Ross Brawn Changed Honda's Mood, Says Button

Jenson Button said Honda’s disastrous 2007 Formula 1 season only began to turn when Ross Brawn arrived at the end of that year, with Brawn’s presence and leadership changing the mood inside a team that had collapsed after expecting to build on its 2006 progress.

Speaking to Tom Clarkson on the F1 Beyond The Grid podcast, Button described 2007 as “an absolute disaster” after Honda had hoped to take a step forward following his maiden F1 win at the 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix. Instead, the works team fell so far back that Super Aguri, running Honda’s 2006 car, was beating it. “We expected so much out of 2007, and it just was a disaster,” Button said. “Our junior team, Super Aguri, had our 2006 car, so they were beating us. That car had won a race, and we were driving something that we couldn't even get into the points with.”

For Button, the shift came as soon as Brawn joined late in 2007. He said the atmosphere changed immediately inside a team that had recently been capable of winning but had become “so bad in 2007” that it needed “that kick-start again.” The reaction, he said, was instant: “Oh, this is going to turn around.”

Button said Brawn’s impact was obvious even before any technical turnaround. He recalled Honda gathering the whole factory without telling staff what was coming, only for Brawn to appear and walk down the middle aisle. “There he was at the front, and he was our saviour,” Button said. “He was the person who was going to come in and save us from the disastrous 2007.”

He said the real change was cultural as much as competitive. According to Button, Brawn “got rid of the blame culture within a team,” gave people more freedom and encouraged them to come up with “crazy ideas.” Not all of those ideas worked, he said, but Honda needed to take risks to move forward. “It was a really good atmosphere when Ross was there,” he added.

Button’s account tied Brawn’s arrival to the start of the Brackley team’s recovery, which a little more than a year later ended with the squad re-emerging as Brawn GP and winning both the drivers’ and constructors’ titles in 2009.