Glenn Freeman

And if the driver screws up, I tell the driver he has screwed up.

He said his intention with the Imola outburst was to make sure Alessi understood the job he needs to do and to make sure he's part of the team and he's hungry to win.

At the time, though, in 1996, Flavio said that Benetton felt there was nothing wrong with the car and that it was certainly the second quickest behind the dominant Williams.

He said Benetton were finding it difficult to know what the drivers wanted and that Alessi and Berger needed to trust the team to do the job, which I think comes back to that Berger comment we mentioned earlier, where at this point in the year, maybe Benetton didn't want to hear from the drivers that they couldn't drive the car.

However, Ben, this is only four races in, or this is the fifth weekend, I believe, Imola, in 96.

Was it a bit of an overreaction for everything to blow up like this so early in the post-Schumacher journey?

There were some signs of progress as the year went on.

Alessi could have won Monaco, as we've covered in a previous episode, were it not for a suspension failure.

As Ross Brawn pointed out at the time, even Michael Schumacher couldn't do anything about that.

And Berger came within a couple of laps of winning at Hockenheim before his, of course it was Hockenheim, before his engine blew.

Reflecting on the challenges of 1996, the following winter, so at the end of the season, Briatore called it a transition year because we designed the car for somebody else.

He said the 1996 Benetton was like trying to make Berger and Alessi wear a suit that had been tailored for Schumacher, whereas now in 97, they would have a car that was the right size for them.

Briatore also felt that Benetton was tired in 1996 after the exertions of the title winning years with Schumacher.

And to counter what he said at the start of 96, he now admitted that the 1995 Benetton was not the best, but we managed to win because of Michael.

Berger said he also felt everyone in the team was tired and that it then became hard because everyone had higher expectations and got frustrated when it didn't work.

Pat Simmons felt the team had quickly hit a brick wall with a 96 car where there was no more that could be done set up wise to make the drivers more comfortable with it.

And the only way to make further fixes was to design the car differently for 1997.

Matt, is all of that actually understandable?

Does it make sense that Benetton would have to go through a difficult transition period, at least in the first year after Schumacher?

Now, having Berger and Alessi on the books led to an interesting admission from Braun that I think picks up on something we did talk about a little bit earlier.