A look back at the season which saw Jenson Button and Brawn GP come back from the brink.
Mike Wise takes a look at the season which saw Jenson Button and Brawn GP come back from the brink to score title successes
When Honda announced its withdrawal from Formula One on December 5th last year,
Skybet offered odds of 80-1 on Jenson Button becoming 2009 World Champion. The Englishman spent the winter not knowing whether he would be on the grid at all; assuming Ross Brawn could not save the team, there was also the question of whether, with just one race victory in nine seasons, he would be able to salvage any kind of F1 future.
Twelve months on, Button is the World Champion and if any further proof of an enhanced - even rehabilitated - reputation is needed, the fact he now has a McLaren contract in his back pocket says it all. Not only does he have the Brawn GP team to thank for such a remarkable turnaround in fortunes, Button must also be grateful of the technical changes - mainly governing aerodynamics - introduced by the FIA that the team exploited.
Of course, the degree to which they exploited them was a crucial (but by no means the only) factor in their early-season dominance but is the fact the order was shuffled and the 2009 season consequently given such a refreshing zest not something to be welcomed? Aside from Brawn (now Mercedes) GP, Red Bull were the year's other main protagonists - a team without a win before the season started but now, like their 2009 rivals, poised to carry on where they left off.
That they will be joined by McLaren and Ferrari there can be little doubt - F1's more usual hegemony having been so absorbed in their 2008 title battle they took their eye off the ball at the start of the season and spent the rest of the year catching up. In fact, the eye-catching success of Brawn GP and Button aside, this season's main legacy could be the 2010 season it tees up: perhaps four teams in title contention? Fernando Alonso joining Felipe Massa at Ferrari? Michael Schumacher potentially joining Nico Rosberg at Mercedes GP and taking on an all-British line-up at McLaren? Bring it on...
Team of the season - Brawn GP
Only officially coming into existence three weeks prior to the first race of the 2009 season, the Brawn GP name disappeared from view in November to leave the team as the first in the history of the Formula One Constructors' Championship to achieve a perfect record. Being a contender was probably not at the forefront of Ross Brawn's thoughts as he fought to save the team formerly known as BAR and then Honda, but once their future was secured and the team gave the newly rechristened BGP001 its first run at Silverstone on March 6, its performance out of the box would have confirmed what Brawn and company suspected before their business was so rudely interrupted in December: that they had a winner on their hands. A total of eight wins in 1% races followed - a level of success that wasn't entirely down to the 'double diffuser' the team ran. The car had a strong all-round aerodynamic package and although its most glaring weakness - the tyre warming problem that so hampered Button mid-season - helped rivals to catch and pass Brawn, the strengths clearly more than compensated. Add Brawn's tactical nous into the mix and the fairytale result was two championships for a team that might not have existed at the start of the year.
Driver of the season - Jenson Button
Button teams up with Lewis Hamilton in a Brit-centric World Championhip-
