ROSS BRAWN

Michael Schumacher Rubens Barrichello Luca Badoer Jean Todt

Rory Byrne Enzo Ferrari

Name : Ross Brawn
Date of Birth : 29 September 1952
Nationality : Italian
Marital Status : Married, 2 children

Ferrari's Technical Director Ross Brawn has been a major influence on the resurgence of the Ferrari team. Brawn is the brains behind the driving of Schumacher and their partnership has brought Ferrari success once again.

Born on the 23rd of November 1954 in Manchester Ross Brawn is one of the reasons why Ferrari are back on top and winning titles. Married to Jean with 2 daughters (Helen and Amy) Ross in his role as Technical Director co-ordinates the development of the current Ferrari F1 car.

The development of the car is Brawn's day to day role within the team but he is better known for his strategic decisions he makes from the pit wall. Brawn can take the credit for many victories due to his quick thinking and flexible strategies. Although he often changes a strategy he has already planned them out and Ross has a solution for almost every scenario the race can throw up.

Ross Brawn arrived at Maranello in 1996 from the Benetton team. Brawn had always shown an interest in engineering and how things were built as he grew up in Manchester. He was particularly interested in Motorsport and the construction of high performance cars and in 1976 he was working for the Williams team as part of their Research and Development team.

His talents were soon spotted by the team, who then assigned him to work on the team's new wind tunnel. This project was a great success for Williams. Ross was with the Williams team for 8 years in that time he gained valuable experience in all aspects of the designing and construction of a Grand Prix car. Ross left Williams to take the role of Chief Aerodynamicist at the Force team, 3 years later and Brawn was on the move again to Arrows.

Brawn's second creation in the 1988 season helped the Arrows team to take fourth place in the Constructor's Championship, his talents once again caught the eye of those watching. Tom Walkingshaw commissioned Brawn to aid in the set-up of the new TWR Design Centre and to oversee the design of his sportscars. The end result of this project was the amazing Jaguar XJR-14, which was an innovation at this time and went on to win the 1991 World Sportscar Championship.

In 1991 Brawn was lured to Benetton to become the team's Technical Director and this move brought about plenty of success. In a role similar to the one he is in at Ferrari now Ross oversaw the development of the Benetton challengers, this brought about the Championship win in 1994 and 1995, with Michael Schumacher winning back to back driver title's and Benetton won the 1995 Constructor's title. During his time with Benetton Ross worked alongside designer Rory Byrne and it was this partnership that was to be lured to Ferrari alongside Michael Schumacher in late 1996. After Brawn and Byrne left for pastures new the Benetton team fell back from the top.

In the years Ross has been at Ferrari the team has grown to become one of the top teams once again, victory in the Constructor's title in 1999 and the 2000 - 2001 double success has shown that Ferrari made a wise decision when employing Brawn.

Brawn was once again influential in the success that arrived at Ferrari in 2002. His pit wall strategy was not called into the 'genius' range at all as the F2002 proved all too powerful, but as always Ross on the pit wall kept everything running like clockwork in the races even with Ferrari so far in front. However 2002 would also see Brawn miss his first race for the team as back problems left him at home.

2003 gave Ross Brawn a lot more strategy work to consider as the new rules did not allow for re-fuelling after Saturday qualifying. This gave Ross the chance to test his strategy's out in full as he had to not only find a race winning one but also put-smart his rivals in the pitlane. Some mistakes were made but they were never to be repeated and Ferrari went on to win both titles once again.