After winning the opening race in Australia, Barton won five races in the next six races, which laid an excellent foundation for himself and Brown to win the championship. Although such a strong result proves that Brown's efforts during this period have not been in vain, luck has also played an extremely important role for them-because Brown's lack of funds remains unchanged, as long as there is a major accident in the game, they have a high probability of being forced to retire.

"Our second stop in Sepang (Malaysian Grand Prix) was also in the lead, and finally it rained cats and dogs, forcing the game to be interrupted," said James, chief strategist. Wallis said, "We parked at the starting line and waited for further notice of the race. When we removed the steering wheel and put it upside down, we found that the rain actually flowed out from the bottom and thought,' This is really over! 』」

"We didn't have a spare steering wheel, so if the game was announced to be resumed, we couldn't start again, so when the game was ruled to end early, we were glad that the game had been picked up. Our first six victories were hard won. It is true that we have the fastest car, but if we are unlucky, we can't win. 」

"Before the start of the season, we finally changed two of the three sets of frames to the settings suitable for Mercedes engines, which is equivalent to the completion of the frame as long as something goes wrong," said John, chief aerodynamic designer. Owen said, "If we let our opponents know this, we will get into a lot of trouble from Friday's free practice, so to be on the safe side, we will take the unmodified framework around us as a declaration to let our opponents know that we are prepared-of course, they will not think that this framework is actually redundant for us. 」

"So we can only move, even the basic maintenance is very difficult," Wallis said. "So when we arrived in Bahrain, the condition of the car was very bad: there were countless rubble in the cabin to be removed, and many damages needed to be rearranged, so our car was not the fastest in the race at that time. 」

"What I said is true. At 3 am, we were still thinking about how to repair the damaged car, and the people at the headquarters tried to search all the remaining carbon fiber plates in the factory to make a spare kit, "said Simon, a track engineer? Cole said, "We have enough manpower, but we don't have extra money to buy racing materials, so everyone tries their best to make everything go smoothly. Although we are still good at it, looking back will really make people stunned. 」

"At that time, we could use the auxiliary motor to adjust the angle of the front alar, but our motor was really rotten. Of course, this may be because we accidentally let the motor encounter the influence of water, "Wallis said. "Worse is yet to come. Because we don't have the heart to deal with the problem at all, one of the motors will hang up from time to time, and sometimes the setting of the front wing will be far from the expected day-this is really a nightmare and it also affects the car. 」

"I remember when I was in Bahrain, I repaired the front wing until 2 am, and then I couldn't help laying the floor directly in the maintenance warehouse. Our technician Evan? Don't make it short. We did it in the hope that the car would give us a reward. 」

"In one of the games, the valve of the front nose was even misplaced!" Tracking electronic engineer Rob? Chant said, "Flaps have left and right sides. When you go to the front nose, you will subconsciously put the left flap on the left side of the line of sight, and so will the right side, but the actual position should be the opposite, so we made this mistake. 」

"This happened in the Rubens car in Barcelona (GP, Spain) on Sunday morning," said Andrew, an engineer of Barton Group. Xiao Fulin said, "In this way, the front wing actually gets more downward pressure, which makes the grip too strong; Moreover, there is more than one outsourcing case. For example, when we were in Monaco, we were forced to install Jenson's racing rim guard backwards. It stands to reason that the hoop hole should be on the inside, but the team did something wrong! 」

"The basic reason for this situation is that we have no extra thoughts to write description documents. Although there are racing design drawings, they usually don't elaborate on this, so we asked Joe, FIA technical director, after qualifying. Bauer, can we modify the correct design? And he said no. Later, when I saw the commemorative models made by the model manufacturers, I found that they also reproduced this mistake! 」

Exciting double champion

After the first seven races, the major teams gained a firm foothold and fought back one after another, leaving the shy Brown team with no advantage, so Barton and Barrichello slowly slipped out of the race on the podium.

However, in the following 10 race, Brawn still won two races in Europe (Valencia) and Italy by Barrichello, which made the team almost locked in the annual championship after the GP race in Japan, the penultimate race of the season (although Brawn and Red were temporarily in the second place at that time? The Bulls are 0.5 points away from the championship, leaving the question whether Barton, who has the advantage of the competition, can completely settle the Brazilian driver's championship of the year.

