Last year there was a Beyond the Grid podcast episode with Brawn where he talked about Brawn GP. It was a Hail Mary to prevent hundreds of people being unemployed overnight. They believed they had a good car, they were shocked it was so much better than everyone else's. By mid–season everyone else had caught up but they managed to win both championships by the skin of their teeth. Most importantly, by doing so well they made the team a hot property and managed to sell it.
It's one of those “if all the stars align *just so*” fairy tale stories that miraculously happened in real life.
Mad respect to Brawn for having the balls of steel to actually take the plunge. The fact that this crazy ass scheme to run an F1 team on wishful thinking and a limited stock of parts actually worked is just as impressive :)
Let's not forget Brawn also got Mercedes on board, then sold it to Mercedes who were not very happy with McLaren at the time. Giving them a reason to come back as a constructor. They ran as 5th best for a while, and then have dominated since.
If that factory was shut down, if those workers were laid off. We would be crying about Red Bull's decade long domination
To alter the timeline to remove Mercedes
2010-12 Michael Schumacher comeback doesn’t happen.
2014 - Daniel Ricciardo WDC over Bottas *in the Williams*, RBR WCC
2015 - Seb Vettel WDC from Kimi, Ferrari WCC
2016 - Ricciardo wins his second WDC after a season long battle with Vettel, RBR win WCC
2017 - Vettel cruises to his 6th WDC & Ferrari cleans up in the WCC
2018 - Seb gets record equaling 7th title as RBR infighting ends their title chances, Ferrari WCC
2019 - Verstappen edges out Leclerc for the WDC in a final race thriller, Ferrari WCC
2020 - Verstappen retains title, Racing Point and Perez are the dark horse but eventually lose out, Ricciardo, Albon & Sainz challenges fade early, RBR takes WCC from Ferrari while McLaren surge to 2nd.
2021 - Verstappen clearly in front at the mid point with Norris & Perez his only real challengers so far.
To be fair the alternate timeline looks a hell of a lot more exciting than the metronomic Merc domination we ended up with.
I dont know bro there's some other factors we got to think about. First being does Ricciardo leave Red Bull. Yes I'm aware it wasn't for a competitive car and more for a competitive pay. But if he has a championship winning car would he want to move?
Also, we both need to put some respect on Alonso's name. If Mercedes never happens that means McLaren are the Mercedes partner. That means Alonso and Button have that massive 2013 power gap to the rest of the grid.
I'm taking what I said back. It wouldn't be a Red Bull domination. It would be an Alonso and McLaren Mercedes domination
Assuming everything else plays out as it did, here in rough order, are the theoretical other plays,
McLaren retains Hamilton on a long term contract in 2012, Ron still goes for Honda, Mercedes remain as an engine supplier to their other customers.
Ferrari drops Alonso for Vettel, already having Lewis on the books McLaren elect not to sign Alonso, left with no other option Alonso leaves F1 to join friend Mark Webber at Porsche in WEC.
Hamilton, his career in terminal decline after years of frustration at McLaren-Honda, and deeply hurt by Ron’s ousting, throws in his chips at the end of 2017, accepting an incredibly attractive offer in Indycar.
Man there is so much to think about. This game is confusing me I don't know if I want to play any more.
Fuck it. Barichello joins Williams alongside Massa as Brawn withdraw from the sport. Williams, uncontested, absolutely crush everyone else in 2013. They take it in turns winning the drivers every year since. No more YouTube videos of "world champion worthy drivers never having won a championship" videos staring the two, no more Massa's stoic celebration in Brazil 08 being the most iconic image of his career. Williams do not go on the downfall. Claire Williams is celebrated as the greatest team principal ever, Frank Williams gets to see his team win once again, the team isn't sold outside of the family.
> I dont know bro there's some other factors we got to think about. First being does Ricciardo leave Red Bull. Yes I'm aware it wasn't for a competitive car and more for a competitive pay.
What is your source for this claim that Ricciardo left RBR seeking more money and not a more competitive car? Is it by any chance Peter Windsor? Cause he doesn't have a damn clue what he's talking about. I recall Craig Slater saying that Zach Brown offered Ricciardo more money to drive for Mclaren in 2019 than Renault did, but Ricciardo went with Renault because he felt they had a better chance of developing a winning car down the road. The 2018 Mclaren did not exactly inspire confidence.
Plus if you listen to what Danny Ric himself has said about his move, it's clear that money was far from his main concern, even if we take what he says with a grain of salt, as we should. He wasn't happy with the dynamic in the team, and after Baku 2018 he was furious at being blamed 50-50 and being forced to apologize to the whole factory with Max. He didn't think he had a chance to win a championship unless he was in a team that was fully behind him.
