Brawn confirms new chassis for Schumacher

Team boss Ross Brawn has confirmed that Michael Schumacher will race a different Mercedes chassis at next weekend’s Spanish grand prix.

We reported after the recent Chinese grand prix that not only will the seven time world champion have a new development package at Barcelona featuring a longer wheelbase, the physical chassis will also be completely new.

The 41-year-old struggled significantly in Shanghai, and Mercedes’ Norbert Haug acknowledged that his actual chassis may have been damaged throughout the first four races of 2010.

"It’s not a new chassis per se, it’s a chassis we used in testing," Brawn confirmed on Monday, at a fundraising event for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution on the banks of the River Thames.

"The one he had got damaged during the first few races and we repaired it as best we could at the races.

"But now we are back at base we are going to reintroduce the test chassis and he will be using that in Barcelona," he is quoted as saying by The Guardian, and the German news agency SID reported the same news on Monday.