Ross Brawn cashes in
How could he? Ross Brawn has sold out to a bunch of marauding Goths from Baden-Württemberg. The bastards are then going to transform a proud English racing team in the finest traditions of Lotus, Tyrrel and Brabham into a German team with German drivers called Mercedes. Is this what the war was fought for, Mr Brawn? Is this why our brave boys instilled the Dunkirk spirit into us? For you to roll over and give everything up to the impudent Germans? Shame on you!
In writing that last paragraph I am anticipating what the English tabloids are going to be screaming tomorrow morning as they express their indignation at the takeover of Brawn GP by Mercedes which was announced this morning. The Germans will own 75% of the company and take control of its premises in Brackley while changing the team’s name to “Mercedes Racing” and painting the cars silver. World champion or not, Jenson Button is not German and, therefore, not suitable to the Baden-Württemberg lot. To survive in Formula One he will now have to smile sweetly and cut a deal with an English team in Woking, Surrey which you might have heard about. It’s called McLaren. Although Mercedes own part of McLaren – and the team is officially called McLaren-Mecedes – the English shareholders will assume full control of the company in the next couple of years. The Germans have fallen out of love with their perfidious English friends, you see. While cooperating with Mercedes to race Formula One cars, McLaren were quietly building super road cars behind the scenes and seriously eating into the market for Mercedes’s own sports cars! The situation simply could not be permitted to continue. A face-saving divorce is the only way forward.
For Ross Brawn personally, the decision is typical of the man’s measured nature. When you have spent the better part of a year trying to ensure survival of your creation and then – as if a huge finger has reached down from the sky and touched your forehead and a booming voice has declared “it’s you!” – seen it propelled to the impossible heights of world champion on two levels, you must feel a bit like Alexander the Great: “when Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer.” There is nothing more for Brawn to achieve; nowhere else for him to go but down. He knows this and, once again, has produced evidence of his supernatural genius. He rescued the detritus of a Formula One team from Honda for £1 and nine months later has sold it on as a successful, championship-winning product to Mercedes for £30 million while retaining a minority shareholding. For a chap who claimed to know nothing about business that is not bad at all. Now he can concentrate on doing the job he loves in the knowledge that his family’s financial security is assured. Hats off to Mr Brawn.
Meanwhile, the discussions in Woking will have chins wagging for a few days to come. The smart money is on Jenson Button accompanying Lewis Hamilton at McLaren next year. That may not be a very good thing for the new world champion. I have no doubt that Hamilton is more talented than he is and will have no qualms about showing it. Worse, whereas Button would have been able to mould the Brawn team around him had it remained independent, he will now be joining Team Hamilton which – as we saw with Fernando Alonso – can be very unsettling.
McLaren had made no secret of the fact that they have been in discussions with that other world champion who has been jettisoned by Ferrari, Kimi Raikkonen. Since Raikkonen was contracted to drive for Ferrari until the end of 2010, Ferrari are prepared to pay him $16 million to stay away. In the absence of a drive from a top team like McLaren for at least $16 million, there is little incentive for the Finn to do anything but get pissed and chase skirts around the world for a year. Most sane blokes I know would do the same, so more power to Mr Raikkonen.
Spare a thought for the Japanese chap who made the decision to quit Formula One and accepted £1 from Ross Brawn to enhance it. He must be feeling like a bloke who has been rogered rigid!
We have only just got through the 2009 season and the 2010 intrigue is already upon us. What else is about to emerge?
Gitau
16 November 2009
In writing that last paragraph I am anticipating what the English tabloids are going to be screaming tomorrow morning as they express their indignation at the takeover of Brawn GP by Mercedes which was announced this morning. The Germans will own 75% of the company and take control of its premises in Brackley while changing the team’s name to “Mercedes Racing” and painting the cars silver. World champion or not, Jenson Button is not German and, therefore, not suitable to the Baden-Württemberg lot. To survive in Formula One he will now have to smile sweetly and cut a deal with an English team in Woking, Surrey which you might have heard about. It’s called McLaren. Although Mercedes own part of McLaren – and the team is officially called McLaren-Mecedes – the English shareholders will assume full control of the company in the next couple of years. The Germans have fallen out of love with their perfidious English friends, you see. While cooperating with Mercedes to race Formula One cars, McLaren were quietly building super road cars behind the scenes and seriously eating into the market for Mercedes’s own sports cars! The situation simply could not be permitted to continue. A face-saving divorce is the only way forward.
For Ross Brawn personally, the decision is typical of the man’s measured nature. When you have spent the better part of a year trying to ensure survival of your creation and then – as if a huge finger has reached down from the sky and touched your forehead and a booming voice has declared “it’s you!” – seen it propelled to the impossible heights of world champion on two levels, you must feel a bit like Alexander the Great: “when Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer.” There is nothing more for Brawn to achieve; nowhere else for him to go but down. He knows this and, once again, has produced evidence of his supernatural genius. He rescued the detritus of a Formula One team from Honda for £1 and nine months later has sold it on as a successful, championship-winning product to Mercedes for £30 million while retaining a minority shareholding. For a chap who claimed to know nothing about business that is not bad at all. Now he can concentrate on doing the job he loves in the knowledge that his family’s financial security is assured. Hats off to Mr Brawn.
Meanwhile, the discussions in Woking will have chins wagging for a few days to come. The smart money is on Jenson Button accompanying Lewis Hamilton at McLaren next year. That may not be a very good thing for the new world champion. I have no doubt that Hamilton is more talented than he is and will have no qualms about showing it. Worse, whereas Button would have been able to mould the Brawn team around him had it remained independent, he will now be joining Team Hamilton which – as we saw with Fernando Alonso – can be very unsettling.
McLaren had made no secret of the fact that they have been in discussions with that other world champion who has been jettisoned by Ferrari, Kimi Raikkonen. Since Raikkonen was contracted to drive for Ferrari until the end of 2010, Ferrari are prepared to pay him $16 million to stay away. In the absence of a drive from a top team like McLaren for at least $16 million, there is little incentive for the Finn to do anything but get pissed and chase skirts around the world for a year. Most sane blokes I know would do the same, so more power to Mr Raikkonen.
Spare a thought for the Japanese chap who made the decision to quit Formula One and accepted £1 from Ross Brawn to enhance it. He must be feeling like a bloke who has been rogered rigid!
We have only just got through the 2009 season and the 2010 intrigue is already upon us. What else is about to emerge?
Gitau
16 November 2009
posted by Gitau at 5:08 pm
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