THE STORY OF THE DECADE

This is Ross Brawn’s decade as much as Michael Schumacher’s. After joining Ferrari late in 1996, Brawn is in place to oversee Schumacher’s unprecedented run of championships, 1999-2004; and while he departs shortly before Kimi Räikkönen’s title-winning year in 2007, it’s Brawn’s technical team that gets Kimi’s Ferrari on the grid too. Then, after a couple of wilderness years with Honda, there comes the fairytale of 2009. Brawn saves the team after Honda’s abrupt withdrawal, and – with the help of Mercedes engines and a dayglo marker-pen livery – Jenson Button (pictured) wins the title in a Brawn-badged car. And if this decade is to be remembered for anything else, it’s surely Lewis Hamilton’s F1 debut in Melbourne, Australia, in 2007. It’s the first Grand Prix after Michael Schumacher’s retirement, and the German’s precocious young heir is already leading a race…