Ross Brawn believes ‘no performance gap between Schumacher and Rosberg’ – Formula 1 news
Mercedes AMG Petronas team principal, Ross Brawn has said that he does not feel any kind of gap between the performances of Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg during the upcoming season.
He added that the record championship Schumacher holder may prove out to be faster than his teammate.
“He's [Schumacher] the same or even quicker in the fast corners,” Brawn told the Guardian. “Nico just seems to have more of an intuitive ability to get the most out of the tyres on one lap.”
The seven-time world champion, Schumacher made his comeback in F1 couple of years back with Mercedes but he was completely outperformed by his teammate, Rosberg during the first year of his return and struggled throughout the season.
Nevertheless, in 2011 the veteran German driver improved his performance during the season and finished at fourth position at the Canadian Grand Prix while his compatriot’s best finish was fifth at Chinese and Turkish Grands Prix.
Brawn said that nothing could be told about both the team drivers in the races where the course is more consistent. However, he said that there were some races in which Rosberg was dominant while in others, Schumacher was ahead.
Moreover, he stated that Schumacher was facing difficulties in understanding the tyres and particularly how to attain the maximum performance out of them in the single qualifying lap.
“I don't know if he will find the difference in qualifying, because Nico is very special in those circumstances, one of the best I've seen. At the moment Michael hasn't understood how he can get that. Now there's only one tyre out there, it's the same for
everybody, and he's got to work out how he's going to get that performance from it,” he added.
Mercedes struggled throughout the last year’s pre-season testing programme. Nonetheless, the team had made many improvements and the substantial preparations for the forthcoming season.
Furthermore, Brawn expected a very tight fight amongst the rivals in the season-opener at Melbourne but he felt confident on his team drivers and the new car W03. Besides, he said that the upcoming season would be quite an exciting one.
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