Brawn: The Impossible Formula 1 Story

For as long as I can remember, I've had a fascination with racing,

and I'm going to share a story that barely seems believable.

In a world of fierce competition, politics, money and power,

at the highest level of global motor sport,

a small, underfinanced team drew on every ounce of determination

to overcome the biggest names in motor racing.

This is the story of Brawn GP.

How low will it go?

The stock market slide continued today.

The credit crunch has brought Formula 1

crashing back down to earth.

The economic situation was dire.

Motor giant Honda pulled the plug on Formula 1.

Why do people say that you were the one pound Formula 1 team?

Well, I gave a pound to the Honda executive to formalise the deal.

We did not have a plan B for anything.

No way that this car doesn't make Melbourne.

Even if we arrive like that.

Didn't they tell you, you couldn't crash?

Jenson Button will be romping clear now.

You couldn't come up with a Hollywood script.

No, I'd never believe you.

We're lucky bastards.

We were lucky bastards indeed.

Jenson Button crosses the line, takes the chequered flag.

This opportunity doesn't come around for many people.

For the first time in five years,

Rubens Barrichello is a winner in Formula 1.

This season is made for me.

I'm gonna win the championship.

Tell us what you said to your drivers?

Yeah, just don't hit each other.

People believe in him,

because he looks innocent, and he wouldn't hurt anybody.

Yet, really, behind the scenes, a smiling assassin.

I think you're all smiling assassins.

Oh, you have built me a monster of a car.

They went too far.

All of us were aware there was something against the rules.

Suddenly, this team that everybody just wanted to survive, is killing us.

Formula 1 has been thrown into chaos.

The biggest crisis to hit motor sport in 50 years.

…whether his car is legal.

This was the start of the war.

It is still with the blood.

That's the piece that came out of your car.

The knives were out,

and they were after us.

The problem was, collectively, they didn't have any balls.

You're seriously on fire, Rubens.

Complete despair on the Brawn pit wall.

Now, this is about survival.

The pack had caught up.

The emotions were starting to show.

I wish I can get on the plane and go back home right now.

Everyone's in Formula 1 to win. We're not all friends.

Jenson Button P14.

Where are you now?

I felt that the whole world was watching me fail.

This is the perfect way to throw it away. Jesus fucking Christ.

It's ten past midnight. Cinderella's gone.

It's like the best in the world fighting for, like, this.

One of the greatest seasons in Formula 1 history.

Just don't give up until you can't go any further.

Because if we'd given up, we wouldn't be telling the story.

March the 4th, 1986.

Britain is still in the grip of a miserable winter.

Aerodynamicist Ross Brawn is in the Cranfield Aeronautics wind tunnel.

All Formula 1 aerodynamicists are locked in an endless quest for more downforce.

Formula 1 is such a unique blend of technology and sport.

Once it gets into your blood, it will never let go.

Everything people do in Formula 1 is competitive.

Where is Michael Schumacher?

He's stuck in traffic. I want him in this lap.

It is technical.

It's engineering. It's strategy.

What an absolutely phenomenal drive by Michael Schumacher.

I had an unbelievable spell at Ferrari.

We won six World Constructors' Championships.

Michael won five Drivers' Championships there.

And I really didn't imagine anything else could ever follow that.

I thought a decade at Ferrari was perfect.

I'd decided I wanted a year out.

This was historical era for Ferrari.

When he left, I accepted, because he say to me, "I want to fish."

If he say to me, "I leave because I want to go in another team"…

For me, it was a disaster for my heart.

Can you speak a little bit about Honda?

You were CEO.

You know, fundamentally, we lacked experience in Formula 1.

My background is big companies.

I know how they operate.

In many ways, we had too much money.

We ended up working on a whole bunch of stuff which really was distracting

and didn't give us much in the way of results on the track.

We needed a top-class technical director.

Those, in Formula 1, are few and far between.

I set about ringing Ross, about once a month.

Nick was relentless.

It would just be, uh, a friendly chat.

