Brawn just wants respect

Ross Brawn

Ross Brawn is hoping for nothing more than respectability from a season that will undoubtedly be his most challenging in Formula One. Brawn may concede to overcoming his 'biggest hurdle' in salvaging from the ashes of Honda Racing the new Brawn GP team, and he may possess one of the most astute technical brains in the business. But with the new season just three weeks away, and with the new car only due to take to the track for its first official outing in Barcelona on Monday, his problems have surely only just started.

Brawn is far from naive as he is expecting to encounter those problems, but he also feels in light of the staff retained, they can produce a creditable display over the course of the season.

"The biggest hurdle we faced was being in a position to race in Melbourne, and we will now be able to achieve that target," said Brawn, who has confirmed he owns the team.

"Initially we may experience some reliability issues resulting from the lack of track testing, but we feel we have a good car and we hope that our performance will be respectable."

"We are confident in the fundamental design principle of our car and look forward to the opportunity to develop it further as the season progresses."

"But I know we will take away from Melbourne an enormous sense of pride and achievement at having already met and overcome our biggest challenge."

Brawn will now put a lot of faith in drivers Jenson Button, who is understood to have halved his salary to 7.5 million pounds to race, and Rubens Barrichello.

With the car untried and virtually untested, other than Friday's shakedown at Silverstone conducted by Button, Brawn feels they both possess the necessary knowledge to help with crucial development.

"We are very fortunate to have two experienced drivers in Jenson and Rubens," added Brawn.

"They will enable us to hit the ground running when we test for the first time in Barcelona next week."

"After four years as team-mates, their experience with our team in Brackley, our systems and our engineers, will prove a real asset."

"Jenson and Rubens have always had a great relationship, and we expect to see them pushing each other hard over the season to get the best performance from the car and drive forward its development."

"Both drivers are extremely motivated having trained hard over the winter to ensure they were in the best possible physical condition."

"Now we look forward to their first thoughts on the BGP001 at next week's Barcelona test, which will be an emotional moment for everyone in the team, I'm sure."

At present, the livery is a stark sponsor-less white, with flashes of black and yellow – a color scheme very much intended.

Brawn revealed: "It was designed for simplicity to reflect our current position at the inception of Brawn GP."

"Black and white seemed a natural place to start and the fluorescent yellow gives it a more striking touch of visibility."

"It's very different to any other car on the grid."