1/43 Model Review: 2009 Brawn GP BGP01 Mercedes

Background

Honda left the sport in 2008, but Ross Brawn and Nick Fry knew having spent much of 2008 designing the 2009 car under new rules, that it could be competitive. So they put together a plan to rescue the team, buying it for £1 from Honda and renamed Brawn GP with Mercedes Engines. The car was immediately quick in testing, with thanks to the effective use of a loophole creating a double diffuser, but also to their outwash front wing. Button converted 6 victories in the first 7 races.

Despite his team-mate, Barrichello, and Red Bull's Vettel's late challenge, Button was able to hold on with a battling drive in Brazil to clinch the title with one race to spare. Brawn also won the Constructors' title before being bought out by Mercedes GP.

Minichamps

There are a host of Brawns created by Minichamps, so I'll cover the ones that I did own first.

Minichamps 400090123

In the first parts of qualifying, Barrichello was the quicker of the two Brawns, but Button snatched pole position. Running into the first corner, he had contact with Kovalainen and Webber which damaged his diffuser and front wing, but managed to finish 2nd after Vettel and Kubica's late race collision.

I picked up this car fairly cheaply in a bundle, and it's the Australian GP version with Barrichello in the car. The early season Brawn livery was beautifully plain and simple, applied to the nicest looking car on the grid. I like how the fluorescent yellow also recoloured the driver's usual helmet colour schemes. Minichamps have done a really nice job on this car, partly because of its simplicity. I will give one score at the end rather than grading them individually. 

Minichamps 400090622

My first Brawn purchase, and the one that remains in my collection, is the Brazilian GP version where Button clinched the title with a race to spare. The car had a few more appendages around the sidepod region as well as a few more sponsors on the car, including have a different colour yellow on the front wing, which clashed with the Brawn's fluorescent yellow.

Minichamps 436090022

In early 2018, we received the World Champions edition which has the car from the final race in Abu Dhabi GP livery. Perhaps with so many versions of the Brawns available already, this perhaps didn't sell out quite as quickly as the other versions.

Well, onto the cars that I haven't owned, and they are basically the early season versions of Button's wins, where he dominated the first half of the year.

Minichamps 400090022

This is the standard model for the year, which is basically the Australian GP version, but with a hard tyres (no green stripe on the outside wall).

Minichamps 400090122

The Australian GP was the first race on the calendar, where Brawn's speed in testing was confirmed as Button dominated the weekend. Here, this model comes with a standing figure and soft tyres (and their relevant markings).

Minichamps 400090222

This is the Malaysian GP version, which did not make it to full distance due to the monsoon conditions. This car comes with wet tyres, but the rest of the car is pretty much the Australia spec car. 

Minichamps 400090322

The Bahrain car features Virgin galactic logos, being the only major (it's not really major at all) difference between this and the other early season cars.

Minichamps 400090422

The Spanish GP was the scene of Jenson's fourth victory. You do not get many factory produced models where film promotions are created, like the Red Bulls with Star Wars and Superman, Marussia promoting Cars, or Lotus promoting the Batman Dark Knight movies, or Jaguar's Ocean's movie and Terminator. There are probably more but back to Brawn, there is a much smaller promotion on the rear fin for the Terminator Salvation movie.


Suddenly, the Brawn cars stop there, I'm not sure why we didn't get the Monaco and the Turkey win editions, nor any special editions of Barrichellos victory later that year. But perhaps there's enough of them already, and judging by the fact I owned three versions and that's less than half of them, it probably indicates that a) I'm not that avid a collector, or rather b) there's just too many to collect. Having said that, these models were reasonably priced back then and the race specific versions were snapped up and their values rose quite quickly. Anyway, for a diecast model, this is a lovely model to have in the collection.

Score: 8/10

Tameo

Tameo TB026

Tameo's car is beautiful, based on the Brazilian GP. The quality comes from the detail you can attain with a resin model, it's nice to have the slits in the rear wing endplate, and the detail on the front wing endplate and bargeboard/mirror regions are better defined than the Minichamps diecast versions. This is factory made, only 199 of them exist in this form, and it gets top marks from me.
Score: 10/10

Ixo / Formula 1 Car Collection / Altaya

The Ixo car comes in the Formula 1 Car Collection in the Brazilian GP livery, whilst you can get a Barrichello car from the Australian GP with a driver figure. The general shape of the car is not bad, but when you get to the details it's not particularly great. The sidepod turning vanes for example are at completely the wrong angle, and for the Brazilian GP the didn't change the rear wing endplates. If you could get the Minichamps Brawns for 2009 prices, I'd say go for that, but these days, the price has more than doubled for the World Champion collection version, but you can pick up a second hand version of the Minichamps car for a similar price to getting this Ixo car brand new.
Score: 6/10

Where are they now?

Ross Brawn was ousted from Mercedes as team principal before the team saw their success in the turbo-hybrid era, thanks in no small part to Bernie Ecclestone. However, many will admit that it was Brawn who laid the foundations for their success. Brawn is now a key member of Liberty who own the sport, leading primarily the technical direction which should see large scale rule changes for 2021.

Nick Fry is now involved with esports company Fnatic. Brawn and Fry still held shares in the Mercedes team until 2011. Fry was replaced by Toto Wolff in 2013.

Jenson Button raced until 2016, and having made a one-off appearance in 2017, retired from F1 and is now racing in Super GT in Japan as well as LMP1 in WEC.

Rubens Barrichello holds the records for the most Grand Prix's entered and competed. Since retiring from F1, he took part in a season of Indycar, but mostly races in Brazilian Stock cars, as well as taking part in 24 Hours of Daytona.