Mercedes, Brawn: “Only in Australia will we be able to make a judgement”

The new Mercedes? According to the team principal Ross Brawn it is still early to make a judgement.

The comment comes in response to the words of Mika Hakkinen who after trying the new W04 declared that “It's not exactly at the speed I expected them to be.”

“I don't think they can sustain the competition too much this year”, continued the Finn.

According to Brawn, however, the impact with the new single-seater was good: “We still have to work on tire degradation, but the problem is that Jerez in winter is not very representative”.

“The data is promising”, he continued, explaining that at the Barcelona tests it will not yet be possible to make predictions or in any case make judgements. “It can also be very cool in Barcelona. We will probably only be able to say something in Australia and Malaysia.".

Brawn also confirmed that the team already has a design team working exclusively on the 2014 car: “Ferrari announced some time ago that they have two teams to work on the 2013 and 2014 cars: that's what we did too”.

Finally, on the rumors that speak of an interest in the McLaren technical director Paddy lowe who could arrive at Mercedes in place of Brawn, the current team principal appeared calm: "I had no problem".

Lorenza Teti