Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn believes the Anglo-German team will enjoy a better second half of the season despite their gradual decline.
The outfit started the season with a quick car, as proven by Nico Rosberg who won the Chinese Grand Prix and finished on the podium in Monaco, whilst team-mate Michael Schumacher took third in Valencia.
However their pace has steadily declined as rival outfits have caught and surpassed them which has led Brawn to believe that it’s been a season of ups and downs so far.
“I think we are pleased with some of the achievements this year,” he told the official F1 website. “We’ve won a race and had some strong podiums, and we’ve scored more points than we’d done this time last year.
“But, of course, we also feel that we are not quite where we want to be in terms of consistent competitiveness. We are still working on strengthening the team, strengthening the designs to be more competitive in the future.”
One outfit which is rapidly catching Mercedes, although rather inconsistently, is Sauber. The team hasn’t hidden their desire to beat Mercedes and finish fifth in the Constructors’ – a position Brawn isn’t proud to be in and hopes a better second half will help them to improve or at least maintain.
“I am sure they [Sauber] do focus on P5 – and I respect that,” he added. “We haven’t got the car quite as we wanted right now, but we have a very good team – very good people – so I am optimistic that we are going to have a stronger second half to the season than the first half.
“I want to do better. P5 is not our ambition and we will do anything possible to end better. There are still a lot of races to come with many more points to be won.”
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