Much of Brawn’s success has come courtesy of Michael Schumacher, seen here in 1992 at Spa, winning his first Grand Prix with the Benetton B192. Photo: Mike Cotes
Whoosh-bang. That sort of gives an impression of Ross Brawn’s 2009 Formula One season. The year of the spectacularly successful, flash in the pan called Brawn GP, which lasted a single season during which the team won both F1 World Championships.
It had been a struggle, though. In 2008, Brawn GP was called Honda F1, and Ross was its boss, but the car was uncompetitive so, with the global financial crisis closing in, the Japanese became fed up with their lack of success and sold the team to a consortium led by Brawn. But F1’s newest recruit had no engines for its cars until a few days before the first race in Australia. Brawn GP just scraped in, having done a deal with Mercedes-Benz—and that was the start of their palace revolution. All the great names in Formula One fell to this newcomer.
