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مسلسل Brawn: The Impossible Formula 1 Story مترجم - Episode 1
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00:05For as long as I can remember I've had a fascination with racing and I'm going to
00:10share a story that barely seems believable. In a world of fierce competition, politics,
00:22money, and power, at the highest level of global motorsport, a small under-financed team
00:30drawn every ounce of determination to overcome the biggest names in motor racing.
00:37This is the story of BraunGP.
00:51How low will it go? The stock market slide continued today.
00:55The credit crunch has brought Formula One crashing back down to earth.
00:58The economic situation was dire.
01:01Motor giant Honda pulled the plug on Formula One.
01:04Why do people say that you were the one-pound Formula One team?
01:07I gave a pound to the Honda executive to formalize the deal.
01:12We did not have a plan B for anything.
01:16No way that this car doesn't make metal.
01:19Even if we arrived like that.
01:22Didn't they tell you you couldn't crash?
01:25Gents' button will be romping clear now.
01:29You couldn't come up with a Hollywood script.
01:32No, he'd never believe you.
01:33We're lucky bastards.
01:35We were lucky bastards indeed.
01:38Gents' button crosses the line, takes the chequered flag.
01:42This opportunity doesn't come around for many people.
01:45For the first time in five years, Rubens Barrichello is a winner in Formula One.
01:50This season is made for me. I'm gonna win the championship.
01:54Tell us what you said to your drivers.
01:55Yeah, just don't hit each other.
01:58People believe in him because he looks innocent and he wouldn't hurt anybody.
02:03Yet really behind the scenes, a smiling assassin.
02:06I think you're all smiling assassins.
02:09Oh, you have built me a bunch of a car.
02:12They went too far.
02:15All of us were aware there was something against the rules.
02:19Suddenly, this team that everybody just wanted to survive is killing us.
02:24Formula One has been thrown into chaos.
02:26The biggest crisis to hit motorsports in 16 years.
02:28Yeah, whether it's a car is legal.
02:30This was the start of the war.
02:35He's still with the blood.
02:36That's the piece that came out of your car.
02:39The knives were out and they were after us.
02:42The problem was, collectively, they didn't have any balls.
02:46You're seriously on fire, Rubens.
02:47Complete despair on the brawn pit wall.
02:51Now, this is about survival.
02:53The pack have caught up.
02:54The emotions are starting to show.
02:56I wish I can get on the plane and go back home right now.
02:59Everyone's in Formula One to win. We're not all friends.
03:02Genesis 1, P14, where are you now?
03:05I felt that the whole world was watching me fail.
03:08This is the perfect way to drift away.
03:11Jesus, fucking Christ.
03:12It's ten past midnight. Cinderella's gone.
03:15It's like the best in the world, fighting for, like, this.
03:18One of the greatest seasons in Formula One history.
03:21Just don't give up until you can't go any further.
03:23Because if we're given up, we won't be telling this story.
03:45March the 4th, 1986.
03:47Britain is still in the grip of a miserable winter.
03:52Aerodynamicist Ross Braun is in the Cranfield Aeronautics window.
03:57All Formula One aerodynamicists are locked in an endless quest for more downforce.
04:08Formula One is such a unique blend of technology and sport.
04:14Once it gets into your blood, it'll never let go.
04:22Everything people do in Formula One is competitive.
04:26Where is Michael Schumacher?
04:28Catching traffic. I want to get this stuff.
04:30It is technical. It's engineering strategy.
04:33What an absolutely phenomenal drive by Michael Schumacher.
04:37Perfect job, Michael. It's a beautiful drive.
04:40You're a great run. You're a great run.
04:42Woo-hoo!
04:44I had an unbelievable spell at Ferrari.
04:47We won six World Constructors' Championships.
04:51Michael won five Drivers' Championships there.
04:53And I really didn't imagine anything else could ever follow that.
04:57And I thought a decade at Ferrari was perfect.
05:03I decided I wanted a year out.
05:06This was historical era for Ferrari.
05:11When he left, I accepted because he said to me, I want to fish.
