Brawn Baffled by Ferrari's Form

That is the view of Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn, who claims that neither Bridgestone nor Michelin really know the reasons behind their relative pace this year.

Referring back to Ferrari's form at the San Marino Grand Prix, where Michael Schumacher was able to go two seconds per lap faster than his rivals, Brawn admits he is baffled about why that form did not carry forward into subsequent races.

"I think it was a combination of our package with the Bridgestones working better than the cars on Michelin," he said in an interview with Gazzetta dello Sport. "But I suspect neither Bridgestone nor Michelin understood what happened that day.

"The changes in the regulations have given advantages to Michelin and disadvantages to Bridgestone. I have a friend at Michelin who told me that even they don't know why they're going so well nowadays, because their tyres haven't changed much since last year. I think the chemistry of the tyres in relation to the tarmacs is a science not fully understood yet."

Brawn believes that the impact of tyre performance on Ferrari's form this year was proved in Turkey, when the team had to revert to an old specification of tyre after grabbing pole with new rubber at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

"At Istanbul we had the same car used at Budapest," he said. "With only one difference: the tyres. Bridgestone previously informed us that the family of tyres used in Hungary wasn't available and that we would have used an evolution of the tyres from Magny-Cours and Silverstone. We knew that they wouldn't adapt to the smooth tarmac in Turkey."