All language subtitles for Brawn The Impossible Formula 1 Story S01E01

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.

The penny dropped.

Hang on a minute, you know,
he's onto something here.

This is a new opportunity,

and the more we got into it,
the more we realised the potential.

I know that any advantage you have
in Formula 1 is only temporary,

but we had this opportunity,

and we were on the path
to achieve our ambitions.

We had no idea what was about to happen.

Wait, who is he?

How low will it go?

The stock market slide continued today.

Two financial giants,
Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers,

buckled under the real estate
and credit crises.

A record $3.7 trillion
in market value has been lost this year.

Capitalism itself
looks like it's on the brink.

Lehman Brothers crashed down.

After that, for Honda, car order,
it stopped.

So, we must shut down our production line.

We got a call to meet with
one of the Honda executives.

Oshima-san.

Oshima-san was someone
I'd worked with for several years.

We didn't know he was in the country.

And we had assumed,

you know,
we just need to save some money here.

We went into a small room
with Oshima-san,

who was clearly very distressed,
which was worrying.

And what did he say?

Well, it wasn't what he said, initially,
it was the fact that he was crying.

And he announced that Honda was stopping.

It was all coming to an end.

While the economy crashed down…

It's not necessary to do motor sports
in that situation,

so our management decide to quit F1.

He said,
"Tell the staff that this is it,"

and, you know, "Turn out the lights."

I mean, was there a moment
where you're in the hallways,

and you look at each other,
and you're like, I don't know, like…

…Ross turns to Nick Fry
and says, "What the fuck?"

And Nick turns to Ross
and goes, "What the fuck?"

Well, it would definitely have been
a "we weren't expecting that" moment.

Our minds were racing,
'cause you're suddenly faced with…

And I know my mind was racing,
"What can we do?"

We weren't really prepared
for the ambush which followed.

It was a fait accompli.

They invite us
into a much bigger boardroom

to meet lawyers and HR specialists.

And it was really
the assassination squad.

They didn't see any other option

apart from to close down the company,
make everyone redundant,

they would exit from Formula 1,
and they would carry on their business.

Our defences went up,

and we made it clear this was not gonna be
just a walk away and turn the lights off.

That wasn't gonna happen.

The magnitude of what we're talking about…

It's just not something
you can turn off overnight.

It was incomprehensible
they thought that could be done.

It was against the rules.

Against the law.

You know,
they didn't really have an option.

And that bought us time.

That bought us time
to start to think about what we could do.

Legally, Honda had to put
the whole team on three months' notice

with a view to redundancy
at the end of it.

But Ross and Nick convinced Honda
they could sell the team.

Which would not only be cheaper
than making the whole team redundant

and paying off their many contracts,

but also save 700 jobs.

We asked for a month
to try and find a buyer for the team.

We went back to Brackley,

and we told everybody.

Honda has decided
to discontinue their Formula 1 activity.

- Fucking hell…
- They will not be competing in 2009.

What this means, is that we are all
under threat of losing our jobs.

What was it like having to tell
all the staff at Brackley

they were on three months' notice?

How did people handle it?

Shock. I think everyone knew
the economic situation was dire.

But it was still a massive shock
for everyone.

I think my first words were,
"But they can't."

"They just can't pull out."

It was my job, and it was, you know,
500 other people on-site

who weren't sure how they were gonna
pay the bills all of a sudden.

It's leading up to Christmas.

We had a financial crisis on our hands.

It probably wasn't going to be
the best time to be out of work

and looking for another job.

I had a half-finished house,
a fully pregnant wife.

It was quite a lot of emotion
to deal with.

The impact of this was huge.

It was really the visible incarnation

of how bad the economic crisis was.

Spiralling costs
and little success on the track

means that if a deal isn't struck soon,

the whole team will be closed down,
with the loss of 800 British jobs.

Hello, Jenson.

What will you be telling people today?

Richard Goddard, the manager
of Jenson, had called me to say,

"Look, we don't think
we're gonna be on the grid this year.

Have you got a seat
that you could offer Jenson?"

It was like, "Guys, you know, we're full.

It's ten past midnight, you know,
and Cinderella's gone."

First of all, I was in shock.

After all we'd been through
the last two years, I found it tough.

And he said,
"I can't see there's any way out of this."

Your contract's up,
and you don't know if there's a team,

and you don't know where you can drive,

and you've been in Formula 1
now for 14 years.

Is your career over?

