Brawn's BGP 001 has topped most of the testing sessions at Barcelona and Jerez during the past weeks, showing consistent pace as compared to the other F1 outfits. Although they confirmed that they haven't focused their developing on the Kinetic Energy Recovery System, the Brackley-based team stunned the competition with their well-prepared aerodynamic package.
“Looking at the latest test sessions, for sure Brawn GP is the main opponent. We saw Brawn GP rising from the ashes, running a second faster than everyone else,” said Massa, as reported by the Associated Press.
As compared to Brawn GP, Ferrari have already confirmed the debut of their KERS unit in Melbourne. Although the Scuderia have experienced some reliability problems with their system during the off-season testing, technical head Aldo Costa argued that the unit is now good to go.
Unlike Ferrari, rivals McLaren Mercedes are yet to make up their minds on whether they should run KERS in Australia or wait until later. The McLaren MP4-24 gave the Woking-based team plenty of headaches this winter, with new team principal Martin Whitmarsh admitting his team is no longer favorite for the win at Albert Park this weekend. If most people argued McLaren are sandbagging ahead of the new season, Massa believes otherwise.
“A lot of people say that the tests are not as important as a race weekend, which is true, but when you are always running behind it shows that you are not doing well,” added Massa, according to the aforementioned source.
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