Saturday, March 28, 2009

Rise of the Phoenix

F1 season has begun! 

If at all you are a follower of F1, you might be aware that Honda has opted out of F1 because of slowdown. The axe was hanging on the necks of almost all its employees specially the two drivers of Honda F1 20
08 season - Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button. Ever since this news was officially out way back in Nov 08 it was a huge suspense whether someone is going to buy this team. There were few rumors of takeover by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim and the Virgin head Richard Branson. Finally late february or so it was announced that Ross Brawn (former Ferrari principal also Ho
nda F1's 2008) has 
bought it and the team will be renamed Brawn GP ! Finally a sigh of relief for Button and Barri
chello. A new team was formed overnight with the old management..... remember there are hardly any changes in the team except its name. Ross Brawn is an innate talent in F1 history. Having worked with teams like Benneton, Ferrari he has a huge experience 
in racing. He is also considered to be the brain behind the 7 time world champion Schummi ! 



Till y'day morning the fate of Brawn GP was still unclear. No one even knew whether they are participating in this season. Brawn has made an official statement y'day before Friday' practise that 
they WILL race this season ! But they dont have an
y sponsors yet :-( They had real tough times and even tough times ahead.... hey wait .... here comes the flamboyant Richard Branson. Virgin became the major sponsor for Brawn and even the label of Virgin was imprinte
d on the car y'day night !! and today morning it was the Aus GP qualifying session ! 

Guess what made me write all this stuff ? Today's qualifying was dominated by BRAWN drivers - Button and Rubens ! In what was amazing qualifying BRAWN made it up 1, 2 wh
ich means they are going to race tomorrow from the start of the grid. Button took the pole. Seldom you get to see this kind of stuff. It was aweful ! Whr are these giant teams? the so called front runners for constructors ? Ferrari, Mclaren, BMW, Renault etc.. ? these 4 teams were reigning the world of F1 for the past few decades. Looks like change has come to F1 too... small teams making it count. But F1 by itself is highly unpredicable... things change overnight ! Nevertheless ....this was an amazing start by Brawn and I hope(Massa hopes !) that they continue doing so to kick the a***s of Ferrari and Mclaren. 


Brawn has already set the pace in qualifying. It would be interesting to watch if they can continue the same in tomorrow's race! Looks like they are the strongest contenders this season unless the Ferraris and Mclarens work seriously on their engines and the car aerodynamics for the forthcoming races. Cheers Ross Brawn..... 


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