How Brawn became Mercedes

Following a winter of uncertainty the rebranding of the former Honda works Formula 1 team as Brawn GP was officially announced on March 5 2009.

Just 22 days later Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello finished 1-2 in Melbourne - the car's controversial double diffuser had been given the green light by the FIA, and rivals were left struggling to catch up.

• Brawn GP's incredible story part one
• 10 years on - How Honda became Brawn
  

Button and Barrichello were unstoppable in the early races. Jenson won in Malaysia, was third in the wet in China, and then triumphed again in Bahrain, Spain, Monaco and Turkey, making it an extraordinary six wins in seven starts.

Among those who were less than enamoured by Brawn's success was McLaren's outgoing team principal Ron Dennis. The Woking team, 40% owned by Mercedes and had a right of veto on who used the manufacturer's engines. It was Martin Whitmarsh, then McLaren's CEO, who after Honda's withdrawal had pushed for Brawn to be allowed a Mercedes supply.

"Ron never forgave him," Ross Brawn recalls. "Because Ron sees Martin's decision as the downfall of McLaren.

"Of course Ron knew that we were going to win the championship and beat them when that decision was made!

"I remember him being quite scathing about our chances of being any good, so he just dismissed our hopes, so he wasn't bothered about Martin making that decision. He looked at it retrospectively and made comments."

"It became clear, fairly early on, that Norbert Haug had been harbouring a dream for many years for Mercedes to have their own team" Ross Brawn

In the middle of the year things became tricky. Red Bull was developing its car at an impressive rate, and a lack of resources made it much harder for Brawn to progress after its flying start.

The team may have started the year with a brilliant car - helped by the huge funding from Honda and an intensive aero programme that ran throughout 2008 and led to the double diffuser - but F1 is always about the development rate.

Red Bull made huge steps, with Sebastian Vettel signalling his intent by winning in China in the third round.

"We clung on in the second half," says Brawn. "Because again we weren't spending money, so the car didn't really develop.

"I think we may have had one or two upgrades. But they were fairly gentle. Red Bull in particular were charging at us with a vengeance, and we had a poor couple of races in the middle of the year."

Indeed after that initial extraordinary run of wins Button managed only sixth in the British Grand Prix, a race where for some reason little ever went right for him. That was followed by fifth in Germany and seventh places in Hungary and Valencia.

A first win of the year for Barrichello in the Spanish street race provided a welcome boost for Brawn. Button then crashed out on the first lap in Belgium, before following Barrichello home in a timely 1-2 in Italy.

"The team seemed to pick up a bit of momentum then for the rest of the year," Brawn recalls.

Button's points total kept edging up with fifth in Singapore, and eighth in Japan.

He went to Interlagos leading Barrichello by 85 points to 71, but the real threat was Vettel - on 69 points after logging his third win of the year at Suzuka.

Heading to the penultimate race in Brazil Button was determined to get the job done, and not let the contest run on until Abu Dhabi.

"We came to Brazil, and the weather was bad," Brawn recalls. "Vettel cocked up qualifying, and then so did Jenson, they were both towards the back.

"I remember Jenson just turning up in the morning and saying, 'don't worry, I'm going to get it done today', and he drove like a demon.

"He was a man inspired and possessed. And so Brazil was very special."

From 14th on the grid Button finished fifth, a place behind Vettel, and with Barrichello only eighth it was enough to secure the title for the Englishman, while Brawn GP won the constructors' version.

Meanwhile much had been going on in the background.

From an early stage of the year Mercedes motorsport chief Norbert Haug had been seen an unexpected opportunity at Brawn.

Mercedes' relationship with McLaren was unravelling, with different ideas about the future path, as well as clashes in the supercar market. Daimler boss Dieter Zetsche was keen to finally have a full Mercedes-branded Formula 1 team.

"It became clear, fairly early on, particularly with the success, that Norbert Haug had been harbouring a dream for many years for Mercedes to have their own team," says Brawn. "And suddenly everything aligned.

"McLaren were going through a bit of a rough patch, we were winning races, we had a simple organisation, they were falling out over road cars and all sorts of stuff.

"Everything aligned, and then the Mercedes deal started to evolve."

The deal was announced on Monday November 16, a couple of weeks after the Abu Dhabi GP finale.

By December 24 Mercedes and its Abu Dhabi investment partner Aabar officially owned 75.1% of the team, with the rest still in the hands of the erstwhile Brawn GP directors - Ross himself plus Nick Fry, Caroline McGrory (legal), Nigel Kerr (finance) and John Marsden (human resources).

It was clear that with a full Silver Arrows works team on the grid Mercedes would be backing out of its 40% shareholding at McLaren over the next couple of years, while still supplying the team with engines until at least 2015.

There was no official word on Mercedes drivers initially, although Nico Rosberg was tipped to be joining from Williams.

