Survive. Drive. Win.: The Inside Story of Brawn GP and Jenson Button's Incredible F1 Championship Win

· Atlantic Books
4.6
7 reviews
Ebook
288
Pages
Eligible
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About this ebook

'The story of Brawn GP is legendary... Exciting and magical.' Damon Hill
'Nick Fry and Ed Gorman take us behind the mysterious and tightly closed doors of F1 to tell the remarkable story of the 2009 season.' Martin Brundle
Foreword by Bernie Ecclestone

The full story of F1's incredible 2009 championship battle has never been told. Until now. In this gripping memoir, Nick Fry, the former CEO of Brawn GP, reveals how he found himself in the driving seat for one of the most incredible journeys in the history of motor sport.
At the end of 2008, Nick, then head of Honda's F1 team, was told by his Japanese bosses that the motor company was pulling out of F1 in thirty days. This bolt from the blue was a disaster for the team's 700 staff, for Ross Brawn, who Nick had recently recruited as chief engineer, and for the drivers, Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello. But in a few short weeks, Nick and Ross would persuade Honda to sell them the company for £1 (plus all the liabilities).
Just thirteen weeks later, the Brawn GP team, led by Nick and Ross, would emerge from these ashes, win the first Grand Prix of the 2009 season, and go on to win the Driver's and the Constructor's Championship, with a borrowed engine, a heavily adapted chassis and, at least initially, no sponsors.
In Survive. Drive. Win., Nick gives an up-close-and-personal account of how he and Ross turned disaster into championship glory and laid the foundations for what was to become the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team. Along the way he gives the inside track on the drivers, the rivalries between teams, on negotiating with Bernie Ecclestone, on hiring and working with two global superstars: Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton - and offers a unique and thrilling perspective on an elite global sport.

Ratings and reviews

4.6
7 reviews
Nam Le
February 12, 2022
Brilliant journey into an incredible adventure. I had the chance to meet Nick Fry when we was invited for a talk at my work. It bought the book but did not take the team to read it until now (nearly 3 years later), and frankly I wish I had done so earlier. The book dives into what took place behind the scene following Honda's withdrawal from F1, how it affected the staff, the running of the team (e.g: top staff flying EasyJet), but also how it actually shaped Mercedes' current success in F1. Honda actually invested an enormous amount into that state-of-the-art wind tunnel in Brackley, but that was right before the 2008 financial crisis.... A great read for whoever likes F1 but also for those who would be interested in running a team, going from having so much to spend to literally and suddenly being on a shoestring overnight.
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lowndes 888
January 30, 2020
A really enjoyable, insightful and (I'm glad to say) honest read.
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Farhan Nurulfikri Sulistyo
October 21, 2022
fairy tale story really i can't believe it
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About the author

Nick Fry was appointed the managing director of the BAR Formula One team in 2002, which became the Honda F1 Racing Team in 2006. When Honda pulled out of F1 in 2008, Fry led a management buy-out with Ross Brawn, becoming CEO of the Brawn GP team. After the sale of the team to Mercedes he became CEO of Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport before leaving in 2013. He is currently chairman of the professional e-sports team Fnatic.
Ed Gorman was a foreign news correspondent for The Times, covering wars in Afghanistan, the Balkans and Sri Lanka, before becoming the paper's sailing and Formula One writer. He attended sixty consecutive F1 races between 2006-09. In recent years he has been editorial director of the sports management company OC Sport and has published a memoir, Death of a Translator.

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