My Review of "Brawn: The Impossible Formula 1 Story"

Brawn: The Impossible Formula 1 Story was recently released on streaming. It's a 4 part mini documentary series that I found on Disney Plus. I generally don't follow Formula 1 racing but this one had me intrigued because of the underdog storyline. It probably helped that I didn't know anything about anything to tell you if you can get into this blind.

The story starts off with the introduction of Brawn. Basically it's a man named Ross Brawn. He's quite famous in the Formula 1 racing scene by making a name for himself with the Ferrari team. While he was with Ferrari they had some of their most prosperous years ever.

Brawn wanted more responsibilities and wanted a bigger say in strategies and overall control over the team. There's a huge kerfuffle about him moving from Ferrari to Honda. It's hard to argue with Brawn though, they were giving him a bigger responsibility and that's what he wanted.

The big problem was that this was around the big stock market crash of 2008. Everyone that was around during that time knows the hardships that came with that one. All of the car manufacturers really suffered during this time and Honda had decided to close down their Formula 1 division.

Brawn and the whole racing factory in England was going to shut down. So this was a huge ordeal. Luckily they were able to squeak by with a shoestring budget. Since they couldn't use the Honda name anymore they renamed the race team after their savior Brawn. That's basically how it starts off.

I had no idea how much politics and money that was being thrown around in Formula 1. It's very easy to understand why everyone is so infatuated with the sport. This documentary really highlights the fact that it isn't just the drivers that are responsible for the wins and losses. It's an entire team and each player is a small cog that works a gigantic machine.

I love the fact that there was such a comraderie within this underdog team. You can tell that they had only one goal in mind and that was to win. Though a lot of the mini series focuses on the 2 main drivers, Jenson Button and Rubin Barrichello. These two had a really strong rivalry that makes you think that they hated each other. There's in fighting despite the fact that there are other teams vying for the championship as well.

Keanu Reeves hosts this documentary and it's a very different side of him that we don't normally see. He's very enthusiastic about this story and I think some of his enthusiasm rubs off on the audience. It's obvious he knows the story but each little detail can catch him by surprise just like it does for us.

The documentary is quite well paced and I like that they fully explain each piece of the story to give us newbies some context to what they're talking about. There weren't any moments where I was lost or wondering what was going on because of some inside information that they assumed I had. It's carefully laid out and easy to understand without too much complicated race jargon.

There are 4 episodes that are each just under an hour long. Again the pacing is well done so it doesn't really feel like a really long series. Then again they do a recap on each episode so the runtime of each episode is not long at all.

Overall, this was a pleasant watch. It had me intrigued from start to finish and made me interested in seeing some other Formula 1 documentaries. They tend to be pretty good. I have to give this mini documentary a 7.5 out of 10. I hope they make another one soon.