited testing available that it would be foolish to compromise what little testing they do have just to make the headlines for a couple of weeks.

    We must remember that Honda gave up on the 2008 season so they could focus on their 2009 car a lot earlier than everyone else, and that this is the first car Ross Brawn has overseen from the start. Given the scale of the rule changes this year would anyone really have been surprised if a team had discovered better ways to adapt to the changes and gone considerably quicker than everyone else?

    If Honda had turned up to the first test with this sort of performance given these factors no one would have been surprised.

    Honda will be kicking themselves when they see what could have been, but as has been pointed out they had to be seen to cut costs in the current economic climate. If they hadn’t followed the Earthdream idea with no sponsors for the last two years they would not have had to foot the whole bill themselves so could possibly have justified keeping their F1 team going.

  12. I can anticipate the gloating of the Hamilton-knockers saying that Button is the better driver. It is just a fact that if a car is not in the top 3, the driver will not be WDC. We’ll see what happens, but I don’t think Button deserves to luck out in a good car. He’s not naturally good and has made bad decisions and been a waste of space. It’s a shame for Lewis who is the best driver on the grid and deserves a top 3 car. I am bracing myself for the triumphalism (if that’s a word). I really hope McLaren fix their problems so that we see AGAIN what a brilliant driver Lewis is! The doubters are still out there.

    1. I don’ think you can honestly say Hamilton is the ‘best driver on the grid’.

      He is better than Button though.

    2. I don’t think that have ever seen anyone say Button is a better driver than Hamilton, so I’m not sure where you got that from.

      A good driver in a **** car is still a good driver. And lets face it, just about anyone can win in a good car (Flippy, I’m looking at you). Just means the car is better, is all.

    3. Think your comments are somewhat harsh. Button’s made risky decisions yes, but at least he’s actually made decisions unlike someone who’s pretty much had a path set out for him. A waste of space is definately unjustified – the fact he is still in F1 is testament he’s not a waste of space, you don’t stay in F1 if you are.

      And I’ve said it before, just because you have a top car doesn’t automatically mean you will be WDC. It still takes the driver to bring the car home.

      I fail to see how McLaren fixing their problems will make Hamilton doubters see any other way – surely if McLaren have problems and Hamilton still shines through, that would be better, no?

    4. I also think your coments are unfounded. I’m a Lewis fan and therefore McLaren, but I will be backing Brawn GP this season. Jenson has been fullish with some of his career moves, but is a very good driver, very evenly matched with Rubens. However good they are in the early rounds I think they’ll struggle with development as the season goes on. Whereas McLaren will soon get back to pace.

  13. I think the BGP001 – 2009 is a genuinely fast car. Lets face it, they would need to take a lot out of the car to run at such a faster pace than their rivals to render the car structurally unsound. Mercedes should have access to their data, and I mean fuel load and car weight.

  14. Mussolini's Pet Cat
    13th March 2009, 9:41

    It’s testement to British engineering (and a little bit of German i guess) that Brawn GP have got an off the shelf engine and made their car instantly quick & reliable. Even if they’re running light or low fuel, it all looks very promising for Oz.

  15. honda made no bones over the past two years that all effort was going into the 2009 car, that along with ross brawn’s proven f1 record are we really to be surprised??

  16. If Brawn GP really are that fast….

    Then we are in for a cracking Oz GP, and i for one cannot wait. I was trying to explain the exictment i’m feeling to my fiancee (who got into F1 last year, thanks to Lewis, Nando and all the Wet Races!!), i’m literally jumping like a little kid watching Lazy Town.

    Regardless of weather you think JB or RB are the best drivers ever, it will just be nice to see how they have to cope with the pressiure if they are genuine frontrunners for the early part of the season. We know JB likes to be at the front, look at his career before F1, his Winning MO is to win from the front. And RB was usually playing second fiddle to Schumi, how will he react if he thinks he has a genuine opportunity to be #1.

    OK, i’m sure that we all expect Ferrari and BMW to develop faster over the season and create a performance gap between themselves and the field, but in the first 6 races, at the moment, you have to say that on Long Run Pace we could have 8 different race winners from BMW, Ferrari, Brawn and Toyota

    When did we last have that kind of scenario??