"To be honest, Jenson's performance dropped a lot in the second half of the season. Apart from the great pressure of winning the championship in our career, our racing strength has not improved much compared with other teams, so it is very difficult to win the championship, "Wallis said. "Especially when the temperature is low, we spend more time than our competitors to get the tires to the working temperature, which is quite troublesome for Jenson and slowly makes him lose confidence. 」

"At this time, more and more people said to him,' It's not your fault, you are already very good, you are a world champion anyway'. To put it simply,' it's our fault that Jenson didn't win the championship' has caused the gap between us. We kept telling Jenson, "We know the situation, we have done everything we can, please trust us" and told him that Brazil is the key to winning the championship. At this time, Jenson also realized that if we don't cheer up, the world champion may really be gone. 」

"I also told him that the opportunity has always been there, but during this period, we only saw him getting more and more depressed. The relationship between the driver and the team will affect the performance of the driver, but the progress is not as we hoped. 」

"Jenson was worried before the game in Brazil. He was worried that anything could happen," said Xiao Fulin. "What if the speed is not fast enough?" What if I lose? Wait, we couldn't upgrade the car at that time, and Jenson, who was clearly the front runner, suddenly reached the highest point. 」

"But even so, Jenson gave full play to his advantages and won the best results as much as possible. In fact, Jenson's overall performance in that year was not bad (only Belgium retired in the whole year, and all the rest 16 stations scored points). Even if he made mistakes, his ability to recover lost ground was quite good, but the pressure to win the championship was too great. In addition, it is the first time for us to face this situation, and there is really not much support we can give him. So I don't know if we can achieve the best result, and considering the situation at that time, our chances of capsizing in the end are quite high. 」

"In short, we don't want to see the front line extend to the final battle in Abu Dhabi, because history tells us that when the champion leader is in trouble, the situation may get out of control. I think Jenson agrees with this view, so everyone is full of anxiety. 」

"World War I in Brazil was full of drama," Cole said. "Although Jenson was about to win the world championship, we didn't have an advantage at that time, and his qualifying performance at that time was very bad, only 14, which made it difficult for him to hide his frustration after qualifying. 」

"I remember I said to Jenson,' This will be your most important game, because it will be your advantage. It may rain on the way, or all kinds of situations will happen. In short, everything will be fine'. The result is really an extremely important game, because although the camera has locked in the leader of the game, Jenson has been moving forward and consolidating his championship advantage step by step in the game. 」

Martin, a technician of Barton Group, said: "Jenson won the fifth place and won the world championship one stop ahead of schedule, which is really great. Mccracken said, "It's hard to describe this feeling, but our year's efforts have not been in vain. The ceremony of sealing the king began rapidly in the warehouse, and we were crazy all the way to the evening. And it's the first time to leave many bottles and cans in the warehouse. It feels really good. 」

"This is really a relief for us," said Xiao Fulin. "When we get together, Nick? Fry CEO is busy changing tickets for us, because if we leave on the night of the game, we can save a day's accommodation. But in any case, our burden has finally been lifted, especially for us, especially in our situation. 」

"When we were in Brazil, we were sponsored by local brewer Itaipava," Cole said. Simply put, it means "send us cold beer, and in return, we will print your company's trademark on the champion car". "I believe that many people are still wondering what Itaipava is. The reason is very simple. Itaipava is just a small winery in S? o Paulo. Although I know how it tastes, I won't say. 」

"In short, we got beer filled with two large refrigerators, our field staff drank half of it, and all the rest were shipped back to the headquarters for everyone to enjoy. I think all the colleagues at headquarters should get at least two or three cans, right? 」

"At that time, we were having a party in the warehouse. Although I basically didn't drink at work at that time, I still broke the rules to celebrate, "Chant said. "After that, we held a celebration party in a nightclub at night and were forced to leave the store until 4: 30 in the morning. At that time, many of us tried our best not to let Ross leave, but he was too powerful for us to stop. In short, we have caused him a lot of trouble. 」

"I kept the film", Rubens? Nathan, chief technician of Barrichello racing car? Divey said, "It's midnight, and all the members of the team are here. Ross and his wife Shov are standing in the middle of the dance floor, next to Simon? Cole, everyone sang the champion song all the way, and finally Ross raised his hand to show that he had something to say, so we pricked up our ears and listened: "This has been a great year. I believe everyone had a good time tonight, but it's time to go back to rest! " 』」

"The bill that night was really long," Chant said. "When checking out, the cash register spit out a few feet of money, making the bartender look like he was picking up ribbons. Because we really didn't have much chance to celebrate that year, and everyone drank clean. It was an unforgettable night, especially the next morning when you had to overcome your hangover and leave the hotel for the airport with your roommate. 」

Mercedes made an acquisition.

