As underdog stories go, the Brawn F1 team’s unlikely triumph in 2009 has it all. From down and out, the team bought for £1 became title favourites overnight, were hunted by their rivals but held out for a last-gasp dip over the finishing line. They were an anomaly and their feat, one surely all but unrepeatable, is captured in an aptly titled new four-part Disney series – Brawn: The Impossible F1 Story.
Formula One is enjoying a boom thanks in part to the popular Netflix series Drive to Survive but at the same time undergoing a period of domination by Red Bull and Max Verstappen. It follows from a similar spell of authority by Mercedes, the team that bought out Brawn at the end of 2009.
Across the four, hour-long episodes, the first two of which are released this Wednesday on Disney+, the fascinating saga unfolds, beginning with the phoenix rising from the ashes when Honda suddenly pulled out of the sport and the team was bought for £1 by the team principal Ross Brawn.
It tells how under Brawn and the CEO, Nick Fry, they not only managed to stay afloat on a shoestring budget and workforce but how the team’s designers exploited a loophole in regulations intended to reduce downforce. They introduced the double diffuser concept that gave the car exceptional downforce, subsequently demonstrated to the consternation of the rest of the grid and no little surprise to some of the team in pre-season testing.
Jenson Button went on to win six of the opening seven races but as the rest of the grid built their own diffusers they caught and out-developed the cash-strapped Brawn leading to a tense run-in, only for the team and Button to claim both titles at the penultimate race of the season at Interlagos.
It might have been marketed as an F1 fairytale but for it being grounded in the brutal reality of a fiercely competitive sport. The actor Keanu Reeves is both host and narrator, telling the story and asking the questions of key participants including Brawn, Button and then F1 CEO Bernie Ecclestone. He might appear an unlikely choice but his obvious passion and knowledge of the sport is palpable.
He also has superb material to work with: hours of unseen footage and unheard radio messages unearthed from F1’s Biggin Hill archives,and a host of talking heads from the time going far beyond the central protagonists. We also hear from Gary Holland, the fuel man who had quit and become a plumber only to be brought back, flown in for races after his skills in a pit stop were deemed irreplaceable and from Brawn’s wife, Jean, who gives her perspective on what seemed like an impossibly risky venture. They flesh out superbly what in F1 are stories too often told through the voices of one or two high-profile characters.
Not that the leads are not compelling. Button is honest in his reflections as he describes the mental difficulties that beset his driving and the intense pressure as the season reached the business end and as Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel loomed large and the title looked to be slipping from his grasp. “I felt like the whole world was watching me fail,” he says.
There is the former chairman of Ferrari, Luca di Montezemolo, still entertainingly aggrieved about what he considers the questionable legality of the Brawn car, as is Red Bull’s Christian Horner, whose team went on to master the diffuser technology to devastating effect in the hands of Vettel in the following seasons.
Inevitably Drive to Survive cannot be ignored as an influence but this is a different beast. The drama is not manufactured but rather flows from the story and a pacing that incorporates a fine combination of both detail and accessibly broad brushstrokes so as not to alienate anyone merely interested in a great sporting story.
Being F1 however there is, inevitably, politics too. The real threat of a breakaway championship loomed in 2009 after the formation of the Formula One Teams Association and its clash with Ecclestone and the then FIA president, Max Mosley.
There are also the court protests over the double diffuser. Both played an important part in the season and the insights here are fascinating but there are moments where the casual fan’s attention might wander. That they were kept in shows an intriguing commitment to tell a story as enthrallingly as possible without abandoning all the context. It is an admirable goal and one the producers might consider a success.
