It’s probably been Formula One’s worst kept secret these past few weeks, but it’s official now: after Rubens Barrichello’s leave for Williams and Brawn GP’s sale to Mercedes-Benz, Jenson Button has left the team to join McLaren for the 2010 Formula One season.

The legend of Brawn GP, with its single season in Formula One which has resulted in both the drivers’ and the constructors’ title, is thus complete.

As for Button’s new job, consider that Lewis Hamilton has consumed two teammates over the course of but three seasons: Heikki Kovalainen over 2008–2009 and double world champion Fernando Alonso in 2007. Both left McLaren in a very unhappy state of mind.

Hamilton is McLaren’s home-grown talent, nurtured since age 13, and while he is undoubtedly scary fast in a well-sorted car, he is also a vain man known for public temper tantrums whenever things go even slightly wrong. Like in the first half of the 2009 season, when McLaren had the misfortune to produce a dog of a racing car.

So while the BBC is calling the Button–Hamilton lineup a “dream team at McLaren,” with both of them British and both of them world champions, expect rifts. McLaren already has a “one driver” and his name is Lewis Hamilton.

Photo Credit: FRED DUFOUR/Getty Images, Mark Thompson/Getty Images

This marks the first time that Mercedes-Benz will compete under its own name in Formula One since 1955, when they retired at the end of the season following the disaster at Le Mans.

They have already signed Nico Rosberg as one of their drivers, while world champion Jenson Button is rumored to leave the team and join McLaren. His teammate Rubens Barrichello has already left for Williams.

Ross Brawn will remain as team principal and part owner.

It appears this year’s offseason will be just as mad as the actual season. Stay tuned.

Source: BBC

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images

Jenson Button, the whiz kid of late 90s gokarting, who found himself in a Formula One car at the precocious age of 20.

He would probably never have guessed the nine bleak years that would follow, 155 races with a single lucky win in Hungary, punctuated by mediocre or downright horrible racing cars.

His ascendancy to the highest rung of motor racing also happened to coincide with the rise of a particular team led by his current boss Ross Brawn: Scuderia Ferrari.

Awakening from a slumber of almost twenty years, Ferrari came to dominate Formula One like no one had before.

But this scruffy British kid has now been paired with a sublime car and a boss whose giant brain is certainly helpful for building a winning team. With a manic, courageous drive which took him from 14th place to 5th, Jenson Button claimed the 2009 Formula One world championship in high style at the Brazilian Grand Prix.

A beautiful way to end a season tarred and slimed by mischief and mayhem, a season which saw a shakeup of the established order like few seasons ever have, a season which spelled the righteous end of Ron Dennis and Flavio Briatore.

And it’s a season which is not even over yet. November 1 will see the inaugural Formula One race at Abu Dhabi’s Yas Marina Circuit, where Button and his constructor’s champion Brawn GP team will have a chance to say a relaxed farewell to a season to remember.

Or maybe not: also up for grabs is second place in the driver’s championship and Button’s teammate Rubens Barrichello (embraced on the picture above by Button’s father John) maintains but a two point lead over young hotshot Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull.

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images, Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Button went to Japan with a 15-point lead on his teammate Barrichello as Sebastian Vettel—very fast but prone to the errors of the young—looked increasingly less of a credible challenger. Twenty-five points behind with thirty to grab in three races, Red Bull’s driver faced an uphill battle.

He began his working weekend by setting pole on Saturday with a time of 1:32.160, 60 milliseconds clear of Toyota’s Jarno Trulli, with McLaren’s incumbent champion Lewis Hamilton a further 175 milliseconds behind.

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images

The legs you are looking at belong to Timo Glock, Jarno Trulli’s teammate at Toyota, who finished second at the previous race in Singapore. He injured his left calf in a crash during practice and couldn’t drive in the race.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Vettel had the advantage of pole position, but could not afford to finish at anything worse than 4th to retain even a sliver of chance for this year’s title. Which would be no mean feat, as Vettel celebrated his 22nd birthday on July 3rd—if he became world champion, he would be by far the youngest champion the sport has ever seen.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Because he knows Jay Leno has a great many fast cars which he likes to drive at speed, Vettel performed a ritual transformation into The Chin as he put on his fire-retardant mask.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

And the race is on! As you can see in the lower right corner, Lewis Hamilton, driving the KERS-powered McLaren, pulled in dangerously close to Vettel from his position of 3rd on the grid. Vettel can thank Jarno Trulli, seen in his red and white Toyota on the left, for holding Hamilton slightly back. While Hamilton was at one point nosing ahead of Vettel, he was on the outside line, allowing Vettel to turn first into the first corner. This was to be a position he would never relinquish, not even for a single pitstop.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Proving how fast he is when he doesn’t have to deal with traffic, Vettel quickly built up an impressive lead as he was chased by Lewis Hamilton and Jarno Trulli.

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images

Hamilton ran in second place for almost half of the race, having overtaking Trulli at the start, but he was never in a position to challenge for the lead.

Then came his first pitstop. McLaren threw down the gauntlet with a scorcher of a tire change and refueling at 6.7 seconds—with Jarno Trulli, running third, due for his own stop in the next lap.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Toyota rose to the occasion: they swapped out Trulli’s slicks and refueled him in 6.6 seconds. Combined with the time he gained on Hamilton during his last, fast lap out, this was enough of a margin to allow Trulli to return in front of Hamilton. The Toyota pit crew was absolutely overjoyed. Trulli would manage to hold on to his position to take the 11th podium of his 12-year career.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Here’s Jenson Button, driving out of the points after a lackluster qualifying session and a poor start. Pure luck would return him to 8th place, worth a single point: a fight ahead of him between Adrian Sutil of Force India and Heikki Kovalainen of McLaren culminated in a spin, allowing Button to slip by. He finished at 8th, one place behind teammate Rubens Barrichello, who thus gained a point on him. Brawn GP would end the race needing half a point to claim the constructor’s championship.

