6 F1 what-ifs, and why 3 of them lead back to one factory in Brackley

Three of Formula 1’s six biggest what-ifs lead back to one factory. It sits in Brackley, Northamptonshire, and was purpose-built for BAR in 1999. Since then it has been Honda’s team, Brawn GP and Mercedes, with much of the same workforce under four names on the door.

The pattern says more about cars than drivers. The big turning points came from where the fastest car was being built, and who was sitting in it when it arrived.

The setups below are sourced fact. The divergences are our guesses, and we label them as such.

The signature that looked like a mistake

Lewis Hamilton signed a 3-year deal with Mercedes on 28 September 2012, and at the time it looked like a step down. McLaren had just finished third in the constructors’ championship on 378 points. Mercedes were fifth on 142.

2012 constructors’ championship, points

McLaren (3rd)378 pts

Mercedes (5th)142 pts

Source: Formula1.com — 2012 constructor standings

Since coming back as a works team in 2010, Mercedes had won one race. That was Nico Rosberg in China that April, the marque’s first win as a works team since 1955.

What followed was 8 straight constructors’ titles, 2014 to 2021, and 6 drivers’ titles for Hamilton.

The usual version has the cause the wrong way round. Mercedes’ dominance came from the 2014 turbo-hybrid rules and a long head start on the engine. Hamilton’s part was getting into the seat before that car arrived.

Staying would have meant the 2013 McLaren, which finished fifth on 122 points without a single podium. Then came the Honda years: 9th, 6th, 9th, and Fernando Alonso shouting “GP2 engine!” over the radio at Suzuka in 2015, Honda’s home race.

How Hamilton would have done in those cars is speculation. The idea that Mercedes would simply have signed Alonso instead has no evidence behind it. The name Ross Brawn has put on the record is Nico Hülkenberg, who was “on standby”.

A pound, and £92.5 million

The Brackley team nearly didn’t last long enough for Hamilton to sign for it. On 5 December 2008, in the middle of the global financial crisis, Honda announced it was leaving F1. Ross Brawn and Nick Fry couldn’t find a buyer, so they talked Honda into a management buyout.

Winners of the first 7 races of 2009

Race	Winner	Team
Australia	Jenson Button	Brawn
Malaysia	Jenson Button	Brawn
China	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull
Bahrain	Jenson Button	Brawn
Spain	Jenson Button	Brawn
Monaco	Jenson Button	Brawn
Turkey	Jenson Button	Brawn

Source: Formula1.com — 2009 race results

Brawn did buy the team for £1, but the figure is misleading. The pound was nominal. The deal worked because Honda funded the 2009 season on its way out, a reported £92.5 million, roughly what it would otherwise have spent on redundancies. Around 350 people still lost their jobs.

The car had a double diffuser, a reading of the new aero rules that Toyota and Williams also ran. Red Bull, Renault and Ferrari appealed against the stewards’ decision to allow it, with McLaren and BMW Sauber backing them. The FIA’s International Court of Appeal heard the case on 14 April 2009 and rejected the appeals.

Jenson Button won 6 of the first 7 races and took the title on 95 points. Brawn won the constructors’ on 172. On 16 November 2009, Daimler and Aabar bought 75.1 per cent of the team and renamed it Mercedes GP.

Without the rescue, Red Bull look the most likely 2009 champions. They were second in both championships with 6 wins, though that is a judgement rather than a result.

The bigger effect came later. No rescue means no Brackley team for Mercedes to buy, and no seat for Hamilton to sign for 3 years after that.

Rosberg retires after 5 days

Nico Rosberg beat Hamilton to the 2016 title 385 to 380, sealing it in Abu Dhabi on 27 November. On 2 December, at the FIA prize-giving in Vienna, he announced his immediate retirement. He quit the best team on the grid at its peak.

Mercedes named Valtteri Bottas as his replacement on 16 January 2017, and Felipe Massa came out of retirement to take Bottas’s seat at Williams. In 2017 Hamilton beat Sebastian Vettel 363 to 317, with Bottas third on 305.

With Rosberg still there, 2017 could plausibly have been a three-way fight, but that is speculation. What we can show is the queue his exit created. George Russell spent 3 seasons at Williams, plus one weekend standing in for Hamilton at the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix, and still didn’t get the drive until 2022.

