Brawn sympathises with "painful" Ferrari situation

Ferrari has seen its title campaign fall apart in dramatic fashion in the last three races with a combination of crashes and reliability failures.

In Singapore, Sebastian Vettel got involved in a start-line crash that helped put him out on the first lap, before he suffered an engine problem in qualifying in Malaysia and then a spark plug failure in the Japanese GP.

Having fallen 59 points behind main rival Lewis Hamilton in the standings, Vettel's championship hopes are all but over, which is a huge disappointment to his Ferrari team.

Brawn, who was one of the architects of Ferrari's dominance during the Michael Schumacher era, believes now is the time for the team to remain calm rather than engage in a push to find scapegoats for what has gone wrong.

"Having experienced reliability woe of this kind at first hand with various teams, I know how painful it can be to see the hard work of so many people undone in a moment," he said in an official F1 newsletter issued on Monday.

"I have some sympathy for Ferrari at this difficult time. The team comes under incredible pressure, especially at home, and it's easy for heads to drop. But the key is to stay calm and focus on immediate goals."

Brawn believes that even if Ferrari fails in its championship ambitions, it should still feel hugely encouraged by how it as performed this year – as it is the first time in the turbo hybrid era that Mercedes has been put under proper pressure for the championship.

"However the season ends, Ferrari should be pleased with what it's achieved in 2017," added Brawn. "For the first time in the hybrid era, Mercedes has come up against a rival capable of fighting for the title.

"It's been a long time since Ferrari have been as competitive and the problems of recent weeks haven't erased that fact."