Brawn GP Sandbagging - Let's Hope So!

The rumours flying around at the moment is that Brawn GP is seriously quicker than other cars on the grid, but is being careful about showing this pace.

A ‘senior source’ within the company has told the Guardian the team chose not to show its full hand and had speed in reserve.

“I think, basically, that if someone is two-tenths off us they can feasibly win the race but, if we’re half a second in front, which is probably where we are at the moment, although we don’t necessarily look like that, it is just foolish to just annihilate people all the time,” he said.

Although Button pulled out a four-second lead on the opening lap in Melbourne, Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel was in contention by keeping the gap down and BMW believe their driver, Robert Kubica, would have won the race if he had not crashed out.

The Brawn GP source denied this and said “I think we have a little bit in the bag.“We’ve got good stuff coming and I think we have reason to be confident.” he said

The diffuser row is the only thing hanging over Brawn GP at the moment, with an appeal set for April 14th. If they lose the right to use the diffuser will all the advantage for BGP disappear? Not according the secret squirrel from BGP. “The visual bits are not really the performance drivers; it’s all the surfaces you can’t see that give you the real performance,” he said.

“One of the good things about the Brawn car is that competitors will look at all of it and say, ‘That’s the bit that’s making it fast.’

“But it is not necessarily one thing; they could be focusing on something that is not really a big performance driver.”

With Honda writing of the 2008 season, their designers had been working on the car long before other teams and completed the initial design several momths before anyone else. This gave the team confidence of the car's ability early on in testing.

“We were looking at everybody else’s times asking why were they all so slow,” he said.

“Our research was telling us we would be the quickest car.”

And will the other teams catch Brawn GP ?

“We’ve still got a lot in the bag,” said the source

“The other teams will come back at us very hard over the season, but, long-term, Brawn will be a force in the top three – certainly while these regulations are stable and the budget cap remains.”

Jenson's Melbourne Diary

It is clear from the audio that Jenson is on top of the world and so he should be. There have been interesting comments around today about the preformance of the Brawn GP car. About Kubica's threat in the fianl laps of the race, Jenson said "I actually wasn't worried,".

Talking aboiut those final laps he said "I knew when I came out in front of Vettel that I would be fine as I knew that we could look after the tyre. The thing with the last stint was not to push and try and see what was the best time I could do. I was purposely driving very slowly, I wasn't turning in aggressively to any corners.

"I think I could have been in the mid 1m28s but we were taking an easy route to stop the graining because as soon as that graining starts you see what happens as Vettel lost a massive amount of time behind me"

"I was able to just plough on doing my mid 1m29s when he was in the 1m30s, so I wasn't worried once I was out in front of Vettel and I knew we could bring it home from there."

This has got others around the paddock suggesting that the Brawn car is even quicker than it showed to be "I think they are playing with us" was Vettel's response.

"It was a very mature drive from Jenson, driving as fast as he needed to," said Mercedes motorsport boss Norbert Haug."They could have pushed more in my view but they are smart guys."

Ferrari's Stefano Domencali agreed with Haug's assessment of Brawn. "In normal circumstances without any safety cars, they would have flown away," he said.

'Rivals Will Be Soon On Us' - Jenson

Jenson is getting ready for the grid's response to Brawn's superiority at the Australian Grand Prix and realises that the other teams will be hot on their tails.

“I hope that we are quick all season and I hope that we have an advantage all season, but I don’t think that’s going to be the case,” the Englishman said.

With the start to the season that Brawn has had it is clear that the car could put both drivers in the running for a shot at the champonship, but their rivals won't make it easy.

“....I have a feeling that other teams are going to be on us very quickly, and when we get to a different type of circuit, maybe in Malaysia, some other cars which weren’t so competitive here will be.”

Altogether the weekend, apart from being a fairlytale ending to a traumatic winter, was encouraging for the Brawn team, but there were surprises for Jenson in other parts of the grid.

Vettel’s pace surprised me a little bit,” he said. “I didn’t think they were quite as quick as they were today when we watched them in practice but their pace seemed to be good.”

It must be a great feeling for the Briton to be finally in a car that can show his talents as well as show Rubens to be the great driver he is, but all is not so bright elsewhere.

Ferrari driver Felipe Massa, whose team endured a miserable opening weekend, expressed fears that Brawn would dominate the year, describing the team as "in another planet".

Asked when Ferrari might catch up, he replied: "I don't know if it will be possible.

"When you are three-tenths behind it is always possible, but when you are one second behind, or eight- or nine-tenths...quite difficult."

Sources:
ITV

How Awesome Was That? Brawn GP Kick Off With a Win

I have to say I do get a little sentimental sometimes. It is, perhaps, something that a petrol head should not admit in public, but yesterday sure put a lump in my throat.

The fact is that Rubens, Jenson, Ross and Nick are probably some of the most likeable characters in F1. For them to be waking up today with a one-two in their pockets and a sponsor like Branson bagged, must be a dream come true.

Unsually for F1, everybody seems to be happy about the team being on the up, at least for now. Yes I know there are grumbles down the pit lane about the diffuser but I do get the impression that everyone was pulling for Ross and the team... Makes a change from legal cases and bitching every season, doesn't it?

The opening race was, in my opinion, a classic. When was the last time we saw the underdogs slapping the big boy about? Jenson's drive was perfection, even though he admitted a few mistakes at the press conference and, considering Ross Brawn had warned that the pit crew were 'a little out of practice', I didn't spot a mistake in the pit lane by the Brawn GP guys..

Awesome...

The Trulli incident was a bit odd... seemed obvious to me that he had broke the rules.. couldn't understand why he was on the podium... what do you think?

Anyway, onwards and upwards to Malaysia next week.... looks like this season is going to be fun.....