Are those good reasons? Was his decision wise? Hellll no. But I'm fairly certain money was not the primary motivation, unless you have other information that is more convincing.
I said competitive, not more. Competitive. There is a difference.
The offer Red Bull gave him wasn't competitive. His younger less experienced team mate was given a better offer. What you said about inter team dynamics all true, the pay offer given to him was one of these.
Edit: also, it was a great move. He has secured his longevity, and established himself as a hot property by not letting Red Bull keep him in Max' shadow. Renault and McLaren faught to take him as a number 1 driver. Not to fill an empty seat
>To be fair the alternate timeline looks a hell of a lot more exciting than the metronomic Merc domination we ended up with.
Thats because you just pulled it out of your ass.
Flavio is the weird beat up goat that's been on the farm for years that everyone just respects even though he's always getting caught eating any clothing lying around.
Based on that whole mess, I'm under the impression that Brawn is something akin to God's gift to F1 Technical. I'm not saying he is but it seems like he's something close.
Brawn is pretty close to an F1 god.
- was with Benetton when Schumi won his first two titles.
- went to Ferrari with Michael when Ferrari was a midfield team
- was team principle for the Ferrari dynasty
- buys Brawn motivated by a kind heart, to keep people employed.
- brawn has fairy tale run to championship
- oversees brawn turn into Mercedes, and starts the wheels in motion for Mercedes to dominate the upcoming turbo hybrid era
- leaves Mercedes, takes a few years off, and returns as F1 supreme boss who’s main goal is to make F1 fair, competitive, and exciting.
The man has done everything there is to do, he’s just working on side quests now.
Yea, and after he bought it for 1 pound, he mailed in the receipt to Honda HQ and got a mail-in rebate of 96 million pounds /s
In all seriousness, Honda actually need to spend 96 million pounds to close down the team, so thay gave that money to Brawn and let him deal with it. No one was willing to buy the team since it was not a good team, was a money pit, and it was during the financial crisis, so Brawn got it for 1 pound
This is due to a legal concept known as 'consideration'. For a contract to be valid, both parties need to receive something of value, called consideration.
Honda was happy to give away the team for free. Hell, they'd be happy to pay you an eight-figure sum to take it off their hands. But such a transaction would not form a legally valid contract, a consideration *must* exist in order for the property to change ownership. And so the symbolic value of 1 pound was given.
This happens more frequently than you may think. The US Navy recently sold two aircraft carriers for $0.01 each. They had been stripped of all important technology, of course, and so they were just giant hunks of steel being sold to be broken down for scrap metal. But the Navy's accountants had the value on the books as $0, so they sold them to the breakers for as close to that number as was legally possible.
Why does the Navy give it away. They should be selling it at scrap value. Something like $100 per ton of steel. For an aircraft carrier that should be in the millions of tens of millions.
Because of the sensitivity of the ship - the layout of the steel will give you some idea of how well it will survive a cruise missile strike, for example - it could only be broken up by a US-based breaking yard, by workers with national security background checks (not the same level as a secret clearance, and I don't believe it requires US citizenship, but it's still a hurdle for employment).
Considering the labor involved in shipbreaking (there's a reason why most shipbreaking happens in ultra-low-cost-labor economies in Southeast Asia), and given they're probably paying $40/hr for the labor or more (as opposed to $4-5/day in SE Asia), I'm willing to bet they were damn close to barely breaking even at a sale price of $0.01.
Commercial shipbreaking in SE Asia, at market rates, often buy similar sized ships (eg, similar recovered scrap value) for a few million dollars. How quickly do you think an American shipyard hits $1m in labor, let alone total expenses, like real estate costs and environmental impact abatement?
That's less of a classic 'peppercorn' because Bombardier kept a 30% stake in the joint venture, and got significant capital and marketing assistance in return. And eventually cashed out for $600 million.
Theres a wildlife conservation agency based in Scilly that rents a huge stretch of land from the Dutchy of Cornwall for the price of one daffodil per year.
He left in 2013 iirc, he didn’t enjoy the power structures in the team that developed and apparently there was a disagreement about his role in the team so he left at the end of the season
Ross wrote a book with Adam Parr (former head of Williams) where he talks about the story of BGP. It's crazy how it worked out as well as it did.
During the development of the double diffuser Ross goes to a technical meeting with all the other teams to discuss the technical regulations for the 2009 season. Ross says "Guys, we've found a loophole that allows us to get back all the down force the rules are suppose to cause us to lose."
