Ross Brawn sure Mercedes is in great shape if British Grand Prix is wet

Brawn, who said Michael Schumacher had the potential to take pole position had the team switched him to intermediates earlier in Q3 on Saturday, believes that improvements to the wet weather performance of the W03 mean the car could become a serious contender in the race.

"When you design a car you look at various qualities and compromises and the optimisation you want to do and if you look at the racing circuits of the world then slow and medium speed corners are actually more important than fast corners," said Brawn. "But when you get to a circuit where there is fast corners then you need to be able to perform there as well.

"We've made some progress since perhaps earlier in the year when that fast corner performance was perhaps not as strong as we wanted. I think that will show more [in the grand prix], if we get some dry periods in the race.

"But I think it is also reflecting in the performance of the car in wet conditions because I have to say at the beginning of the year as well the car in the wet wasn't great.

"I think the team have done a great job to improve that performance as well, and you can see that most of the time in the wet conditions we were able to compete."

Brawn said that Schumacher's impressive third-place qualifying performance was as much to do with the German's wet-weather prowess.

"I think these conditions really tax the drivers, because you are almost arriving at corners not knowing what you are going to meet," he said. "So you are arriving at corners with the conditions changing, tyres changing, track changing and he has demonstrated again that he is quite exceptional in those conditions and showed again that he has a huge talent for driving a racing car.

"He's been very, very good all year and in Monaco he was the fastest driver in qualifying. We didn't perhaps run the smoothest Q3 for him because we swapped the tyres halfway through and that only gave him one lap on the intermediates. I was a critical lap, and he delivered so he is driving fantastically well, putting in great performances and we need to get to the finish and I think he will get great results."

Brawn also said that he expected Nico Rosberg to vault forward through the pack from 11th position on the grid: "He is actually in quite good shape so I think if we have these sort of conditions on Sunday, we could have quite a lot of fun."