Button was not committed to staying, and there had already been rumours that he was talking to McLaren.

Indeed on November 18, just two days after the Mercedes sale announcement, Button was named as a McLaren driver for 2010.

Dennis may have lost his main shareholder and works team status, but he gained some sort of revenge by stealing the world champion from under the nose of Mercedes.

Almost lost in that tumultuous week of F1 news was another little story that would eventually have huge significance for Mercedes.

An unknown Austrian businessman and sometime GT racer called Christian 'Toto' Wolff arrived in the F1 scene for the first time after buying shares in Williams. He had bigger ambitions that anyone realised at the time...

Rosberg was announced as a Mercedes driver on November 23. With Barrichello long committed to Williams, who would be his partner? You didn't have to be a rocket scientist to realise that Button's departure had opened up the extraordinary opportunity to tempt Michael Schumacher out of retirement.

The seven-time world champion had tried to make a comeback that summer when Felipe Massa was injured in Hungary, but had issues with his neck - a legacy of a motorcycle crash.

Given time in the build-up to 2010, Schumacher was confident that he could address any physical problems - and after weeks of speculation he was finally confirmed as a Mercedes F1 driver on December 23.

It was a huge PR coup for Mercedes, which had originally bankrolled Schumacher's development in his Sauber Group C sportscar days in 1990-91. And he was now back in a team that, on paper, had everything in place to win.

The sale to Mercedes brought a huge financial windfall not just to Brawn himself, but to his fellow directors - all of whom banked significant sums. Ross insists that was never the plan, and that all involved took some risks. Indeed the 2009 accounts revealed that the directors had loaned £3.4million to the team in March, which was subsequently paid back.

"2010 was a pretty average year, because we just hadn't done any work. The 2010 car was just a lukewarm interpretation of what we already had, with the engine properly fitted" Ross Brawn

"The way it worked as a management buyout is pretty unusual for the Japanese," says Brawn.

"But in fairness, as they are very honourable people, they felt very guilty towards me, because they brought me in, and then they closed the team.

"So they were very keen to try to make amends with me, and they said 'look we'll sell you the team, but only to you'. But it was a team effort to save it.

"There was a short period when legally I owned the whole lot. We then sub-divided it amongst the directors. That was the management group, and we were the ones who took the responsibility and took the risk and obviously ultimately reaped the benefits of that risk.

"It was such a joyous occasion for everyone in the team, and it was never done with a view to making money out of it. It was done because of our passion for racing and our wish to keep the team alive.

"They're the lovely things that come out when they're not planned, you have those things happen.

"None of the management team were looking towards the bottom line that might come out of this, it was just the way it all evolved.

"Honda would have owed me a lot of millions with the contract I had with them. It worked out well, it kept the team alive, it kept the majority of people in work, a lot of the people who were made redundant came back and worked there again. It was a very special time."

So 2009 ended with a world championship-winning team gaining Mercedes support and seemingly unlimited resources, and Schumacher in the cockpit.

It all seemed too good to be true, but the 2010 season was to be a wake-up call for all concerned. Mercedes Grand Prix finished a distant fourth in the world championship, well behind McLaren, with three third places for Rosberg the only podium finishes. Button meanwhile scored two early wins with his new team.

Brawn says that the big problem was that the takeover deal was completed so late, and until it was done the team couldn't put resources into developing the W01 for 2010.

"It took far longer to reach fruition than it should have done, because as soon as you get involved with a corporation like Mercedes in that sort of enterprise, it takes time," he explains.

"We lost some opportunity for 2010 that we should have had, because until the ink was dry we didn't know the deal was done, and we couldn't afford to go out and start expanding the team and spending money that we would have needed the year after if something had gone wrong.

"It was a bit of a shame that we weren't able to get the deal done early that year because it could have had an impact on the way things went. So 2010 was a pretty average year, because we just hadn't done any work.

"It was the exact opposite of 2008, where the whole year was devoted to the 2009 car.

"The 2010 car was just a lukewarm interpretation of what we already had, with the engine properly fitted and stuff like that. It reflected in the results, really."

Over time Mercedes would improve, and the headhunting of Lewis Hamilton for the last year of V8s in 2013 - another kick in the teeth for McLaren - was a hugely important step.

Getting a jump on everyone else at the start of the hybrid era was the other key to the success that has followed.

"One aspect that I love is that all those guys who showed their faith and their commitment in that era are the same guys who've just won so many world championships," says Brawn.

"Andrew Shovlin, Ron Meadows, Simon Cole, James Vowles, Evan Short, there are dozens of them who went through that whole thing, from 2007 with no points, 2008 with a few points. They won the championship in 2009, and never really looked back.

"After that, race wins were normal. They are exactly the same guys who still keep kicking arse in F1, and that's a source of pride for me, because it's a very united group of people, and it's the same people who still create the reference in F1."