"Off the pace" Ferrari "face a long road ahead" - Brawn

Ross Brawn believes Ferrari face "a long road ahead of them" following a Styrian Grand Prix weekend to forget for the Scuderia.

The hard work by the team in bringing forward a number of updates that had been planned for this weekend's race in Hungary was undone by a first-lap collision involving Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc that forced both into retirement.

F1 managing director motorsports Brawn, given his own long history with Ferrari, is aware of the pressure all at Maranello will be under following a wretched start to the season

"It was a race weekend to forget for Ferrari, with their drivers committing a cardinal sin by colliding and forcing both cars out of the race in the opening laps," said Brawn in his post-race column.

"As a team boss, you never want to see that happen, but this will hurt Ferrari even more given they had worked hard to bring their upgraded aerodynamic package to Austria a week ahead of schedule, and the collision between Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc has robbed them of a chance to analyse the new package.

"Charles was very good in accepting the blame for the accident but it doesn’t help. That said, it’s sport and these things can happen, and now it looks like the engineers back at the factory have a lot of work to do."

With the spotlight firmly on boss Mattia Binotto and his under-performing team, Brawn added: "One of the biggest problems for Ferrari is that of all the teams on the grid, they come under the closest scrutiny from the media, particularly in Italy.

"I know from my own experience that the media pressure in Italy can be incredibly intense, and you have to make sure it doesn’t get to your people.

"The management have to cope with it and make sure the staff maintain the faith and stay focused on what needs to be done. They aren’t going to turn it around overnight, and there’s a long road ahead of them.

"They need to find out if there is a fundamental problem with the car – and they need to find out fast – because clearly they are some way off the pace."

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