Question: Ross, you must feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland, as Formula One racing at the moment is a world full of paradoxes: some of the least successful teams of last year lead the championship this season. How is life in that fairytale world?
Ross Brawn: Yes, it is a little bit surreal on one hand, but on the other hand it was all part of a plan that we had. Well, not necessarily a plan to be exactly where we are, but a plan to improve the team enormously. And that plan was to sacrifice 2008 and focus totally on 2009, because the new regulations gave an enormous opportunity. These new regulations gave an opportunity to teams which perhaps were behind with the old regulations. Our idea was: let’s forget about the outdated regulations and let’s get on with the new ones and concentrate on the car for 2009. The established teams didn’t have that luxury - they had to try to win the championship. And you can see that it hurt them at the beginning of the year. They are starting to come back now, but it was somewhat of a difficult compromise for them: do they sacrifice the 2008 championship for a strong 2009 or vice versa? I think it is one of those situations that arise every five to ten years when the regulations change. Any work that they did in 2008 was not usable in 2009 - it was wasted. We had a plan to make that step change that we needed to go forward and make the team more competitive, and in combination with one or two teams having problems we find ourselves where we are. And we are very delighted.
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Question: What is the prevailing feeling: surprise, satisfaction or thankfulness?
Ross Brawn: All of those! Obviously some surprise of the position of some of our competitors. I don’t want to say that in an arrogant way, but it is no surprise how our car is performing, because it is performing where we had expected it to be. But it has galvanized the team enormously in what also was a very difficult period for the team - and the two have gone hand in hand. What I am really, really happy about is that although we had that very difficult time the team is united in a way that perhaps it wasn’t before. The difficult circumstances had bonded everything together. I am delighted, of course, with how things are going. Now we try to keep it going as long as we can.
Question: Had you ever guessed in your wildest dreams that a Formula One team would one day bear your name?
Ross Brawn: No, that was never my ambition, quite frankly, and it really came about as a necessity because we’ve tried to come up with different names for the team but none of them made much sense. And it was Caroline, our legal secretary, who said ‘why don’t we take your name? You are established. It will have a certain standing in Formula One’ - and we didn’t have a better idea! That’s how we arrived!
Question: If Jenson goes on winning with Rubens in tow both championship titles could be decided by the time of the summer break. Is that your aim?
Ross Brawn: It would be fantastic, but I don’t think that will happen. Formula One is very competitive and very tough - and we are not thinking about the championships. We are attacking every single race as it comes - and in attacking every race if we do well the championships will start to evolve. But you can’t set out your plan to win the championship by a certain date. Whether it happens or not fate takes a bit of a hand. But sure there is no reason why we shouldn’t be competitive for the rest of the year. And we don’t talk about it - it means bad luck.
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