My wife, at the time, thought I was crazy.

My friends thought I was crazy,

because I kept on thinking
that I would have a job.

And I thought, "Okay,
should I grab a plane and go there?"

Ross said, "Don't come here.

It's not a good time."

So, it was a tough period.

They were out of a drive
so late in the season,

they couldn't find anywhere else to go.

We knew if we could get going, we would
automatically have two good drivers,

and we knew they weren't going anywhere.

I spoke to Ross, and I spoke to Richard,
and a few other people.

Sure.

And there are positives,
you know?

But the thing is that we need to--
we need to stay positive in ourselves.

Yeah, I think that's the feeling
from all of us guys here--

Exactly.
And as-- And as one team.

I remember we gave a speech
to the staff.

We explained that if we gave up now,
we'd have nothing to sell.

We have two choices:

Walk away with our tails between our legs.

Or we can fight.

- Are we going to fight?
- Yes!

- Are we going to fight?
- Yes!

We were all at risk at that point,

but we were told to carry on.

And we were basically working
for our careers.

Working for our future.

The effort we had to put in at the time
was massive.

We had to all push hard
for these next few months

to give ourselves the best opportunity,

and none of us must ease up
in the commitment we needed.

That, I think, was one of the things
that really, really impacted all of us,

was that very few people left.

Very few people chose
to run for the doors.

In the back of everybody's mind,
you're thinking,

"Well, Ross is still here.

We must be okay."

2008, we'd almost sacrificed

to make sure 2009 was gonna be
a strong year for us.

This isn't the time to stop.

No way that this car
doesn't make Melbourne.

Even if we arrive like that,
and we do just one race.

We have to do it.

The spirit of those people
in that adversity was fantastic.

They kept the team alive.

It gave us something to take into 2009.

The latest is that we continue
to work here.

The staff will be paid by Honda
for at least the next three months

and, during that time,

we're hoping to find someone
who wishes to take over the team.

You kinda have a clock ticking, right?

I mean, the first race, I believe,
is March 29th.

To survive, you need to get investment.

The technical side, you know,
Ross went off and handled.

The finding investors was really,
you know, down to me.

When these type of things happen,

you know,
the world is full of opportunists.

And everyone wanted to be in there.

And the chance
of having their own team was huge.

There were people who,

when we checked their backgrounds,
they were pretty iffy.

I mean,
two of them went to jail after that.

Yeah, we were in the middle
of the huge financial crisis.

I mean,
they were opportunists in the extreme.

Everyone who came and looked at it,

were asking money from Honda
to take it over.

That's why Honda thought
they would just shut it,

'cause they knew no one would be able to
come in and make that sort of commitment.

But there was.

In a way.

I came up with the idea
of a management buyout,

in the absence of any other alternative.

For Honda, as an organisation,

the idea of the management buying in,
rather than a third party,

it just wasn't a way
that they would normally work,

so it wasn't easy to convince them
that this was an option.

I think it was viewed from their side,
quite understandably,

as rewarding failure.

I mean, we had not been successful.

But this is the only option
we've got on the table.

It's this or the team gets shut down.

And I think the key thing was Ross.

I trust Ross very much.

So, if Ross is there,
I can sell the team to him.

I think they felt a responsibility to me.

They felt a responsibility to the people.

And they could see
that was a more honourable deal

than just shutting the whole thing down.

I spoke to my wife about it.

She said,
"Financially ring-fence the house,

and then you can go and do
whatever you want."

Honda's Formula 1 team looks
set to be rebranded in the new season.

There were fears
it would shut down altogether.

Now, a senior figure
within the team has said

that they will be on the starting grid
in a few weeks' time.

In a way, you persuaded Honda to change
their minds and take this on board.

They would have spent a hundred million
dollars to shut the company.

We said, "Don't waste that money
'cause then there is nothing left.

If you allow us to buy the team,

and you give us $90 million
of close-down costs,

we could run a skeleton operation
of the company.

We'll take on all the responsibilities
for the people.

So, why not go racing for a year
if we can do it?"

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

When we finally closed the deal,
I gave a pound to the Honda executive,

to formalise the deal.

And I know he still has it.

-Do you have the pound?
-Yes.

-Is it here?
-Yeah.

-Do you want to check?
-I wanna check.

I wanna see the pound
that bought the team.

I bring-- Always, I bring this one.

Did you ever think
what you were going to name this team?

