2009 Brawn BGP001 Button

After Honda announced their withdrawal from the sport in late 2008, the Honda Racing F1 team was bought by team principal Ross Brawn. The team renamed  Brawn GP only competed in the 2009 FIA Formula One World Championship, and has built only one model – BGP001. It was designed by Loïc Bigois, in similar respects to all the other cars on the grid with a moulded carbon fibre and honeycomb composite monocoque and a front and rear wishbone and pushrod activated suspension system. The power was provided by Mercedes-Benz FO108W 2.4 L engine capable of 750 bhp. Originally the car was engineered for a Honda-designed engine, however, when Honda announced their withdrawal, a customer deal with Mercedes was obtained. According to the 2009 regulations, the engine was a naturally aspirated V8 and was rev-limited to 18,000 rpm. Except engine, many aspects of Honda F1 were retained under the new ownership, including the experienced driver line-up of Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button. At the debut race in Australia, Button qualified in pole position with Barrichello in 2nd place, and they went on to finish in those positions. Then Button won another 6 races out of 7 next rounds – in Malaysia, Bahrain, Spain, Monaco and Turkey – and built a huge gap in the championship which was enough to win the title with only 2 podiums in the remaining 10 Grand Prix. Barrichello added to Brawn’s account a lot of podiums and two more wins in latter half of the season (in the European Grand Prix in Valencia and in Monza), and finished 3^rd in the Drivers’ standings. The Brawn GP team took the constructors championship ad set a record by winning the first race of the team, and the constructor’s title in the first and only season. In November 2009 the team was sold to Daimler AG in partnership with Aabar Investments and was rebranded as Mercedes GP for 2010. When the BGP001 just appeared on race tracks, the only logos covering the plain white body of the car were those of Bridgestone and Brawn GP themselves. During the season Brawn GP began to fill the space beginning with that of Henri Lloyd, and shortly followed by Virgin Group following their major sponsorship of the team. The model of Barrichello’s car from the Australian GP illustrates the car with Virgin sponsorship. Later the season the team signed more sponsorship deals. On Button’s car from the Brazilian Grand Prix the additional logos of MIG Bank; Itaipava, the beer brand of Brazilian  Petrópolis brewery; and Spanish insurance company MAPFRE were stamped.

Season	Series	Event
2009	F1WC	Australian GP
Driver	No.	Entrant
Jenson Button	22	Brawn GP Formula 1 Team
Scale	Manufacturer	Collection
1:43	IXO	Formula 1 Auto Collection
Cat. No.	Quality	Rarity
No. 14