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Mercedes' form will return - Brawn

Mercedes has struggled to repeat Nico Rosberg's success in China while Michael Schumacher has scored just two points © Sutton Images

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Ross Brawn is confident Mercedes' performance will return later this year after a dip in form following its win in China.

Nico Rosberg's victory was Mercedes' first since it took over Brawn in 2010, but at the following two rounds in Bahrain and Spain it has been off the pace of the frontrunners. Meanwhile, Michael Schumacher has failed to finish three of the first five races and scored just two points in total.

But Brawn is not concerned that China was a one-off and expects certain circuits and certain conditions to favour the Mercedes in the upcoming races.

"Take some of our competitors in Barcelona, they were a second quicker than us, and we were a second quicker than them in the previous race," he said. "There's big differences sometimes when these tyres are working or not working properly. I think it's a combination of the two, which makes it quite difficult to always understand where you are in the car and what you have to focus on to improve it.

"But we've done some useful progress with the car I believe, and when we get to those circuits where it would naturally suit the car and we're in the working range of the tyres, then you'll see the performance come back again. But it's true the last couple of races have not been so great after we had such a wonderful weekend in China."

Talking specifically about Schumacher, Brawn said that improvements are required from the team and the driver combined to start to get the sort of results the Mercedes is capable of.

"We - and that includes Michael - have not done a good enough job collectively in the first five races because Michael's got two points and that's not good enough," he said. "So, my view is that we always look at these things collectively; it's not 'the driver's made a mistake', or 'the team's made a mistake' it's 'together we haven't done a good enough job.' And that's the situation with Michael. It's been a bit better with Nico. Certainly the race win was great and I think in the last three races actually Nico's scored the second or third highest points of any driver. So for Nico we're not doing too badly. But I think also the issue of Michael scoring only two points is not just down to Michael. It's down to some of the technical problems we've had with the car."

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