Honda F1 team rescued in time for 2009 season
The revived team will be called Brawn GP
06 March 2009
Jenson Button will be back on the F1 grid in 2009 after an 11th-hour deal to rescue the Honda team just weeks before the new season.
The man behind the deal is Ross Brawn, Honda’s team principal in 2008, who masterminded many of Michael Schumacher’s race wins and world championships at Benetton and Ferrari.
The revived team will be called Brawn GP and continue to operate from the headquarters at Brackley in Northamptonshire, close to Silverstone.
Rubens Barrichello will remain as Button’s team mate, bringing to an end speculation that Bruno Senna, nephew of three times champion Ayrton Senna, could join the outfit.
Brawn GP now faces a race against time to get its cars ready for the first Grand Prix of the season in Melbourne, Australia, at the end of the month.
The team will use the same Mercedes engines as found in Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren.
But other teams have been testing their cars for almost two months, giving them plenty of chance to perfect the new-for-2009 innovations like Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (hybrid engines), slick tyres and adjustable wings.
Honda took over running the BAR team in 2006, but after scoring a victory with Button in that year’s Hungarian Grand Prix the team slumped in form and scored just 14 points last year.
The team has its roots in the historic Tyrrell outfit, who Sir Jackie Stewart won championships for in 1970s. Tyrrell was bought by BAR in 1999.
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