(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-01-31 11:04

LONDON - Rubens Barrichello, the most experienced driver in Formula One with 15 seasons under his belt, shudders when he recalls last year's Japanese Grand Prix.

With the rain lashing down at Fuji, the Brazilian's race engineer told him over the radio to come into the pits. But in the background, the Honda driver could hear other voices shouting: 'No, no, no'.

Formula One drivers Jenson Button (L) and Rubens Barrichello (R) speak with Honda Racing F1 Team Principal Ross Brawn at the launch of the new Honda RA108 car and 2008 livery at the team headquarters at Brackley, central England January 29, 2008. [Agencies]

It was not an isolated incident, either.

"It was a big confusion last year and that didn't give a lot of confidence," Barrichello said this week at the launch of Honda's new RA108 car.

"The team have a lot of good people but they needed a leader," he added. "Now, in Ross, we have that.

"Whenever the team was panicking (in the past), it won't be any more."

The arrival in November of former Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn as Honda's new F1 principal has re-energised a struggling team that fell off a cliff last season and scored just six points.

To put that into perspective, Ferrari scored 204. The previous season, in which Jenson Button won the Hungarian Grand Prix, Honda picked up 86 points.

Brawn, who guided Michael Schumacher to seven titles with Benetton and Ferrari, worked with Barrichello at the Italian team and the Brazilian remains a big fan, even if he frequently had to play second fiddle to his German team mate.

"The best thing about Ross is his level of calmness," said the 35-year-old, who is on course this year to break Italian Riccardo Patrese's Formula One record of 256 starts.

"For me life is a lot easier because I can relate to him straight away."

FERRARI MAGIC

Honda chief executive Nick Fry compared Brawn's arrival to the difference between being taught to parachute by a man reading a manual or by a veteran of 6,000 jumps.

"It is just confidence," he said. "A year ago we hoped we could do well and progress and some time in the future be champions. Now with Ross we are not hoping any more, we know we can do that.

"There is a steady hand on the tiller, and that's the difference."

Brawn's task is to bring some of his well-known Ferrari magic to Honda and, perhaps even as early as 2009, turn the well-funded Japanese team into world beaters.

The Briton sees no reason why the dream should not become reality, even if this year will be more about building a framework for success.

"That's what evolved in Ferrari," Brawn told reporters. "We started with (chief designer) Rory (Byrne) and I building the best Formula One car we could but then developing the organisation to go much further than that. And that's what we have to do here. If we don't, it will be a quick splutter and that will be it.

"One of the things I was proud of at Ferrari was that it was very consistent over the years and it is still consistent because those methods and philosophies are in place," added the 53-year-old.

"That's what we have got to create here. It's no good me just coming in and saying: 'Turn this switch, pull that thing and we will be in better shape.' We might be but...what's more important is the methodology."

PERFECT PARTNERS

Brawn and Schumacher were a perfect partnership, close friends off the track and each having an immense respect for the other in a relationship forged over more than a decade.

The German retired to Switzerland in 2006 and Brawn, who took a year off in 2007, expects a different kind of understanding with the Honda drivers.

"Michael was exceptional, everybody knows that," he said. "I'd love to think that I could enjoy that level of relationship with drivers or a driver in the future but it was pretty unique and the sort of thing that doesn't happen very often.

"I think there's absolutely no reason why we shouldn't achieve the results we want to achieve, even if I don't have that sort of very intimate bond I had with Michael."

Brawn said mutual trust was the key.

"With Michael there was implicit trust. If I had an opinion on something or felt something had to be done in a certain way, he trusted me to do it. In the same way, I trusted him to drive the car," he explained.

"Trust is very important and I am confident that I can achieve a trust with Jenson that leads to forming the partnership to succeed. I had that trust with Rubens and there's no reason why it shouldn't continue."

Brawn felt Button, who has been with the team since 2003, would excel once he had a car worthy of his talents.

"Often you see, when people haven't had the equipment, glimpses of performance in areas that are traditional equalisers - wet races, difficult races," he said. "He (Button) has often shone in those situations.

"Some drivers win you races that you shouldn't win. Michael was (such) a case. I don't know what level Jenson is at but I've got no reason to think he won't be at that level."