There was a lot of debate about that.

That was my marketing contribution.

-The name?
-The name.

I was embarrassed about the idea,
but everyone seemed to like it.

And the idea stuck,

and I must admit, I was very flattered
and honoured it was named after me.

The thought of the team
having our family name,

my first reaction to that was,
"Is there an alternative?"

I thought, "This car had never tested."

Didn't know whether it was reliable.

How quick it was.

-And it's going out with the name.
-Mmm.

It was kind of like having
your mate put his name on a Formula 1 car

and saying, "That's a GP team."

Okay, is it that simple?

But it is.

Ross is now a team owner.

A boss.

A colleague.

Yes, I was surprised about it.

Did you think they would be any good?

Uh, Ross is a person,

and this is one of his strengths:

Uh, very good to plan.

What I have to do this year, next year,

because in Formula 1
you cannot succeed in 12 months,

even in 24 months,
unless you can have help.

There's been an enormous
amount of activity behind the scenes.

Everyone on the stage here
has helped us preserve our team,

and, I think, myself, Ross, and our
700 employees all thank them for that.

It's the first time in Formula 1's
history, that I've been involved in,

that I've seen all the teams
come collectively together

to try and keep the little guys,

and to give Ross the opportunity
to salvage it or sell it.

But, of course,
his big problem was gonna be,

what engine does he take?

That was not a small problem.

-That's a huge problem.
-Correct.

We went to Honda initially and said,

"Look, you know,
we understand you wanna pull out of this

but can you please sell us your engine?"

And we got a point-blank no.

We are sure that the former Honda team
can have a future.

Everybody wanted us to survive,
but we didn't have an engine.

We'd had assurances
from Ferrari and Mercedes

that they would help us with the engine,

but we didn't know that much
about whether a Ferrari engine

or a Mercedes engine
would even fit the car.

You're not gonna beat Ferrari
with a Ferrari engine,

because as you get close, you'll find
that yours just gets worse and worse.

Mercedes-Benz had a 25-year history
with McLaren.

McLaren had an exclusive right
to the Mercedes engine,

unless they agreed otherwise.

Martin Whitmarsh was leading
the Formula 1 Teams Association, FOTA.

He pushed Norbert Haug at Mercedes
and the board at Mercedes to say,

"Come on. We've got to keep
this team involved in the sport.

Give them an engine."

He said, "Look, I'm a little bit
nervous to ask you this question,

but my board are worried
you're gonna go under

and you won't have paid your bills.

So, what guarantees can we set up?"

-Pay us up front.
-Yes, uh--

-Let's give you the engines.
-Yes, certainly.

Yeah, I wasn't like that,

but, you know, I was politely asking
for paying as soon as possible.

Would you have given you an engine?

I'd like to say yes.

But, as always,
until you've faced that situation,

you don't know for sure.

When we got the Mercedes engine,

it was getting to the point whereby
making the first race was a big ask.

Even to contemplate that,
at that time of the year,

that's horrendous.

There was some massive challenges
ahead of us,

but I think there was genuine bounce
in the whole organisation.

You know, we've come through this.
We've got a chance now.

We're not gonna waste it.

It brought people completely together,
and it was just an amazing atmosphere.

And you felt very much
part of a really unique team

that could rely on each other
to do what needed to be done.

Basically, they've done a cut and shut.

You know, to get the engine and gearbox,
to shoehorn it into the car.

For six days,

there were three shifts
working 24 hours on the car.

Yep.

What they achieved with that,
I don't think it's ever been done before.

To install a new engine in a car that's
designed for a different manufacturer.

Like, mind-blowing.

In that period, before we ran the car,

people were out testing on tracks.

We knew.

And we'd had a simulation
and a prediction,

which showed us what sort of lap time
we could expect.

And we couldn't understand
where we'd gone wrong,

because our simulation showed we would
be a second, a second and a half quicker

than what the people were achieving
at Barcelona.

We, of course,
being very, very sceptical

about the numbers guys
back at the factory, we're like,

"Well, you've clearly got your numbers
wrong then, haven't you? Duh."

You know, as if we're gonna be two seconds
faster than everybody.

And they're like,
"Okay, we've checked the numbers.

We're still two seconds faster
than everybody."

-"Really?"
-And that came through the factory.

You know,
have we really made a big cock-up here,

or have we got something very special
on our hands?

We took the car
to do a shakedown at Silverstone.