After the Brazilian Grand Prix, Brawn became the first team to win the double championship in the first season, and during the season, Brawn team continued to discuss the acquisition with Mercedes under the table. At the end of the season 165438+1October16, a * * understanding was reached: Daimler Group and Abu Dhabi Investment Company (Aabar) purchased 75 1% of the shares of Brown Team and became the current Mercedes Team. According to the news, the relevant acquisition amount is as high as 1 1 100 million pounds.

However, the acquisition of Mercedes did not stop the new world champion Jenson? Barton's determination to switch to McLaren, Rubens? Barrichello also announced that he would switch to Williams before Mercedes bought the team, so that Mercedes-Benz, which did not immediately participate in the racing driver, poached Nico from Williams. Rosberg, and then convince retired seven-time champion Michael? Schumacher's comeback ...

Nicole Brown, executive assistant, said, "We are all talking about what will happen. We will leave Jenson next season. ? Bearne said, "In fact, we only learned about Jenson's decision when McLaren issued a press release. On that day, he held a small autograph session for the whole team. 」

"In the afternoon, he walked into the team headquarters and started signing autographs for everyone. Then someone took a press release of McLaren and said to Jenson,' Can you sign it for me? I was shocked when McLaren dug Jenson. Although we don't know when and where McLaren started, and the scene was really interesting, we were also thinking, "The world champion is leaving, what should we do next?" 』」

"It was a week before the Christmas party, and then we were suddenly told to adjust the car seat settings," Divey said. "of course, I can only answer' no problem' ... where should I adjust? Although we think this time is strange, we still set up the model car before the party on Saturday night and wait for the possible candidates to arrive. 」

"At that time, Jenson had indicated that he would leave the team. I think most of the members may feel a little hurt, because we spent a difficult year together, and as a result, he left for good treatment-even if not, the most regrettable thing is that we can't race with 1 next season. 」

"Then we started to do things, and then I thought,' Oh, there may be a big coffee coming! I remember when I was walking in the factory, someone said that he had just seen a helmet bag put aside. I secretly opened it and was shocked. I remember the owner of this hat! A few hours later, we met Michael who was persuaded by Ross and decided to come back. This is another strange feeling. 」

"At that time, we decided to sell the secret to our colleagues," Bearne said. "So let's gather all our colleagues in the auditorium first, and then send Michael to the gate of the headquarters. When everyone was assembled, I met Michael, sent him to the back door of the auditorium, and waited for Ross to announce the event ... In short, the plan went quite smoothly. 」

"Ross just said briefly," welcome our new driver Michael? Schumacher When Michael stepped onto the stage, screams and applause almost overturned the roof of the audience. He is such a person. "Oh, my God! ? You can feel the tension under the stage, and then it will burst open in an instant, and let things go on like this. 」

"In short, everything about Brown has been with us for quite a long time. Although the result is quite wonderful, I will, of course, not want to go through it again! Andrew, director of racing painting? Moody's said, "When you try to keep your job and hand in your grades, you never want to tell someone who has just been fired. It is true that the team has been running smoothly since it was forced to slim down, but we have laid off our colleagues who have worked with us for many years. This is not an easy decision. 」

"The 2009 season tells you how a large factory fleet can be quickly transformed into a small private fleet," said Peter, director of racing assembly. Hodgkinson said, "During this time, we learned all the decisions we need to make to survive and how to keep our mind, because after the summer vacation, you will really find it incredible and unforgettable. After all this, we will always be a member of this team. 」

Although Mercedes-Benz did not achieve outstanding results in the first few years of acquisition, Daimler Group once wanted to quit, but after Dieter, CEO of Daimler Group? With the help of dieter zetsche, Mercedes finally won the unprecedented double championship for six consecutive times in the mixed era of 20 14, and established the Silver Arrow Dynasty.

All the interviewees in this article were members of the Brawn team at that time and are still members of the Mercedes team now.

This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.