In the three-week gap between the Bahrain and San Marino events, most of the team carried out mammoth testing programmes, not least Ferrari.
At a team when the Italian outfit is 'out of step' with many of its rivals, it continues to enjoy its own testing 'free for all', running at two track simultaneously, and even testing in the days leading up to a race, a practice unheard of for many years.
Asked if he felt "uncomfortable" with the amount of testing his team is doing, and in particular the three day test at Monza this week, Brawn was quick to respond.
"I've got no qualms about that," said the Englishman. "I think we face a particular situation, let's say politically, and from a technical point of view we are alone in developing a Bridgestone tyre, and we have to do that the best we can. It is a difficult topic, an emotive topic, and obviously I would prefer it if there wasn't the friction between the teams on this particular aspect. But we tried to find a solution at the end of the year, and they stopped inviting us to their meetings, because they didn't like our solution. So really it collapsed from there. It would be good to find a solution in the future. We don't like the conflict, we don't like the animosity that's surrounding it. We were happy to stay with the agreement that existed last year, and I think that would have been a far better solution to the one that we have today. But that was unacceptable to the other teams."
There is a widespread belief that as the season develops one or two teams might break the testing agreement, in their efforts to remain competitive, Brawn agrees.
"I think they're finding it difficult to restrain themselves to the 30 days testing that they've nominally agreed to," he said. "I understand that there's a dispute between them as to whether a V8 test is actually in that 30 days or not. Several of them say it's not. Some of them say it is. So I think they'll find it very difficult to respect it anyway regardless - and they'll accuse us of being the reason why they can't respect it. As I say I understand that some teams feel that the V8 is not part of that programme, because that's for next year, so therefore they can test the V8 whenever they want. The original 45 days or whatever it was we were happy to stay with, but that wasn't acceptable to them, and therefore the whole situation collapsed. With the predicament we face ourselves we will do whatever we can to be competitive as quickly as we can."
Asked about the 15,000 kms test limit, originally proposed by Ferrari, Brawn said: "The proposal we made was 15,000kms per team and 15,000 per tyre manufacturer. Now undoubtedly we would have done the majority of tyre testing, which would therefore be around 30,000km. We will do more than that this year, for sure. But I think then our competitors will, because they are averaging about 1,000kms a day. They are having such intense programmes that I think both Renault and BAR for instance have averaged about 1,000kms a day in the eight days of testing they've done, the last time I looked. It's done by having a very intense group of people, night shifts, spare parts prepared exactly like a race. We would have preferred to see a mileage limit, because then you can organise yourself in the most efficient way. But there's pros and cons. Really now we see there are no constraints, and we'll test as necessary."
Asked if he felt Ferrari was being 'victimised', Brawn took the opportunity to take a swipe at a couple of his team's rivals.
"Well, this is a competition," he said. "And to win a competition you have to do a good job yourself and weaken your opposition. That's how you win competitions. It's quite valid for our competitors to try and weaken Ferrari's position.
"I'm a Ferrari person," he continued, "I'm going to come at this argument from a Ferrari direction. They have their own corner to fight, and they'll do whatever they can. We have two test tracks, and that's where Ferrari has chosen to invest in the past. We don't have two wind tunnels, we don't have a £280m technical facility, so that's entirely up to those teams to spend their money how they wish. We've chosen to spend our money on test tracks and things which we feel directly benefit the team, and we don't see why we should have rules imposed which specifically damage the facilities that Ferrari have invested in over the last few years."
And on the subject of budgets, and whether Ferrari has the biggest, he was equally forthright: "I think it's very difficult to compare budgets. I've experienced budgets in other teams. It's difficult to compare for instance how much McLaren and Mercedes spend together, how much BMW and Williams spend together. It's quite difficult to total those amounts. I think we have a good budget. I don't think it's in excess of several teams. We're certainly not the top, and I think we're probably upper levels, but probably not exceptional. We're fortunate in a way to have very good partners."