A sort of hilariously amateurish outfit
that we must've appeared to be.

It was pretty much like camping.

Before a car went testing
with the other teams,

they needed to run the car privately
to make sure nothing fell off

and it ran the way it was supposed to.

It fired up. I drove out.

And just seeing the smiles
on everyone's faces…

It was a nice moment because,
you know, seeing the thing roll on track,

that was the point where
it suddenly becomes a reality.

We learned nothing about
the performance of the car, frankly.

We were just driving round in circles,
but it worked.

So far, so good.

That car got packed in a truck,
and got packed to the Barcelona test.

The first test was the first time
we saw the double diffuser on a Toyota,

and it was on the Williams.

When Ross's car finally broke cover
at Silverstone on a shakedown,

from the pictures that we saw--

You saw pictures?
How did you get pictures?

That got leaked…

We could see it had a double diffuser.

I'm sure they weren't
that worried about us,

because why should they be, you know?

We'd thrown a car together
with the wrong engine,

and we had a long history
of not being desperately competitive

when we had six months to make a car,
let alone six weeks.

We didn't look like a credible threat
to anybody, I'm sure.

When Honda withdraws,
Ross Brawn says, with Nick Fry,

"We'll put the management company
together, and we're gonna keep it alive."

You… …are looking at going
from Ferrari to Honda,

to an independent team…

with no resources,

with no sponsorship.

But you're not at the shakedown.

Yes, I wasn't.

Why?

Because I didn't have a contract
up to that time.

Jenson was always on board,
I think, in our minds.

Rubens had been an option.

He didn't have a contract.

I mean,
this is not a derogatory statement,

but he was a comfortable pair of slippers.

He was someone I'd worked with,
and I knew exactly how he thought.

I knew I could rely on him.

But it was tempting
because there were two or three guys

still hanging around
with big sponsorship deals,

and they could bring quite a lot of money
to the team.

But I think I managed to persuade
the rest of the team

that actually Rubens
would be a good investment.

I think they'd done six days
of testing already, all the teams.

I remember Ross just coming over
and saying,

"Be careful."

You know, we didn't--
We weren't flush with parts.

Jenson went out and did a few laps,
and came in and said,

"Oh, the balance isn't good,"
this, that, and the other,

and we said, "Okay,

but you've just done the second fastest
lap of the test, the whole test,

and we've-- we started late
because we weren't ready."

And I was like, "What?"

And then when he started to get the car
adjusted, then he went the fastest.

Quite clearly, the car was exceptional.

To the point, as you may know, a lot of
mechanics went out and put bets on it.

They were pretty fast straight away,

and everyone, all of the other teams,
including myself, we were sure that--

I mean, you know, Ross Brawn took the team
on the last moment.

They have no money,
so they need to find a sponsor.

So it's a time to show
that the car is competitive,

so they just removed the weight
of the car, just to be quick.

The inevitable publicity
that surrounds test performance.

See? Some of the teams
that are seeking money

actually running their cars
with the objective of doing one fast lap.

Of course, one fast lap is very important
when it comes to qualifying,

but it's relatively unimportant
when it comes to the race.

Can this car really be that competitive?

It's so late. They've got no money.

But then you think this is the most
developed car under these regulations.

From the moment Ross arrived,

he forgot the existing car
and just focused on the future car.

The car full of fuel was quicker
than the other cars with no fuel in it.

And suddenly think, "Oh, you know, okay.
These guys are seriously quick."

Yes, they're chasing a sponsor,

but the pace of this car
and just watching it on track,

it looked totally hooked up.

When you saw how fast they were…

Hmm.

I said, "Listen,

despite I respect Ross,
despite I respect his capability,

but in such a short time,
to have such a competitive car

looked, to me, very strange."

So maybe the interpretation
of the rules was fantastic.

They were lucky to find the best way
to be competitive,

or something that was not
a hundred per cent inside the rules.

Can we put on a show
for you in Melbourne?

I think we could've maybe challenged.

Nah, uh, I think we're gonna get to Q2.

Q2, yeah.

That first race…

was the launch of Brawn GP?

Yep.
That's where the story really started.

We were a team that's come from nowhere.
No one expected us to be here.

Do your job this weekend.
Keep your head clear.

We've got a strong chance.

You know, we had missed
so much of the winter of testing,

but everyone just seemed so comfortable in
themselves and confident in us as a team.

It felt like a-- a family.

I think the winter that we went through
together really brought us a lot closer.