    (who know’s about McLaren, we’ll wait until Qualifying to judge them)

  17. @ S Hughs “Jensons not naturally a good driver” I’ll think you’ll find that amongst the paddock jensons style of driving is reagrded as incredibly gifted (Natural). There is no bigger fan of lewis than me ( his home in tewin is 10 mins from mine) but to describe him as the best driver on the grid is to say the least generous, if Mclarens problems persist then perhaps he can prove himself the best this season but he has so far benefited from enormous support often to his team mates demise. I think Jenson absolutley deserves to “Luck out” in a decent car this year and I say good luck to the Brawn boys and girls this season, the sport needs mixing up this year!!

    1. Not far from me then Colin!

      I agree that is very harsh to attack Jenson’s talent as a racing driver, and would suggest it’s maybe verging into the realms of trolling, to be honest. Take the blinkers off an realise that there are 19 other drivers out there, several of whom are easily able to give Lewis a run for his money.

      He has a beautifully smooth style, very reminiscent of Damon Hill’s. It’s just a style such as this requires an equally smooth car in which to operate, and he hasn’t had that since he was in a Williams BMW 9 years ago, aside from the 2006 blip when the BAR ran very well.

      So the best of luck to Brawn, Button and Barrichello. As far as the car goes, I’m hoping that their pace isn’t just smoke and mirrors. I can’t see why they’d dedicate a whole two weeks to sponsor chasing and not get any real testing in. I believe they’ve been running all sorts of trials; long runs, qualifying, pit stops. I think they’re going to be close the the front in 2 weeks time.

      And is this ends up being Barrichello’s final year in F1, what better way than to head out as a dark horse World Champion?

    2. You guys are quite lucky to have so much F1 star power nearby you- the Andretti stronghold is a few hours down the road from me, but that’s about it.

      I join you in wishing for a great season from Brawn GP- just the fact that they can show up and compete after a rough off-season is great, even better if they can punch high enough for points and podiums.

  18. Hope they are that fast. Would like to see as many teams and drivers to be close. And an independant team to be in front….when was that time?

  19. last time? typo

    1. Jordan 1999. They qualify on the front row several times in 2000 too, and 1998 gave them their first 1-2.

  20. Alonso said that GPBrown speed is real. I use to trust his opinions.

  21. it’ll be interesting to see what happens in jerez, and then its only a few more days after that till the real test in melb.

  22. …neither

    Honda just isnt able to build f1-engines :)

  23. Ironically, if Brawn GP really are as fast as some people are saying they might be, I think the Australian GP might not be quite as good as I’d hoped. Up until now, it was, if you believed the hype, very close between Ferrari, BMW and Toyota. If Brawn are going to come and dump on those teams from a great height the opening round may resemble the 1998 race more than anything else, when Mclaren came and womped the rest of the field.

    However, I still have my doubts that they really are out in front of the field. Hopefully Brawn will be on roughly the same level as those other 3 teams and we can have 8 potential victors at the opening round.

    If Brawn really are that good Honda will have their name back on them as soon as possible, some way, somehow. They are, after all, still financing the team to the most part.

    1. Indeed that may be the case Robert. But don’t you think it would be great if Brawn GP shows up and whips the rest of the field after enduring so much turmoil and uncertainty this off-season? Can’t pitch a better underdog story than that :)

  24. Hats of for Brawn. If what we have seen is reality and adding on top of that the RB superior strategic power,
    Brawn GP will just have to bring the cars over the finishline to secure a GP win or even several of the same.

  25. I think it is pretty difficult to judge race standing from testing results. I don’t think McLaren are going to be in the back of the pack because of slower testing times, and I don’t think Brawn will be at the front because of faster times. There are just too many variables in play.

    (By the way, Keith – that could be an interesting end-of-season post if you can find the necessary statistics.)

  26. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/7941572.stm
    this has just been posted on BBC website, not good news as a Mclaren fan

  27. Hopefully testing result shows the real pace of the car. I want Button and Brawn GP to win both championships.

    Does anybody know where I can download hi-res Brawn GP 001 pictures?

  28. Video interview here with Button and Brawn on their new car and testing pace. button being very coy about the whole situation, which is unusual, as he’s normally very straight talking (remember his Benetton days?):

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/7941029.stm

  29. Just thinking aloud, here, but perhaps Brawn could be the first ‘new’ team to win their first race since 1976… effectively doing what BAR allegedly set out to do with Reynard in 1999.

