The team emerged from the collapse of Honda's Formula One programme. Honda announced its withdrawal in December 2008, citing the global financial crisis, while rivals Toyota and BMW Sauber elected to remain until the end of 2009 before also departing. Ross Brawn, the team's technical chief, led a management buyout of the operation, with the famous symbolic sale price of £1 from Honda chairman Hiroshi Oshima to Brawn. The FIA officially recognised the new entry under the name Brawn GP on 17 March 2009.
The car destined for the 2009 season had already been under development since early 2008 while still owned by Honda. Originally designated the RA109, it was redesigned to accept a customer Mercedes-Benz engine after Honda's exit and renamed the BGP-001. For the 2009 season, Honda provided a $100 million budget as part of the exit agreement, while Mercedes supplied engines as a customer partner — a relationship that soon deepened into full ownership.
Pre-season testing revealed immediately that the BGP-001 was an exceptional piece of engineering. Its central technical innovation was a double diffuser — an aerodynamic configuration that extracted substantially more downforce from the underbody of the car than rival designs. Ferrari, Red Bull Racing, and Renault filed formal protests against the design, arguing it contravened the technical regulations. The FIA, acting as the governing body of the sport, declared the double diffuser legal in April 2009, vindicating Brawn GP's interpretation of the rules.
The team retained drivers Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello from the Honda era. Button, a veteran who had previously gone without a race win since 2006, proved the ideal combination of consistent pace and racecraft required to capitalise on the car's early advantage.
Brawn GP's debut at the 2009 Australian Grand Prix was extraordinary: the team qualified first and second and finished the race first and second. Button went on to win six of the first seven races of the season, building a lead in the Drivers' Championship that survived the gradual convergence of rival teams as their own double-diffuser designs matured through the year.
Button clinched the 2009 Drivers' Championship at the Brazilian Grand Prix in October, finishing fifth from fourteenth on the grid — a controlled, measured drive that secured him the title with one race remaining. Barrichello won twice across the season and finished third in the Drivers' standings. The team won eight of seventeen races in total and secured the Constructors' Championship alongside Button's title.
Brawn GP finished the season with fifteen podiums, five pole positions, four fastest laps, and 172 total points — an average of 10.12 points per race. As a constructor that competed in only one season and won both major titles in that season, it holds a 100% championship success rate unmatched in Formula One history. In 2010 the team received the Laureus World Sports Award for Team of the Year.
On 16 November 2009, it was confirmed that Mercedes-Benz, in partnership with investment firm Aabar Investments, had acquired a 75.1% stake in Brawn GP. The team was renamed Mercedes GP for the 2010 season. Ross Brawn remained as team principal, and the majority of the workforce was retained through the transition. The outfit evolved over the following years into the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team, which went on to win eight consecutive Constructors' Championships from 2014 to 2021 and seven consecutive Drivers' Championships from 2014 to 2020, cementing the lineage that began with Brawn's improbable 2009 triumph.
Brawn GP stands as one of the most remarkable stories in Formula One history: a team assembled from the remnants of a manufacturer programme abandoned in financial crisis, sold for a symbolic pound, and driven to a clean sweep of both world titles in a single season. The double diffuser controversy it sparked reshaped aerodynamic regulations, and the team's later incarnation as Mercedes became the sport's dominant force for a decade.