Brawn engineers heady mix of loyalty and philosophy

Ferrari's British technical director praises Maranello workforce in quest for dominance while staff of British team battle for survival

Michael Schumacher's pre-eminence as a driver is unquestioned but if there is a challenger to the German for top billing this season it has to be the car that is assuredly transporting him to a record-equalling fifth World Championship.

Ferrari, after a generation of under-achievement, at last have a creation worthy of their heritage, a masterpiece of engineering lovingly encased in scarlet and sealed with the evocative emblem of the Prancing Horse. For much of the 1980s and 1990s the Italian marque was overshadowed by Williams, McLaren and even Benetton, British-based teams who combined innovative technical skills with discipline and pragmatism. Ferrari were derided as a romantic and dishevelled sideshow.

However, under the stewardship of Jean Todt, the sporting director, Ferrari have been revamped and revived. The signing of Schumacher, at the end of 1995, was of course crucial to the Frenchman's plans. So, too, was the recruitment of Ross Brawn, the British technical director, and Rory Byrne, the South African-born chief designer. Schumacher, Brawn and Byrne had worked together at Benetton and made the team formally called Toleman improbable champions.

All relished the challenge and distinction of hauling the most famous and popular team in racing back to the summit, but although they won the Constructors' Championship in 1999 and 2000, the year of Schumacher's first title success with Ferrari, the McLaren Mercedes was still widely regarded as the superior car.

Maranello's 2001 offering ended any debate. Ferrari and Schumacher retained their championships with four races in hand. The task then was to improve the car and, to the dismay of their opponents, the delayed F2002 achieved yet another step forward.

Ferrari line up for tomorrow's British Grand Prix at Silverstone leading the Constructors' Championship from Williams BMW by 45 points. Schumacher, with six wins from nine races, has a 46-point advantage in the drivers' standings and his team-mate, Rubens Barrichello, is now only four points behind second placed Ralf Schumacher.

So why is the Ferrari so good? A question for Brawn, the man who is ultimately responsible for the technical operation. He replies: "We often touch on the topic of stability, and people see the stability of, let's say, the higher-profile people: Jean, Michael and myself. But that is also the case for the workforce. The core of the workforce is very stable. I think that is one of the benefits of being in Italy.

"We don't have the pool of labour of specialists that you have in England, but when we do train them, establish them and get them settled into the environment, they are less likely to look elsewhere. At the end of a season in England you have a pool of people who tend to move from one team to another because they have opportunities. Our only direct competitor is Minardi, and they do not have such a draw.

"Ferrari is very fortunate in that respect. We have a lot of people who have been working for us for a long time and I would expect them to work for us for a long time to come. We have good people in key positions and stability all the way down the line.

"With the improvements in performance and the results Ferrari have had in the last few years, we have also rewarded our people, to make sure they understand we appreciate their efforts.''

Nomads many of them may be, but surely the England-based boffins are bright enough to pick up on the strengths of the Ferrari and replicate them in their own cars? Evidently, that is not as straightforward as it might appear. "A lot of it is down to the Ferrari philosophy of how you build a racing car,'' Brawn explains. "As soon as we produce a car and go testing there's an army of photographers who photograph it from every possible angle so all that information is available to other teams very quickly. But it's the things you can't see.

"For instance, if you look at a front wing you may get some ideas from it. But if you don't understand the nuances of what we are trying to achieve in combination with all the other body features then just taking our front wing and putting it on a Williams or a McLaren wouldn't necessarily work. It's the whole package.

"There are other things they cannot see. They don't know how much engine horsepower we have, they don't know what torque curve we have, they don't know what stiffness of chassis we have – all the things that are part of our philosophy. One of the advantages of having a stable workforce is that our philosophy doesn't get outside of Ferrari very often.

"Because all teams have limited resources – even at Ferrari we have limited resources – so we have to put our efforts into the things that we think are important. That's the key to producing a good car: using the resources you have in the best possible way.

"The aerodynamics of the car is obviously a critical aspect. The drivability of the engine and the way the suspension works are other important factors. So is the weight of the car and how much ballast you carry. There's not one area that we can't attack aggressively, but we have to set our priorities.''

Ferrari agreed to have their 2001 car stripped bare for the photographer who accompanied me. However, Brawn did feel the need to "doctor it slightly" and remove one or two parts that presumably embodied the Ferrari philosophy.

Ferrari are similarly secretive about the number of people they employ. Brawn puts it like this: "Williams and McLaren have between 300 and 400 people working for them. We are comparable with them, but we also build our own engine." Which means a lot more than 400. Up to 70 of them are involved in the design of the car, grouped in specialist departments and steered by Byrne.

Brawn expands: "Rory drives that along by directing the heads of department. I could stop anything I'm not comfortable with but these days we have guys who are such specialists that when they produce the information you usually accept it.

"The trick is to get these people working and providing the answers. There's a saying that information is power, and it's absolutely true in the design of a car. Unless you have all the information from all the groups, you won't design the best car.

"We've got a car that is leading the championship, but it can be improved so we determine where we need to improve it. We decide what we can leave alone or just warm over for another year, and what we need to fundamentally address. I tend to set these objectives and Rory challenges them or agrees with them, and then we go on from there.

"We've got one or two major improvements on this year's car coming through because they've been in the pipeline for several weeks, but apart from that we are now concentrating on next year's car. The end of June is a traditional cut-off period but because of our situation this year we are making a firmer stop on the current car.

"We are further ahead than we would normally be with next year's car because of the benefits of having a good car from the beginning. We didn't have so many problems to solve. We've used our old wind tunnel as well as our new one, so we've had two programmes going. Unless you make a cock-up, you tend to work from strength to strength because you have a good foundation.

"We've set a target next year which is half a second faster than the current car's capability, so when we are looking at everything we do, we ask how much is it going to contribute to that time. We reached a stage last autumn where we didn't have that half a second with the new car, so we decided we'd race the old car for the first couple of races this season. With a little more time we were able to find that half a second.

"If you are going to build a new car it has to be worth at least half a second or why build it? That's the process we are going through with next year's car. It's looking quite good.''

Given Brawn's mastery of understatement, those final words must have an ominous ring for Ferrari's already breathless rivals.