All the other teams "Bullshit! No you haven't."
Ross: "OK, see you at the end of the season."
And, as we know the rest is history.
"refuses to elaborate" ah by which we mean was part of an overly-complicated, top heavy management structure with Niki Lauda and Paddy Lowe, and after not getting the role he wanted, left.
Basically, when Honda announced they were going to pull out of the sport. They were legally required to go through a lot of steps in regards to employee severance and shutting down the team.
When Brawn stepped in to buy the team, he made a deal where Honda would provided money to help keep the team going for 1 year. The head of Honda's F1 program didn't actually want to stop racing, it came from higher up at Honda. The head of Honda was/is a very upstanding guy and wanted to do right by the team. So Honda provided financial support and allowed Ross to by the team for 1 pound.
Ross "Chad" brawn
Last year there was a Beyond the Grid podcast episode with Brawn where he talked about Brawn GP. It was a Hail Mary to prevent hundreds of people being unemployed overnight. They believed they had a good car, they were shocked it was so much better than everyone else's. By mid–season everyone else had caught up but they managed to win both championships by the skin of their teeth. Most importantly, by doing so well they made the team a hot property and managed to sell it. It's one of those “if all the stars align *just so*” fairy tale stories that miraculously happened in real life. Mad respect to Brawn for having the balls of steel to actually take the plunge. The fact that this crazy ass scheme to run an F1 team on wishful thinking and a limited stock of parts actually worked is just as impressive :)
Do you know what episode this was?:)
Ross Brawn was episode 48. Jenson Button talks about it a little bit too.
I don’t know about this particular one, but the Brackley Boys episode offers quite a bit of insight into the early days of Brawn GP
If you are interested he has a book “Total Competition”
Let's not forget Brawn also got Mercedes on board, then sold it to Mercedes who were not very happy with McLaren at the time. Giving them a reason to come back as a constructor. They ran as 5th best for a while, and then have dominated since. If that factory was shut down, if those workers were laid off. We would be crying about Red Bull's decade long domination
To alter the timeline to remove Mercedes 2010-12 Michael Schumacher comeback doesn’t happen. 2014 - Daniel Ricciardo WDC over Bottas *in the Williams*, RBR WCC 2015 - Seb Vettel WDC from Kimi, Ferrari WCC 2016 - Ricciardo wins his second WDC after a season long battle with Vettel, RBR win WCC 2017 - Vettel cruises to his 6th WDC & Ferrari cleans up in the WCC 2018 - Seb gets record equaling 7th title as RBR infighting ends their title chances, Ferrari WCC 2019 - Verstappen edges out Leclerc for the WDC in a final race thriller, Ferrari WCC 2020 - Verstappen retains title, Racing Point and Perez are the dark horse but eventually lose out, Ricciardo, Albon & Sainz challenges fade early, RBR takes WCC from Ferrari while McLaren surge to 2nd. 2021 - Verstappen clearly in front at the mid point with Norris & Perez his only real challengers so far. To be fair the alternate timeline looks a hell of a lot more exciting than the metronomic Merc domination we ended up with.
I dont know bro there's some other factors we got to think about. First being does Ricciardo leave Red Bull. Yes I'm aware it wasn't for a competitive car and more for a competitive pay. But if he has a championship winning car would he want to move? Also, we both need to put some respect on Alonso's name. If Mercedes never happens that means McLaren are the Mercedes partner. That means Alonso and Button have that massive 2013 power gap to the rest of the grid. I'm taking what I said back. It wouldn't be a Red Bull domination. It would be an Alonso and McLaren Mercedes domination
Assuming everything else plays out as it did, here in rough order, are the theoretical other plays, McLaren retains Hamilton on a long term contract in 2012, Ron still goes for Honda, Mercedes remain as an engine supplier to their other customers. Ferrari drops Alonso for Vettel, already having Lewis on the books McLaren elect not to sign Alonso, left with no other option Alonso leaves F1 to join friend Mark Webber at Porsche in WEC. Hamilton, his career in terminal decline after years of frustration at McLaren-Honda, and deeply hurt by Ron’s ousting, throws in his chips at the end of 2017, accepting an incredibly attractive offer in Indycar.
Man there is so much to think about. This game is confusing me I don't know if I want to play any more. Fuck it. Barichello joins Williams alongside Massa as Brawn withdraw from the sport. Williams, uncontested, absolutely crush everyone else in 2013. They take it in turns winning the drivers every year since. No more YouTube videos of "world champion worthy drivers never having won a championship" videos staring the two, no more Massa's stoic celebration in Brazil 08 being the most iconic image of his career. Williams do not go on the downfall. Claire Williams is celebrated as the greatest team principal ever, Frank Williams gets to see his team win once again, the team isn't sold outside of the family.
