Button and Brawn win in Brazil
He did it. Jenson Button is the 2009 Formula One world champion. By driving from fourteenth place on the grid to fifth at the end of yesterday’s Brazilian Grand Prix, Button ensured that he had entered the annals of Formula One history. The debate about whether or not Button is a worthy champion has now been rendered irrelevant by the simple fact that he is; especially in a country like England where, for the media, you are only ever as good as your last triumph. The best one can do is remind oneself that only five other men in the history of Formula One have achieved the quite extraordinary feat of winning six out of seven successive races. This was not predicted by any commentator, least of all yours truly. If anything, Brawn was expected to be a minor team, lower down the ranks than Force India and Torro Rosso.
Rarely in sporting history itself has every expert been proved so comprehensively wrong. I was thinking about this as I went to bed last night and recalled the 1974 classic boxing match, the “Rumble in the Jungle”, between Muhammad Ali and George Forman. Not only did every pundit expect Ali to lose awfully, they feared he would get badly hurt. Foreman was young, fit and devastatingly powerful. With fists the size of loaves of bread, Foreman had made short work of Ali’s most formidable opponents before accepting Ali’s challenge. In his private moments - when he was not able to swagger about or call Foreman ugly - Ali must himself have feared a heavy defeat. But, come the day of the fight, Ali did it. He knocked out Foreman and became heavyweight champion of the world.
After a season dominated by the lime green and black logo of the white Brawn GP cars, it is easy to forget that Brawn GP did not exist until ten months ago. This was an F1 team cobbled together in a hurry after Honda made the (to my mind, short-sighted) decision to exit Formula One. Ross Brawn and his gang of mechanics - somehow -managed to build championship winning cars from the spare parts Honda had left lying around in their Northhamptonshire factory in their haste to return to Japan. The team’s self-belief and commitment in the face of all the odds propelled them to achieving the impossible. A privately owned, cash-starved, little team ended its debut season by winning both the F1 constructors’ championship and the drivers’ championship. This has never been done before.
Whereas most teams start the year with sponsor’s logos liberally posted all over their cars – look, for example, at the prominent place occupied by Vodafone on the McLaren team livery – the Brawn cars were almost embarrassingly clear of advertising when the season began in Melbourne. As the season progressed and the team’s bankability was repeatedly proved, a smattering of advertising began to creep onto the pristinely white bodies of the cars, helmets and overalls of Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello. Virgin weighed in, then MIG Investments, Ray Ban and a gaggle of others. This demonstrated more than the fact that Brawn GP was proving itself a safe bet: it meant that not only did Ross Brawn have to apply his technical and commercial nous in managing the team, he had to divert his attention to buttering up sponsors for much needed funding. If Ross Brawn is not knighted in the new year honours list for 2010 for outstanding British achievement, I will eat my shoes.
It was a thrilling weekend of motor racing. Qualifying was wet, chaotic and brilliant. By the end of it there seemed no doubt that Jenson Button had blown all his chances of clinching the world championship at Interlagos. His closest rival, team-mate Rubens Barrichello, was on pole at his home Grand Prix while Button languished in fourteenth place. As we now know, Button chose to be a daredevil and pull overtaking manoeuvre after overtaking manoeuvre as though his life depended upon it and everyone is now rejoicing.
Well, not quite everyone. A moneyed chap in a palace in Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, is seething with fury as I write this. The Sheikh feels like a man who has lost his trousers in an unsafe bet (come to think of it, the Sheikh isn’t too keen on trousers, but I am sure you get the picture). Having been assured of a place on the F1 timetable which guaranteed that the spotlight fell on Abu Dhabi after the billions he had poured into yet another Gulf white elephant (“listen Sheikh, old man, the statistics show that most championships go right down to the wire at the last race of the season”), the Sheikh must be feeling prepared to consider sautéed Ecclestone testicles for dinner. As the traditional Formula One circuits of Europe grew ever more adept at giving Bernie Ecclestone a curt middle-fingered salute, the malevolent little man had to seek out richer, less scrupulous people to fleece. But now that both championships have been settled in Brazil, who can say hand on heart that they will cry into their beer if they miss the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix a fortnight hence?
Tempted as I am to point fingers at Sheikh Khalifa and go “Ha Ha Ha!,” I am being unfair. This is not the time for schadenfreude. Nor is it the time to be engaging in querulous complaint, that favourite pastime of British journalists. It is the time to be celebrating the achievements of Jenson Button and the boys at Brawn GP. Well done lads!