As is consistent with tradition,

you're the new team, you go
right at the far end of the pit lane.

Ferrari, Red Bull, all those guys,
more trucks, more space,

massive motorhomes,
all showing off, having a great time.

And it did really, sort of,

help us feel like we were
fighting our way out of a corner.

It was an eye-opening experience
for all of us,

because there were literally half as many
people involved in the race operation.

Instead of having 20 guys from Honda
worrying about the engine,

we got one guy who told us
not to overheat it.

And that was it.

We were the underdogs,

and it's hard to explain the emotion
when you're the underdog.

We had built this car that didn't exist.

We had cut the back off a chassis
and bolted an engine to it.

That simply shouldn't be done.

And yet, got it to Melbourne.

To survive, you need to get investment.

One of the investors who ultimately
ended up on the car was Richard Branson.

Richard did not approach me.
Far from it.

He was a competitor in lots of ways.

Richard wanted to, uh, own the team.

He didn't want to just be a sponsor.

Richard had made a proposal
to Honda quite late in the day,

which, as it turns out, was nothing like
as attractive as a management buyout.

I think that Brawn was obviously wanting
to own the team.

He wanted us to be a sponsor,
not an owner.

We needed money.

Clearly, he saw opportunity
from a business point of view.

He said that for a couple of million,
we were the, sort of, title sponsors.

You know,
we didn't actually sign anything.

We agreed that we'd sign
when we met in Australia.

I got "Fly Virgin Atlantic" stickers
printed off,

and I quite liked the idea of being this,
sort of, underdog brand with Ross,

taking on the giants.

You've definitely got
the prettiest minders here, Richard.

-I think we're doing all right.
-We're doing all right.

I think we're doing all right.

When Richard came in the
paddock, it was pandemonium.

He was great.
He did a great press conference for us.

The attention of the paddock was on him.

He got fantastic value

because the sponsorship package
he bought was relatively modest,

but everyone thought
it was Richard's team.

This Brawn GP seems to fly very fast.

Well, the Virgin car now, uh,
is planning to fly.

Brilliant timing for him. Yeah.

- The saviour.
- Snowballed from-- To save us, yes.

Which, um, not quite the angle
we were hoping for,

but, uh, it did bring some money in
at the time.

Before the race on Sunday,
the cars do timed laps on Saturday

to see what position
they start the race from.

The fastest car starts at the front
in pole position.

The slowest, at the back.

You'll definitely need headphones.

Okay.

New season,
new regulations and, who knows,

perhaps are we about to see a new order
in the shootout for pole?

This is, as they always say,
when the bullshit stops.

For what everybody had been through,
and for what we knew we had in our hands,

our responsibility now
was to make this count.

I was so over the moon
to be driving such a car,

but it did give me
a little bit of pressure,

because we didn't have many kilometres
on the car,

and we had to look after it for the race.

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

You're going to your first race
in Melbourne, right?

They were like, "Uh, go quick, fellas."

-Yeah.
-"But don't crash."

Make sure you win on the way,
yeah, but don't crash. Yeah.

But don't crash because we don't have,
what, spare parts?

That went for every lap of practice.

But as racing drivers,

you're not very good at taking it easy.

You either push to the limit,
or you're nothing.

We pushed to the limit.

Here is Jenson Button.

He's on the pit straight.
He knows the time to beat.

Jenson Button on pole position,

Rubens Barrichello will be alongside him
on the grid.

We knew the car was quick after Barcelona,
but we didn't quite know just how quick.

Everyone plays around a little bit
with fuel loads,

with the age of the tyres,
with the engine.

We qualified in Melbourne with more fuel
than pretty much the whole grid.

Nice work.

It was really quite emotional.

I don't say that lightly.

It was quite an emotional time, you know,

to be seeing that we
can actually get this car on pole.

Hey, Richard,
where's the chicks?

I don't know. Don't know.

You realise this is, actually,
the first time in 39 years

that a new team has taken pole position
in its first race. That's amazing.

Uh, as I say, um, we're lucky bastards,
as they say in England.

We were lucky bastards indeed.

It's special for us
because we've had such a torrid winter.

You know, every day,
it's been up and down, you know?

One day it looks positive
and we're gonna be racing this year,

and the next day, it's not.

So, this isn't the end of it, you know?
Tomorrow is the race.

Rubens, describe the roller
coaster of emotions that you've had.