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images

Poor Mark Webber, already out of the challenge for the world title, had to start from the pitlane after a botched qualification and was already on his second or third pitstop by lap five. Red Bull Racing used the opportunity to recall him to the pits a number of times during the race to test various aerodynamic bits: you’ll remember that in this season, testing is not allowed outside of race weekends.

Red Bull did a splendid job. Running dead last in 17th place with two laps down on the rest of the field, Webber set the race’s fastest lap on lap 50 with a time of 1:32.569.

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images

Just as things were becoming a tad boring, Bernie Ecclestone—sitting in his supervillain mansion on the island of Thule in the Southern Ocean—pressed the ACCIDENT button on his control panel. Toro Rosso’s 19-year-old Jaime Alguersuari promptly disintegrated an advertising board and stuck his car nose first into the tire barrier. The Spanish kid emerged just fine, but as the track was now littered with carbon fiber, it was time to fire up the 6.3-liter V8 in the AMG Benz safety car.

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images

The race stewards performed with clockwork Japanese precision, but it still took them five laps to clear the track, chilling everyone’s tires. Fun was provided by safety car driver Bernd Mayländer, who let the big Benz rip, sending big gargles of V8 down the trackside microphones.

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images

Nothing remained for the last few laps: Robert Kubica threatened Button for a while but then backed off, allowing him to grab his single point—and Vettel his full ten for the 4th win of his career. He was manic with joy. The photo above was preceded by one hell of a chest bump, captured by the cameraman to the right. If you watch the race on tape, keep an eye out for it!

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

One of these days, racing drivers will have to abandon Dan Gurney’s great invention if they don’t want to end up cross-posted to our sister site of smut, Fleshbot.

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images

Come to think of it again: too late. Call the San Fernando Valley—or better yet, Budapest!

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images

The saddest man on the entire island of Honshu! In a repeat of last weekend’s performance, Toyota inched ever closed to its first win in Formula One. But similarly to Timo Glock’s second, Jarno Trulli could not claim victory. He was full of praise for his team and his injured teammate, a stark contrast with the ever aloof Lewis Hamilton, who blamed nothing but his car for his third place.

Sebastian Vettel is now 16 points down on Jenson Button with two races to go and a maximum of twenty points to gain. Two years ago, Kimi Räikkönen was down 17 points as Formula One went to its penultimate race in Shanghai—but two flawless victories and Lewis Hamilton’s rookie shakes made him world champion by one point over Hamilton and teammate Fernando Alonso.

Let’s see if Vettel can do the same. He’s got his work cut out for him: the next race will be on Barrichello’s home turf in Brazil on October 18th.

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images

Barely eight months after Honda called it quits, another manufacturer of white cars is out of Formula One as BMW throws in the towel at the end of this season. What will this mean for the all-conquering Brawn GP?

It was a late March day in Melbourne and Robert Kubica was breathing down hard on Jenson Button’s neck in this season’s first grand prix. Leading the race with three laps to go, Button was slowing down in his yet-unproven ex-Honda on supersoft tires as Kubica crept ever closer in his BMW. The young Pole—like Button, a winner of a single grand prix—was at last set to launch into a season of victories.

Of course he then tangled up with Sebastian Vettel in the Red Bull and it was all downhill for both him and BMW. Button and Vettel would go on to win 8 of this year’s 10 grands prix, while Kubica’s best result was 7th in Turkey. Apart from a lucky second place for teammate Nick Heidfeld in the wacky red-flagged Malaysian monsoon race, the BMW team—in their fourth season as a factory team in F1—are permanent backmarkers in the 2009 season, bringing up the rear with Force India and Toro Rosso.

They have decided to put themselves out of their misery. BMW will go out fighting but not come back to contest the 2010 season.

“This was a difficult decision for us, but it’s a resolute step in view of our company’s strategic realignment,” was the jolt of corporatese offered by Dr. Norbert Reithofer, chairman of the board of management of BMW, to the BBC.

Team principal Mario Theissen had this to say:

We, the employees in Hinwil and Munich, would all have liked to continue this ambitious campaign and show that this season was just a hiccup following three successful years. But I can understand why this decision was made from a corporate perspective.

Launched as a factory team for the 2006 season, BMW had originally given themselves three years to win the world championship. They finished second in 2007 after McLaren was disqualified and came in third last year—second only to McLaren and Ferrari—with several podium finishes and a grand prix victory by Robert Kubica in Montreal, his and BMW’s only.

One cannot help but wonder if the Bavarian-Swiss squad will try to make lemonade of the situation the way Ross Brawn has.

Brawn’s Honda team suffered through an ignominious 2008 season at the end of which Honda decided to quit Formula One altogether. Over the winter, Brawn managed to acquire the team’s assets and drivers from Honda, launched it under his own name with the car they had been developing since November 2007 and went on to win 6 of this season’s 10 grand prix with Jenson Button. After 10 out of 17 races, Brawn GP leads both the driver’s and the constructor’s championship.

So let’s keep our fingers crossed for Mario Theissen and his mercurial Pole. Formula One cannot make do without such a well-groomed mustache as Theissen’s:

Source: BBC. Photo Credit: BERTRAND GUAY/AFP/Getty Images, DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP/Getty Images, Paul Gilham/Getty Images, OLIVER LANG/AFP/Getty Images

Since their upgrade prior to the British Grand Prix three weeks ago and contrary to the utter Brawn domination until then, Red Bull had the upper hand now. After 129 races incresingly dotted by podium finishes, it was Australia’s Mark Webber who took victory—his first ever since debuting in Formula One at his home race in 2002.

