Brawn: The Impossible Formula 1 Story review: Keanu Reeves-led docuseries is phenomenal
So much more than a great sports story, Disney Plus' Brawn is a tribute to the human spirit
TV Reviews Keanu Reeves
Formula 1 is more popular in the United States now than probably ever before, but it’s not because of the staggering three races held in the U.S. this season, it’s not because the boss of the one American F1 team is a perfect and wonderful character, and it’s not because there’s a new young American F1 driver who actually has a handful of points in the world championship standings. No, it’s because of Netflix’s Drive To Survive, a thrilling docuseries that has charted the “plot” of the last few Formula 1 seasons with cleverly selective editing and a slight reframing of facts in order to make things more dramatic and easier to follow for people who don’t watch the actual races. Villains are created, heroes are highlighted, and viewers get the gist of what’s going on in F1.
But this is a sport that’s been running, sort of, since the 1940s, and that means there are a ton of F1 stories that predate current world champion Max Verstappen and Drive To Survive breakout star Daniel Ricciardo—F1 stories that Netflix fans may be completely unaware of, despite the huge, lasting impact they had on the current incarnation of the sport. One of those stories, as detailed in the remarkable Disney+ series Brawn: The Impossible Formula 1 Story, is the miracle season of a team called Brawn GP in 2009, which is a story that surely every true F1 fan knows deep in their bones, but also one that would’ve completely passed by this new batch of fans.
Formula 1 only recently became very easy to watch in the United States, thanks to broadcast deals with ESPN and a dedicated F1 streaming service that shows all of the races, practices, and qualifying sessions. So, to new American fans, the story of Brawn GP is like if someone lived in a country that didn’t care about baseball until 2020 and then heard these fantastical tall tales about the Chicago Cubs going 100 years without a championship before improbably winning it all in 2016.
And that’s part of what makes the Disney+ documentary series, which premieres November 15, so compelling: It’s an incredible tale, the repercussions of which are still being tangibly felt today—new rules are discussed, new engineers and team bosses gain prominence, and that’s without mentioning the ultimate fate of the team after this one famous season. Regardless of whether you’re a Drive To Survive fan, or you’ve never seen F1, or probably even if you watched this all live when it was happening, this is one of the all-time great underdog sports stories and simply seeing it play out makes for thrilling television.
The series obviously goes into the proverbial nuts and bolts of it, but the short version is that Ross Brawn served as the technical director for Scuderia Ferrari for years, helped them win a bunch of championships with F1 icon Michael Schumacher, and then decided to retire … until Honda’s F1 team offered him a job running their team. Brawn decided to essentially blow off his first year, 2008, so the team could spend all of its money and resources making a great car for 2009. Then the global financial crisis happened, and Honda decided it was silly to waste money on racing.
Honda was going to fire everyone overnight, 750 people or so, but Brawn and his CEO convinced Honda to sell them the team for a token sum so they could try and find a real buyer. The plan was to just survive a couple of races and prove that they were a functional team that some other car company should come along and buy, but there was a wrinkle in that plan: The car, branded with the team name Brawn GP by the crew as a tribute to the man who had saved their jobs, was a beast.
The Brawn GP cars ran laps around every other team, so to speak, and after having signed off on a deal that allowed Brawn to get an engine to replace the one Honda would no longer be making (due to the gentlemanly European nature of F1) those other teams got pissed (due to the underhanded, conniving nature of F1). Red Bull team boss Christian Horner—a fixture here just as he is on Drive To Survive, since he’s never seen a narrative he didn’t want to control—explains in the doc that everyone was happy to keep the team alive, right up until the moment they started demolishing the competition.
But the other part of what makes Brawn such a great show is its host, Keanu Reeves, who brings not only a deep well of knowledge about racing but also an enormous amount of enthusiasm for anything with wheels and an engine. Reeves isn’t an unseen narrator in Brawn; he’s basically an equal star of the show alongside Brawn GP drivers Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello, iconic F1 commentator Martin Brundle, dirtbag former F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone, and Ross Brawn himself.
An interviewer who injects so much of himself into the interview could be grating, but Reeves comes across as so genuinely happy to talk to these specific people about this specific F1 season that it’s positively joyous to watch. It’s infectious. Watching this Keanu Reeves, it’s hard to imagine he once had a reputation for being wooden. He’s cracking jokes with these people, he’s offering fun insights of his own, and he gets a big, sparkling grin when somebody shares a juicy comment or an interesting reveal.
