Formula One news

Brawn looking forward to Senna debut

Ross Brawn is excited about seeing Bruno Senna make his Formula One debut at Sakhir in March. The Brazilian, 2008 GP2 runner-up and nephew of the late Ayrton, will join Nico Rosberg in being an F1 driver and having a World Champion relative.

Ross Brawn, Team Principal of Brawn GP

With Brawn GP having faced a toss-up between Brazilians Senna and Rubens Barrichello before the start of the 2009 season, the Brackley squad eventually elected to retain the more experienced latter, leaving Senna to resort to the Le Mans Series for this season.

"I was always very impressed with Bruno, I thought he did a good job for us," said Team Principal Brawn of the man who tested for Honda in 2008. "He was certainly the best of the candidates we had; we were still not decided if we were going to go down the route of a new driver, so that decision hadn't been made."

Senna tested for Honda - now Brawn - throughout last year

With Bruno set to make his first F1 appearance with the new Campos Meta team, Ross recognises the challenges in waiting. "I think it's a great opportunity for him and I'm looking forward to seeing how well he does," Brawn continued. "I think it's important that he does well because, obviously, the name is great. It would be a shame if he doesn't do well because, of course, that carries on the name as well."

The co-owner of the new double World Champion team added that practicing with other four-wheel track vehicles is an effective method of training, especially with the new-for-2009 limited testing rules. "He's going to need some mileage and he's got to find ways of getting race fit over the winter," Ross explained. "Michael (Schumacher) always used to spend a huge amount of time karting because it tunes the reflexes and skills."

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