There are so many instances in Formula 1 of drivers coming so close to achieving legendary status were it not for one crucial decision.
Fernando Alonso is already considered one of the greatest drivers in the sport’s history, but the fact he only has two world championships to his name is a testament to how good he was earlier in his career at being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
In stark contrast, Lewis Hamilton has only changed teams once but it earned him six titles at Mercedes and means his upcoming switch to Ferrari is particularly intriguing.
Teams have frequently dominated for years and years in Formula 1 such is the nature of when rule changes are made and how each team is constantly evolving and improving.
However, the recent exception to that rule is Brawn GP who won the Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championships in 2009 in their only season in Formula 1.
Jenson Button was the victorious driver that year, joined by Rubens Barrichello after the team took over from Honda the previous year.
Speaking on the Beyond The Grid Podcast, Bruno Senna has shared how close he came to racing for Brawn GP that season.
Instead, the Brazilian driver had to settle for a seat at the much-maligned HRT team the following year.
Bruno Senna shares how close he came to joining Brawn GP in 2009
Brawn GP’s short and sweet stay in Formula 1 has since led to one of the most successful spells in the sport’s history.
After their one and only year on the grid, Brawn GP became Mercedes and under Toto Wolff’s leadership have gone on to have remarkable success.
However, when a Mercedes-powered rebranded Honda arrived in Australia with virtually no sponsorship, a plain white car with a luminous yellow stripe, hopes weren’t particularly high.
That was until Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello locked out the front row and finished 1 and 2 in the race.
Button had been a brilliant driver but had only been involved in one title challenge in his F1 career up to this point – finishing 3 in 2004 with BAR.
That season earned him a move to McLaren while Barrichello drove for another two seasons at Williams.
He was replaced by Bruno Senna when he retired, but it would have been fascinating to see how his career would have ended up if he’d signed a contract with Brawn GP.
Bruno Senna came so close to driving championship-winning Brawn GP car
Asked about his Honda test, Bruno Senna said: “Now, there was Rubens [Barrichello] and Jenson [Button] at Honda at the time and I think Chris [Goodwin] was just on his ear every day.
“So, we managed to open up an opportunity to test and Honda decided to test me and Lucas Di Grassi to be part of the team or the program.
“It was a few days of testing in Barcelona, we shared a car on the first day and Lucas did the second day and I did the third day.
“The test went really well, I mean Jenson was putting on new tyres all day long and I put on two sets of new tyres during the day, so being within two-and-a-half tenths of Jenson who’s a world champion was not too bad in my first time in an F1 car.
“After that, things had gone really well, people from Honda were very interested and we started to have conversations about potentially going forward in the future.
“We had already confirmed the test that was happening in Jerez, but halfway through Honda pulled out and that never happened.”
Asked if he had a contract to race for them in 2009, Senna said: “They sent a contract for us to review, so there was like a potential contract on the table for racing for them in the next year but we didn’t have a signed contract or anything.
“And anyway it wouldn’t have mattered because the team wasn’t the same anyway for the following year.”
Bruno Senna’s Formula 1 career never hit the expected heights
After testing Jenson Button’s Honda car before they became Brawn GP, Senna admitted that physically he was destroyed afterwards.
Senna instead drove in Le Mans in 2009 before earning a seat at HRT, a move that he admitted ‘destroyed’ his confidence.
Spells at Lotus and Williams followed but after 46 races and scoring 33 points, Senna’s career saw him leave Formula 1 and return to Le Mans.
The highlight of Senna’s career is arguably winning the 2017 World Endurance Championship for LMP2 Drivers alongside French driver Julien Canal.
The post ‘Sent a contract’: 33-point driver admits he was lined up to drive 2009 championship-winning Brawn GP car appeared first on F1 Oversteer.