He'd just keep reminding me he was there.

Ferrari really wanted me to come back

doing the same thing that I'd been doing before, which I wasn't interested in.

And Nick and Honda were offering up another step in my career.

So it was as team principal.

In charge of everything.

Ross Brawn, the most successful technical director in recent years,

has joined Honda as team principal.

Ross, welcome to the team.

Thank you. I'm very pleased to be here.

This was a big deal.

And this was also, I think, a big deal within Formula 1.

I remember being at Brackley,

and we had the whole factory there. We're all sat on the floor.

And it gets announced that Ross is part of the team.

Before he opens his mouth, I think, it lifts the team,

because of what he's achieved.

2005, you're with Ferrari.

You make a jump for new opportunities.

Your former technical director,

Ross Brawn, leaves Ferrari to join Honda.

Everybody in Formula 1 knew of the background of Ross.

So, for sure, I was happy.

Did you talk to him?

Did you wish him luck at Honda?

Did you have a…

I think Honda made a very good offer to him.

And, uh, they were very, very smart to have a person like him.

I've always found Ross to be a very polite guy, a very nice guy to communicate with,

but a ferocious competitor.

And, uh, you know, a smiling assassin.

I think you're all smiling assassins.

I mean, Ross was perceived as a tactical genius.

As a wonderful manager of people.

I think that's what he was good at.

People believe in him,

because he looks innocent, and he wouldn't hurt anybody,

and, therefore, people sort of…

…trusted him completely.

I feel like there's a but.

No, maybe there's a most.

And what does that mean?

Most people trusted him.

It was a big, big risk by Ross

to go from a very comfortable dominant environment in Ferrari to take a punt.

Uh, and Honda wasn't a small team.

Honda had one of the biggest budgets in Formula 1,

but they were under-delivering.

You know, the sleeping giant that needed waking.

Was it ambition?

Do you feel like he wanted to maybe…

Prove that he can win also with somebody else. Yes.

With the 2008 car,

the first thing Ross said was, "Let's cut the bullshit.

This is a shit box. You're not gonna win anything with this."

This would be a year where once the car was racing,

we're not gonna pay any attention to it.

'Cause there was these new regulations coming,

and it was vital that we put all our resource into these new regulations,

'cause it was such a great opportunity.

And that was a strategic decision that I don't think anyone else made.

Every few years, there are rule changes in F1.

Almost all of them with the goal of improving safety,

so the cars don't keep getting faster and faster.

These rule changes clip the wings of car designers,

and all the teams essentially start from scratch.

Teams start to look at the design of the cars,

they see problems with the regulations, or they see opportunities.

Formula 1 cars are the pinnacle of motor racing.

The fastest cars on the planet,

because they're so efficient in terms of downforce,

creating incredible grip and incredible cornering speeds.

The new 2009 rules restricted the cars' aerodynamics,

giving them less downforce:

The airflow around and through the car that pushes it to the ground.

The idea was to make the racing closer, with more overtaking.

It was a pretty big meeting on the strategy for the new car,

where a very junior Japanese aerodynamicist

put up his hand and said, you know, he'd got this idea

fundamental to giving us more downforce at the back of the car

than the rules had originally intended.

It's like the opposite of this famous movie Lost in Translation .

It's found in translation,

because they found something an English guy cannot read.

You take word by word, line by line, and say, "Ah, why we are not doing that?"

The purpose of regulation is to reduce downforce.

The diffuser are very important aerodynamics part.

What is a diffuser?

So it's the bodywork around the rear wheels that faces the ground.

Under your car, you are trying to generate low pressure,

and this low pressure will bring your car down.

There was a controlled set of dimensions, but it wasn't controlled well enough.

There was an opportunity to have another diffuser,

and then to couple these two together.

And, so, the double diffuser was born.

A loophole design that got around the new regulations.

The double diffuser gave the car way more downforce

than the rules had originally intended, effectively, giving it more grip,

which allowed for more speed in the corners.

More speed in the corners meant they would be faster on the straights.