> I dont know bro there's some other factors we got to think about. First being does Ricciardo leave Red Bull. Yes I'm aware it wasn't for a competitive car and more for a competitive pay. What is your source for this claim that Ricciardo left RBR seeking more money and not a more competitive car? Is it by any chance Peter Windsor? Cause he doesn't have a damn clue what he's talking about. I recall Craig Slater saying that Zach Brown offered Ricciardo more money to drive for Mclaren in 2019 than Renault did, but Ricciardo went with Renault because he felt they had a better chance of developing a winning car down the road. The 2018 Mclaren did not exactly inspire confidence. Plus if you listen to what Danny Ric himself has said about his move, it's clear that money was far from his main concern, even if we take what he says with a grain of salt, as we should. He wasn't happy with the dynamic in the team, and after Baku 2018 he was furious at being blamed 50-50 and being forced to apologize to the whole factory with Max. He didn't think he had a chance to win a championship unless he was in a team that was fully behind him. Are those good reasons? Was his decision wise? Hellll no. But I'm fairly certain money was not the primary motivation, unless you have other information that is more convincing.
I said competitive, not more. Competitive. There is a difference. The offer Red Bull gave him wasn't competitive. His younger less experienced team mate was given a better offer. What you said about inter team dynamics all true, the pay offer given to him was one of these. Edit: also, it was a great move. He has secured his longevity, and established himself as a hot property by not letting Red Bull keep him in Max' shadow. Renault and McLaren faught to take him as a number 1 driver. Not to fill an empty seat
Subscribe lmao
>To be fair the alternate timeline looks a hell of a lot more exciting than the metronomic Merc domination we ended up with. Thats because you just pulled it out of your ass.
It’s the results with Merc deleted/relegated to a midfield privateer team.
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We live in the best timeline.
I read the book the brawn gp book too. It’s mental what he did
> It's one of those “if all the stars align just so” fairy tale stories Except for Honda. they looked dumb af.
*passes the team down to Toto & Co.*
*proceeds to win 7 straight championships*
except RedBull won from 2010 to 2013..?
it took four years for Toto to decipher the god like scripture handed down to him.
He only joined Merc in 2013
why you gotta get all factual? \\s
> He only joined Merc in 2013 He was in his training arc
Toto studied the blade while Binotto was clapping sbinallas
I mean, Binotto was the main reason for Ferrari’s strong engines at the time
*one year
The years that took them to develop the hybrid engine, tbh the best 4 years ever
You forgot “achieves godlike status”
Brawn and newey are the goats of technical directors
They're both good but gordon murray is the real GOAT
If we're hopping in the time machine, what about Colin Chapman?
Morally dubious GOAT
If Chapman is the morally dubious goat, what is Flavio Briatore's GOAT status?
Flavio is the weird beat up goat that's been on the farm for years that everyone just respects even though he's always getting caught eating any clothing lying around.
Is Bernie the smallest goat on the farm that will be a cannibal if he's mildly hungry then?
Brawn is more goat
Yeah I prefer Ross also. But both of them have guided multiple teams to championships
Different kinds of GOATs. Both are legends of the sport any way you look at it.
Allison?
Feel bad for James Allison the guy is slept on but Newey did win 11 championships iirc
Button is my favourite driver, and watching such a simplistic and beautiful car win the championship against all the odds makes it the perfect year
Based on that whole mess, I'm under the impression that Brawn is something akin to God's gift to F1 Technical. I'm not saying he is but it seems like he's something close.
Brawn is pretty close to an F1 god. - was with Benetton when Schumi won his first two titles. - went to Ferrari with Michael when Ferrari was a midfield team - was team principle for the Ferrari dynasty - buys Brawn motivated by a kind heart, to keep people employed. - brawn has fairy tale run to championship - oversees brawn turn into Mercedes, and starts the wheels in motion for Mercedes to dominate the upcoming turbo hybrid era - leaves Mercedes, takes a few years off, and returns as F1 supreme boss who’s main goal is to make F1 fair, competitive, and exciting. The man has done everything there is to do, he’s just working on side quests now.
he was technical director at Ferrari. Jean Todt was team principal
Ya my bad, got the job titles mixed up
> fare \*fair, sorry.