Reeves takes this beyond a really good sports story and makes it just a special story in general, something that transcends its sport and says something about human ingenuity and perseverance and our ability to come together and thrive in the face of difficult circumstances. Drive To Survive offers a good showcase for why Formula 1 racing is cool, but Brawn, like the best achievements in sports, offers a good showcase for why people are cool.
Brawn: The Impossible Formula 1 Story premieres November 15 on Disney+ and Hulu
21 Comments
It’s great this sounds like it’s getting the treatment it deserves, it was an astonishing season of the sport that Button really had coming to him.But I really hope it’s nothing like Drive to Survive, I can’t stand that show, (after watching F1 since the 1980s), it’s the distillation of everything that’s wrong with the sport – I’m glad it’s bringing people into the sport, but by god it’s shit.
I had been wanting to get into F1 but yeah, the show leaning into the reality TVish angle just didn’t work for me.
Best advice is to watch the races, especially the prestige ones, as you tend to get more info about what’s going on, as more people are watching
I’m glad there are others out there like me. DTS is appalling reality garbage.
I don’t think they’ll need the DTS treatment since the real story kind of speaks for itself. Wondering if they’re going to cover/mention their car’s role in the massa incident
For anybody who doesn’t have a good grasp on the history of F1, I can recommend Rush with Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Bruhl about the epic 1976 season and the duel for the title between James Hunt and Niki Lauda. It’s a throwback to the days when track deaths were not uncommon.
Hemsworth did awesome but man, did Daniel Bruhl absolutely capture lightning in a bottle by playing Lauda, IMHO. He really, really did justice to that amazing man.
I believe his performance freaked Lauda out a bit with how well he portrayed him.
As with Drive to Survive, I think it played up the rivalry and played down the friendship between the two men, but the monologue at the end kind of made up for that.
Oh yea….there was some natural rivalry but nothing in the realm of the movie. Lauda and Hunt were accurate to a certain aspect of the way that the world saw them with Hunt being a bit of a partying playboy against Niki’s sorta heads down professionalism. But overall, they both recognized each other talents and got along a lot better in real life over the movie…..heck Lauda helped Hunt turn his life around and become a broadcaster later in life.But yea, the overall end speech was definitely based in reality….I think both’s talents and work spurred one another in ways to do better on the track during ‘76.
In the final sequence of Rush there’s a clip of the real James Hunt playing football. That was from the TV show Superstars where sporting stars would compete against each other in a variety of sports. The story goes that the night before filming, Hunt took everybody out and they all ended up at his club, absolutely wasted The next morning they were all struggling (in the pistol shooting, one footballer shot the table he picked the gun up from) but Hunt was on top form. When they asked how he did it, he told them that when a split second lapse in concentration can kill you, you operate on a different level.
Probably Ron Howard’s best film since Apollo 13.
Rush is such a great film. I’d also recommend the documentary “Senna”. It covers a lot of F1 during the 80’s and early 90’s (not too long after Hunt and Lauda’s time) though it’s mostly focused on Ayrton Senna’s career.
I keep meaning to watch Senna but never seem to get around to it.
and it’s not because there’s a new young American F1 driver who actually has a handful of points in the world championship standings. I like Logan Sargeant and hope he’s retained by Williams for next season, but he has one point.
“…dirtbag former F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone..”Define ‘dirtbag’. Bernie bought the TV rights and offered the (then) F1 teams an equal share. Led by Enzo “aerodynamics is for people who cannot build engines” Ferrari, the Constructors declined but Bernie gave the Constructors a percentage anyways. Without Bernie, we would not have had the worldwide TV coverage of Lauda/Hunt nor the subsequent joy of watching Ayrton Senna do phenomenal things before his untimely death at Imola. Because of Bernie, waking up to watch the Monaco Grand Prix on Memorial Day Sunday became a great warm-up to the Indy500 (a track that should never be used for F1).Convicted tax cheater? yes. In defense, the complexity of tax codes makes almost anyone with an income a potential cheater. In with Big Tobacco? Who in racing wasn’t. I thought the Barcode that replaced Marlboro was ingenious myself. Racing only influences my choice in cars, not alcohol, tobacco, or even firearms (love the livery on the Henry Rifles Porsche though). A shrewd businessman? Yes. Bernie demonstrated time an again that he could maneuver the art of the deal. Look at the Concordes he negotiated.
Yay for completely unnecessary global warming machines?
As opposed to our unnecessary comments written, distributed and read on global warming machines.
For real?
Is there a version with just Keanu Reeves talking, cause that’s all I’m interested in watching.
I’m really looking forward to watching this. Should be a blast.