  30. Brown gp need a lot of money. That fantastic training is not real. Sponsor, come to Brown gp!!!!

  31. I never believe the teams cannot read into each others pace. They must be paying attention to what everyone else is doing. If Brawn do any long runs then the pace must be there. You cannot do a race simulation on low fuel.

    The trouble with the BrawnGP pace is that this is as good as it will get. Sure they have been looking for a buyer for the last 2 months but the car will have been completed before then anyway. I dont imagine that they will have had much opportunity to perform any development work over the last two months though. I imagine that they will turn up at Oz with the same package as they tested this week. The other teams may have caught up by then.

    For sure, it is a mightily good effort from those guys. I wish them the best of luck.

  32. I’m quite certain that if Honda had their engines in that car they would have done much better than before, but not as good as with a Merc engine. the Ferrari mill was the one setting the pace last year, and Brawn being Ex-Ferrari, i still don’t understand why he didn’t opt for the Italian engine, since it did very well in the Torro Rosso.

    anyway i think the major contributor’s the the Brawn GP’s remarkable performance are

    1-the car has been in development longer than any other.
    2-very experienced driver line-up.
    3-a solid team from which Brawn can extract very respectable work.
    4-the urge to prove that despite the ownership debacle, they did their work and what they were intending to.
    5-reliable and proven engine.

    all in all, Brawn, F1 Dude of the Off Season, is behind everything. they guy just seems to know how to extract the best out of any given situation.

    i said it before, i will ay it again, even when Brawn bought ownership before he even named it, i put Brawn as my favorite for they year. not that they will be champs straight off, but i have a feeling they will be up there with the best. whoever the best may be.

  33. If Brawn are really this quick……
    Then possibly the car and its philosophy have been in development since 2007 and may be almost fully developed, they may get the jump on the other teams at Melbourne but the others will soon catch up, once they see brawns car in full race configuration then any revolutionary ideas will be copied. I think the main question is can they keep up a winning way if thats what they get down under.

  34. What I don’t understand is why people are so convinced that BrawnGP with their dedicated and tallented staff (who developed the RA106 – he car which allowed JB to outscore everyone else in the final 3rd of 2006) and their state of the art facilities won’t be able to develop the car as the season goes on…??

    This is not a Minardi, Super Aguri or Force India type outfit here, BrawnGP is a manufacturer team in all but name…

  35. What I don’t understand is why people are so convinced that BrawnGP with their dedicated and tallented staff (who developed the RA106 – he car which allowed JB to outscore everyone else in the final 3rd of 2006) and their state of the art facilities won’t be able to develop the car as the season goes on…??

    This is not a Minardi, Super Aguri or Force India type outfit here, BrawnGP is a manufacturer team in all but name…
    Should write excellent post. Can’t wait to reading your next one!

  36. Great post followed by excellent comments! Kudos from Brasil to F1 Fanatic and everyone who shared their thought here. I really believe in a strong white label team in 2009 season, isn’t KERS a handicap for those who are using it right know? I think that it would a great post to discuss about F1F.

  37. Interesting piece of news.

    Apparently even Massa thinks that Brawn Gp’s pace is ‘unreachable’

    http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/73698

    Who would’ve predicted that would happen 2 weeks ago??? :)

  38. In my opinion another question should be asked. How long will Brawn GP continue to be supported if they have successes that put the ‘A’ team to shame…

    1. Eduardo Colombi
      14th March 2009, 0:16

      Real or not, i bet their car will be full of advertisers… What means that the results of their test gave them some credibility.

      i’m cheering for them, and as rubens is my compatriot i hope he can get back to the top, but this time not just supporting his teammate.

      It is great to see Ferrari and McLaren worryed not just with eachother but with the one week old team.

      Outstanding work Ross Brawn, congrats.

  39. @ MF, Pink Peril, Loki and Colin: You guys are right on the money. Button does have talent but for one reason or another things just haven’t happened for him. Things have happened for Hamilton which is great because Hamilton IS a very talented driver and it’s great to see him doing well. Hopefully Button’s work will come into fruition also!!

    @ S Hughes:……..sad

  40. I just checked the bookies to see what they think.

    Jenson Button 15:1 to win WDC
    Rubens Barichello 26:1 to win WDC
    Brawn-Mercedes 11:1 to win the constructors.

