Ross Brawn is certain that Michael Schumacher would have won more world championship titles if Formula 1 had not changed the rules after the 2004 season.
After Michael Schumacher won his seventh world championship title overall and his fifth in a row with Ferrari in 2004, the German’s winning streak came to an end a year later. However, Ross Brawn is certain that this would not have happened without a certain rule change.
“I think the highlight of my time at Ferrari was the 2004 car,” Brawn told Formula1.com. The Brit, who joined the Scuderia as technical director at the end of 1996, says of the F2004: “Everything just came together.”
“What I loved about Ferrari was that every year was better than the previous one—in terms of the team, the cars we built, and the way everything worked. Every year we refined it, and every year we made things a little bit better,” he explains.
“In my opinion, that culminated in the 2004 car, which was the best ever,” says Brawn. In fact, Schumacher won twelve of the first 13 races of the season with the F2004 and ended the year as the clear winner of the world championship title.
“After that, we were disadvantaged by the change in tire rules,” says Brawn, explaining: “I think we had simply become too successful and had to be stopped somehow.” In 2005, ‘Schumi’ won only one race and had nothing to do with the World Championship battle.
This change slowed down “Schumi” and Ferrari
At the start of the new season, tire changes during a race were banned. This was a major disadvantage for Ferrari’s tire partner Bridgestone, which is why the two Michelin teams, Renault and McLaren, fought it out for the 2005 world championship title.
Brawn is certain that Schumacher and Ferrari could not have been “stopped in any other way” at the time. “Because everything just worked so well for us,” he explains. However, the 71-year-old is no longer angry about the rule change at the time. “Since I’ve been on the other side of the fence myself since then, I can understand the frustration of Bernie [Ecclestone], Max [Mosley], and the organizers,” says Brawn, who later became Formula 1 sporting director himself between 2017 and 2022. He therefore understands why Ferrari was slowed down at the time in order to offer fans a better show. He is certain that without the rule change, the Scuderia would have won even more world championship titles.
