Ross Brawn has defended Ferrari amid reports that Michael Schumacher could solve the Italian squad’s ‘crisis’ if he returned to the cockpit as a test or race driver.
The Maranello based team’s former technical director, who is presently on a one year sabbatical, reigned over Schumacher’s unprecedented Ferrari tenure that included five consecutive drivers’ and six constructors’ titles.
But Brawn told the specialist magazine Auto Motor und Sport that blaming Ferrari’s new lineup of Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa is wrong.
“It is a false belief that a driver can tell the engineers how to make the car faster,” he said.
“The driver’s role is limited to describing his impressions to the engineers so that the data can be interpreted correctly.”
Michael’s brother Ralf Schumacher, meanwhile, also insisted that the seven time world champion would be of little use if he returned to the test tracks.
“He has already been away from the current technology for too long,” said the German.
The Cologne newspaper ‘Express’ quoted 1982 world champion Keke Rosberg – a renowned Schumacher critic – as saying: “All he is for Ferrari now is a garage decoration.”