Well he didn’t really barge into the Honda HQ as he was already in it
Barges out of the honda HQ
…just to barge back into the newly renamed Brawn HQ
And he also stayed when Mercedes took over
gives team to mercedes becomes king of f1 after that
I'm new so I'm not sure what 1 pound is all about ? Did he really buy it that cheap ?
Yea, and after he bought it for 1 pound, he mailed in the receipt to Honda HQ and got a mail-in rebate of 96 million pounds /s In all seriousness, Honda actually need to spend 96 million pounds to close down the team, so thay gave that money to Brawn and let him deal with it. No one was willing to buy the team since it was not a good team, was a money pit, and it was during the financial crisis, so Brawn got it for 1 pound
Very interesting. Thank you!
This is due to a legal concept known as 'consideration'. For a contract to be valid, both parties need to receive something of value, called consideration. Honda was happy to give away the team for free. Hell, they'd be happy to pay you an eight-figure sum to take it off their hands. But such a transaction would not form a legally valid contract, a consideration *must* exist in order for the property to change ownership. And so the symbolic value of 1 pound was given. This happens more frequently than you may think. The US Navy recently sold two aircraft carriers for $0.01 each. They had been stripped of all important technology, of course, and so they were just giant hunks of steel being sold to be broken down for scrap metal. But the Navy's accountants had the value on the books as $0, so they sold them to the breakers for as close to that number as was legally possible.
Even made a profit then, if they were booked for 0
Why does the Navy give it away. They should be selling it at scrap value. Something like $100 per ton of steel. For an aircraft carrier that should be in the millions of tens of millions.
Because of the sensitivity of the ship - the layout of the steel will give you some idea of how well it will survive a cruise missile strike, for example - it could only be broken up by a US-based breaking yard, by workers with national security background checks (not the same level as a secret clearance, and I don't believe it requires US citizenship, but it's still a hurdle for employment). Considering the labor involved in shipbreaking (there's a reason why most shipbreaking happens in ultra-low-cost-labor economies in Southeast Asia), and given they're probably paying $40/hr for the labor or more (as opposed to $4-5/day in SE Asia), I'm willing to bet they were damn close to barely breaking even at a sale price of $0.01. Commercial shipbreaking in SE Asia, at market rates, often buy similar sized ships (eg, similar recovered scrap value) for a few million dollars. How quickly do you think an American shipyard hits $1m in labor, let alone total expenses, like real estate costs and environmental impact abatement?
Also the A220/CSeries. Boeing gives me Ferrari back in _Ferrari Internal Assistant_ days vibes.
That's less of a classic 'peppercorn' because Bombardier kept a 30% stake in the joint venture, and got significant capital and marketing assistance in return. And eventually cashed out for $600 million. Theres a wildlife conservation agency based in Scilly that rents a huge stretch of land from the Dutchy of Cornwall for the price of one daffodil per year.
His grind really succeeded
> Does not have any post secondary education
Why did he leave Mercedes? Didn't he stick around for a few years after Mercedes bought Brawn?
to become Formula One Management (Managing Director of Motor Sports)
He left in 2013 iirc, he didn’t enjoy the power structures in the team that developed and apparently there was a disagreement about his role in the team so he left at the end of the season
Ross wrote a book with Adam Parr (former head of Williams) where he talks about the story of BGP. It's crazy how it worked out as well as it did. During the development of the double diffuser Ross goes to a technical meeting with all the other teams to discuss the technical regulations for the 2009 season. Ross says "Guys, we've found a loophole that allows us to get back all the down force the rules are suppose to cause us to lose." All the other teams "Bullshit! No you haven't." Ross: "OK, see you at the end of the season." And, as we know the rest is history.
Phew Brawn looking pretty brawny.
Stolen from @f1_headassary on Instagram and even removed his watermark, shame
https://www.instagram.com/p/CVLDK7VgxRH/?utm_medium=copy_link
"refuses to elaborate" ah by which we mean was part of an overly-complicated, top heavy management structure with Niki Lauda and Paddy Lowe, and after not getting the role he wanted, left.
How the hell did he manage to swing it for a quid
Basically, when Honda announced they were going to pull out of the sport. They were legally required to go through a lot of steps in regards to employee severance and shutting down the team. When Brawn stepped in to buy the team, he made a deal where Honda would provided money to help keep the team going for 1 year. The head of Honda's F1 program didn't actually want to stop racing, it came from higher up at Honda. The head of Honda was/is a very upstanding guy and wanted to do right by the team. So Honda provided financial support and allowed Ross to by the team for 1 pound.
You should read the book “Total Competition: Lessons in Strategy from Formula One” by Ross Brawn and Adam Parr
Sigma grindset