Ross Brawn Q&A

"We had a problem in the warm-up and we thought we'd fixed it, but we wanted to do a routine run to make sure it was fixed, and obviously it wasn't."



"Yes, we had a long night thinking about what to do! We still didn't make the decision until after the morning. It was tough, because you're racing against Michelin, and you know they're going to get better at the end. How do you defend against that?"



"We were just trying to look at the tyres, how the tyres work and how the tyres react. But it was clear they used their best prepared tyres for the first stint. They used a set of tyres that was quite old for the first stint, and then they had to use newer tyres for the second and third stint, which I think is why they weren't so quick."



"Pretty much. They were a bit dog-eared by the end of the first stint, they were a bit ragged, but it wasn't too bad. It co-incided with Williams getting very, very strong. It was quite difficult, the last five or 10 laps of a stint, but we had to hang on because of a strategic problem. We had to keep Ralf behind and hope that he was going to stop very close to us, and in fact he did. It all worked out, but the car got very difficult at the end of the first stint, and that was really where Michael won the race."



"I couldn't possibly tell you! Er, no we had to stop then."



"I was relieved, put it that way, because it meant we had a chance of staying in front."



"Yes, but then you never know how much fuel to put on. You don't want to put too much fuel on so that the pit stop is too long, you don't want to put too little on so that you can get passed on the second stop. So it's a bit of a balancing act."



"I guess it was a question of where they were... Rubens was on a one-stop as well, and if he'd made a better start he would have been up there too, so we'll have to investigate what happened. Something didn't quite go right at the start and he lost too many places. I need to go through his race in more detail. There were a few places where he was quite quick, but he was struggling a little with the car today."



"It's more positive points, but we can't relax until the job's done. There are still eight races to go, and we've only just passed half way. So it's still open in my view. The team is obviously doing a very good job, and we need to continue to do that. And winning a race like this, where it was really competitive, is really an extra reward. It's very fulfilling."



"I think a lot of people speculated that would be the case, and I said they could be the dark horse, because of the Michelin tyres. You've got that extra ingredient that's so difficult to predict. It's obviously a very good car and the engine looks very good. They have a good pair of drivers. I'm not sure that they can challenge for the championship this year, but next year they are going to be a serious contender."