Jenson Button shares what ‘everyone’ gets wrong about his 2009 F1 title win with Brawn

Follow us on Google Discover

Jenson Button stunned the world when he won the 2009 F1 drivers’ title for Brawn GP during the team’s only season, after rising from the ashes of Honda’s late withdrawal.

Honda dropped a bombshell in December 2008 by pulling out of Formula 1 with immediate effect amid the global financial crisis. Multiple interested parties looked into taking over the team, but Ross Brawn famously paid just £1 to buy Honda in a last-gasp deal in March 2009.

Mercedes agreed to supply Brawn’s engines in another last-minute arrangement, too, which forced the team’s engineers to make hurried modifications to the chassis they created for a Honda unit. Brawn even missed the first 2009 pre-season test, yet they went on to win it all.

Button won the 2009 F1 drivers’ championship with a round to spare, having left that year’s Brazilian Grand Prix with a 15-point lead over Red Bull ace Sebastian Vettel. Brawn also won the 2009 F1 constructors’ championship at Interlagos, before Mercedes took over the team.

Jenson Button picks the 2011 McLaren as his ‘best’ F1 car over the 2009 Brawn GP

The 2009 title proved to be Button’s only championship success over his 18 years in F1 from 2000 to 2017, as well as yielding six of his 15 Grand Prix career wins, nine of his 50 podiums and four of his eight pole positions. Button won six of the first seven out of 17 races in 2009.

READ  MORE: All to know about Jenson Button from 2009 F1 title with Brawn to net worth

But while Button has “fantastic” memories of driving the Brawn BGP 001 to that year’s title, he does not consider it to be the “best” car from his F1 career. Having now retired from all motorsport, Button looks back at the McLaren MP4-26 he drove in 2011 as his best F1 car.

Button told Motorsport.com: “The best car for me was the 2011 McLaren. It was the best single-seater I ever drove in F1.

“In terms of feel, I’d probably say the 2004 BAR-Honda. We had a flexible rear wing, and it was just an incredible car to drive with that V10. It wasn’t as fast as the Ferrari, but it was a fantastic car. I achieved 10 podium finishes, but I didn’t win any races.

“And then there was the Brawn. Everyone says, ‘That must be the best car that you’ve ever driven?’ But we went from high-downforce rules in 2008 to lower downforce in 2009. So, the Brawn was better than the rest, but not extremely fast. It had weaknesses.”

Honda developed a double diffuser that carried Jenson Button and Brawn to both 2009 F1 titles

While Brawn had to sit out the first test in Barcelona, Button knew he could win the 2009 F1 title after pre-season testing revealed that the almost cut-and-shut BGP 001 had a vast pace advantage thanks to the double diffuser that Honda had developed before pulling out of F1.

Williams and Toyota also developed double diffusers that irked many of their rival F1 teams, who protested the legality of the design. But it fell within the rules of the regulations that F1 introduced in 2009, and carried Button to the title despite Brawn seldom developing the car.

Button started his F1 career at Williams in 2000, before enjoying spells with Benetton in ‘01, Renault in ‘02, BAR from ‘03-05, Honda from ‘06-08, Brawn in ‘09 and McLaren from ‘11-17. He finished third in the F1 championship with BAR in 2004 and second for McLaren in 2011.

Red Bull rival Vettel won the 2011 F1 drivers’ title by 122 points over Button in second place, having dominated with 13 wins and 16 podiums from 19 races. Button took three wins and 12 podiums during the 2011 season, including taking eight podiums in the final nine rounds.

The McLaren MP4-26 may not have been a true match for the Red Bull RB7 in 2011, but the car allowed Button to score the most podiums in a single season of his F1 career. Even when he won the title with Brawn in 2009, Button only made nine of the 17 podiums that season.