    They’re almost worth a punt…

  41. Massa: Brawn GP pace unreachable
    Alonso says Brawn GP pace is real

    Both in Autosport.com

    They are the ones that know what is going on in the testing. I will trust them.

  42. Massa said that Ferrari is behind Brawn GP, now if that’s the truth, why isn’t Ferrari reacting/doing anything about it??? I mean they can do more testing next week like McLaren to find more pace?

  43. theRoswellite
    13th March 2009, 20:34

    A couple of comments-on-comments…

    Ross Brawn is the ultimate professional, and the last thing he would allow to go on is any kind of “trick” efforts just to show up with quick testing times, only to fall on his face a couple of weeks later at the first race. Give him the credit he deserves.

    Also, anyone diss’ing J. Button just hasn’t been paying much attention.

    And, to assume that the Brawn (I like the sound of that more every day) team will be unable to develop their car is more than a little goofy. Plus, if we know anything about preseason form translating into in-season speed, it is that a car’s basic layout must be fairly good right from the start. If it is an actual “pig”, no amount of wind tunnel lipstick is going to transform it into a podium’s silk purse (that’s why you’re going to see some long faces in the McL pit).

    Oh, and can anyone actually believe Mercedes would try to subvert a winning car running their engines to benefit ANY OTHER TEAM, especially one hanging out in the second half of the grid? (and how would that favoritism be hidden exactly)

    If the Brawn GP form holds we should all be overjoyed to see a breath of fresh air blowing onto the starting grids for ’09.

  44. well i guess as the changes are so radical i guess we might see a significant change in the pecking order. However i do believe if brawn gp have a fairly successful season this year wouldn’t it have been a waste of the past 2 seasons for honda and the build up to this season to sell the team. They brought in ross brawn for there own now they won’t seem themselves benefit as they have now sold the team. the car which has now been built has been worked on earlier during the 2008 season than any of the other teams and to good use and now we are seeing the effect.

    as a mclaren fan i am dissapointed however we weill just have to wait and see until the first quali session. if mclaren have made a bit of a dud out of a new car it wil really test how good lewis really is as driver.

  45. I’m quoting Gman

    Indeed that may be the case Robert. But don’t you think it would be great if Brawn GP shows up and whips the rest of the field after enduring so much turmoil and uncertainty this off-season? Can’t pitch a better underdog story than that.

    Brits love the underdog. Indeed, it would be great if Team Brawn showed on the front three rows at Australia and recorded respectable, fighting finishes.
    I never wanted a debutante to do so well.

  46. As a bloke that thinks that Ross Brawn is a legend among men, I would be absolutely stoked if Brawn GP tore its way through the season. Obviously as my gravatar shows, I’m a Tifoso, but first and foremost I’m a F1 fanatic. I love the sport and love the great individuals that make the sport what it is. Brawn is one of them and if he can make what quite frankly was a poxy team (Honda) into a worthy team…..well….that’d be just dandy.

  47. Aww, I like the plain white livery.

  48. The video of the Ferrari smoking the McLaren off the line in barcelona might show that KERS will be an advantage off the startline – think back to 2004 when the Renaults used to drag many cars off at the lights. In those days it was really hard after the start for the cars to pass and as a result the Renaults generally stayed ahead, unless the car behind was red…

    But with the new aero rules will this be the case? If not, if overtaking is easier, then the Brawn cars will have an advantage. They may qualify well, and they may lose out at the start to KERS equipped cars, but over the race distance i think they just might begin to make their mark.

    Button has always been kind to his rear tyres, and there has been much talk of teams struggling to get their front tyres to work with the new cars. A no-KERS car with much better weight distribution, better aero (as they don’t need to cool the KERS system) and a long technical gestation might not be such a silly bet for race wins.

    Can’t wait for Melbourne!

    1. Im not too knowledgeable on KERs, but it can be used from the start? Isn’t the point of KERS to get that extra power from the kinetic energy from braking? But there isn’t really much hard braking before the start. Do they have like an initial boost to begin with?

  49. I really truly hope there pace is genuine. I would be sick to my stomach to see yet another Ferrari championship year.

  50. I’ll be supporting them aside from Ferrari.

  51. I couldn’t be more thrilled about having another top team to shake things up. I’m not holding my breath, but I’ll bet Villeneuve just pulled a few of his remaining hairs out!

