A race-fixing scandal, the chaos caused by rule changes, a life-threatening injury to Felipe Massa, the brief possibility of Michael Schumacher racing again in F1 and the announcement that Mercedes were returning to the sport with their own works team for the first time in 55 years were also headline grabbers.

Brawn were formed out of the ashes of the Honda F1 team amid so much uncertainty that it was still not clear whether they could race even before the season-opener in Australia in March. Despite this handicap, the British-based team still managed to steal a march on all their rivals when it came to the new set of technical regulations which saw the biggest shake up of the rules for 20 years.

While Brawn soared, Ferrari suffered and the low point came at the Hungarian GP in July when Massa suffered a severe head injury. A shadow was cast across F1 with the revelation that Nelson Piquet Jr deliberately crashed his Renault during the 2008 Singapore GP to facilitate a victory for his teammate Fernando Alonso.

Off the track, Jean Todt beat Ari Vatanen in the election to succeed Max Mosley as president of the FIA. This news was quickly followed by Toyota’s announcement that it was ending its involvement in the sport. Meanwhile, Mercedes revealed that it was was buying a majority share of Brawn, which will race in 2010 as Mercedes GP, while Button will partner compatriot Lewis Hamilton at McLaren next season.