Formula One: Brawn Offers Weighty Defence of Schumacher

Michael Schumacher may have been at the centre of controversy over the Monaco grand prix weekend but his defiant response is firmly buttressed by the support he enjoys from a small coterie of hardline Ferrari loyalists.

Foremost among them is Ross Brawn, Ferrari's technical director since 1996, who has played a key role as tactical choreographer as the German driver has sped to two world championships with Benetton followed by five with Ferrari. Their relationship is underpinned by a mutual trust.

"I was aware of Michael long before he arrived in formula one," said Brawn. "I'd come across Michael when we raced against him in sports cars in 1989-90 when I was with the Group C Jaguar squad. The reason we knew him well was that when he was driving the Group C Mercedes he was partnered with Karl Wendlinger and Heinz-Harald Frentzen, the Mercedes young guns.

"Michael was so much quicker than the others, so we were grateful that Mercedes took a democratic approach [to their driver deployment] because if I'd been running the team I'd have had him driving the car all the time. The other two used more fuel and went slower than he did."

Brawn first worked with Schumacher at the end of the 1991 season after the German switched from the Jordan squad for which he had driven his first formula one car in that year's Belgian grand prix. By the following season Brawn was totally convinced about Schumacher.

"In the 1992 Belgian grand prix he was following his team-mate Martin Brundle on a wet, but drying, track when he radioed to the pits to say that Martin's rear tyres were looking really bad and he [Schumacher] was coming in to change," said Brawn. "He was almost the first driver to come in to change so we didn't have a reference time for everybody else. Michael timed it perfectly, went out, gained a lap on everybody and that was his first race win."

Brawn has always been impressed with the level of dedication which Schumacher has brought to bear as a professional driver and believes that the level of day-to-day commitment he shares with the personnel who work in both the pit lane and the factory provides a huge motivational boost to the team.

"From the outset of his F1 career, Michael was always very intense, very focused," he said. "His work ethic was the same then as it is now, probably always the last driver to leave the circuit at night. That suited us because the guys [mechanics and engineers] we'd had at Benetton and have today at Ferrari wanted to be there late at night working on the cars. So when a driver makes himself available like that then it's clearly a huge benefit."

Brawn clearly believes that Schumacher has been unfairly branded as complicit in cheating at various points in his career, most notably during 1994 when suspicions were raised that the Benetton team used illegal traction control, a charge from which they were officially absolved.

"When we explained everything to Michael and he realised we were doing nothing wrong, he was totally behind us," said Brawn.

"And the interesting thing is that nobody who ever left the team ever said, 'they were cheating'. Not one. That tells you all you need to know."