Ross Brawn has denied reports that Mercedes will tailor its 2011 car around the driving style of Michael Schumacher.
Schumacher has endured a torrid time on his return to Formula One, the seven time world champion regularly being outqualified and outraced by young team-mate Nico Rosberg.
"We are not building a car around Michael; we just want to develop a good car," Brawn is quoted by the SID news agency. "There is no special characteristic."
Many have put the reason for his performances down to the fact that this year's machine was designed essentially for Jenson Button's preference for understeer, with Schumacher preferring a pointier front end. But Schumacher has denied this is the case.
"I cannot remember a car that was designed to a specific style of driving," said Schumacher. "The only thing is a continuous development with the drivers, which can go in certain directions. But first of all it's about making the car as fast and as efficient as possible."
Brawn also suggested that the competitiveness of next year's car will have a lot to do with "how good the Pirelli tyre is".
Schumacher's spokeswoman Sabine Kehm also hit back at suggestions made on the BBC by Eddie Jordan that he thought the German may retire at the end of the season.
"Michael has no plans to quit at the end of the year," said Kehm. "When he entered into the whole comeback scenario, he was fully informed about the situation with the car. That's why he chose it to be a three year contract -- you cannot expect to come back and win straight away in that situation.
"Obviously he would have wished that the developments to the car improved its performance more than they did. But it is a three year project to build a winning team and he is in the middle of the process."
Source: ESPNF1
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