Ross Brawn has never been shy about a clever idea. As Formula 1 inches toward its 2026 rules reboot, the former Ferrari mastermind and architect of Brawn GP’s fairytale title in 2009 has been reflecting on the machines that defined his career — and the ones that pushed the envelope hard enough to rattle it.
Asked to pick out his favorite designs, Brawn put his own BGP 001 front and centre — the car that detonated the double-diffuser era and sent Jenson Button sprinting out of the blocks with six wins from the first seven races in 2009. But he also singled out the Benetton B194, Michael Schumacher’s championship winner from 1994, a brilliant but storm-clouded piece of kit that dominated the conversation on and off the track.
On the Brawn GP machine, Brawn stressed that the car’s story was more than just a loophole exploited. It was the culmination of deep resources and smart program management at the tail end of Honda’s F1 project. “We had three wind tunnels running in parallel,” he recalled, a setup that sounds chaotic until you hear how they sliced up the workload to use each tunnel’s strengths. It was a Japanese engineer, Brawn said, who conjured the twin-floor approach that ultimately birthed the now-infamous double diffuser.
Then Honda pulled out. Cue the scramble. With a late switch to Mercedes power, the team had to contort the rear end to make it fit. The crank height on the Mercedes meant the gearbox sat higher than ideal, hurting the center of gravity and messing with suspension geometry. Despite the compromises, the car still lit up the season. And Brawn’s coda is the kind of line that still makes engine men wince: if the 001 had been born around that Mercedes unit from day one, it would’ve been even quicker.
It’s a timely reminder, because the sport is on the cusp of another giant reset — and the kind of reset that invites a rule-reader’s imagination. Next year’s cars will be lighter, shorter and more agile, with an “overtaking mode” baked into the plan. The power units remain 1.6-litre V6 hybrids, but the architecture shifts to a 50/50 split between electric and combustion power, running on sustainable fuel. The people writing the rules believe it will generate better racing. The people reading them are already hunting for daylight.
Brawn knows what that looks like. The 1994 Benetton B194, which carried Schumacher to the Drivers’ crown by a single point over Damon Hill, was a masterclass in getting ahead of the curve. Benetton started the design early — a year ahead, when active suspension was still legal — and committed to building a very light car for the passive-suspension era that followed. Light meant ballast, and ballast meant freedom: a chance to stack weight low and drag the center of gravity right down where you want it.
It was, as Brawn put it, a “fabulous design” and “one of the very special cars” of his career. It was also mired in controversy. The season spiraled through accusations and flashpoints, from disqualifications to the title-deciding clash with Hill in Adelaide. The B194 was brilliant enough to win on merit; it just happened to live in a year where virtually nothing was simple.
If you’re ticking the parallels, you’re not alone. Big resets reward early starters. They reward teams who take a view on where the regulations will settle, then bend every department to that vision. Brawn’s BGP 001 was a technical advantage on wheels; the B194 was an early mover with enviable fundamentals. Different paths, same outcome: cars that were right quicker than their rivals.
With 2026 coming fast, that’s the subtext teams will be reading. The rulebook will be new, the loopholes will be fresh, the smart ideas will come from unexpected places. And somewhere, in a wind tunnel or a quiet corner of CAD, a bright engineer might already be sketching the next diffuser that the rest of the grid spends six months chasing.
Brawn, never one for nostalgia without purpose, frames it as a lesson as much as a memory. Start early. Be brave. And if you find a clean edge in the regs, don’t apologize for it — make it sing.