05:17If he said to me, I leave because I want to go in another team,
05:22for me it was a disaster for my heart.
05:28Can you speak a little bit about Honda?
05:32You were CEO?
05:34You know, fundamentally, we lacked experience in Formula One.
05:38My background is big companies. I know how they operate.
05:42In many ways, we had too much money.
05:46We ended up working on a whole bunch of stuff which really was distracting
05:51and didn't give us much in the way of results on the track.
05:55We needed a top-class technical director.
05:58Those in Formula One are few and far between.
06:02I set about ringing Ross about once a month.
06:07Nick was relentless.
06:08It would just be a friendly chat.
06:11Just keep reminding me he was there.
06:14Ferrari really wanted me to come back doing the same thing
06:16that I've been doing before, which I wasn't interested in.
06:19And Nick and Honda were offering another step in my career.
06:23So it was his team principal in charge of everything.
06:25Ross Braun, the most successful technical director in recent years,
06:29has joined Honda as team principal.
06:31Ross, welcome to the team.
06:32Very pleased to be here.
06:33This was a big deal.
06:35And this was also, I think, a big deal within Formula One.
06:39I remember being at Brackley.
06:42We had the whole factory.
06:43They were all sat on the floor.
06:45And it gets announced that Ross is part of the team.
06:48Before he opens his mouth, I think it lifts the team
06:51because of what he has achieved.
06:542005, you're with Ferrari.
06:57You make a jump for new opportunities.
07:00Your former technical director, Ross Braun, leaves Ferrari to join Honda.
07:08Everybody in Formula One knew the background of Ross.
07:12So, for sure, I was happy.
07:16Did you talk to him?
07:18Did you wish him luck at Honda?
07:21Did you have a...
07:24I think Honda made a very good offer to him.
07:27And they were very, very smart to have a person like him.
07:33I've always found Ross to be, you know, a very polite guy,
07:37a very nice guy to communicate with,
07:39but a ferocious competitor.
07:42And, you know, a smiling assassin.
07:45I think you're all smiling assassins.
07:51I mean, Ross was perceived as a tactical genius,
07:57as a wonderful manager of people.
08:01I think that's what he was good at.
08:04People believe in him because he looks innocent,
08:08and he wouldn't hurt anybody,
08:10and therefore people sort of trusted him completely.
08:16I feel like there's a but.
08:19No, maybe there's a most.
08:22And what does that mean?
08:23Most people trusted him.
08:27It was a big, big risk by Ross to go from a very comfortable,
08:32dominant environment in Ferrari to take a punt.
08:36I know, Honda wasn't a small team.
08:38I know, Honda had one of the biggest budgets in Formula One,
08:41but they were under-delivering.
08:42You know, the sleeping giant that needed waking.
08:45Was it ambition?
08:46Do you feel like he wanted to maybe prove that he can win also with somebody else?
08:53Yes.
08:54Yes.
08:58With the 2008 car, the first thing Ross said was,
09:02let's cut the bullshit.
09:04This is a shitbox.
09:06You're not going to win anything with this.
09:08This would be a year where, once the car was racing,
09:11we were not going to pay any attention to it.
09:14Because there was these new regulations coming.
09:17And it was vital that we put all our resources into these new regulations
09:20because it was such a great opportunity.
09:22And that was a strategic decision that I don't think anyone else made.
09:27Every few years, there are rule changes in F1.
09:31Almost all of them with the goal of improving safety.
09:34So the cars don't keep getting faster and faster.
09:38These rule changes clip the wings of car designers
09:41and all the teams essentially start from scratch.
09:46Teams start to look at the design of the cars,
09:48they see problems with the regulations or they see opportunities.
09:53Form 1 cars are the pinnacle of motor racing,
09:57the fastest cars on the planet,
09:58because they're so efficient in terms of downforce,
10:01creating incredible grip and incredible calming speeds.
10:09The new 2009 rules restricted the car's aerodynamics,
10:15giving them less downforce,
10:17the airflow around and through the car that pushes it to the ground.
10:22The idea was to make the racing closer with more overtaking.
