Formula 1, Exit Honda

The first race of the Formula 1 season, in the Australian Grand Prix, on March 29, will see a new set of colours in the line-up after Honda has agreed a deal with Ross Brawn and Nick Fry to take over the team in a last-minute management buy-out. The new team will be known as Brawn GP and has received the enthusiastic backing of the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) and Formula One Management (FOM). All have pitched in with help and advice to preserve an important member of the Formula 1 family. Engines will be supplied by Mercedes who are also giving the new team extensive background support.

Formula 1 betting fans will be relieved that the move has also secured the career of Jensen Button who may well have been left without a drive this year. He has had to take a 50% drop in pay and will now have to struggle by on a salary of only £4 million. Rubens Barrichello has concluded negotiations with the new team and will be his co-driving team mate. Sadly this means that Bruno Senna, nephew of the late, great legend, Ayrton Senna, who had been in discussion with Honda, now has to look for a place in the German touring car championship, the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM). Hopefully he will return to Formula 1 in the 2010 season.

FOTA and the masters of Formula 1, only too aware that there are just ten teams left in the competition following the demise of Super Aguri, have been keen to keep Honda in the frame. As Nigel Mansell recently pointed out, in his day there were as many as eighteen teams competing. The significance of the decline should now be underestimated and it is important to the sport that as many competitors as possible are encouraged and enabled to maintain a presence on the grid. To this end, Formula 1 bosses are still drawing-up new technical guidelines and a new scoring system – all of which will be announced shortly