Brawn: We must break Williams to win

Despite taking victory in Belgium last weekend, Ferrari ace Michael Schumacher had to settle for third place behind younger brother Ralf and pole-sitter Juan Pablo Montoya during qualifying. The Williams duo also set a blistering pace during testing at Monza last month and are set to be Ferrari's biggest opposition at the Italian Grand Prix.

However, Brawn believes that Williams' Achilles' heel is the reliability of its BMW engines and that if it is pushed hard enough, mechanical failures could come into play.

"Monza's going to be very tough," Brawn told Autosport.com. "At the test the other week Williams was exceptionally fast, and it could well be a repeat of Hockenheim [where Ralf won], but we'll do our best to make sure it isn't.

"But they are a bit fragile. There was another engine failure here (Spa) by the looks of things, and Monza is a very hard circuit. Either they're going to have to tone down the engines a bit, or they're taking a risk. Who knows? Maybe we can push them so they have to run the engine hard, and we'll see what happens."

While reliability is set to be Williams' watchword in Italy, Ferrari has no such worries and Schumacher's Spa win marked the Maranello-based team's 33rd consecutive podium finish. Germany aside, Ferrari has also managed to be competitive on all types of circuit this year.

"The encouraging thing is that we haven't had a particularly bad circuit, although Hockenheim was a struggle," said Brawn. "Last year there were certain things that we were unlikely to be able to do anything about. Whereas this year, apart from the odd exceptions when Michelin tyres and the BMW engine have all come together, we've been very, very competitive on every track."

Brawn also says Ferrari should not forget the good job it is doing. The technical ace believes the difference between the top teams and those just behind are small mistakes.

"Williams is still showing signs of needing to put all the other bits and pieces together and that's why they've not been such a strong contender this year. I'm sure they will be next year," he said. "That's why I praise our team as often as I can, because they don't make those sort of mistakes. You only see how difficult it is when you see what a hash someone else makes!"