10:28It was a pretty big meeting on the strategy for the new car
10:31where a very junior Japanese aerodynamicist put up his hand and said,
10:38you know, he got this idea fundamental to giving us more downforce
10:45at the back of the car than the rules had originally intended.
10:48It's like the opposite of this famous movie Lost in Translation
10:54is a found in translation,
10:56because they found something an English guy cannot read.
11:01They take word by word, line by line, and say,
11:04ah, why we are not doing that?
11:06The purpose of regulation is to reduce downforce.
11:10The diffuser is a very important aerodynamics part.
11:14What is a diffuser?
11:16So it's the bodywork around the rear wheels that face the ground.
11:19Under the car, you are trying to generate low pressure,
11:23and this low pressure will bring your car down.
11:27It was a controlled set of dimensions, but it wasn't controlled well enough.
11:31There was an opportunity to have another diffuser,
11:34and then to couple these two together.
11:36And so the double diffuser was born,
11:40a loophole design that got around the new regulations.
11:43The double diffuser gave the car way more downforce
11:47than the rules had originally intended,
11:50effectively giving it more grip,
11:52which allowed for more speed in the corners.
11:56More speed in the corners meant they would be faster on the straights.
12:01The penny dropped. Hang on a minute, you know, he's onto something here.
12:07This is a new opportunity, and the more we got into it,
12:10the more we realized the potential.
12:12I know that any advantage you have in Formula One is only temporary,
12:16but we had this opportunity when we were on the path
12:19to achieve our ambitions.
12:22We had no idea what was about to happen.
12:29How low will it go?
12:31The stock market slide continued today.
12:33Two financial giants, Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers,
12:36buckled under the real estate and credit crisis.
12:39A record $3.7 trillion in market value has been lost this year.
12:43Capitalism itself looks like it's on the brink.
12:50Lehman Brothers crushed down.
12:54After that, for Honda, car order is stopped.
13:00So we must shut down our production line.
13:07We got a call to meet with one of the Honda executives,
13:14Ashima-san.
13:15Ashima-san was someone I'd worked with for several years.
13:23We didn't even know he was in the country.
13:29And we had assumed, you know, we just need to save some money here.
13:40Went into a small room with Ashima-san,
13:44who was clearly very distressed, which was worrying.
13:52And what did he say?
13:54Well, it wasn't what he said initially.
13:56It was the fact he was crying.
13:59And he announced that Honda was stopping.
14:02It was all coming to an end.
14:05The world economy crashed down.
14:09It's not necessary to do motorsports in that situation.
14:14So our management decided to quit F1.
14:21He said, tell the staff that this is it, and, you know, turn out the lights.
14:35I mean, was there a moment where you're in the hallways, and you look at each other,
14:39and you're like, I don't know, like, Ross turns to Nick Fry and says,
14:43what the fuck?
14:45And Nick turns to Ross and goes, what the fuck?
14:48Well, it would definitely have been, you know, we weren't expecting that moment.
14:51Our minds were racing.
14:53Because suddenly face was, and I know my mind was racing, what can we do?
14:57We weren't really prepared for the ambush which followed.
15:05It was a fait accompli.
15:07They invited us into a much bigger boardroom to meet lawyers and HR specialists.
15:14And it was really the assassination squad.
15:17They didn't see any other option, apart from to close down the company,
15:22make everyone redundant.
15:23They would exit from Formula One, and they would carry on their business.
15:28Our defenses went up, and we made it clear this was not going to be just a walk away and
15:34turn the lights off.
15:34That wasn't going to happen.
15:36The magnitude of what we're talking about.
15:38Exactly.
15:38It's just not something you can turn off overnight.
15:41It was incomprehensible. They thought that could be done.
15:44It was against the rules, against the law.
15:47You know, they didn't really have an option.
15:50And that brought us time.
15:52That brought us time to start to think about what we could do.
15:57Legally, Honda had to put the whole team on three months' notice,
16:01with a view to redundancy at the end of it.
16:04But Ross and Nick convinced Honda they could sell the team,
16:08which would not only be cheaper than making the whole team redundant
16:11and paying off their many contracts, but also save 700 jobs.