The Brawns have shown their Achilles heel yet again: the white-and-fluoro-green battleship is simply too aerodymanic to properly warm its tires on a wet and damp track like the Nürburgring or Silverstone. Adrian Newey’s lithe Red Bulls blazed to victory, with their third all-podium finish in the past three races, two of them 1–2’s.

Last year’s champion Lewis Hamilton had a dismal Sunday after a fine qualifying at 5th: he ran wide at the very first corner, punctured a tire and limped home last.

Webber was obviously overjoyed—but Brawn’s Rubens Barrichello provided a counterpoint. The 37-year-old Brazilian, second in the championship before the race, has fallen back to fourth place after finishing sixth, leapfrogged by both Red Bull drivers. His response was less than diplomatic:

I guess the strategy in the pit lane… it was a good show from the team on how to lose a race today. I’m terribly upset with the way things have gone. I did all I had to do. I went first on the first corner and that’s all I did and then they made me lose the race. If it is really what’s going on, we’re going to end up losing both championships. I feel sorry for myself, the team. To be very honest, I wish I could get on the plane and go home. I don’t want to talk to anyone in the team. It will be all ‘bla bla bla’ and I don’t want to hear that.

His boss with the giant extraterrestrial brain responded with the brutal facts:

Rubens had the 11th fastest time in the race today. You cannot win a race, whatever strategy you have, if your best lap time is the 11th quickest.

And while Ross Brawn may have dismissed his driver’s outburst as the words of a frustrated racing driver in the heat of the moment, Barrichello may well remember this interview with Brawn back in 2001.

Formula One is coming to Hungary in two weeks to race at the slow and dusty cauldron of the Hungaroring. With the Budapest midsummer approaching 100 degrees Fahrenheit, it should be Brawn territory—and it is the scene of Jenson Button’s only win outside this season, at a wet and wacky 2006 race.

After nine races, Jenson Button still leads the championship with 68 points, followed by Sebastian Vettel with 47 and Mark Webber with 45.5. Rubens Barrichello is fourth with 44. These same men have buoyed the points of their constructors: Brawn's 112 and Red Bull's 92.5 are clear ahead of Toyota at third place with 34.5.

Kimi Räikkönen

Ferrari’s world champion Finn is pretty damn far from a good season this year, not even finishing the German Grand Prix, but have you seen a photo this close and visceral since Juan Manuel Fangio in his Mercedes-Benz W196?

Photo Credit: TORSTEN SILZ/AFP/Getty Images

Sebastian Vettel

It will probably be possible to take utterly boyish portraits of Red Bull’s ultra-fast young German well into the next decade.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Christian Horner (Red Bull’s team principal) and Mark Webber. Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Men would kill for Webber’s jawline. Women, too.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

The start of the race

And they’re off! Lewis Hamilton on the right in his silver McLaren is milliseconds from fucking it all up after a fine qualifying at fifth.

Photo Credit: FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images

Ari Vatanen

If you’re a Finnish voter, you may know this man as a retired member of the European Parliament, having served from 1999 to 2009. If you’re a petrolhead, you’ll know his as a rally god and the star of Climb Dance, that ten-minute epic about the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. He may follow in Max Mosley’s footsteps this fall as the embattled president of FIA prepares to step down.

Photo Credit: SASCHA SCHUERMANN/AFP/Getty Images

Kimi Räikkönen

Yes, he is dozing through the season but he drives a red car. Isn’t it just splendid to look at?

Photo Credit: GUILLAUME BAPTISTE/AFP/Getty Images

Webber, Räikkönen and Adrian Sutil

Later in the race, ice-cream-man Räikkönen would bump into Force India’s Sutil, seen here emitting a cloud of smoke, and take him out of the race. What a shame.

Photo Credit: FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images

Mark Webber

Two weeks after hanging out with motorcyclists, Mark Webber is driving his flat-nosed Red Bull home to his first grand prix victory. Fancy job, mate.

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images

Mark Webber after the race

Overcome with the magnificence of it all, Webber stands after his win in front of thick Eifel Mountains rainclouds after becoming only the 102nd man on Earth to win a Formula One grand prix. The first one was Nino Farina at the 1950 British Grand Prix.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Mark Webber

This week, the obligatory misuse of architectural imaging equipment sees our Aussie hero of the week taking a corner.

Photo Credit: FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images

Lewis Hamilton

Slow car, pretty picture.

Photo Credit: FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images

Bernie Ecclestone

“Hey, Slavica, are you there?”

“What do you want, Bernie? We’re divorced.”

“I know, love, but I need your advice on how to look very evil.”

“Easy peasy, just skip on the hairspray on your right side.”

“That all?”

“Yes, Bernie. Then find a spot of wind and wink into it.”

“Fabulous. Honey, fancy a meet next week on my powerboa—”

BEEP…BEEP…BEEP

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

The W25 was created by a resurgent Mercedes-Benz to rule the world, which it did after some teething pains. It was designed in 1933 to race in the 750 kg formula, which stipulated that a car’s weight cannot exceed 750 kilos (1650 lb). Unfortunately, upon closer inspection the W25 did exceed that weight.

Driver Manfred von Brauchitsch recalls in his autobiography the decision to scrap all the German racing white paint off the aluminum bodywork during the night before the car’s first race, the 1934 Eifelrennen at the Nürburgring Nordschleife. The jettisoned paint dipped the car’s weight below the threshold and in his legal and lightweight car von Brauchitsch proceeded to win the race.

