Ross Brawn still feeling confident for 2012 Bahrain Grand Prix – Formula 1 news
Mercedes AMG team principal, Ross Brawn is still feeling confident for 2012 Bahrain Grand Prix regardless of disappointing performances of the team’s drivers in the qualifying.
Nico Rosberg of Mercedes who took victory in the Chinese GP last Sunday could only manage to secure fifth position in the grid after the qualifying on Sunday, for the race at Sakhir.
In addition, Rosberg’s teammate Michael Schumacher failed to make his way into Q2 as he was sitting in the garage while other drivers kept on improving their lap times during the qualifying. Moreover, the seven-time world champion will also face a five-place
grid penalty due to gearbox change.
Nonetheless, Brawn said that Schumacher faced problem in his DRS during the qualifying because of which he could not perform well.
“Michael had a DRS problem,” Brawn explained. “DRS in qualifying , where you can use it for the whole lap, is worth more than a second. And so it didn't seem worthwhile burning a set of soft tyres when, from our calculations, we'd struggle to be at the time
that we had already done.”
Furthermore, he expressed that the incident of DRS failure was quite upsetting for the team.
Besides, he said that the sets of tyres which Schumacher has been able to save during the qualifying will provide them a competitive advantage in the race. He also said that they are quite positive for the race ahead.
“Michael having all those new tyres will give us an opportunity to have a decent race,” Brawn asserted. “His starts have been pretty impressive and with all the new tyres we've got more latitude. There was a fairly heavy consumption of tyres from everybody
during qualifying, so we remain optimistic.”
The Brackley based team has come up with quite a competent car design in this season and also faced immense criticism over the legitimacy of its novel DRS-activated F-duct device, especially from Lotus and Red Bull Racing. Nevertheless, the head of technical
department of FIA, Charlie Whiting called it to be legal.
Mercedes truly have the potential to fight for 2012 Formula 1 championship title with the pair of veteran German drivers and capable team members.
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