F1 legend admits FIA ‘screwed’ Ferrari with new regulations

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Chris Deeley

Monday 19 January 2026 09:43

Former Ferrari boss Ross Brawn has claimed that the FIA 'screwed' the team with some regulation changes.

The Scuderia were an unstoppable winning machine in the early 2000s, with Michael Schumacher alone winning 48 of the 85 races run in the first half of the decade and Rubens Barrichello winning a further nine.

Speaking to F1.com, Brawn has picked the 2004 Ferrari as his favourite of the lot, a car which failed to win just three races all year en route to the team's sixth consecutive constructors' championship.

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The legendary designer and tactician claimed that the team was 'screwed' by the tyre regulations changing the following year, admitting that his team had become so dominant that they had to be brought back to the pack for the good of the sport.

Brawn: We had to be stopped

Talking through his favourite cars of a long career, Brawn said: “I think the pinnacle of my time at Ferrari was the 2004 car. It all came together. The thing I loved at Ferrari was every year being better than the one before – in terms of the team, the cars we built, the way it was functioning.

"Every year we were chipping away at it, and every year we were making things a bit better. It culminated in the 2004 car, I think, being the best ever.

“We got screwed thereafter by the tyre regulations changing, but I think we’d become too successful, and we had to be stopped somehow. That juggernaut would not have stopped any other way, because we just had everything working so well.

"Having sat on the other side of the fence since then, I can understand the frustration of Bernie [Ecclestone, then F1 chief], Max [Mosley, then FIA President] and the promoters. It was becoming a shock when we didn’t win, rather than a shock when we did win. That was a very special car.”

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Ferrari FIA Ross Brawn