The car was a brilliant, dominating achievement for Mercedes, which had been struggling at this point against Scuderia Ferrari’s Alfa Romeo P3’s. The shriek you hear in the video is the supercharger blowing through the carburators of the 3.3-liter straight eight engine, giving it 354 HP at 5800 RPM, incredible numbers for its day.

On the morning of the Festival of Speed’s closing day, Brawn GP’s championship-leading driver Jenson Button took it for a ride at Goodwood. He rather liked it.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Photography is complicated enough as it is, but when you add a lens that purposely manipulates the plane of focus or meddles with parallel lines, full comprehension will require a trip to the Physics section of your local bookstore to familiarize yourself with the work of Theodor Scheimpflug. The lenses used to take these photos are highly expensive and the output they produce cannot be used for straight news reportage, yet a handful a sports photographers employ them to capture the visuals of Grand Prix weekends in ways impossible with other equipment. And no, not every tilt-shift photo is a a fake miniature.

Click through for a distorted trip of the past three years of Formula One.

2008 Japanese Grand Prix

Here’s the Red Bull team having fun at Fuji Speedway. This is perhaps the most optically complex photo in our gallery and not only because you are probably spectacularly uninterested in the subjects in the plane of focus.

It’s because the girl’s left cheek also appears to be in focus, yet a blurred field separates it from the Red Bull team members. Physics majors, please explain in the comments.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Kimi Räikkönen, 2009 Monaco Grand Prix

This is classic tilted plane fake miniaturization: the chap in the red car is Kimi Räikkönen, on his way to Ferrari’s only podium finish this year.

Photo Credit: FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images

Jenson Button, 2009 Turkish Grand Prix

A tilted focus is great for portraiture: photographer Mark Thompson can direct our gaze to Jenson Button’s left eye at the exclusion of everything else. Button here is consulting with his teammates at the 2009 Turkish Grand Prix, before his crushing victory on race day.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Jenson Button, 2009 British Grand Prix

If you tilt your plane of focus to a narrow vertical field, you can isolate a race car with sudden clarity. Jenson Button is seen here during free practice at last weekend’s British Grand Prix, where he lost by a wide margin to Red Bull’s flying Sebastian Vettel.

Photo Credit: FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images

Felipe Massa, 2007 Monaco Grand Prix

Let’s see some Ferraris: Felipe Massa is seen here sharing a plane of focus with a bunch of yachts in Monaco harbor. He is on his way to finish third behind the twin McLarens of Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton.

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images

Michael Schumacher, 2008 German Grand Prix

Ferrari personnel in their red getups make for great photos: here’s Michael Schumacher at last year’s German Grand Prix, looking very excited as he’s sandwiched in between two aesthetic crimson blobs as the sole punk in blue jeans.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Kimi Räikkönen, 2009 Turkish Grand Prix

Ferraris may suck this season, but even parked and hooked up to computers, they look gorgeous. 2007 world champion Kimi Räikkönen is about to go for a practice run at a race he would finish outside the points. Notice how the tilted plane renders everything but Räikkönen’s head and the yellow Scuderia Ferrari badge out of focus.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Kimi Räikkönen, 2007 British Grand Prix

Last Ferrari photo, but look at the fancy British clouds, sharp only where they line up with the starting grid of Silverstone, which photographer Clive Mason chose as his plane of focus. Kimi Räikkönen is seen here in happier times: he is about to qualify second in the 2007 British Grand Prix, a race he would win on his way to claim the 2007 championship.

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images

Timo Glock, 2009 Bahrain Grand Prix

This photo captures like no other Mercedes-Benz’s renowned racing manager Alfred Neubauer’s observation that the racing driver is the loneliest creature in the universe. Neubauer invented pit signaling to remedy this, taking his Mercedes-Benz team to a hail of victories over three decades, while photographer Fred Dufour used a tilt lens to show Toyota’s Timo Glock practicing for the 2009 Bahrain Grand Prix.

Photo Credit: FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images

David Coulthard, 2008 German Grand Prix

It’s Mr. Jawbone right there in his Red Bull, in the waning months of his long career. Wearing a flameproof balaclava, he is a lone white human figure in a scaffolding of wire and carbon fiber suspension parts.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Sebastian Vettel, 2009 Bahrain Grand Prix

Contrary to what you can read on the pit wall, this is David Coulthard’s successor Sebastian Vettel in the Red Bull RB5 car, leaving the pits at the 2009 Bahrain Grand Prix.

Photo Credit: FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images

Hamilton, Heidfeld, Fisichella and Alonso, 2009 Spanish Grand Prix

You can also use a tilt-shift lens to cut through the clutter of people at a press conference, picking out those that your viewers are probably most interested in: bitter 2007 rivals Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, shown here at a press conference three days before the 2009 Spanish Grand Prix.

Photo Credit: FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images

Red Bull’s Guests, 2007 Italian Grand Prix

Like any other photographic technique, a tilted plane of focus can be used to capture gratuitous shots of young women. These blondes are guests of Red Bull at the 2007 Italian Grand Prix and judging solely on appearance, they are hopped up on the team’s signature soft drink.

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images

Jenson Button, 2009 British Grand Prix

And we’re back to toy cars. While photographer Fred Dufour probably did not know at the time he took this picture, Jenson Button’s usually dominant Brawn would actually be relegated to toy car status during last weekend’s British Grand Prix, as Red Bull’s upgraded RB5’s stormed the field, taking their second 1–2 victory of the season.

