Will we ever see another surprise like BrawnGP’s?

In 2009, BrawnGP rose from the ashes of the Honda team and, despite a very limited budget, won the world championship. Jenson Button clinched his only title, while Ross Brawn added a fourth different team to his list of achievements after Williams, Benetton, and Ferrari, which is a real rarity in F1.

When we watched Formula 1 in the 2000s, the grid was generally dominated by red and silver cars, with the notable exception of Renault's brief period of success in 2005-2006. Then, in 2009, a modest team with white cars accented with bright yellow and no major sponsors managed to win several Grand Prix races, a remarkable feat in a sport where a team can survive on a symbolic budget of one euro. In 2008, Honda finished ninth in the constructors' championship out of eleven teams, scoring only 14 points in 18 races. Its drivers, Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello, contributed three and eleven points respectively. Despite this disappointing season, the Japanese manufacturer remained optimistic about the new chassis rules for 2009, banking on the expertise of its sporting and technical director, the legendary Ross Brawn. Brawn's track record includes victories with Williams in the 1980s, titles with Schumacher and Benetton in the 1990s, and Ferrari's dominance in the early 2000s. However, the 2008 global financial crisis hit everyone hard, with manufacturers such as BMW and Toyota announcing their withdrawal by 2010. During the 2008-2009 offseason, Honda's management decided to withdraw from the sport, threatening hundreds of jobs and abandoning the investments the company had made since entering F1 in 2006. The birth of Brawn Grand Prix for £1 With no buyer in sight, Ross Brawn took the bold decision to purchase the team for the symbolic sum of one pound sterling. He secured the support of Richard Branson's Virgin Group, which was keen to enter Formula 1 and became a sponsor. Brawn also arranged for the team to receive Mercedes engines at cost price, breaking the German brand's exclusivity with McLaren. The new team made its first appearance at the final private test session in Spain. Despite their late start, both drivers set the fastest times in Barcelona, with Button posting the fastest lap. The other teams paid little attention, thinking that Brawn GP was running on low fuel, and the press relegated them to mere anecdote. But the story was just beginning. Miraculous performances
The 2009 season began on March 27 in Australia. Expectations were focused on a Ferrari-McLaren duel, perhaps a repeat of the Massa-Hamilton duel. After qualifying, however, Brawn GP occupied the front row: Button in pole position for the fourth time in his career, Barrichello alongside him, and Vettel's Red Bull in third place. Ferrari qualified in sixth and seventh position, while McLaren failed to make it into the top 10. In the race, Button took his second career victory and Barrichello finished second, the first one-two finish for a rookie team since 1977. In the next round in Malaysia, Button again took pole position; the race was interrupted by heavy rain, but he was still declared the winner. In China, Red Bull claimed its first victory and first one-two finish with Vettel ahead of Webber, while Button and Barrichello completed the podium in third and fourth place. Brawn GP's advantage lay in a double diffuser that the FIA deemed legal. This innovation, designed by Brawn, gave the car extra rear grip compared to its rivals who did not have this device. Button then won the next four races (Bahrain, Spain, Monaco, and Turkey), giving him six wins in the first seven races and establishing him as the championship favorite. He led the standings with 61 points after Istanbul, with Barrichello following with 35 points. However, the team's budget constraints and the widespread use of double diffusers by other manufacturers prevented Button from winning any more races that season, and the title fight became much closer.

A major technical innovation Changes to the regulations in 2009 limited the width of the diffuser to a maximum of one meter and defined the depth and height from the base of the rear axle. While many teams interpreted the text literally, Brawn spotted a loophole concerning the “bodywork facing the ground.” “There are surfaces that face the ground, but not this vertical surface,” Brawn explained in the documentary Brawn: The Impossible Race. “The regulations didn't specify this, so we exploited this area. Critics talked about loopholes, but the rules didn't prohibit them.” Williams and Toyota also experimented with similar devices, but Brawn GP was able to get the most out of the concept early in the season. The Japanese-backed team scored four podium finishes with Jarno Trulli (Australia, Bahrain, Suzuka) and one with Timo Glock in Singapore. Toyota never won a race, and Williams' best results were Nico Rosberg's fourth places at the Nürburgring and in Budapest. The 2009 season was a fairy tale for a team that had barely existed a year earlier. At the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, the two brightly colored Brawn cars—Jenson Button's white and Rubens Barrichello's fluorescent yellow—failed to make the podium, ending a streak of eight consecutive races in the top three. Button could only finish fifth and Barrichello sixth, prompting a frustrated Barrichello to warn that the team's “masterclass in how not to win a race” could cost them both championships. Ross Brawn echoed this sentiment, pointing out that being the 11th fastest car left no realistic chance of victory, regardless of strategy. A week earlier in Hungary, Barrichello's bad luck continued: a tenth-place finish with no points and a spring that hit Felipe Massa's helmet. But the Brazilian driver turned things around at the European Grand Prix in Valencia, claiming his first victory since the 2004 Chinese Grand Prix. This triumph kept his title hopes alive and was followed by a second victory at Monza, reducing the gap to leader Button to just 14 points with four races to go. Meanwhile, Germany's Sebastian Vettel remained in the title race, finishing ten points ahead of Button and Barrichello in the Asian races in Singapore and Japan. He even won at Suzuka, but still remained 16 points behind Button.

The suspense reached its peak in Brazil, during the penultimate round. Barrichello started from pole position, while Button and Vettel found themselves in the middle of the pack. The calculation was simple: if Button finished ahead of his teammate and limited Vettel to a maximum of six points, the title would be his. After 71 laps, Vettel was fourth, Button fifth, and Barrichello eighth. On October 18, Button won the drivers' championship, becoming the ninth British world champion, while Brawn GP clinched the constructors' title before being sold to Mercedes ahead of the 2010 season. Mercedes took up the torch and turned it into a dynasty, winning every championship it entered. From 2014 to 2021, the German manufacturer won eight consecutive constructors' titles and seven drivers' titles, a dominance fueled by massive investment and the continued influence of Ross Brawn as technical director. Today, stricter regulations, budget caps, and standardized components make a repeat of Brawn GP's meteoric rise unlikely. As former F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone observed, every era produces its own interpretations of the rules, but the era of surprising technical miracles (six-wheeled cars, assisted ventilation cars, and other innovative concepts) is largely over. As the sport continues to evolve, the story of Brawn GP remains a unique chapter in Formula 1 history.