Official: Honda F1 becomes Brawn GP

Brawn GP Win their first race at Melbourne - and Richard Branson's Virging jumps in as sponsor

Honda F1 morphs in to Brawn GP

Well, it’s good to see they survived!

After reporting last week that the Honda F1 team was going to be the subject of a management buyout, thus securing the team and its employees, an official announcement has now been made and we can confirm that Ross Brawn has taken control of the Honda F1 Team, which will henceforth be known as Brawn GP.

It would have been a mighty shame if Ross Brawn had been lost to F1 again. Enough that he took a sabbatical after his world-championship adventure with Michael Schumacher, without him out job-hunting again. The man is the F1 genius of his generation and, despite Honda’s somewhat pedestrian showing of late in F1, there is always the expectation that the Brawn magic will kick in and the team will be up with the leaders.

In fact, Brawn said at the end of last season that he expected Honda to be running in the top 3 in the 2009-2010 season, so he must be pretty confident of what the team had put together for the new season. To be fair, and we don’t want to burden the new Brawn GP with unrealistic expectations, a new engine (which will be a Mercedes Benz V8) does affect the prediction somewhat, so it would be good to see Brawn GP just being capable for the first season, and not down with the also-rans.

Still, good news for F1 and good news for Ross Brawn. No word on how much changed hands for the team, but rumour has it that Honda gave it away, together with a years worth of pocket money, as that was cheaper than the cost of paying off the expensive contracts in place. Still, that gives Ross the whole season to make the team competitive in order to raise finance for 2010/2011.

Welcome to Frank William’s world, Ross!