Bas, Brawn picked up two other sponsers apart from Virgin. "Brawn GP is pleased to announce a new three-year partnership with successful foreign exchange trading company, M I G Investments. Based in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, M I G Investments is a leading Swiss Forex broker founded and managed by the Mansour family. The company has experienced strong growth since its foundation in 2003, with 70 employees providing specialised FX services to clients in over 120 countries. In December 2008, M I G Investments submitted its application for a Swiss banking license. Also Henri Lloyd, clothing I think.
Didn't know that Steve. I wish brawn all the best though. Ross is pretty much god like in the pitlane...Very intelligent man and can't say a bad word about him. With Ron Dennis gone there's little bad to say about Mclaren too.
I think that's a big part of what is going to be different in F1 going forward... these huge rule changes every year or two that have been doing on for the past 7 or 8 years are going to be a thing of the past, and that is going to be a benefit to the larger teams. The smaller team could use their guile to find a niche that the larger teams overlooked, and that's why we had a horrible Ferrari in 2005 and and a horrible McLaren shortly after, and a horrible BMW this year. When the changes are huge, it shuffles the order and gives smaller lesser funded teams chances they wouldn't otherwise have. When the changes are more incremental, it takes big budgets to make progress, and that's where the small teams do better. Based on that I don't think we're going to see the smaller and lesser funded teams having the success they have had over the last years.
Brawn is favored by stability in the rules. They can perfect their design. Stability in rules breeds a stable pecking order. The clean sheet years (like this past season) are what gives other teams a new chance. As for sponsors, I wouldn't worry about that. Just because nothing has been announced publicly doesn't mean that nothing is actually happening.
I think Brawn (and the smaller funded teams) are worst equipped to compete in a stable rules environment. Look at this year.. Brawn was fastest from the gate, and over the course of one season, without any testing, Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari (if you discount Badoer) were faster. At the end of the 2009 season, I would say the Red Bull and McLaren are the fastest two cars, the Ferrari is probably 3rd, or perhaps equal with the Brawn. But those three teams have way more money to spend than Brawn. Red Bull and McLaren are faster right now, and have the $$ to stay ahead. Brawn doesn't need to just perfect a car that is already the best, they need to overtake at least 2, if not three better cars. They also have to compete with the fact that Rosberg and Button, while good drivers, aren't on the level of Hamilton and Alonso... and the Brawn car would have to be a fair bit faster for them to be able to win.
Brawn was fastest out the gate because of the diffuser. He is on record as saying he told FOTA there were issues with the rules & the way they could be interpreted (i.e. that might allow something like that) - they didn't want to listen. The Brawn car was also compromised in certain areas because of the late adoption of the Merc engine (although those compromises were more than made up for by the engine itself). However, if the Merc engine had been in the initial design the compromises would have seen better solutions & the car would have been quicker still. The development "room" left in the car was also compromised by how good it was to start with & also the restrictions created by the engine it used. As it was it was quick enough & they were indeed able to take a calculated gamble on how much the others could catch up. Afterall there is plenty of data around as to how much time teams have been able to find over the course of the season in previous years, so they knew what the other might be able to achieve more or less & also what they needed to do. After the first few races they could also see that some cars (i.e. the Ferrari & the Renault) were just inherently bad & wern't ever going to be a threat. They also (specifically Button) got very, very lucky with others falling off the track or blowing engines when he scored badly etc. They also had fantastic reliability in all areas of the car. Everything went right for them and you need some luck to win - but that takes nothing away from the fact that they did a really REALLY good job with the materials and time they had to work with. They deserved everything they won IMO. If they have indeed been developing the 2010 car since July they will be there or thereabouts I think. There arn't going to be huge changes to next year's cars but Brawn will be able to adapt the car to deal with the Merc engine related issues & then its going to be a question of who can best incorporate the darn great fuel tanks that are going to be needed!
You disagree? Because it sounds exactly like you agree. My money would NOT be on Brawn to repeat either championship.
Exactly!! I think that Brawn benefited from very favourable circumstances last year, and that the clever exploitation of a loophole gave it a head start in the season; once it was declared 'legal' other teams were unable to catch up for a while. Button ran away with the championship thanks to the 7 victories he scored against virtually no opposition. The second part of the season reflected exactly the team strength compared to the other participants: Brawn was among the leading teams, but no domination anymore. The departure of Barichello and possibly Button will weaken the Brawn team in 2010, and it may rest that 2009 was just a flash in the pan.
I agree with all you wrote, but also keep in mind that Brawn doesn't need to just perfect an already best-in-field design. The McLaren is faster by a pretty significant margin, as is the Red Bull, and the Ferrari is probably faster as well. Over the course of the season they weren't, but that only matters as far as the 2009 season - for 2010, the only thing that matters is where they were for the end of '09. And so Brawn not only needs to work on their design, they need to leapfrog McLaren and Red Bull, who are a fair bit faster at the moment. Will they be able to? Some think so. I think they won't. It's great that MB bought into them (how good did Brawn do on that deal, eh? Got it for free, sold it to MB!), but it's going to be a long and hard road for them to get to the top, probably taking some years of work, if they make it at all. We shall see.
As we all know there is no such thing as a sure winner in F1 and one season's success does not necessarily carry over into the next year. IMO the biggest factor this time will be how much of a redesign will the larger tanks require. If, as I suspect, carrying all that extra fuel will mean big changes the teams that started design last summer will have a decided edge. Good news for Brawn and Ferrari.
Thing is BrawnGP was a unknown this year, next year one to watch. Yes Mike Ross Brawn has the strategies of genius.
Clearly what was rumoured has come to pass and that obviously has to change things to some degree. Rather than buying into, they bought out, so clearly finances are no longer an issue, but as william said, they had a head start this year and that will not be repeated next year. Being owned by Daimler and a name change won't change that. Clearly over the long term, their future is financially secured, but I still say they won't repeat. Obviously Mercedes is a German company, but they're a worldwide brand and pandering to the home audience rather than going out and getting the best drivers available is not an auspicious beginning in my opinion. That is, unless you think Rosberg and Heidfeld are top tier drivers, personally I feel pretty strongly that they are not.
Button wasn't a top driver either - he just happened to be in the right car at the right time (for once in his career) after a perfect storm of rule changes and team upheaval that ended up working out like no one would have ever seriously predicted. The question is - can lightning strike twice in the same place? >8^) ER
No, he did better than that, got it for free + £100M ($160M) to run it for a year, sold it out to Merc (can't be for less than $100M) AND retains the team principal's job at what can't be less than $5M a year!
As I've said in another thread though, I'm not convinced Ross will be happy working within the constraints of the Mercedes management and wouldn't be surprised if he sells up after a year.
If Ron Dennis can do it Ross can too. To paraphrase a line from Casablanca, that kind of money "sure takes the sting out of being occupied"
