Brawn keeping expectations in check

Ross Brawn is hoping for nothing more than respectability from a season that will undoubtedly be his most challenging in Formula One.

Brawn may concede to overcoming his "biggest hurdle" in salvaging from the ashes of Honda Racing the new Brawn GP team, and he may possess one of the most astute technical brains in the business. But with the new season just weeks away, and with the new car only due to take to the track for its first official outing in Barcelona on Monday, his problems have surely only just started.

But Brawn still believes his team can produce a creditable display over the course of the season and said: "Initially we may experience some reliability issues resulting from the lack of track testing, but we feel we have a good car and we hope that our performance will be respectable."

He added: "We are confident in the fundamental design principle of our car and look forward to the opportunity to develop it further as the season progresses.

"But I know we will take away from Melbourne an enormous sense of pride and achievement at having already met and overcome our biggest challenge.

"The biggest hurdle we faced was being in a position to race in Melbourne, and we will now be able to achieve that target."

Brawn will now put a lot of faith in drivers Jenson Button, who is understood to have halved his salary to £7.5million to race, and Rubens Barrichello.

With the car untried and virtually untested, other than Friday's shakedown at Silverstone conducted by Button, Brawn feels they both possess the necessary knowledge to help with crucial development.

"We are very fortunate to have two experienced drivers in Jenson and Rubens," added Brawn. "They will enable us to hit the ground running when we test for the first time in Barcelona next week.

"After four years as team-mates, their experience with our team in Brackley, our systems and our engineers, will prove a real asset."