Brawn: We now understand the car better

Ross Brawn

Mercedes GP Team Principal Ross Brawn has said that the team now has a significantly more comprehensive understanding of its car in comparison to earlier this season, with performances having seemingly improved in recent races despite no significant updates being installed.

“It has just been consolidation and often when you are introducing a lot of new things, particularly with no testing, it makes the Friday and Saturday practice quite difficult," Brawn commented in Friday’s FIA press conference at Interlagos.

“We had a bit of a low point during the season when we had a lot of new stuff on the car and we didn’t have it working properly and we have just consolidated those developments since."

However, Ross added that he is sure more raw performance can still be hauled out of the silver arrows piloted by Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher.

“I don’t think we’re extracting the most from it, which has been a good lesson for us and something we will perhaps bear in mind for the future – to arrive at the circuit with a package that is more thoroughly prepared before we try and get it on the circuit," he continued.

“We have seen that, with almost every team this year, that it’s two steps forward and one step back because of no testing. I think, back to the days of testing, we would spend days evaluating things and often things would not work the way we expected – it’s understandable but I think we’ve learnt quite a lot from it."