A few weeks ago,
you weren't even sure if you had a seat,

and now you've got a front row
of the grid.

Yeah, it's, uh-- it's, uh-- You know,
I'm very grateful for the moment I have.

It's a good story for F1,
and, um, certainly a good story for us.

Our competitors, they were all rattled.

We knew there was
an awful lot of interest in the car.

"Interest",
is that what you'd call it?

Yeah, I'd say-- Yeah, interest.

One of the guys from Ferrari
came down with a torch,

and he sort of lays on the ground
to get a look underneath the car

at the double diffuser.

And Ross just walked up to him
and grabbed his belt buckle,

and picked him up off the floor,

and said something to him in Italian,
and off he went.

-No?
-Yeah.

The bear moved in.

Yep.

Grabbed him by the belt buckle!

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Picked him up by
his belt, and picked him up off the floor,

and kindly reminded him that
that's not really the way we do things.

You don't get on the floor and try
and have a look at things underneath

or anything like that.

-You don't look up the skirt.
-Yeah, exactly.

That's a good way of putting it, yeah.

Did you already feel that they were
going to protest the cars?

Yeah.

-Look at the hole on this, huh?
-Eh?

Look at the hole.

There was just a general
feeling of excitement from the drivers.

They knew they had a--
for the first time in a long time,

potentially, a really good car under them.
And you could sense that.

Rubens, Rubens.

Can you believe that you're standing here
on the front of the grid?

Well, I mean, I wanted to believe it.

It's a lot of people…

Now that I have the drive,
the season is made for me.

I'm gonna win the championship.

Can you tell us
what you said to your drivers?

Yeah, just don't hit each other.

I was with Jenson
for his first win in 2006,

and you knew at the time
how much that meant to him,

and also how painful it was
to then not win a race in '07 and '08.

So you knew
what a big opportunity this was.

Jenson, well, can you do this?

Yes.

I think there's no doubt
that it was unfulfilled promise

from Jenson Button up to that point.

When you qualify, well,
the pressure's on on race day.

But, you know,
we'd only done one test,

so our confidence in the reliability
of the car and the package,

and our understanding of it,
was not perfect.

You know, a race win's
a whole different piece of work.

I was really nervous before the race.

And everything went through my mind
of the last couple of years

and how tough they'd been.

What we'd been through as a team.

And, suddenly, I'm driving a car that
I just feel like I can do nothing wrong.

Up front for the first race
of this new season:

Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello.

Only one team in their debut race
in the history of the sport

have been able to get pole position
and then go on to win.

This opportunity doesn't come around
for many people,

and I didn't want to throw it away.

We're away in Melbourne for 2009!

Jenson Button streaks forward.
Vettel's there as well!

Massa's trying to come through
on the outside.

Rosberg's up into third place.

But Button is absolutely streaking clear.

Looked in the mirrors,
it just was a mess behind.

And I immediately had a buffer.

You are in P2.

The lights go out.

We're away in Melbourne for 2009!

It's Jenson Button! An awful start there
by Rubens Barrichello.

I didn't have a good one.

No, you went into turn one in tenth,
and then you're a maniac.

Dreadful start for Rubens Barrichello.

There's all sorts of mayhem
at the first corner.

And, suddenly, Ross Brawn
has gotta rethink the strategy,

because this is not going at all well.

You know we have a good car.
You know you're losing time.

You have the pressure to win the race
because you have a good car.

That, sometimes, make you lose focus.

He lost the back of the car,

and he's lost the corner
of his front wing.

He just pushed his way through.

I was fighting to be on that podium.

Jenson Button
started from pole here in 2006,

but it never really came together.

He finished tenth on that occasion.

But he's doing everything right,

just trading fastest laps
with Sebastian Vettel.

You know, I had the team talking to me
through the race,

just give me feedback
of how the car feels.

Jenson Button has just set
the fastest lap of the race.

Is this the hand of Ross Brawn,
that master tactician?

We knew, as a team,
Jenson had a chance of winning.

Some of the teams were in trouble.

McLaren had got
their car completely wrong,

and they looked dreadful.

It was pretty much the same with Ferrari.

I know that any advantage you have
in Formula 1 is only temporary.

And you've only got to make one mistake,

and rarely there's enough margin
to cope with a mistake.

Barrichello in the pits,
and it's a new front nose.

At that stage,
we weren't functioning fully as a team.

It's a long stint, this.
This is a lot of fuel going in.

