No quick fix for Honda, says Brawn

That is the view of Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn, who believes the revamp of technical staff is unlikely to deliver any kind of instant improvement in form. He thinks that it takes several years before a new technical team can deliver to their full potential.

"A technical change takes three years to settle down," said Brawn, referring to the promotion of Shuhei Nakamoto as senior technical director and the departure of Geoff Willis.

"So if you make major changes to the technical team in my view, it's three years before you see the result.

"It takes one year to understand what's happening, a second year to change things and a third year to get the results. I don't know Honda's structure, but if someone asked me to go into an organisation, I think realistically it would be a three-year time scale."

Brawn was unsure of the reasons behind the major change in staff at Honda, but said that Ferrari had always believed in the benefits of continuity.

"I don't really know what happened, they wanted to take the team in a different direction but I don't know enough about it," he explained. "Any person who is secure in their job in F1 is the one who is winning. And all the rest of us? Well, that's the nature of the business.

"You have to have a balance, you have to decide between making any changes, against consistency. Ferrari have been great as even in difficult times our president has always supported the team and taken the view that they want consistency."