Brawn: We made the right call

"We lost the championship at the last race in 1997/8/9 and I remember at Jerez and Suzuka after two of those occasions, asking ourselves if there was anything we could have done differently during the season to influence it.

"Rubens hasn't had the best of luck this year, which made it doubly difficult but the bottom line is that going into the race Michael had 44 points and Rubens had six."

Brawn denied that the superiority shown by Ferrari this year was a reason not to apply team tactics.

"Michael broke his leg in 1999 and there's no knowing what is going to happen. We are not conceited enough to think that we have such an advantage that we can forget about our competitors. This is not an unusual situation. I remember it happening with Mario Andretti and Ronnie Peterson in the seventies."

Brawn said that he first discussed the move with Barrichello soon after the second pit stops. He denied that a note passed from Jean Todt on the pit wall was the crucial instruction.

"No," he said, "it was a weather report." Storm clouds approaching, perhaps.

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