Honda have announced that Ross Brawn will be their F1 team boss for 2008 and onwards. As regular readers will be aware, I hate to say "I told you so", but I did, way back when Ross first went on sabbatical at the end of 2006. It was obvious that the Italianization of Ferrari, once set in motion by Luca di Montezemolo, would ensure that all the positions of power would be occupied and entrenched in classic Ferrari fashion by the time Ross came calling again.
Ross Brawn
It is no surprise either that the promised move of Jean Todt to CEO and his replacement as team boss by Stefano Domenicali has been forced through, now that Brawn has been talked out of the equation. Nostalgia forces me to greet the news with joy as we return to the glorious days of Ferrari internal politics and mediocrity on the track.
And now we can expect a sudden improvement in the fortunes of Honda F1, a fitting riposte to Jenson Button's recent expression of frustration at the poor performance of their car this year. Ross Brawn is not a miracle worker but you can bet on two factors at least: he will ensure that the team is knocked into shape and functions efficiently, and their race strategy will no longer depend upon luck for getting it right.
Ross has always seemed to me a Patrick Head with added diplomacy. He is relaxed and polite in interviews, even joking on occasion, but one senses the steely determination and insistence on perfection lurking beneath the surface. I know that, if I worked for him, I would do my utmost not to make any mistakes!
That is a major part of the success that Ferrari experienced during the triumvirate years, I think. Michael Schumacher gave the team a hero to give their support to and Ross ensured that everyone worked together and at maximum capacity towards the common goal. Rory Byrne and Nigel Stepney were important members of the team too, providing design skills and engine development, but I suspect that Todt's major contribution was the hiring of Michael and Ross in 1996. In the three years in which he ran the team before that, there had been no sign of any improvement in their fortunes.
The occasional chaos and bad strategic decisions we witnessed in the Ferrari camp this season are also evidence that Todt's importance has been largely overestimated in the past and Montezemolo may well be correct in seeing his skills as more suited to the boardroom than the race track. It is perhaps ironic that Nick Fry has been "booted upstairs" in similar fashion to make way for Ross Brawn, although I'm sure that Nick was instrumental in that particular decision.
Obviously, the 2008 Honda will have already been designed and nears completion; it is too late for Ross to have any major impact on that front, therefore. We can expect a year's delay before his influence ensures a significant improvement in Honda's design philosophy, just as we had to wait for the results when Adrian Newey went to Red Bull.
But you can bet that the team will now make the best of whatever the car turns out to be in the coming season. No more floundering around, wondering where they went wrong! Ross will keep them at the grindstone until they get it right and that has to be good news for Button and Barrichello.
Talking of betting, it might even be worth having a few dollars on the Honda team for 2008 for those gamblers amongst us. There is nothing that galavanizes a team towards success more than a thoroughly embarrassing year in which they got everything wrong. It may be that the designers and aerodynamicists have learned from their mistakes and that the new car will be as good as we expected this year's to be.
If so, it was going to happen anyway. And Ross Brawn's main task might consist only of ensuring that the team make the best use possible of a very competitive car. I'll not make any silly predictions of a championship for Jenson this time, however!
Finally, I cannot resist mentioning how delighted I am that Grand Prix dot com actually read my blog, as is quite evident from this article published today...
Ross Brawn
It is no surprise either that the promised move of Jean Todt to CEO and his replacement as team boss by Stefano Domenicali has been forced through, now that Brawn has been talked out of the equation. Nostalgia forces me to greet the news with joy as we return to the glorious days of Ferrari internal politics and mediocrity on the track.
And now we can expect a sudden improvement in the fortunes of Honda F1, a fitting riposte to Jenson Button's recent expression of frustration at the poor performance of their car this year. Ross Brawn is not a miracle worker but you can bet on two factors at least: he will ensure that the team is knocked into shape and functions efficiently, and their race strategy will no longer depend upon luck for getting it right.
Ross has always seemed to me a Patrick Head with added diplomacy. He is relaxed and polite in interviews, even joking on occasion, but one senses the steely determination and insistence on perfection lurking beneath the surface. I know that, if I worked for him, I would do my utmost not to make any mistakes!
That is a major part of the success that Ferrari experienced during the triumvirate years, I think. Michael Schumacher gave the team a hero to give their support to and Ross ensured that everyone worked together and at maximum capacity towards the common goal. Rory Byrne and Nigel Stepney were important members of the team too, providing design skills and engine development, but I suspect that Todt's major contribution was the hiring of Michael and Ross in 1996. In the three years in which he ran the team before that, there had been no sign of any improvement in their fortunes.
The occasional chaos and bad strategic decisions we witnessed in the Ferrari camp this season are also evidence that Todt's importance has been largely overestimated in the past and Montezemolo may well be correct in seeing his skills as more suited to the boardroom than the race track. It is perhaps ironic that Nick Fry has been "booted upstairs" in similar fashion to make way for Ross Brawn, although I'm sure that Nick was instrumental in that particular decision.
Obviously, the 2008 Honda will have already been designed and nears completion; it is too late for Ross to have any major impact on that front, therefore. We can expect a year's delay before his influence ensures a significant improvement in Honda's design philosophy, just as we had to wait for the results when Adrian Newey went to Red Bull.
But you can bet that the team will now make the best of whatever the car turns out to be in the coming season. No more floundering around, wondering where they went wrong! Ross will keep them at the grindstone until they get it right and that has to be good news for Button and Barrichello.
Talking of betting, it might even be worth having a few dollars on the Honda team for 2008 for those gamblers amongst us. There is nothing that galavanizes a team towards success more than a thoroughly embarrassing year in which they got everything wrong. It may be that the designers and aerodynamicists have learned from their mistakes and that the new car will be as good as we expected this year's to be.
If so, it was going to happen anyway. And Ross Brawn's main task might consist only of ensuring that the team make the best use possible of a very competitive car. I'll not make any silly predictions of a championship for Jenson this time, however!
Finally, I cannot resist mentioning how delighted I am that Grand Prix dot com actually read my blog, as is quite evident from this article published today...