Ross Brawn

Back in 1979 Brawn was part of the Williams team that scored its first ever Grand Prix win at Silverstone. However, he didn't get to celebrate at the track as his daughter was born on the afternoon of the race!

A quarter of a century later Ross celebrated the anniversary in style by joining Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello for a soaking on the podium. With 10 wins so far this year there's been plenty of opportunity for Ferrari's key people to enjoy the party, and in Britain it was Brawn's turn again.

"Those things you never get used to," he smiled. "You just have to think of a different strategy on the podium. It's great, a year like this, because we've been able to give so many of our people the thrill of going on the podium. For me it's very special at Silverstone, going up there. You never get tired of it."

It was clear very early on how this one was going to turn out. When Michael stayed out for a handful of laps longer than the other top runners, and then had a longer first stop, it became obvious that he was going to do this on just two stops.

The others were already locked into three-stop strategies which they could not change, and there seemed to be very little chance of anything going wrong for the Michael Schumacher. Two stops was always going to be the option for the World Champion, and in retrospect his fourth spot on the grid was pretty impressive.

"We'd seen at the test that the tyres are very consistent," said Ross, "and Michael wasn't entirely happy with the car going into qualifying, so we thought we'd play it a little bit conservatively. Rubens was much happier with the car and wanted to have an aggressive strategy. As it turned out, Michael's car was good in the race, and Rubens' wasn't quite there. Probably the conditions that came after the rain, or the wind, just filtered it in Michael's favour.

"He was able to put in those stunning laps, 13, 14and 15, and I was shocked when he came out in front of Kimi. I knew it would be close, but I hadn't appreciated how much of a gap he'd managed to make on him.

"That was the crucial part of the race for sure. I was amazed that we came out in front of Kimi. Our predictions were that we'd come out just behind, but still in a very strong position, because of strategy. For Michael to come out ahead was fantastic."

At one stage Michael was set to win by miles, but the arrival of the safety car allowed his pursuers to make their third stops for free, and at least gave us all hope that we might have a grandstand finish. The field closed right up, and only the intervention of a couple of lapped cars protected Michael from an assault by Raikkonen. Ross admits that the sudden change of fortunes worried him.

"It did. Our tyres are fantastic, but they don't get up to temperature as quickly as the Michelins, and after any safety car, we're a bit a vulnerable. So it was a little bit anxious. We had the race in the pocket at that stage, and I think even Rubens was going to push Kimi a lot harder than he could in the end. So the safety car didn't work for us."

There were no last lap heroics from Barrichello this time, and the Brazilian had to settle for third. Considering he started second, that must be a disappointment. He still can't seem to do anything about beating Michael.

"There are no team tactics now. We had a long debate, because Rubens was on a different strategy, about how it would work out in the race. Both drivers agreed to race each other, but it didn't come to that. Unfortunately Rubens got a little bit messy in the middle of the field at one stage. He managed to get past Jenson in the pit stops, but Kimi was very quick today. Rubens wanted a very aggressive strategy, he was up for a very aggressive strategy, and it just didn't quite work for him."

Ross acknowledges that McLaren's return to form won't make the last seven races any easier, but there's plenty of opposition from elsewhere as well.

"It was quite close today. They're keeping us on our toes, and that's good. The thing is, it's a different rival each race, which is good for us in the constructors'. McLaren scored today, while in the last race it was Renault, prior to that it was BAR. So from the constructors' point of view it's great to have all these different competitors. They're keeping us honest, that's for sure."