Brawn GP: The team that shouldn’t have existed – and still won it all

Formula One underwent one of the biggest rule changes the sport had seen, at the time, in 2009, but that’s not what people really remember it for. They remember it for the phoenix from the ashes storyline of Brawn GP, a team saved from the edge of extinction, as Honda withdrew from the sport in the wake of the financial crisis that was gripping the world.

However, without a car that also defied all the odds, this story might have been a very different one. Enter the BGP001, a machine that had a whole host of fascinating design features, including the famed double deck diffuser, which caused a stir amongst their rivals when it first emerged.

Brawn GP: An almost impossible task ahead…

The BGP001’s first outing provided a stark contrast compared with the moving billboards we’d become accustomed to, as the white paint scheme with black and day-glo yellow accents bereft of sponsors stuck out like a sore thumb.

Of course, this would change as the season unfolded and commercial deals were struck, mainly on a race-by-race basis, that saw small areas of the car sold off to help keep the lights on back at the factory. This was a marked difference when compared with how the team had been run on the lead up to that season though, with Honda having poured a substantial amount of effort and resources into the project.

This included the use of several wind tunnels, with two available at Brackley and at least one more in use in Japan, as they took advantage of the lack of limitations that would become enshrined within the regulations thereafter.

These limitations now seem somewhat loose when compared with how stringent today’s regulations are, with the only stipulations added to the regulations being that a 60% scale model be used and the wind tunnel testing speed could not exceed 50 metres/second.

This would, of course, result in teams having to refurbish their current wind tunnels to cater for the alterations and maximize the results coming from them but, it didn’t prevent teams from leaning on virtual tools, such as CFD, which at this point still wasn’t seen as a viable alternative to having time in the tunnel or testing on track.

The latter of those perhaps being the biggest transition for the traditional frontrunners at the time, as they’d been used to having separate test teams working to improve the car away from the noise of a Grand Prix environment and with in-season testing banned it took some time to adjust.

One of the big hurdles that the team had to overcome to even get the car on the grid was the lack of a V8 engine to power the machine. They did receive an offer from Ferrari, who were prepared to supply them engines given Ross Brawn’s previous employment with the team, however, they decided to work with Mercedes instead, which turned out to be critical in keeping the team running beyond 2009.

They also talked Honda into allowing them to use the seven-speed, carbon cased gearbox that had been designed in-house, which was a prerequisite of being able to use the famed double diffuser arrangement that their rivals tried to have banned ahead of the season.

An actual loophole…

Upon first sight the BGP001 might have seemed quite unassuming but, the performance on tap soon made their rivals sit up and take notice of them, albeit some concluded that their lap times might be indicative of a team running light on fuel and in search of sponsors, rather than being a genuine contender.

However, it became clear, quite quickly, that this wasn’t the case, with their long run pace also holding up. The shoe dropped, BrawnGP had a car that could upset the apple cart and with Toyota and Williams the only other teams to have a diffuser concept similar to theirs the rest of the field began asking questions.

For those unacquainted with the double diffuser, it’s an idea that was seemingly birthed from within the Super Aguri team, who folded during the 2008 season. That knowledge, by virtue of the personnel working on the project, was transferred to Honda and Toyota and because of their engine supply from the latter, also fell into the hands of Williams too.

The idea itself was a classic case of interpreting the regulations in a different way to their rivals, who’d all worked on solutions to overcome the now much shallower diffuser and considerable reduction in volume required by the regulations, with a central deck opened up above the 175mm diffuser height limit posed by the new regulations.

This came down to how the floor was viewed, which relied upon how it was seen from below and whereby no holes could be present that allowed you to see the bodywork above them.

3.12.7 No bodywork which is visible from beneath the car and which lies between the rear wheel centre line and a point 350mm rearward of it may be more than 175mm above the reference plane. Any intersection of the surfaces in this area with a lateral or longitudinal vertical plane should form one continuous line which is visible from beneath the car. A single break in the surface is permitted solely to allow the minimum required access for the device referred to in Article 5.15.

Additionally, any bodywork in this area must produce uniform, solid, hard, continuous, rigid (no degree of freedom in relation to the body/chassis unit), impervious surfaces under all circumstances.

Suitably outraged by what they considered to be an affront on the ‘spirit of the regulations’, which of course does not exist, several other teams set about protesting the design, to no avail, as the FIA sided with those that already had the design.

This led to a protracted development race, as teams set off looking for ways with which to install their own version of the design, albeit some stymied by their hardware, including BrawnGP’s closest rivals, Red Bull, who had made the switch to pull-rod rear suspension.

The RB5’s rear suspension layout made incorporating the double decked diffuser more difficult as the pull-rod intersected with the bodywork where they’d ideally like to install the inlet for the upper deck.

