Hamburg - While the 2008 Formula One season will always be remembered for the final lap of the Brazilian Grand Prix when Lewis Hamilton pipped Felipe Massa to the drivers' title, the emergence of Brawn GP from the ashes of Honda will go down as the 2009 highlight. The year will also be remembered for the threats of a break-away series, the row over Brawn's double diffuser, Felipe Massa's life- threating accident in Hungary, BMW's departure from the sport, Michael Schumacher's on-and-off comeback, and Nelson Piquet Jr's revelations about race-fixing at Renault.
But the main talking point of the year was certainly the Brawn GP team.
From not even knowing if it would be in a position to compete at the start of the year, Brawn went on to become the first team to win the constructors' title in a debut season, while Jenson Button claimed his first drivers' crown.
The British-based team, which was forced to reduce its workforce from 750 to 450 when it came into being following Honda's withdrawal from the sport at the end of last year, took full advantage of the new rule changes to steal a march on its competitors.
Button won six of the opening seven races thanks to a high- performing Mercedes engine and the car's clever double diffuser, which took advantage of a loophole in the regulations to create more efficient aerodynamic airflow and downforce than Brawn's main rivals.
However, as the season progressed the Brawn's problems in generating tyre temperature became a serious issue at the cooler European races where Red Bull had a significant advantage because of its greater downforce.
McLaren-Mercedes and Ferrari, who both made very poor starts to the season by their high standards, also became more competitive thanks not least to their KERS energy storage systems, which helped offset their aerodynamic shortcomings.
Button also suffered a mid-season wobble but the Briton managed to retain his nerve and secure enough points in the second half of the season to claim his debut title at the penultimate race of the season in Brazil.
Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel, meanwhile, gave further indications that he is a world champion in the making, winning two of the final three races to finish second overall.
Off the track, the sport was overshadowed for long periods by a threat from the major teams to set up a breakaway series because of planned budgetary and technical changes for the 2010 season.
But a resolution was eventually found which saw the teams agreeing to a voluntary budgetary cap for 2010 and which also involved Max Mosley not standing for re-election as president of the FIA. With Mosley out of the running for a fourth term, Jean Todt beat Ari Vatanen to the post.
Massa's horror injury during qualifying at the Hungaroring in July also cast a shadow as the Brazilian suffered multiple skull fractures when he was hit on the helmet by a spring from Rubens Barrichello's Brawn Brawn car and crashed into a tyre wall.
The accident ended Massa's season and briefly opened the door to the possibility of seven-time world champion Schumacher returning to the Ferrari cockpit but a neck injury suffered in a motorcycle accident earlier in the year put an end to that particular dream.
The more unpalatable side of F1 came to the fore in September when Renault was handed a suspended ban by the FIA for ordering its driver Piquet Jr to crash at last year's Singapore GP.
The revelation that Renault conspired with Piquet to cause a deliberate crash designed to benefit team-mate Fernando Alonso resulted in the departure from the team of principal Flavio Briatore and chief engineer Patrick Symonds.
The year ended as it began with one team dominating proceedings on the race track. However, while Brawn enjoyed a 1-2 finish in Melbourne in March, it was Red Bull to the fore at the inaugural Abu Dhabi GP on Sunday, setting the scene nicely for what will hopefully be an equally competitive 2010 season.