Finally, just in case you were wondering where Jessica Michibata now features in the new world champion’s thinking, this is what he had to say after the Brazilian Grand Prix yesterday: “I want to thank my family and my girlfriend Jessica. I love you so much, this is for you.”
Gitau
19 October 2009
Rarely in sporting history itself has every expert been proved so comprehensively wrong. I was thinking about this as I went to bed last night and recalled the 1974 classic boxing match, the “Rumble in the Jungle”, between Muhammad Ali and George Forman. Not only did every pundit expect Ali to lose awfully, they feared he would get badly hurt. Foreman was young, fit and devastatingly powerful. With fists the size of loaves of bread, Foreman had made short work of Ali’s most formidable opponents before accepting Ali’s challenge. In his private moments - when he was not able to swagger about or call Foreman ugly - Ali must himself have feared a heavy defeat. But, come the day of the fight, Ali did it. He knocked out Foreman and became heavyweight champion of the world.
After a season dominated by the lime green and black logo of the white Brawn GP cars, it is easy to forget that Brawn GP did not exist until ten months ago. This was an F1 team cobbled together in a hurry after Honda made the (to my mind, short-sighted) decision to exit Formula One. Ross Brawn and his gang of mechanics - somehow -managed to build championship winning cars from the spare parts Honda had left lying around in their Northhamptonshire factory in their haste to return to Japan. The team’s self-belief and commitment in the face of all the odds propelled them to achieving the impossible. A privately owned, cash-starved, little team ended its debut season by winning both the F1 constructors’ championship and the drivers’ championship. This has never been done before.
Whereas most teams start the year with sponsor’s logos liberally posted all over their cars – look, for example, at the prominent place occupied by Vodafone on the McLaren team livery – the Brawn cars were almost embarrassingly clear of advertising when the season began in Melbourne. As the season progressed and the team’s bankability was repeatedly proved, a smattering of advertising began to creep onto the pristinely white bodies of the cars, helmets and overalls of Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello. Virgin weighed in, then MIG Investments, Ray Ban and a gaggle of others. This demonstrated more than the fact that Brawn GP was proving itself a safe bet: it meant that not only did Ross Brawn have to apply his technical and commercial nous in managing the team, he had to divert his attention to buttering up sponsors for much needed funding. If Ross Brawn is not knighted in the new year honours list for 2010 for outstanding British achievement, I will eat my shoes.
It was a thrilling weekend of motor racing. Qualifying was wet, chaotic and brilliant. By the end of it there seemed no doubt that Jenson Button had blown all his chances of clinching the world championship at Interlagos. His closest rival, team-mate Rubens Barrichello, was on pole at his home Grand Prix while Button languished in fourteenth place. As we now know, Button chose to be a daredevil and pull overtaking manoeuvre after overtaking manoeuvre as though his life depended upon it and everyone is now rejoicing.
Well, not quite everyone. A moneyed chap in a palace in Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, is seething with fury as I write this. The Sheikh feels like a man who has lost his trousers in an unsafe bet (come to think of it, the Sheikh isn’t too keen on trousers, but I am sure you get the picture). Having been assured of a place on the F1 timetable which guaranteed that the spotlight fell on Abu Dhabi after the billions he had poured into yet another Gulf white elephant (“listen Sheikh, old man, the statistics show that most championships go right down to the wire at the last race of the season”), the Sheikh must be feeling prepared to consider sautéed Ecclestone testicles for dinner. As the traditional Formula One circuits of Europe grew ever more adept at giving Bernie Ecclestone a curt middle-fingered salute, the malevolent little man had to seek out richer, less scrupulous people to fleece. But now that both championships have been settled in Brazil, who can say hand on heart that they will cry into their beer if they miss the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix a fortnight hence?
Tempted as I am to point fingers at Sheikh Khalifa and go “Ha Ha Ha!,” I am being unfair. This is not the time for schadenfreude. Nor is it the time to be engaging in querulous complaint, that favourite pastime of British journalists. It is the time to be celebrating the achievements of Jenson Button and the boys at Brawn GP. Well done lads!
Finally, just in case you were wondering where Jessica Michibata now features in the new world champion’s thinking, this is what he had to say after the Brazilian Grand Prix yesterday: “I want to thank my family and my girlfriend Jessica. I love you so much, this is for you.”
Gitau
19 October 2009
posted by Gitau at 3:05 pm
1 Comments:
good post!
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