2009 Formula One World Championship


The 2009 FIA Formula One World Championship was the 63rd season of FIA Formula One motor racing. It featured the 60th Formula One World Championship which was contested over 17 events commencing with the on 29 March and ending with the inaugural on 1 November.
Jenson Button and Brawn GP secured the Drivers' Championship and Constructors' Championship titles, respectively, in the Brazilian Grand Prix, the penultimate race of the season. It was both Button and Brawn's first and only championship success, Brawn becoming the first team to win the Constructors' Championship in their debut season. 2009 was the only season in which Brawn GP competed, before the team was sold to Mercedes for the 2010 season, also making them the only team ever to win 100% of championships in which they took part. Button was the tenth British driver to win the championship, and following Lewis Hamilton's success in 2008, it was the first time the championship had been won by English drivers in consecutive seasons, and the first time since Graham Hill and Jackie Stewart that consecutive championships had been won by British drivers. Also notable was the success of Red Bull Racing, as well as the poor performances of McLaren and Ferrari compared to the 2008 season.
Ten teams participated in the championship after [|several rule changes] were implemented by the FIA to cut costs to try to minimise the financial difficulties. There were further changes to try to improve the on-track spectacle with the return of slick tyres, changes to aerodynamics and the introduction of kinetic energy recovery systems presenting some of the biggest changes in Formula One regulations for several decades.
The Brawn team, formed as a result of a management buyout of the Honda team, won six of the first seven races, their ability to make the most of the new regulations being a deciding factor in the championship. Red Bull Racing caught up in an unpredictable second half of the season, with the season being the first time since that all participating teams had scored World Championship points. Sebastian Vettel, Button's teammate Rubens Barrichello and Vettel's teammate Mark Webber were his main challengers over the season, winning eight races between them to finish in second, third and fourth, respectively.
It would be the last time a British-licensed constructor won the constructors' title until McLaren in 2024. The 2009 season was also the first season season since 1997 in which the cars raced on fully slick dry weather tyres. This would also be the last season to use the scoring system valid since 2003, and feature in-race refuelling during pit stops as the practice which had been allowed continuously since the 1994 season would be banned from 2010 onwards.

Teams and drivers

The following teams and drivers competed in the 2009 FIA Formula One World Championship. Teams competed with tyres supplied by Bridgestone.
EntrantConstructorChassisEngineRace DriversRounds

Free practice drivers

One constructor entered free practice only drivers over the course of the season: Kamui Kobayashi for Toyota at the.

Team changes

Honda withdrew ahead of the 2009 season, and the team was bought by a consortium led by team principal Ross Brawn. Brawn renamed the team Brawn GP, and raced with Mercedes engines, but retained Honda drivers Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello. Force India also raced with Mercedes engines, after running with Ferrari engines in.

Driver changes

The only offseason driver change was following the retirement of Red Bull's David Coulthard after 14 years in Formula One. He was replaced by Sebastian Vettel, who had raced for Toro Rosso in 2008. Vettel's seat at Toro Rosso was taken by the Swiss driver Sébastien Buemi, who was Red Bull's test driver in 2008.
Following the German Grand Prix, Toro Rosso's Sébastien Bourdais was dropped by the team, with Toro Rosso principal Franz Tost claiming that the partnership had not met his expectations. Bourdais was replaced by Jaime Alguersuari ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix. Alguersuari had been racing in Formula Renault 3.5 Series in 2009, and had only signed a deal to replace Brendon Hartley as Toro Rosso's test driver two weeks prior. Bourdais was advised by counsel to file suit for breach of contract by Toro Rosso. Toro Rosso settled the matter with a $2.1 million payment to Bourdais to avoid litigation.
After sustaining an injury during qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix, Ferrari's Felipe Massa missed the remainder of the season. He was replaced for the next two races by Ferrari test driver Luca Badoer, but after Badoer failed to score a single point in his two races, Ferrari replaced him with Giancarlo Fisichella who had signed a deal to be a Ferrari test driver for 2010 and had driven for Force India throughout the 2009 season. Fisichella's seat at Force India was taken by Vitantonio Liuzzi, who was Force India's test driver.
Following the Hungarian Grand Prix, Renault parted ways with Nelson Piquet Jr. as he had failed to score a single point and allegations that he had intentionally crashed during the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix surfaced. Piquet was replaced by Romain Grosjean, who was Renault's test driver.
In qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix, Toyota's Timo Glock crashed heavily at the last corner and was airlifted to hospital with a leg injury. As he was not fit to race, Jarno Trulli was the only driver representing Toyota at the Japanese Grand Prix. On 11 October, Toyota confirmed that its test driver Kamui Kobayashi would make his race debut in the Brazilian Grand Prix, as Glock had suffered further complications from his accident, resulting in a cracked vertebra and he would not be guaranteed to be fit in time to race in Brazil. Kobayashi retained the seat in the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi.

