Brawn admitted that German manufacturer Mercedes – engine partners for 2009 – have offered their unit to the Brackley based team, but he was forced to refuse it. The reason why that happened is that, while known to be one of the most effective units in F1, the Mercedes technology would be complicated to incorporate in the BGP.
As argued by Brawn, the 2009-spec car was not designed to have KERS fit into it, and a major redesign of the BGP 001 would be more detrimental than beneficial through the remainder of the 2009 season. Weight distribution, of course, would pose the greater problems.
“Mercedes have made it available to us. We've just got to find a way of fitting it to the car and not compromising the handling, because the car wasn't designed for their system. The biggest issue that we have is overall weight, because in fitting the Mercedes engine we added a reasonable amount of weight to the car with all the modifications we had to make,” said Brawn ahead of the Monaco GP this weekend.
“Although theirs is a very light system, we've lost the capacity that we need to install their system and add the ballast that we need to get the right weight distribution,” added the Englishman.
In the meantime, Brawn GP have announced they will bring some slight adjustments to the BGP 001 for the twisty, low-downforce circuit in Monte Carlo, setting their first aim at clinching pole position on Saturday.
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