Photo Credit: FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images

Sebastian Vettel, 2008 German Grand Prix

Black and white? Art! Focusing in a slanted plane on Sebastian Vettel’s face shows just how young Red Bull’s superfast German really is: he was born on July 3, 1987. When this photo was taken, he'd only been old enought to have a beer in America for less than two weeks.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Fernando Alonso, 2009 Monaco Grand Prix

For a final tilted image, here’s one for pure aesthetic awesomeness. Fernando Alonso is taking the Grand Hotel Hairpin of the Monaco street circuit in the Renault during free practice at this year’s grand prix.

Photo Credit: FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images

You just know something’s amiss when you are greeted with FIA president Max Mosley’s very British grimace on Jalopnik as you boot up in the morning. Turns out “Formula 1 is finished,” as two-time world champion Fernando Alonso has described the current situation to the BBC.

The current situation is only slightly simpler than the internal politics of Afghanistan, with power-hungry old white men scheming behind closed doors. The only difference seems to be their lack of flowing beards and Stinger missiles—but then Max Mosley would make a great Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

What is the current situation, exactly? Most of the major teams have refused to accept Mosley’s scheme to turn Formula One into a two-tiered, budget regulated series, with teams who agree to run on an arbitrary budget set by Mosley getting access to slacker regulations: higher revving engines, more aggressive aerodynamics, the works. The teams have correctly argued that this runs against the very essence of Formula One: namely, that cars built to the same set of regulations–or formulae–race each other. Bunny rabbits may occasionally race against the cars, as seen at last year’s British Grand Prix, but they do not figure in the official results.

Mosley’s fear seems to be that current expenditures will drive major manufacturers out of the sport as car companies will not be willing to pay half a billion dollars a year for a vanity product in these financially bleak times. So far, the only manufacturer which has actually quit was Honda—but not before handing former team principal Ross Brawn the current season’s most dominant car, the BGP-001, campaigned with an 86% win rate thus far by Jenson Button.

Just to put Mosley’s budget cap in perspective: his suggested $65 million a year is exactly half as much as the amount paid a week ago by a Spanish football team for a single player. Great footballers have their price, even obnoxious bastards like Real Madrid’s latest pick Cristiano Ronaldo, but they certainly don’t require expensive, one-off machines made of carbon fiber and titanium to do their thing.

It’s all very sad, really, but is perhaps an inevitable conclusion to the bullying and thuggery Max Mosley and commercial rights holder Bernie Ecclestone have subjected Formula One to over the past decades. While many involved in F1 have become very rich in the meantime, the biggest money was made not by the people who actually go out there and race cars, but the very few who have brokered deals.

It may be unavoidable or it may be a historical artifact dating back to the late 70s when the very same duo made Formula One into the global media juggernaut it currently is. But it has certainly not helped the sport’s long-term survival. Formula One at the moment is subject to rapid, arbitrary rule changes and it is increasingly raced on tracks worlds away from the sport’s historic and financial heartlands—Europe and North America.

The series began in 1950 at Silverstone, a converted airfield in postwar England which will host its last race this Sunday. The teams have until today evening to reach a last minute compromise. Otherwise, the cars on the grid on Sunday afternoon may take part in not just the last grand prix at Silverstone—but in the last grand prix of a Formula One with a future.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images, DIMITRI KOCHKO/AFP/Getty Images, MAX NASH/AFP/Getty Images, SHAUN CURRY/AFP/Getty Images

Sir Francis has not had it easy. He has been in Formula One for an incredible four decades now, starting out with a second-hand Brabham chassis in 1969, and it wasn’t until ten years later that his team scored their first win, with Clay Regazzoni taking the 1979 British Grand Prix.

His grassroots operation has seen its share of deaths, beginning with Piers Courage at Zandvoort and ending with Ayrton Senna at Imola. Williams himself has been confined to a wheelchair for 23 years since he flipped his rental car in France and crashed his spine into the roof.

None of this, however, has managed to cloud his essential devotion to motor racing:

I love what I do. All the people at Williams love what they do. Patrick [Head, Williams engineering director], my partner, feels exactly the same — he just wants to go racing, winning. We’re very upset with ourselves because we haven’t done any real winning for a very long time. It’s now about 10 years or something. And it’s very embarrassing, but we have to live with that. It’s our own fault, nobody else’s. And we have to get the sun to shine again soon.

That sun may shine on a forlorn landscape: talks between the Formula One Teams Association and Max Mosley’s FIA have broken down a few hours ago, leaving only Force India in Formula One from the current grid, apart from Williams.

Whatever happens, Williams will be at the British Grand Prix this weekend, the stage of their first victory thirty years ago. Barring supreme weirdness, they are not likely to mark the occasion with another win. Brawn GP driver Jenson Button enters his home Grand Prix as the runaway favorite, after winning six of the season’s seven races thus far.

Still, consider the sheer enthusiasm of the man for noisy, fast machinery:

One of the biggest thrills of my life was I went to Luke Air Force Base in Arizona and I watched from 50 meters to the right side of the runway, the flight of four F-15c’s at takeoff, two by two, the second just five seconds after the first, and the noise! The ground shook! I was a guest of a colonel in the air force. I said, ‘Will you be using reheat?’ — which you call afterburn — and he said, ‘No, but if you want it, I can tell them.’ And I’ve never forgotten it. The noise! The power! And they got to the end and they went whoosh, it was almost vertical. Fantastic. Speed and noise.