Not a silver bullet

Whilst their rivals had been keen to disrupt the team by having the double deck diffuser banned by the governing body, they had also worked behind the scenes to have their own ready to deploy should the decision not go their way.

However, it would still take them a handful of races to have the first working solutions on their cars, bringing them into the competitive frame around a third of the way into the season.

It was also becoming abundantly clear that the BGP001 wasn’t just a one trick pony, with a number of interesting features aimed at improving the aerodynamic efficiency posted all around the car.

This began with the front wing, which the team had clearly designed in order to help manage front tyre wake and improve turbulence interaction downstream.

They’d also installed their front wing adjustment mechanism in a different position to many of their rivals, who’d opted to mount it inside the endplate. Meanwhile, their adjuster was installed at the inboard end of the flap section, allowing the endplate to be split up into several sections and increase the amount of outwash that was possible.

Many may have even forgotten about the introduction of this front wing adjuster, which adjusted the flap angle by six degrees and could be used twice a lap, as it was seen as a failed experiment in helping to improve overtaking and quickly abandoned at the end of 2010.

The multi-element endplate was also designed to work in conjunction with the stepped and arched footplate section of the wing, whilst the two element cascade mounted above the flaps also helped to shape the airflow’s trajectory.

Meanwhile, the inboard and static section of the wing was designed to work harmoniously with the low nose tip, stub-like wing pillars and the now famed Y250 vortex that was being shed from the mandatory central section of the mainplane.

The wide metal bib under the chassis had recesses pressed into it, allowing ballast to be placed within in order to help balance the car, whilst above this there was a snowplow dividing the gap between the bib and chassis, which provided its own aerodynamic support for the airflow received from upstream of it and the aerodynamic furniture around it.

WHAT IF?!..

As an aside, this area of the car is extremely interesting if we consider what could have been, if Honda had remained in Formula One. The Japanese marquee had been testing their hybrid systems on the RA1082 mule car, with five tests undertaken between April and September in 2008, including straightline and circuit tests and then a further two tests conducted in November with the RA1089 mule car.

The latter of which was with a less than conventional battery placement for the system when we think about the layout used by everyone else.

As shown in Honda’s technical review 2009 – F1 special, the third era activities (excerpt below), they had decided that in order to limit the influence that the battery size might have on the installation of other ancillaries and therefore impact the car’s aerodynamic profile, they wanted to mount the battery in the keel section and the battery module within the rear section of the nose.

This was a task made tougher by the FIA’s crash test regulations but, following a lengthy back and forth with the governing body, Honda were able to demonstrate via simulations and crash tests that the nose and chassis could withstand the forces being exerted on them.

This is why the BGP001 did not feature KERS, as the system employed by Mercedes was completely different, with not only the void left between the engine and fuel cell for the motor generator unit likely dissimilar, they didn’t have the room to incorporate the battery pack either.

Back to the BGP001

Supporting the aforementioned design elements on the front wing, the BGP001 also featured a wheel rim cover with a lower cutout, providing an escape route for the heat and airflow circulating around the brake drum, allowing them to join up with the outwash generated ahead.

The intent of the 2009 regulations was to reduce the amount of aerodynamic furniture that adorned the cars but that wouldn’t prevent teams from looking for ways to use ideas they’d had in the past and fill the allowable box regions with surfaces that would improve the car’s output.

The BGP001 was no exception here, as straight out of the gate the car had a number of ornate appendages ahead of the floor and sidepod to help guide the airflow into the appropriate regions, including a carefully shaped bargeboard, which included a dog-eared top edge and a fox ear wing mirror support, both of which would incite vortex generation to feed the various surfaces within their vicinity downstream.

Given their budgetary concerns the BGP001 probably didn’t have the level of development during the season that a full works program may otherwise have been afforded. However, they did work on this area of the car, adding an additional vane above the bargeboard (which was also altered) and changed the fox ear wing mirror support, in order it was positioned higher than before.

They also added an airflow conditioner on the edge of the floor, alongside the sidepod at the Valencia Grand Prix, just as many of their rivals had already been doing, in order to add some additional wake turbulence protection for the sidepod’s well sculpted undercut.

In the end Formula One had its fairytale ending, as despite the other teams bringing updates to their cars during the season and chasing BrawnGP down, they couldn’t overhaul the six victories that Jenson Button had taken in the opening seven races, with three of those being one-two’s with his teammate Rubens Barichello, resulting in the Brit taking the Driver’s championship.

Meanwhile, two victories for the Brazilian later in the season, along a steady run of point paying finishes by both drivers elsewhere meant they also collected the Constructors championship too, forever etching the team’s name into Formula One history and adding the BGP001 to an illustrious list of cars that could be considered the greatest of all time.