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WHILE others were slashing costs and even pulling out of Formula One, Ross Brawn bucked the trend and his gamble paid off handsomely on Sunday when his cars finished 1-2 in their maiden race.
The 54-year-old Briton, a former machinist born in Manchester, completed a 100 per cent buyout of Honda F1 earlier this month just in time to get his cars on the grid for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.
The rookie team, powered by Mercedes engines, performed well in early testing but few could have predicted such a sensational start for Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello, who finished first and second respectively.
It marked the first time since 1977 that a team won a Grand Prix in its debut race, and the first time since 1954 that a team finished 1-2 in its maiden effort.
"It feels stunning," Brawn said after the race. "With everything that all our staff have been through it is just sensational. I can't really put it into to words.
"It wasn't that easy and there were times where we were having to look after things and, of course, reliability was an issue because we haven't had all that much testing over the winter. But, it's just unbelievable - it doesn't get much better."
Sunday's historic achievement has much to do with Brawn's vast experience and canny race strategies, all earned since humble beginnings as a trainee engineer at the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority in the early 1970s.
His career in motorsport began in 1976 when he joined March Engineering as a milling machine operator and he soon hooked up with their Formula 3 racing team. He was hired by Sir Frank Williams in 1978 to work at his newly-formed Williams F1 team and Brawn quickly learned the ropes.
He subsequently had stints at the now-defunct Haas Lola and Arrows F1 teams before being hired by Jaguar in 1989, designing the cars that won the 1991 World Sportscar Championship.
That same year he moved back to Formula One as technical director at Benetton, helping it win back-to-back drivers' championships in 1994 and 1995 with Michael Schumacher in the cockpit.
Brawn followed the German to Ferrari in 1996 and their success continued as the team dominated with a host of titles. He left the Italian outfit in late 2006 to indulge his love of gardening and fishing, but was soon back in the fray as the new team principal at Honda.
With the global economic recession forcing Honda to call it quits late last year, Brawn, by now a Doctor of Engineering, was out of a job.
That was until he bought out the Japanese team and renamed it Brawn GP Formula One, believing he had a 'race-winning car'. His instincts proved right, and with Richard Branson's Virgin Group becoming the team's first major sponsor last week, the future for Brawn looks bright.