Source: The New York Times, Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images, ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP/Getty Images, Bryn Lennon/Getty Images

The eight teams, Brawn GP, Ferrari, McLaren, Renault, Toyota, BMW Sauber, Red Bull Racing and Toro Rosso announced their decision following a four-hour meeting tonight ahead of this weekend's British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

FOTA has been frustrated by deadlocked talks with Mosley over his controversial attempt to introduce a voluntary £40m budget cap for teams to curtail a "financial arms race" in F1. Below is the FOTA statement:

Since the formation of Fota last September the teams have worked together and sought to engage the FIA and commercial rights holder (Bernie Ecclestone), to develop and improve the sport."

"Unprecedented worldwide financial turmoil has inevitably placed great challenges before the F1 community.

"Fota is proud that it has achieved the most substantial measures to reduce costs in the history of our sport.

"In particular, the manufacturer teams have provided assistance to the independent teams, a number of which would probably not be in the sport today without the Fota initiatives.

"The Fota teams have further agreed upon a substantial voluntary cost reduction that provides a sustainable model for the future.

"Following these efforts, all the teams have confirmed to the FIA and the commercial rights holder that they are willing to commit until the end of 2012.

"The FIA and the commercial rights holder have campaigned to divide Fota.

"The wishes of the majority of the teams are ignored. Furthermore, tens of millions of dollars have been withheld from many teams by the commercial rights holder, going back as far as 2006.

"Despite this, and the uncompromising environment, Fota has genuinely sought compromise.

"It has become clear, however, the teams cannot continue to compromise on the fundamental values of the sport and have declined to alter their original conditional entries to the 2010 world championship."

This series will have transparent governance, one set of regulations, encourage more entrants and listen to the wishes of the fans, including offering lower prices for spectators worldwide, partners and other important stakeholders," added the statement.

"The major drivers, stars, brands, sponsors, promoters and companies historically associated with the highest level of motorsport will all feature in this new series."

Photo Credit: Paul Gilham / Getty Images Sport

So here. At least the velocity trumpets are well chromed:

Source: Pitpass

Felipe Massa of Brazil and Ferrari comes in for a pitstop during the Turkish Formula One Grand Prix at Istanbul Park on June 7, 2009, in Istanbul, Turkey.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Jenson Button of Great Britain and Brawn GP drives on his way to winning the Turkish Formula One Grand Prix at Istanbul Park on June 7, 2009, in Istanbul, Turkey.

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images

Sebastian Vettel of Germany and Red Bull Racing is surrounded by photographers on the grid before the start of Turkish Formula One Grand Prix at Istanbul Park on June 7, 2009, in Istanbul, Turkey.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Renault Team Principal Flavio Briatore (center rear) talks at a meeting of Formula One Team Principals and drivers in the Toyota motorhome ahead of the Turkish Formula One Grand Prix at Istanbul Park on June 7, 2009, in Istanbul, Turkey.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

(L-R) Renault Team Principal Flavio Briatore, Red Bull Racing Team Principal Christian Horner and supermodel Naomi Campbell are seen on the grid before the Turkish Formula One Grand Prix at Istanbul Park on June 7, 2009, in Istanbul, Turkey.

Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Jenson Button of Great Britain and Brawn GP tries to keep cool on the grid before the Turkish Formula One Grand Prix at Istanbul Park on June 7, 2009, in Istanbul, Turkey.

Photo Credit: Paul Gilham/Getty Images

Sebastian Vettel (R) of Germany and Red Bull Racing leads Jenson Button (L) of Great Britain and Brawn GP into the first corner at the start of the Turkish Formula One Grand Prix at Istanbul Park on June 7, 2009, in Istanbul, Turkey.

Photo Credit: Paul Gilham/Getty Images

Felipe Massa of Brazil and Ferrari tries to keep cool on the grid before the Turkish Formula One Grand Prix at Istanbul Park on June 7, 2009, in Istanbul, Turkey.

Photo Credit: Paul Gilham/Getty Images

Lewis Hamilton of Great Britain and McLaren Mercedes tries to keep cool on the grid before the Turkish Formula One Grand Prix at Istanbul Park on June 7, 2009, in Istanbul, Turkey.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Drivers take the start of the Turkish Formula One Grand Prix, at the Istanbul Park circuit on June 7, 2009 in Istanbul.

Photo Credit: FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images

Jenson Button of Great Britain and Brawn GP celebrates in parc fermé after winning the Turkish Formula One Grand Prix at Istanbul Park on June 7, 2009, in Istanbul, Turkey.

Photo Credit: Paul Gilham/Getty Images

Mark Webber of Australia and Red Bull Racing celebrates with champagne and trophy after finishing second in the Turkish Formula One Grand Prix at Istanbul Park on June 7, 2009, in Istanbul, Turkey.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Jenson Button of Great Britain and Brawn GP leads from Sebastian Vettel of Germany and Red Bull Racing during the Turkish Formula One Grand Prix at Istanbul Park on June 7, 2009, in Istanbul, Turkey.

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images

Jenson Button of Great Britain and Brawn GP celebrates with team mates in the paddock after winning the Turkish Formula One Grand Prix at Istanbul Park on June 7, 2009, in Istanbul, Turkey.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Sebastian Vettel of Germany and Red Bull Racing drives on his way to finishing third in the Turkish Formula One Grand Prix at Istanbul Park on June 7, 2009, in Istanbul, Turkey.

Photo Credit: Paul Gilham/Getty Images

Brawn GP's British driver Jenson Button drives ahead of Red Bull's German driver Sebastian Vettel at the Istanbul Park circuit on June 7, 2009 in Istanbul, during the Turkish Formula One Grand Prix.

