Brawn: “The new Mercedes is not a bad car”

Ross Brawn has said Mercedes will work on the fastest lap in the final pre-season tests. When Auto Motor und Sport asked him for his assessment of what the W02 has shown so far, the Brackley team boss replied: “I'd say it's decent. It won't be a bad car, but of course we don't know where the others are at."

The Englishman explained that Mercedes had focused on "making the whole package work" over the course of the first three tests, and that Barcelona had been earmarked as the last resort to "resolve all the problems".

“In the next tests we will also look at the times,” said Brawn.

One of the big questions this pre-season is whether the Mercedes-Pirelli combination will allow Schumacher to be more competitive than last year: “We still have little data to make comparisons. What I see is a very motivated Schumacher.”

“Red Bull is strong, Ferrari, Renault and we are in good shape. About the other teams I can only guess. It's difficult to quantify Red Bull's advantage. I don't know what developments should lead to the first race. Ours will be important.”

Finally, he hinted that Mercedes developments also include something about exhausts, adding: “So far I haven't seen anyone with something similar. For now the exhausts are blowing like last year. However, our solution will not be as extreme as that of Renault or McLaren.”

Filippo Ronchetti