It was the biggest question during the Winter Grand Prix; is Brawn GP for real? Apparently the answer is a resounding YES! In what has dropped the jaws of many F1 pundits, Brawn GP, and recently signed sponsor Virgin, watched as their cars took 1-2 on teh grid for tomorrows race. timing has been everything.
Bad timing: Honda leaving, firing 275 employees
Good timing: Bringing Brawn in, management buyout, Richard Branson’s Virgin sponsorship.
Just mere weeks ago the team was on deaths door and had no real future, according to press reports, and now they are leading the field fo the Australian Grand Prix. I, for one, am very happy for Jenso who I have always felt bad for as he was thrown out with the rubbish when Lewis Hamilton came along. Could this be the year of redemption for Jenson, Rubens and ross Brawn? Everyone wrote them all off and now they are, arguably, the fastest team in F1 at the moment. Truthfully they are where they deserve to be after facing 6 months of tumult and F1B congratulates them. March Grand Prix Team was the last team to earn pole in their maiden year driven by Max Mosley’s favorite certified halfwit Sir Jackie Stewart. And like March, a customer team now holds the top three positions on the grid.
It must be said that Red Bull has impressed everyone even without the controversial double-decker diffuser by placing 3rd ont he grid. Sebastian Vettel drove brilliantly to place the car higher than both Ferrari’s, McLaren’s, BMW’s, Toyota’s and Williams. Red Bull may have just shown us that Adrian Newey did build a car that is not over reaching. Vettel’s much more experienced teammate and local hero Mark Webber didn’t fair as well after placing 10th. Vettel has shown that even in a tough weekend for the young German; he is the real deal. I think we are looking at a future champion to be sure.
Has Max’s regulations worked? Well, there is only 1 second separating the entire field. After the race tomorrow, we should see if his Overtaking Working Group have made the right decisions. Some have suggested crazy things to spice up the F1 series including reversing the grid for the race…while everyone thought that was a bad idea; it is basically what we’ve done.
