In the English language, there is a term that fits this Brawn BGP 001 very well. In the music industry, they speak of a “One hit wonder.” This refers to an artist or music group that achieved only one success in their career. This is also somewhat applicable to this Brawn F1 car. The Brawn GP team drove in F1 for only one year and won both the drivers’ and constructors’ titles. It is an almost unbelievable story that is more like a fairy tale.
This fairy tale has now appeared in book form in “The Great Cars” series from Porter Press. In it they discuss only cars that have a great story or real history to go with them. In this case, it is the Brawn BGP 001 chassis 02, the car used by Jenson Button in 2009 with which he won his first and only world title. We saw this BGP 001 in 2016 at the Festival of Speed. Of course, an article with the whole story followed at that time, which you can find here. It is now the 18th book in this, by now impressive, series that deals with one particular car each time. And yes, we are big fans of that.
Author David Tremayne is no stranger to this subject matter. As an F1 reporter, with more than 650 matches attended, he knows what he is talking about, and with more than 50 books to his name, he is certainly no rookie. He is also the author of another masterpiece, “The lost generation.” A story about three rising English F1 pilots ( Tom Pryce – Tony Brise and Roger Williamson ) who all three tragically died. By the way, this book is also definitely recommended.
The full year of 2009 is covered including the acquisition of the Honda F1 team, the start and development of the car, of course the complete 2009 season, and the resale of the team to AMG Mercedes. The Brawn cars were superior in the first half of the 2009 season due to the use of a double diffuser. Other teams protested the legality but this was rejected by the FIA. It was also impossible to equip an existing car with this. First, another chassis concept had to be designed and built. For this, most teams needed three to four months anyway.
The Brawn BGP 001/02 was certainly not the most beautiful F1 car but this had to do with the regulations that were in place from 2009 because also the competition had really ugly cars in that year. In 17 starts 8 victories were achieved, six for Jenson Button and two for Rubens Barichello. Both were also on the podium 15 times. Five times a Brawn started from the pole position and four times there was a fastest lap time.
The book is done in the by now familiar Porter quality. Surely we can say that by now they are one of the leading publishers when it comes to car and motorsport literature. In addition to more than 300 photos, most of which have never been published before, we also find numerous interviews with the pilots and key team members. All this is processed over 320 pages.
Order on the Porter Press website or in bookstores via ISBN 978-1-913089-97-9.