Brawn expects tough days at Honda

The Japanese manufacturer's new team principal made his track return to Formula One during a visit to testing at Jerez in Spain on Tuesday.

And although he has been pleased with what he has found at his new team so far, Brawn says he is under no illusions about how difficult the rebuilding of the team will be.

Speaking to autosport.com, Brawn admitted that he missed being involved in the sport - but knows that things will not all be good in the forthcoming months.

"There were a lot of reasons I wanted to come back and this is part of it," he explained. "I think it is a great challenge to all of us, at Honda, to get to the level where we want to be. And I am really looking forward to it.

"But there will be some tough days, for sure. Tough times and difficult times, but the team has much potential and I am ready to go through that."

Brawn said that his visit to Jerez had been useful in allowing him to work out how Honda Racing operated.

"It was very interesting," he claimed. "I have heard a lot about the team so I wanted to come for a day to have a look at the trackside work, and it was a very useful day.

"I met the people, got to see the way they work, the methods they use, and got to see the car in action. It is only the reference for the future but it is still useful to run it.

"Obviously MES (the McLaren standard ECU) is a new thing for me, and I am still finding out how it works. The team seems comfortable working with it.

"They did not have a great car this year, but I don't think there is anything wrong with the way they work at all. They did a good job from what I saw, a competent job, and I do not see any reason why we should not progress."

But despite Jenson Button setting the second best time of the day on slick tyres, Brawn said it was too early to start building proper relationships with the drivers.

"We will know more once we get the new car," he said. "We can then get a much better tool to build our relationship."

Brawn was also insistent that his focus is on the future. When asked to clarify recent remarks that his exit from Ferrari was planned as early as 2004, Brawn said: "Let's talk about here. No questions about the past..."