Brawn GP's success this year has highlighted Ross Brawn's talents as a strategic mastermind. When we see Jenson Button winning as relentlessly and faultlessly as he is, memories of the Schumacher years surface and we cannot help but notice the common denominator between today and that time of domination by Michael: Ross himself. Already we have seen races where the deciding factor has been Brawn's superior pit stop tactics, echoing those many races that Schumacher won because his stops were timed so perfectly.
"Who da man? You da man!" Ross Brawn and Jenson Button
Strangely, this forces a re-evaluation of both Ross and Michael. Is it possible that we did not appreciate just how much the multiple world champion owed to the "brain on the pit wall"? Could it be that Ross would have achieved as much with any of the better drivers in those years, the Frentzens, the Hakkinens, the Alesis, even the Coulthards? It seems impossible, so long have we considered Michael the fastest driver of his era, a contender too for the ephemeral title of Greatest Ever. Yet would he have built a record anything like as impressive had there been no Ross to guide him through?
Consider how we are having to re-assess Britain's darling of yesteryear, Jenson Button. Once trumpeted as the next British champion, Jenson's history of always being in the wrong team at the wrong time blunted our expectations and we came to see him as a "nearly man", talented, yes, but lacking in determination and the killer instinct that Schumacher had in abundance. A spoiled kid, we thought, as we heard of the girlfriend changes and fancy cars, the broken contracts and dismal results.
Now Ross is in charge and suddenly Button looks as invincible as Michael used to. We cannot ignore his effortless style, the precision that allows him to post such consistent lap times, his ability to give even more when the mastermind requests it.
Ross has long been respected as the greatest strategist on the pit wall but it may be that we are still not giving him the credit he deserves. It may well be that the dream team at Ferrari was not a trio but a duo of Michael and Ross with no Jean Todt necessary at all.
Of course, Brawn's success this year would not be possible without the excellent BGP 001. In his Honda years, the car was so bad that Ross could do no more than work the occasional miracle to earn an odd point or two. So perhaps we should have given more recognition to the talents of Rory Byrne, so quietly creating one world-beating Ferrari after another in the back room. Maybe the real triumvirate was Ross/Schumacher/Byrne.
Watching Ferrari's pit lane fiascos of the last couple of years, this impression of Ross' infallibillity is reinforced. Some of the inexplicable tactical decisions by the Ferrari team remind me of those times when Ross made a seemingly silly call only to be proved correct when Michael salvaged yet another victory from apparent defeat. The difference is that Ferrari no longer have a man with the vision to see how things will pan out; they try to repeat the trick and their attempts explode in their faces.
Of the six GPs so far, Button has won five and been third in Shanghai where the wet race characteristics of Red Bull's RB5 proved too big an advantage over the BGP 001 to be overcome. With every race it becomes more likely that Jenson will cruise to the title this year, whether or not the other teams get their acts together. He will have earned his championship but not just because he is a far better driver than previous years would suggest; he also has had the good sense to stick with the man who makes champions.
It seems that F1 has another dream team on its hands, another triumvirate that sets the standard for others to aim at. All you need is an excellent driver, a strategist in the Brawn mold and... What? A Rory Byrne in the design office? A transformation of Nick Fry into Jean Todt? I suppose it depends on who can claim responsibility for the BGP 001.
Which makes it very clear that the third arm of the trio is the car, regardless of who designed it. Brawn/Honda do not have a star designer, unless you think Ross has more influence in that area than usually estimated (I do). The car was designed by a team headed by Jörg Zander, a designer of considerable experience in F1 but hardly the worker of miracles for his previous employers, Toyota, BAR, Williams and BMW Sauber. The car is the product of a team effort, not the creation of a star like Adrian Newey.
Finally, we need to notice another ingredient that is making Brawn look so unbeatable this season: reliability. It makes no sense that a car designed for one engine proves unbreakable when another is shoe-horned into it at the last moment but the results speak for themselves. The Brawns have completed every race thus far and three times produced 1-2 finishes. The echoes of the Schumacher years just keep coming.
It is reliability that has created the situation that we see after six races, the apparently inevitable championships coming to the Brawn team. And it is reliability that almost guarantees the team success, even if other teams manage to surpass them in the development stakes. But from where does this reliability come? Is it possible that it's thanks to that man Ross again...?