Imagine buying a team in Formula One for 1 pound and then winning the championship the same year. It seems like a story from some thriller racing movie, right? Well, this is a true, crazy case of the emergence of the Brawn GP F1 Team.
Till 2008, Formula 1 had 11 teams participating to win the Constructor’s Championship. But as the season ended and the economic downturn started thanks to the Global Financial Crisis arising due to the bursting of the U.S. housing bubble. This global economic recession showed its effects on teams participating in Formula One as well. Mainly 2 teams going by the name of Honda F1 Team and Super Aguri Honda F1 Team backed out from participating in the upcoming 2009 season owing to the poor previous season and the lack of financial stability. This was a huge blow to the F1 community as all of a sudden, only 9 participants remained in the competition.
Photo by Morio, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Taking advantage of the situation in December 2008, Ross Brawn, the former technical director of Honda, Ferrari and Benetton F1 teams bought the racing team for just 1 pound from the Japanese manufacturer in the wake of its withdrawal from the Formula 1 2009 season. This is how a new constructor, Brawn GP F1 Team under the leadership of Ross Brawn came into existence. Even though it can be seen as a continuation of the Honda F1 Team under a new name Formula One Management marked this team as a new entry. Along with this, the Vice President of that time, Keith Hayes even waived the standard entry fee for the team owing to the team’s circumstances.
The development of the car started as early as 2008 while still being owned by the Honda F1 team. Honda even provided a $100 million budget for the 2009 season car. Mercedes became the supplier of the engines for the Brawn GP owing to the customer relationship. They also signed two great races going by the name of Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello. Everything was set for them but what came out ahead during the 2009 season shocked the whole F1 world.
As the 2009 season started, especially during the testing, the other competing teams and the fans of the sport were taken aback by the strong display of the Brawn GP team showing to the world that they had a special car ready to take on the challenge of competing at the pinnacle of the motorsports.
At the first race in Australia, BG001 started strongly where Jensen Button took the pole position while his teammate Rubens Barrichello came second which followed on during the race as well earning the team their 1-2 spot in the first race itself. This show of the underdog team coming and scoring a double podium in the first race itself raised some speculations among the rival teams about whether the car is legal and within the regulations, specifically the “double diffuser”. This was a showing to the world that they had arrived and might also win the championship as well.
The Brawn GP continued to dominate in the first half of the season winning 6 out of the first 7 races, all won by Jenson Button. It was looking like the underdog team was going to win the championship easily. But as the season progressed into the latter half, other teams started to catch Brawn GP.
This was due to the fact that Brawn GP couldn’t develop the car as much as the rest of the grid during the course of the season. Red Bull became the front runners while McLaren and Ferrari who started the season as midfielders came back to winning ways meanwhile Brawn could only squeeze 2 victories out of the last 10 races, both won by Rubens Barrichello.
The only main competitor for Brawn GP was Red Bull which was the 2nd fastest team after Brawn GP. The rival teams caught up and started overtaking Brawn but it was a little too late as Brawn GP were crowned the Constructors’ Champion in the Brazilian Grand Prix and Jenson Button won his first Drivers’ World Championship in the same race. This completed the legacy of the Brawn GP as the underdogs were crowned champions leaving an unforgettable mark on Formula One history.
Photo by Chris Worden, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
A team risen from the ashes of its predecessor, the Honda F1 team completed a literal fairytale in F1 history and pulled off one of the greatest moments in the sport’s history. This team achieved something and reached at the top in just one season that others took a long time to reach or some couldn’t even reach.
As the season drew the curtains, Mercedes acquired a 75.1% stake in the Brawn GP F1 Team as the team merged into the Mercedes Formula One Team from the next season onwards. The team which started with just 1 pound received a total of 150 million pounds payout after its sale with the team earning a profit of 98.6 million pounds. This is the only team with a 100% championship success rate. This crazy and thrilling case can be easily regarded as “Formula One’s Greatest Fairytale Story”.