Calendar

Calendar changes

Regulation changes

The FIA released preliminary technical regulations for the 2009 season on 22 December 2006, and these were revised several times to accommodate the findings of the Overtaking Working Group and the increasing need for cost-cutting in the sport to minimise financial costs.
  • Slick tyres returned for the first time since they were abolished for the season. Bridgestone continued to be the sole supplier of tyres, and drivers still had to use both compounds of tyre during a race. Soft tyres were differentiated by a green marking around the sides of the tyres, rather than a white marking in a groove as used in. Further, wet tyres were renamed "intermediate" and extreme-weather tyres were renamed "wet".
  • The aerodynamic regulations were radically altered for the 2009 season. The front wings were made lower and wider, while rear wings were changed to be higher and narrower. As well as the changes in the dimensions of the wings, bodywork became much more regulated with many of the additional components seen in previous seasons removed, making 2009 cars noticeably different in appearance than in previous years. The diffuser at the rear of the car was moved back and upwards. Many other minor chassis components were also standardised. The aim of the new aerodynamic regulations, as well as the reintroduction of slick tyres, was to decrease reliance on aerodynamic downforce and increase mechanical grip with the aim of making wheel-to-wheel racing easier.
  • For the first time, cars were allowed to use driver adjustable bodywork, in the form of adjustable flaps in the front wing. The flaps could be adjusted by up to six degrees, limited to only two adjustments per lap. Adjustable front wings were designed to improve downforce when following another car, another change designed to improve overtaking.
  • Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems, a regenerative braking device designed to recover some of the vehicle's kinetic energy normally dissipated as heat during braking, were introduced for the 2009 season. The recovered energy can be stored electrically, in a battery or supercapacitor, or mechanically, in a flywheel, for use as a source of additional accelerative power at the driver's discretion by way of a boost button on the steering wheel. The regulations limit the additional power to around of 400kJ for six seconds a lap. The systems were not made compulsory, and because of concerns about both limited performance gains and safety implications only four teams opted to use the system during the season.
  • While the FIA were planning on introducing a budget cap to limit the amount of spending by Formula One teams in 2008, the amount was not agreed upon and the budget cap idea was dropped. Instead, costs were brought down by a complete ban on in-season testing, a forced reduction in wind tunnel usage, the sharing of more data during race weekends, an increased minimum engine lifespan and gearboxes had to last for four races, and a penalty of five places in the starting grid was applied, should a driver change it during the weekend before the start of the race.
  • Each driver was limited to a maximum of eight engines throughout the season, in addition to four engines for practice/testing purposes; using additional engines resulted in a 10-place grid penalty for each additional engine used. To aid improvements in reliability, the engines were detuned from 19,000 RPM to 18,000 rpm.
  • The rule stating that the pit lane is closed during a safety car period was scrapped in 2009. The rule was introduced in 2007 to prevent drivers rushing back to the pits to refuel, possibly speeding through a danger zone, but software was successfully developed to solve this problem. The pit lane speed limit was also increased from to.
  • The FIA initially declared that the driver with the most wins at the end of the season would be the winner of the 2009 Formula One World Championship, but dropped the decision because of opposition from teams and drivers. Formula One Teams Association argued that FIA could not change the rules this close to the season's start without the full agreement of the teams. Other proposals rejected by FIA were the introduction of a new points system with the scale 12–9–7–5–4–3–2–1 and to award medals for first, second and third place.