This, according to Brawn is attributed to the modifications made to their BGP001 car which did not manage to make the car better but otherwise. In the last 3 races at least, it was Red Bull Racing’s turn to shine or perhaps this was due to Brawn GP’s own undoing, which is still anybody’s guess. Team driver Jenson Button must have been cautiously looking over his shoulder over the past few races but his biggest threat perhaps would come through the inclusion of Michael Schumacher into Ferrari’s team sheet. He now leads the standings with only 18.5 points away from the closest rival Mark Webber from Red Bull, and if they continue to lose points, then they could just lose the lead altogether.
Team boss Ross Brawn said "It's true that the opposition has got a lot stronger, but in the first part of the season we were getting the most out of the tyres and unexpectedly we've had problems there (since). It's certainly related to some modification which we've introduced during the year and so we are analysing exactly every step we've taken to understand what has caused this problem."
According to F1 rules, teams are not allowed to hold any in-season testing which is pretty detrimental to Brawn GP’s chances as they only joined the championship 2 weeks prior to the start when Honda Racing pulled out. Brawn added that "I would be more comfortable if we had been able to do some testing. But this is a challenge which the regulations impose this year." Andrew Shovlin, the race engineer for Jenson Button however is upbeat about the driver’s chances of winning the championship and believe that the BPG001 has the ingredients to bring home the honours. He said "We know the car is still quick. We just need to work out why it has become so sensitive to conditions. At the moment there is such a small window where it is working really well and we can't cope with that. We need to fix it so it's quick on any track and in any temperature. It's not as simple as going back to an old car specification. That's not the answer; it is something much more subtle than that. We may have done something to the car to make it more sensitive."