“Every time we sat down with anyone, because it was Keanu, they really wanted to tell him things,” says Neil Duncanson, the North One boss (part of All3Media) who was executive producer of the series with Disney’s Sean Doyle. He told Motor Sport that had been their hope when partnering with the star. “Even Bernie, bless him, was kind of quite keen to actually says things that perhaps he hadn’t before.”
This sets Brawn apart. 2021’s Schumacher documentary had an odd feeling of absence to it, lacking enough archive interviews with the seven-time champion, as well as dissenting voices to commentate on his frequently-questionable on-track behaviour. Even Damon Hill was quite nice about him, almost too respectful.
The Reeves production has none of that – there are plenty of views that oppose the familiar “fairytale” narrative, giving it the balance that it needs.
It also excels by looking beyond the big cheeses, adding to the story via the the everyday people working in the factory with extraordinary tales to tell, without becoming banal.
We hear from fuel man Gary Holland, flown in each weekend in between running his plumbing business following some disastrous pitstops in Melbourne, as well as mechanic Mike Deane, but perhaps the most significant appearance comes from the person behind the double diffuser themselves: aerodynamicist Masayuki Minagawa. Sadly, he only gets the briefest of cameos.
This is in addition to many more well-known Brackley figures such as James Vowles, Andrew Shovlin and Jock Clear.
The withdrawal of Honda at the end of the 2008 season sees the rival teams band together to help save Brawn, and the documentary shows a briefly-held communal spirit in F1 as the other squads try to prop up the ailing skeleton team; laughably stark to now when they won’t let one extra (the well-equipped Andretti outfit) in.
It didn’t last though. Wrangling over its prospective engine provides amusing light insight, but the tone gets more serious as the filmmakers examine the protest by seven teams over the legality of Brawn’s double diffuser, as well as similar designs used by Williams and Toyota, which gave the teams extra downforce.
Against all the odds the team almost inadvertently built a brilliant car, not quite realising just how good it would be, with grainy phone footage showing the BGP 001’s Silverstone shakedown run before it destroys the opposition in testing and the early races.
Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemolo seethes over the double-diffuser ‘trick’ and Red Bull boss Christian Horner plays his usual villain-you-love-to-hate part well, while Ecclestone is the joker in pack.
Horner, good-humoured through most of the proceedings, remarkably still seems bitter about the FIA and then Court of Appeal ruling in Brawn’s favour. Considering the devastating success he’s had since, you’d think he’d have let this one go.