16:21We asked for a month to try and find a buyer for the team.
16:30We went back to Brackley, and we told everybody.
16:52What was it like having to tell all the staff at Brackley they were on three months' notice?
16:56How did people hang away?
16:58Shock.
16:59I think everyone knew the economic situation was dire.
17:03But it was still a massive shock for everyone.
17:07I think my first words were,
17:09they can't, but they can't.
17:10They just can't pull out.
17:14It was my job, and it was, you know,
17:16500 other people on site who weren't sure how they were going to pay the bills all of a sudden.
17:22It's leading up to Christmas.
17:24We had a financial crisis on our hands.
17:26It probably wasn't going to be the best time to be out of work and looking for another job.
17:32I had a half-finished house, a fully pregnant wife.
17:36There was quite a lot of emotion to deal with.
17:41The impact of this was huge.
17:43It was really the visible incarnation of how bad the economic crisis was.
17:54Spiraling costs and little success on the track means that if a deal isn't struck soon,
17:59the whole team will be closed down with the loss of 800 British jobs.
18:09Hello, Jensen.
18:11What will you be telling people tonight?
18:14Richard Goddard, the manager at Jensen, had called me to say,
18:18look, we don't think we're going to be on the grid this year.
18:20Have you got a seat that you could offer Jensen?
18:23It was like, guys, we're, you know, we're full.
18:26It's 10 past midnight, you know, and Cinderella's gone.
18:31First of all, I was in shock.
18:34After all, we'd been through the last two years.
18:36I found it tough, and he said, I can't see there's any way out of this.
18:44Your contract's up, and you don't know if there's a team, and you don't know where you can drive.
18:48And you've been in Formula One now for 14 years.
18:52Is your career over?
18:53My wife at the time thought I was crazy.
18:56My friends thought I was crazy because I kept on thinking that I would have a job.
19:03And I thought, okay, should I grab a plane and go there?
19:06Ross said, don't come here. It's not a good time.
19:09So it was a tough, a tough period.
19:15They were out of a drive so late in the season, they couldn't find anywhere else to go.
19:19We knew if we could get going, we would automatically have two good drivers.
19:23And we knew they weren't going anywhere.
19:24I spoke to Ross and spoke to Richard and a few other people.
19:29Sure.
19:30And there are positives, you know.
19:33But the thing is that we need to stay positive in ourselves.
19:37Yeah, I think that's a failure from all of us.
19:38Yeah, exactly. And as one team.
19:42I remember we gave a speech to the staff.
19:46We explained that if we gave up now, we'd have nothing to sell.
20:02We were all at risk at that point.
20:06But we were told to carry on.
20:10We were basically working for our careers, working for our future.
20:15The effort we had to put in at the time was massive.
20:20We had to all push hard for these next few months to give ourselves the best opportunity.
20:26And none of us must ease up in the commitment we needed.
20:32That, I think, was one of the things that really, really impacted all of us,
20:37was that very few people left.
20:39Very few people chose to run for the doors.
20:43In the back of everybody's mind, you're thinking,
20:45well, Ross is still here.
20:47We must be okay.
20:502008, we'd almost sacrificed to make sure 2009 was going to be a strong year for us.
20:55This isn't the time to stop.
20:57No way that this car doesn't make Melbourne.
21:00Even if we arrive like that and we do just one race, we have to do it.
21:06The spirit of those people in that adversity was fantastic.
21:11They kept the team alive. It gave us something to take into 2009.
21:18The latest is that we continue to work here.
21:21The staff will be paid by Honda for at least the next three months.
21:24And during that time, we're hoping to find someone who wishes to take over the team.
21:30We kind of have a clock ticking, right? I mean, the first race, I believe, is March 29th.
21:36To survive, you need to get investment.
21:39The technical side, you know, Ross went off and handles. The finding investors was really, you know, down to me.
21:48When these type of things happen, you know, the world is full of opportunists.
21:55Everyone wanted to be in there. And the chance of having their own team was huge.
22:00There were people who, when we checked their backgrounds, they were pretty iffy.