Same law, different address

The fourth what-if happened away from Brackley, and that’s why it’s on this list. On 5 May 2016, Red Bull swapped its drivers: Max Verstappen came up from Toro Rosso and Daniil Kvyat went back down.

Verstappen’s age at the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix

18 y 228 d

The youngest race winner in F1 history, in his first race for Red Bull

Source: Formula1.com — Spain stats: Verstappen surpasses Vettel as F1’s youngest winner

Red Bull’s official line was that it was an opportunity, not a punishment. The widely reported trigger was Kvyat hitting Vettel twice at his home race in Russia the Sunday before.

On 15 May, Verstappen won the Spanish Grand Prix after both Mercedes collided on lap 1. He was 18 years and 228 days old, and he is still the youngest winner in F1 history. 4 titles followed, from 2021 to 2024.

Had he stayed at Toro Rosso, Daniel Ricciardo would have stayed Red Bull’s lead driver. He was third in 2016 on 256 points to Verstappen’s 204, and didn’t leave for Renault until 2019. Whether Verstappen would still have reached the 2021 title fight is impossible to know.

The same logic now works against him, and he is arguably still the best driver of his generation. He lost the 2025 title to Lando Norris by 2 points, 423 to 421. By the Italian Grand Prix in September 2026 he was sixth on 127 points without a win all season, driving an RB22 reported to be 9 or 10 kg overweight under the new rules.

2007: decided by a gearbox

2007 is the exception. This one came down to a mechanical failure, with no decision in an office behind it.

2007 drivers’ championship, top 3

Pos	Driver	Team	Pts
1	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	110
2	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren	109
3	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	109

Source: Formula1.com — 2007 driver standings

Hamilton went to Brazil leading on 107 points. His gearbox failed early in the race, he dropped to 18th and recovered to 7th. Kimi Räikkönen won the race and the title, 110 points to 109 and 109, with Hamilton second ahead of Alonso on countback.

One more point would have made Alonso a triple champion at 26. The usual line on him, the great driver who kept choosing the wrong car, would read differently. As it is, he has 32 wins, the last of them at the 2013 Spanish Grand Prix.

McLaren’s year had already cost it plenty. Spygate got the team thrown out of the constructors’ championship and hit with a $100 million fine, minus the TV money it lost along with its points.

A year later Hamilton won the title by 1 point, 98 to 97, after passing Timo Glock on the final lap in Brazil.

Imola 1994: the one nobody chose

The sixth isn’t a decision at all, and it’s the hardest one to write about. Ayrton Senna joined Williams for 1994, taking the seat of the retired Alain Prost. On paper it was a move to the fastest car on the grid.

He was uneasy with the FW16 from the start. “I have a very negative feeling about driving the car and driving it on the limit,” he said. He arrived at Imola with no points; Michael Schumacher had 20.

Rubens Barrichello crashed heavily on the Friday. Roland Ratzenberger was killed in qualifying on Saturday 30 April. On Sunday 1 May, on lap 7, Senna’s Williams went off at Tamburello. He was 34, with 3 world titles. The cause was argued over for years, and we’re not going to settle it here.

Nobody knows what Senna would have done next. One claim does get repeated as if it were settled. Luca di Montezemolo has said he met Senna in Bologna on 27 April 1994 and that they discussed a Ferrari move for 1996. That’s one man’s account, given about 20 years later, with no contract behind it.

What we can document is what came out of that weekend. The Grand Prix Drivers’ Association was re-formed on race day, with Senna, Gerhard Berger and Schumacher as its first directors. Tamburello became a chicane, and engines were cut from 3.5 to 3.0 litres for 1995 as the safety reforms followed.

What the six have in common

Look at the six together and they follow one pattern. Hamilton moved to a team that was about to win, and Brawn had kept that team alive. Rosberg walked out of it at its peak.

Verstappen was moved into a front-running car and is now stuck in a struggling one. Alonso missed a third title by 1 point and is still talked about as the great driver in the wrong car. Senna went where the fastest car seemed to be, and didn’t live to see what it became.

2026 is the same argument playing out now. After Monza in September, Mercedes led the constructors’ standings on 468 points, with Kimi Antonelli top of the drivers’ table.

Hamilton was third. He had finally won for Ferrari in Barcelona at 41, his 106th victory, making him the oldest winner since Jack Brabham in 1970. Verstappen was sixth. Brackley is winning again, 17 years after £1 and a cheque from Honda kept the team going.