Rise of Brawn GP and Button fails to paper over F1 cracks

Hamburg: The 2009 Formula One season may have seen Brawn GP become the first team to win both the drivers’ and constructors’ titles in its debut season but it will also be remembered for the withdrawal of BMW and Toyota as well as tyre-maker Bridgestone. A race-fixing scandal, the chaos caused by rule changes, a life-threatening injury to Felipe Massa, the brief possibility of Michael Schumacher racing again in F1 and the announcement that Mercedes were returning to the sport with their own works team for the first time in 55 years were also headline grabbers. Brawn were formed out of the ashes of the Honda F1 team amid so much uncertainty that it meant it was still not clear whether they could race even before the season-opener in Australia in March. Despite this handicap, the British-based team still managed to steal a march on all their rivals when it came to the new set of technical regulations which saw the biggest shake up of the rules for 20 years. Brawn’s double diffuser may have been a controversial interpretation of the new rules but it enabled Jenson Button to win six of the opening seven races, a foundation that proved sufficient for the British driver to eventually lift his first drivers’ title despite a late charge from the Red Bulls of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber.While Brawn soared, Ferrari suffered and the low point came at the Hungarian GP in July when Massa suffered a severe head injury after being on the helmet by a spring that had come dislodged from a rear damper on the car of Rubens Barrichello. That accident came less than a week after Henry Surtees, the teenage son of racing legend John, died as a result of being hit by a detached wheel of a car during a Formula Two race at Brands Hatch. Massa needed emergency surgery and was unable to race again in 2009, leading to the announcement that seven-time world champion Schumacher would be coming out of retirement as the Brazilian’s temporary replacement. However, a neck injury sustained while racing in the German Superbike Championship in February meant Schumacher was unable to make a return. In August, the ongoing strife between the FIA and the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) ended with the news that a new Concorde Agreement had finally been signed after months of threat and counter-threat from both sides. The new deal mapped out the basis under which the teams will participate in the F1 championship until the end of 2012, as well as how much money teams will receive from TV rights on top of setting the rules and binding the teams into competing in F1. While peace eventually reigned between the FIA and FOTA, another shadow was cast across F1 with the revelation that Nelson Piquet Jr deliberately crashed his Renault during the 2008 Singapore GP to facilitate a victory for his teammate Fernando Alonso. Piquet Jr was granted immunity from prosecution by motorsport’s ruling body and the resulting investigation led to the dismissal of Renault team principal Flavio Briatore and the team’s technical director Pat Symonds. Briatore was also handed a life-time ban while Symonds was suspended for five years. The 2009 season may have ended with the first ever F1 race at the new Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi but major events continued off the track with Jean Todt beating Ari Vatanen in the election to succeed Max Mosley as president of the FIA. This news was quickly followed by Toyota’s announcement that it was ending its involvement in the sport. Meanwhile, Mercedes revealed that it was was buying a majority share of Brawn, which will race in 2010 as Mercedes GP, while Button will partner compatriot Lewis Hamilton at McLaren next season. As part of the deal, McLaren will buy back Mercedes parent-company Daimler’s 40 percent stake by 2011 while the German carmaker will continue to supply engines to its former team until 2015. IANS