22:05I mean, two of them went to jail after that.
22:06Yeah, we were in the middle of the huge financial crisis. I mean, they were opportunists in the extreme.
22:13Everyone who came and looked at it were asking money from Honda to take it over.
22:16That's why Honda thought they would just shut it, because they knew no one would be able to come in
22:21and make that sort of commitment.
22:24But there was.
22:25In a way.
22:30I came up with the idea of a management buyout in the absence of any other alternative.
22:38For Honda as an organisation, the idea of sort of the management buying in rather than a third party,
22:43it just wasn't a way that they would normally work. So it wasn't easy to convince them that this was
22:49an option.
22:50I think it was viewed from their side, quite understandably, as rewarding failure.
22:55I mean, we had not been successful.
22:58But this is the only option we've got on the table. It's this, or the team gets shut down.
23:03And I think the key thing was Ross.
23:06I trust Ross very much. So if Ross is there, I can sell the team to him.
23:15I think they felt a responsibility to me, they felt a responsibility to the people,
23:20and they could see that was a more honourable deal than just shutting the whole thing down.
23:25I spoke to my wife about it. She said, financially ring-fence the house and you can go and do
23:29whatever you want.
23:31Honda's Formula One team looks set to be rebranded in the new season.
23:34There were fears it would shut down altogether.
23:37Now a senior figure within the team has said that they will be on the starting grid in a few
23:41weeks' time.
23:42In a way, you persuaded Honda to change their minds and take this on board.
23:46They would have spent $100 million to shut the company. We said, don't waste that money because then there's nothing
23:52left.
23:52If you allow us to buy the team and you give us $90 million of close down costs, we could
23:59run a skeleton operation of the company.
24:01We'll take on all the responsibilities for the people. Why not go racing for a year if we can do
24:06it?
24:10Why do people say that you were the one pound Formula One team?
24:15When we finally closed the deal, I gave a pound to the Honda executive to formalise the deal. And I
24:22know he still has it.
24:23Do you have the pound?
24:24Yes.
24:25Is it here?
24:26Yeah. You want to check?
24:28I want to check. I want to see the pound that bought the team.
24:32I bring, always I bring it this one.
24:37Did you ever think what you were going to name this team?
24:43There was a lot of debate about that.
24:45That was my marketing contribution.
24:47The name.
24:48The name.
24:52I was embarrassed about the idea, but everyone seemed to like it.
24:56And the idea stuck and I must admit I was very flattered and honoured.
25:00It was named after me.
25:02The thought of the team having our family name.
25:09My first reaction to that was, is there an alternative?
25:13The thought this car had never tested, didn't know whether it was reliable, how quick it was.
25:19And it's going out with the name.
25:21Mm.
25:23It was kind of like having your mate put his name on a Formula One car and saying,
25:27that's a GP team.
25:29Okay. Is it that simple?
25:31But it is.
25:33Ross is now a team owner.
25:36A boss. A colleague.
25:38Yes, I was surprised about it.
25:40Did you think they would be any good?
25:44Ross is a person, and this is one of his strengths, very good to plan what I have to do
25:55this year, next year,
25:56because in Formula One you cannot succeed in 12 months, even in 24 months, unless you can have help.
26:06There's been an enormous amount of activity behind the scenes.
26:11Everyone on the stage here has helped us preserve our team, and I think myself, Ross, and our 700 employees
26:21all thank them for that.
26:24It's the first time in Formula One's history that I've been involved in that I've seen all the teams come
26:31collectively together to try and keep the little guys and to give Ross the opportunity to salvage it or sell
26:38it.
26:38But, of course, his big problem was going to be, what engine does he take?
26:44That was not his most problem.
26:46That's a huge problem.
26:47Correct.
26:48We went to Honda initially and said, look, you know, we understand you want to pull out of this, but
26:53can you please sell us your engine?
26:55And we got a point blank no.
26:57We are sure that the former Honda
27:01Yeah, I mean, you all know, we're going to get all the more of it and travel more than 10
27:01years.
27:01But the wiederum.
27:02My mother is coming to my death and she's all of me getting hurt.
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