Photo Credit: FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images

Brawn GP's British driver Jenson Button drives at the Istanbul Park circuit on June 7, 2009 in Istanbul, during the Turkish Formula One Grand Prix.

Photo Credit: MUSTAFA OZER/AFP/Getty Images

Jenson Button was so fast at this weekend’s Turkish Grand Prix, he could afford to sit down for a picnic with his girlfriend Jessica Michibata during the race.

In a surprising move which was nonetheless perfectly in line with the sheer dominance of both his car and his skills driving it, Jenson Button pulled over to the side of the track at Istanbul Park on the second to last lap of this Sunday’s Turkish Grand Prix to treat his girlfriend, fashion model Jessica Michibata, to an impromptu picnic of Turkish cuisine.

“I was on the last lap, way up in the lead from Mark and Seb in their Red Bulls, so I thought—why not? You can certainly use a cold ayran on a hot summer afternoon in Istanbul,” Button said.

After nine disappointing seasons in Formula One, the 29-year-old Englishman is currently the dominant driver on the grid by a long margin. While he did not start the Turkish Grand Prix from pole, he pounced on an early error by Sebastian Vettel to take a lead he would build up to picnicworthy proportions by lap 57.

“So Ross was saying, ‘Hey Jess, Jenson’s just said on team radio he’d prefer a quick bite before the checkered flag,’ so off I went,” recalled Michibata. “I took a few döner kebaps, two pints of ayran, some strained yogurt and a bite of baklava, all wrapped in the checkered flag he was set to take.” She would return the flag to race officials after their meal.

Seated on the car’s side air intakes in a brilliant blue Hermès silk scarf, the Argentine-Japanese Michibata recalled images of a more glamorous era of motor racing. After finishing their delicious Turkish meal, Button climbed back into his BGP-001 to drive the white racing car across the finish line.

“Jessica rustled up one hell of a meal. But man, I so could’ve used a Red Bull to wash that döner kebap down with,” Button said after his post-race interview.

In case you missed Jalopnik’s live coverage of the race, you can catch up here. We will continue with galleries and a full race report.

Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images. Drawing by the author.

In a bit of an experiment at live race broadcasting here, we will be following the race on Twitter as it happens at http://jalopnik.com/f1live. Yours truly shall be your host for the morning, but you too can join in, if you have something to say. Just tweet something funny or informative during the race and add this hashtag: #f1live

The race will be held at Istanbul Park, home to the famous multi-g Turn 8, and for the past three years, Felipe Massa of Ferrari has won every Grand Prix here. He is clawing his way back to the top after starting this season in a dismal Ferrari, but many have tried to beat Jenson Button this year. So far, only Red Bull’s Seb Vettel has succeeded in Shanghai, as Button leads the championship by 51 points, followed by Brawn teammate Rubens Barrichello with 35 and Vettel with 23.

The race kicks off on Sunday at 3 PM local time, which means 8 AM on the East Coast and 5 AM on the West Coast, so it’s definitely a game for early birds. Do join us, though, if you’re awake, it will be a lot of fun. And if you decide to sleep in, don’t worry. We will follow the live broadcast with a race report. With Crayola to accompany the words, of course.

Photo Credit: Paul Gilham/Getty Images. Gorgeous watercolor event banner: Natalie Polgar

Following Brawn GP’s interesting change of tactics during last weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix—which contributed to denying Rubens Barrichello his first win since 2004—the Brazilian was rather vocal in his disappointment. Here’s what he told SpeedTV after the event:

If I get the slightest sniff of the fact that they have favoured Jenson, I will hang up my helmet tomorrow. But I know Ross [Brawn] wouldn’t do that. He asked me to drive for him and he knows I want to race fairly with Jenson.

Brawn was quick to retort in a BBC interview:

We don't have a one and a two driver. They’re both on equal terms and conditions. Once he [Barrichello] got back and we talked things through he was fine. Rubens is a great team player. Everyone is working so well together and Rubens and Jenson recognise that. The fact we have such a great atmosphere drives us on and we don’t want to lose that. We’ve been completely honest with the drivers. They know the situation and their engineers know that—there’s no favouritism.

It’s interesting to put his remarks in context with a profile of Brawn for The Independent in July 2001. Back then, he was technical director of a resurgent Ferrari, celebrating their first driver’s title since Jody Scheckter’s world championship in 1979. Brawn was a key element of the Ferrari team which included general manager Jean Todt, chassis designer Rory Byrne and drivers Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello—the latter clearly treated as a “two driver”. They would go on to command Formula One for the next four years, with Schumacher taking every world championship between 2000 and 2004.

At the time the interview was published, the level of sheer dominance they would demonstrate—where Schumacher would lock up championships in mid-summer—was not yet evindent. Their first balls-out year was 2002. The year when, during the Austrian Grand Prix, Rubens Barrichello would be ordered to slow down in the last lap (see video) to allow Schumacher to take victory—his fifth out of six races in a season where he would win 11 races out of 17 and stand on the podium every single time.

Here’s the most interesting bit:

“We all kick bums inside the team, Michael included,” Brawn says. “But if he’s unhappy about something he’ll sit down with Jean [Todt, general manager] and me and tell us so. He’s not going to do it in public because he cares about the people here and he’s also intelligent enough to realise he will have more effect working internally than going to the press.

“As soon as people go to the press the others resent it. The last thing you want is a driver whingeing in the press. I’m surprised more drivers haven’t sussed that.”

Brawn and Todt have had to spell out that message to their other driver, Rubens Barrichello. The Brazilian has complained on a couple of occasions about the “favouritism” shown to Schumacher. The reality, as Barrichello will now appreciate, is that his team-mate is the best in the business and it makes competitive and commercial sense for the team to back him.

