FEBRUARY 6, 2002

Brawn admits delays with F2002

FERRARI technical director Ross Brawn says that the Italian team delayed the launch of the F2002 because the development programs had not produced the results which the team had been hoping for.

Brawn said that he believed that the new car is the best Ferrari that the team has ever produced but said that it was not easy to achieve as finding more performance than the 2001 car was not easy at all.

"At one point we were not satisfied with the improvements obtained," he said, "they were not enough so we have taken a longer time to develop the car to be sure that the performance would be improved. We will have less time to test the car."

Rival teams are delighted to see that Ferrari has not made a huge step forward - and that the team has found it hard to get more performance. Both McLaren and Williams feel that they have made progress over the winter - although neither team is satisfied with the results at the moment.