  52. Parag Dhungana
    14th March 2009, 4:17

    Below is the post of my fellow mate St Moore (Chief Moore) from F1-TM website. I think this was the lap times of 12th march 2009

    “Well i found this interesting,

    Its a lap by lap account of FM in the Ferrari and JB in the Brawn. Both did 23 lap stints on Wednesday and this is how they compare.

    Massa Button

    1:21.698 1’21”355

    1:21.541 1’21”044

    1:21.911 1’20”967

    1:21.141 1’20”928

    1:23.099 1’20”566

    1:21.590 1’20”718

    1:21.450 1’20”739

    1:21.347 1’21”018

    1:21.821 1’25”751

    1:21.114 1’20”938

    1:21.321 1’20”839

    1:21.421 1’20”745

    1:21.084 1’20”694

    1:20.993 1’20”612

    1:21.770 1’20”739

    1:22.821 1’20”940

    1:20.801 1’21”166

    1:20.982 1’21”613

    1:21.430 1’21”512

    1:23.352 1’22”003

    1:22.903 1’24”896

    1:21.198 1’21”644

    1:21.494 1’21”258

    31:18.3 31:12.7

    As usual it doesn’t mean anything because we don’t know the fuel loads but still, interesting.

    The Brawn seems quicker and more consistant. “

    1. Judging by those times – if you exclude > 1 sec differences (as those must be due to a traffic) it seems that over the race distance Brawn is on average 0,3 – 0,4 sec / lap quicker than Ferrari.

      They are faster, but non necessarily unreachable as you could assume by their “quali” times of 1:18.

      What’s sure is that they will be figting in front.

  53. Indeed that may be the case Robert. But don’t you think it would be great if Brawn GP shows up and whips the rest of the field after enduring so much turmoil and uncertainty this off-season? Can’t pitch a better underdog story than that

    Oh, undoubtedly it would be a fantastic story and I would not be disappointed to see Brawn GP turn up and thrash everyone. I’m just saying from the point of view of wanting to see multiple teams battling for victory it’d be quite nice if 3 or 4 teams turn up with very similar pace.

  54. Quite agree Robert

  55. The same people that designed the BrawnGP car are going to be updating it so there is no reason to think that the BGP will not improve. Its not a team that came out of the woodwork. If USF1 shows up in 2010 on top of the timesheets then that will truly be a miracle. BGP know F1 and with all the teams being so close in performance its all about getting it right.

  56. BrawnGP’s spectacular times remind me much of Arrows offseason testing. The rules are changed, and they do have Mercedes, but I doubt it is pure speed. Should be interesting to say the least.

  57. I’m glad to see Honda finally building a great f1 car, not only great engines. It’s a pity they left the sport since their KERS system was also the most mature at this stage.

  58. Anyone who thinks that Brawn is too much the “professional” to pull ticks with testing times is kidding me.

    F1 is a ruthless, pretty low down affair overall and it’s in that context that Brawn has succeeded over the years. He has also worked closely with Schumacher, Todt and other pretty marginal characters.

    I don’t doubt Brawn’s ability, nor am I saying the times the team set recently. But anyone who suggests the times must be real because Brawn is such a stand up guy is being terminally naive.

    Having said all that, i think the times may probably are pukka, but that’s not because think Brawn is a cuddly little bunny.

  59. I would like to agree with so many of you, that I haven’t been this excited about an F1 season in many years. However, no one seems to have mentioned that the Brawn car has set remarkable times at Barcelona. At Barcelona. That may be the point. It is one of the most often used test venues, the teams know it so well. This does not mean that Brawn/JB/RB are going to walk away with the championship this year, just by being quick at one of the cicuits. I wish they would, but it’s unlikely. Maybe Jerez will give us something to really get excited about!!!

  60. I think what we’re learning is that perhaps Honda needed to give Brawn a little more power over the team.

  61. In answer to the query about KERS being used at the start – of course the cars will have built up power in their KERS system before the start. Have you never watched a warm up lap? They are hard on the brakes all the time, especially as they approach the grid.

    Interesting to watch the start of the first few races…

  62. The Brawn did it today!
    A superb race and 1st and 2st places to the Brawn GP!!

    Bravo!
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