Glenn Freeman

Matt, do you think it's fair, though, to suggest that by the end of the year, there were some signs that Benetton were adapting to this new post-Michael Schumacher existence?

While Benetton was confident it would fix the problems that held it back in 1996, it would go into the season in 97, missing two more members of its dream team, as Ross Brawn and designer Rory Byrne left for Ferrari to join up with Schumacher.

We'll cover Braun's departure first.

Ross said he had been promised greater control and responsibility at Benetton for 1996, to the point that a new contract was written up and agreed by Briatore.

But Flavio then didn't implement the changes that had been agreed, and Braun found himself getting frustrated and disillusioned, especially as he felt the 96 car was good enough to win races, but the team wasn't gelling.

Braun said that when Schumacher left, it hadn't occurred to him to consider going to Ferrari as well.

But he first got approached by Ferrari around the Monaco Grand Prix.

I think it was via Schumacher's manager, Willi Weber, as Schumacher wasn't getting on very well with John Barnard, who was heading up the technical side.

But it wasn't until September that Braun decided to leave Benetton, telling Briatore that he didn't feel obligations had been met over his contract.

While Benetton then suddenly promised to implement everything, Braun said it was too late by then and that he'd committed to Ferrari.

Ben, is that just short-sightedness from Flavio to just not give Braun what was promised and make sure that you keep him locked down?

Byrne's departure was a bit different in that he briefly retired from F1 completely at the end of 1996 and went off to set up a scuba diving school in Thailand.

Byrne tells the story of what happened next in Damien Smith's Benetton book,

saying that he was living in a beach hut in a remote area of Thailand, preparing to set up this scuba diving business when he got a phone call from Jean Tott.

Rory says this was from like a satellite phone.

That's how remote he was.

It's incredible that Tott tracked him down and asked him to come to Ferrari and

Byrne said it was a quick decision to say yes, saying the opportunity to design cars for the most famous team in F1 was a no brainer.

And the fact that Braun was going there, too, made the job more attractive.

So just six weeks after retiring from working in F1, Byrne had decided on the same day he was offered the job that he would call Tottenham back the next day to accept the offer.