Report: Brawn Has Plenty in Store for 2010

There is a ton of interesting information in this post at the BBC’s “F1 Mole.” And none more so than the insight that Brawn GP made a calculated decision to switch development from the 2009 car to the 2010 one when Ross Brawn himself determined they had enough in the tanks for 2009 to win the championship.

If that doesn’t sound like the Magnificent One himself, I don’t know what does.

Given Brawn’s strategic genius, the idea of his calling the team together and saying, essentially, “We’ve got enough to get us home, get started on 2010″ is one we all should have considered.

Conventional wisdom has been that maybe Brawn just didn’t have the money to keep development the car, which was obviously the most advanced one at the start of the season.

Now, if Brawn really did actively switch development to the 2010 car—well, that certainly has to throw them back in the mix for 2010 along with Red Bull, McLaren, and, if it gets its act together, Ferrari.

In other words: Don’t count Brawn and Jenson Button out just yet.

Here’s the “Mole” information on Brawn:

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Team boss Ross Brawn admitted on Saturday night that his car had been out-developed by Red Bull and McLaren, but revealed an impressively daring strategy that should ensure his team are not a one-championship wonder.

The Brawn car arrived at the first grand prix this year as the most developed car of all. Where other teams were only on their Mark I designs, Brawn was at the equivalent of Mark III.

Add what turned out to be the legal double-diffuser concept and they had a massive head start.

The team did some development work on the car, but by the time of the Turkish Grand Prix in early June, Brawn took a gamble.

He believed the car had enough in hand to win the championship, so told his design engineers to switch their attentions to the 2010 car.

Brawn told us that they only switched wind-tunnel attention back to the 2009 car for one week between mid-summer and the end of the season when they realised they might need a bit more performance to secure the championship.

All the other time was spent on next year’s car.

Ross Brawn is clearly building foundations for the long term, and since the 2010 car won’t have the compromised radiator layout and gearbox mounting that this year’s car had to accept because of the late switch to Mercedes engine, next year should be stronger still.

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And now some further snippets on the two Red Bull teams:

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Red Bull also face a potential problem with their engines.

Team boss Christian Horner’s desire to have the Mercedes power-plant in his cars seems to have been torpedoed. A final decision from both sides was delayed for so long that it is now too late to incorporate a change of engine.

Rumours in Abu Dhabi suggested Red Bull’s Mercedes deal was blocked after pressure from current Mercedes teams Brawn and McLaren, who don’t want a potential championship rival sharing their ‘best in class’ engines.

So, needing to know which engine to build his car around, design chief Adrian Newey was left with no choice but to stay with the Renault, despite Red Bull’s very public comments and private concerns about the French engine being unreliable and lacking top-end power.

[snip]

This won’t be confirmed for a few weeks, but Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari will be staying at Toro Rosso for next year. Team boss Franz Tost let the cat out of the bag when we spoke on Friday, albeit in the context of a slightly negative remark about his drivers.

The gist of it was that Toro Rosso has essentially had a good season and had scored some points, but there had been too many mistakes from the young drivers. When they both come back next year, Tost explained, Buemi and Alguersuari will be expected to deliver, drive fast, and not crash.

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The post has a little on most of the teams, as well.

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