Formula One is a team sport like no other. Hundred of millions of dollars and the collective effort of hundreds of people focus on two drivers—and only one can become world champion. And while letting teammates compete would perhaps drive both of them to greater performances, look what happened with McLaren in 2007, where Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton were at each other’s throats in dominant cars for the whole season, including the penultimate race in Brazil—allowing Kimi Räikkönen to edge past them both and take Ferrari’s sole post-Schumacher world title.

Perhaps Barrichello has just had the incredible bad luck over the years of always getting a superior teammate along with a superior car. And a boss who likes to make the trains run on time.

Source: The Independent

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Allsport, Mike Cooper/Allsport, Clive Mason/Getty Images

Brawn GP driver Rubens Barrichello was visibly upset after losing the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday to teammate Jenson Button, following a change of strategy. The rumors have immediately spread that similarly to Barrichello’s previous tenure under Brawn at Ferrari, he was subjected to team orders which put Button—who leads the championship ahead of the veteran Brazilian—on top.

Team owner Ross Brawn has told BBC Radio 5 that they “don’t have a one and a two driver,” and that Button and Barrichello are “on equal terms and conditions.”

The thing with team orders though is that they are absolutely impossible to detect. So while Brawn might be telling the truth here, we will never know. Or as commentator—and former F1 driver and Le Mans winner—Martin Brundle put it: “I don’t think the team have made a clear decision to treat Button as their number one driver but it may be a subconscious one.”

There is no peeking inside Brawn’s brain. Still, armed with nothing but a box of Crayolas, we try.

Source: BBC

Whispers of team orders clouds a brainy race in Barcelona, where most of the action happened in the pits and in the tactical computers. Warning: spoilers below.

Spanish Grands Prix tend to be boring affairs. Held on the Circuit de Catalunya, more a motorcycle and testing track than one for spectacular racing, most GP’s here are rather dull. This year’s event, which saw Jenson Button make it four wins out of five races, was far from dull, but most of the action happened not on the track, but in the pits—and in the impenetrable, alien brain of Ross Brawn.

It started off well enough. Button, having grabbed pole on Saturday in the last seconds of qualifying, was passed on the way to Turn One by a resurgent Barrichello from third place. Then followed a mild accident, televisable but not particularly exciting, which decimated the rear of the field (both Toro Rossos, Jarno Trulli of Toyota, Adrian Sutil of Force India and Heikki Kovalainen of McLaren were out) and resulted in an safety car period which would prove decisive.

Unlike the rest of the field on their two stop strategies, the Brawns of Button and Barrichello were on three stops: three quick nips of fuel followed by scorching laps in a permanently light car. Following the safety car period, however, championship leader Button was put on two stops and he made the most of it, putting in blistering laps at the head of the field. Barrichello meanwhile, in a lighter car, lost precious seconds after his second pitstop, ultimately leading to his finishing by 13 seconds behind Button.

Whatever happened in those decisive laps—tire trouble, slow driving, team orders—the veteran Brazilian was very unhappy. This was to be his first win since the 2004 Chinese Grand Prix in what may be his last season in Formula One. A hugely selfless man, he played second fiddle to Michael Schumacher in Ferrari’s dominant years. Years when Ferrari’s strategy was determined by no other than Ross Brawn, the man who runs his current team.

Everyone at Brawn GP has pointed out immediately that they have no team orders in place—as evidenced, for instance, by Barrichello’s move on Button leading into Turn One—but the mind wonders. While Barrichello is a solid second in a championship with 12 more races to go and while he can be just as quick as Button, he has not won a single race yet in a clearly dominant car. Also, he is nine years Button’s senior, in a sport which favors the ultra-quick reflexes of the young.

Speaking of the young: 21-year-old Sebastian Vettel, driving the marvelous, Adrian Newey-designed Red Bull, had yet another frustrating race, stuck behind the Ferrari of Felipe Massa, whom he could not pass on the narrow circuit as the Brazilian deployed his speed-boosting Kers device in every corner. But make no mistake: Vettel is scramjet quick, as he has already shown in Shanghai. And once he finds himself in a position where he can really stretch his legs, the Brawns will have a young German in a dark blue car rapidly filling their rearview mirrors.

The 2009 Spanish Grand Prix was won by Jenson Button, followed by Rubens Barrichello and Mark Webber of Red Bull. Rounding out the points were Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull), Fernando Alonso (Renault), Felipe Massa (Ferrari), Nick Heidfeld (BMW) and Nico Rosberg (Williams). Jenson Button leads the championship with 41 points, followed by teammate Barrichello with 27 and Red Bull’s Vettel by 23. The next race will be held in Monaco on May 24.

Photo Credit: Paul Gilham/Getty Images, GUILLAUME BAPTISTE/AFP/Getty Images, Manu Fernandez/AFP/Getty Images, FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images

While the Islamic country has no alcoholic beverages for sale—which resulted in Button having to spray non-alcoholic champagne as he celebrated his victory—the team has every reason to feel jubilant: after four races, Brawn GP leads the constructors’ championship by 50 points, close to twice as many as second place Red Bull’s 27.5, with drivers Button and Barrichello perched atop the drivers’ table.

Button started his race in third place, but quickly emerged as the leader with a svelte move on Lewis Hamilton in his Kers-boosted McLaren, which put him in a lead he would never relinquish. Barrichello finished fifth, perhaps due to a less than optimal tire strategy, with Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull and Jarno Trulli of Toyota sharing the podium with Button.

Racing will take a brake next weekend as the teams head home to Europe. The next race will be held at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona on May 10.

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images