We had no time to do pit stop practice.

Our fuel guy had never been
a fuel guy before.

No, come on!

Oh, dear.
That was not slick and smooth.

I lost six seconds at the first stop

and, I think, seven seconds
at the second stop.

The tragedy would be if that robbed us
of what we were hoping to achieve.

Well into the last quarter of this race.

Jenson doesn't look like he's got

an awful lot of speed out there
at the moment on those tyres.

There was a BMW behind,
of Robert Kubica,

and a Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel,

and they were quicker.

They were quite a lot quicker.

Button is only
one and a half seconds ahead of Vettel.

It's gonna be
a real chase to the line here.

It's Button for Brawn,
Vettel for Red Bull, Kubica for BMW.

Kubica is on primes.
He could be a threat.

I always said to our staff,

"Luck is preparation
waiting for an opportunity."

Barrichello and Rosberg,
wheel to wheel now,

as they go through on that far side
of the track.

Barrichello steams through.

When those opportunities come,
if you don't take them, someone else will.

Rubens Barrichello in fourth.

Kubica is third, Vettel second
and Button still out in front.

But look at the gap between them.
Barely one and a half seconds.

Jenson's got to push like crazy now.

Kubica is flying.

This is the battle
which is going to make or break this race.

- There's a problem there.
- He's been hit.

There goes Kubica and there goes Vettel.

That's the last thing they needed to do.

Jenson Button will be romping clear now.

Barrichello up
into second place for a Brawn 1-2.

Jenson Button crosses
the line, takes the chequered flag.

Jenson Button's a winner again.

It's a 1-2 finish.
Button from Barrichello. What a result!

I've never had that emotion before,
really, with team members.

You know, that connection.

And that moment, it's like,
"We bloody did it.

We came here and we beat the giants."

So you come out of this car in Melbourne,
the garage is going berserk, right?

Yes, absolutely.

You know,
we are presenting ourselves the winner

with a car that almost didn't happen,

so it was something else.

The last garage was the top one now.

Oh, just an absolute fairy tale.

I just can't believe
we've actually managed to do it.

Everything that had happened before,

you know, really, kind of,
came out into the open.

And Ross was on the pit wall
and he was crying.

Everything all our staff have
been through, just sensational.

And, uh, I can't really put it into words.

For the big man to show that much emotion,

you know we've done something good.

Cars are coming down.

People are losing their minds.

-You're getting claps, right?
-Hmm.

It was beautiful, really,

'cause all the people in the pit lane knew
what we'd been through.

The tension and pressure
that we'd had for so long.

They would've been sharing
that joy that we had that day,

'cause it was a joy for Formula 1.

Just one of the best moments of my career.

I mean, that was magical. Just magical.

It was about everything
that had gone before it.

It was about all the hard work.

You know, I believed our team
was working harder than any other,

because we were fighting for survival.

- They won the race!
- Yes.

They come to Australia and they win.

-Yes.
-On the track, the cars are driving in.

Other teams, they're, like, clapping.

-Yes, but…
-The team itself is, like,

they're crying. They're so happy.

-Yeah, but…
-They did the impossible.

They put the Mercedes engine in the car.

They have the double diffuser…

You are making a list,
and I answer to you, they went too far.

Suddenly, you know,

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

I mean, there was all this
goodwill towards Brawn GP,

and everybody did their bit
to help them survive.

Then Ross, he's got this outlook of
the big bear, this big cuddly guy that,

you know, would never dream
of doing anything questionable in any way.

Yet really, behind the scenes,
he's the most cut-throat,

ruthless competitor probably
that we've ever come across.

You know, he would sell his grandmother
to get what he wanted.

We put in a protest
because we wanted to clarify

what the FIA's, you know, position is,

because the whole new concept
of these regulations

is undermined by a double-decker,
you know, rear diffuser.

Are the knives out yet or are they--

The knives are sharpened.

And the best way to become unpopular
very quickly is to start winning.

I mean,
we are now in a different phase.

So we've gone past the phase
of helping us survive.

We are now in the phase where we don't
want to be beaten by these people.

"Great to see you here,
but don't embarrass us."

In 2009, was more evident.

Since the first race,

a big gap between this car
with the Mercedes engine,

this car without a long tradition,

with a team manager that has never
been a team manager before,

immediately competitive.

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

So, the FIA said the car is fine.

Yes.

And everybody else
was saying they're cheating?

Yes.