Mercedes Take-Over Brawn: Official Statements

Mercedes Benz have taken over ownership of the Brawn GP team re-naming it Mercedes Benz GP.  The announcement came this morning and more information can be found here:

Mercedes Benz and Ross Brawn both released statements this lunchtime detailing the move.

“Mercedes will compete in the F1 world championship next year starting with its own factory team,” said head of Mercedes cars, Dr Dieter Zetsche.

“This is possible by the agreed acquisition of 75.1 per cent of Brawn GP, 45.1 per cent from Daimler and 30 per cent from our partner Aabar Investments. The rest will be with the current share – Ross Brawn, Nick Fry and other members. The interests of Daimler are aligned therefore it will be a true Mercedes-Benz team.

“Ross Brawn will continue to be the team principal and thereby we are maintaining his strength. Just like the engine team at Mercedes Benz High Performance Engines, the new Mercedes Benz grand prix team will be co-ordinated by Mercedes Benz Motorsport which is as everybody knows headed by Norbert Haug.”

Ross Brawn was proud of the team that bore his namesake, and is very happy with the Mercedes deal.

“Both I and my fellow directors at Brawn GP are incredibly proud of our staff, drivers and everyone associated with our team and thank them for their commitment, outstanding teamwork and their focus on achieving results in sometimes difficult circumstances,” he said.

“The senior management group will remain in place to lead our team and on behalf of everyone at Brawn GP, we are honoured to be representing such a prestigious brand as Mercedes-Benz in Formula One next year and will be working together to do our best to reward their faith in our team.”

Mercedes Benz Buy Controlling Stake In Brawn GP

Mercedes Benz have announced that they have purchased a controlling 75% stake in the Brawn GP team.

The German automobile giant had been speculated with a move to Ross Brawn’s championship winning team, which it supplied engines too in 2009, since September and today’s announcement seeked to tidy up the paddock thoughts ahead of 2010 preparations.

It is now likely that Brawn, who won both titles in their maiden season, will be re-named Mercedes Benz Grand Prix however Ross Brawn will stay on as Team Principal alognside Norbert Haug of Mercedes Motorsport.

Mercedes Benz will also be pulling out of McLaren with the team having to buy back the 40% shares over 2 years, but remain with the German’s as an engine supplier until 2015.

Jenson Button is now set to go to McLaren to race alongside Lewis Hamilton, the Briton visited the factory earlier this week.  He claims not to be motivated by cash in the move, however his salary is likely to be greater than the £3.5million Brawn offered him.

With Nico Rosberg looking ever more likely to head to the new Mercedes GP team, Nick Heidfeld is a suprise team mate choice, Norberg Haug says he has held various meetings with the perennial underperformer ousted from BMW this season.

“We are speaking with Nick Heidfeld as well,” Haug told DPA.

“Mercedes-Benz supports the idea of signing an experienced and capable German driver. There is however no reason to finalise the driver situation too hastily.”

More news this evening.

Mercedes Benz Look To Purchase Part Of Brawn GP Team

Plans for Mercedes Benz to buy in to the Brawn GP team have emerged today in well respected British newspaper The Daily Telegraph.

The newspaper suggests that Mercedes will not complete a full buy-out of the team, and instead purchase a percentage of it in a similar way to McLaren.  Then use their stake, of probably around 20% to assist the team with equity and a certain engine and development deal.

Brawn get this news on the back of a positive few weeks in terms of sorting things out for next season, with Nick Fry telling the media that Brawn have a confirmed big name sponsor for 2010 which could be Emirates Airlines.

Mercedes Benz didn’t comment with much as always, but their other big investment team McLaren did, seemingly they are not concerned Mercedes Benz could leave the Woking based squad for Brawn’s new rockets.

“Mercedes-Benz’s engine supply contract with McLaren is a very long-standing one – it’s in its 15th consecutive year, in fact – and it will continue to run for many years to come,” said the McLaren spokesman.

“However, we’re supportive of our partner’s plans regarding engine supply of other teams in Formula 1, and we were delighted earlier this year that a Mercedes-Benz engine supply deal was able to be done with Brawn, thereby saving that team from likely extinction.”

Brawn GP Secures Future Funding

The Brawn Gp team, which despite being haistily put together weeks before the start of the 2009 Season has been a massive success have announced to Autosport Magazine that they have funding to see them right through 2010 on a full programme of development.

The team, born out of the wreckage of Honda, is based in Brackley and signed a minor sponsorship deal with Virgin at the start of the season.  A full car roll out and sponsorship deal was never reached because of difficulties between both sides and as such the car was left in the white and fluroescent yellow paint scheme for the season.

Although Brawn GP have not confirmed the names of these sponsors yet, they can confirm they are big money and there will be a proper car launch and livery.  Suspected candidates for sponsorship including Bwin.com and Emirates Airlines.

For Virgin Group, they have found sponsorship solace with Manor Grand Prix, one of the new teams.  We had indications this was true, but in the interview with Autosport Nick Fry confirmed the detail.

“We have zero worries on funding for this year, next year, the year after, and the year after that.   I smile when people talk about money, because we’ve always had the finances for this year, and neither Ross nor I would not have taken on the team if we did not have the money for this year.

“We’ve signed some nice contracts, and those will come out into the open when we launch the car next year, but we will see what happens. There is zero worry on our side.”

“We’ve had a great relationship with Virgin.” Fry added

“You have noticed different stickers from Virgin on the car over the year, and that is the result of additional requests from their side, which has increased our income as well, which is nice. I think they have had a great initiation into F1, and we are helping where we can in advice about what they can do with Manor.”

Brawn Applauds Barrichello On “Great Win”

Ross Brawn has heaped praise on his driver Rubens Barrichello after his victory in the European Grand Prix.

The 37 year old Brazilian has been there or thereabouts all season with racing, but today managed to secure his first win for 5 years.

Brawn, his boss, is in discussions with Barrichello about a contract extension for 2010 for the Brazilian.

“It’s just a sensational performance,” Brawn told the BBC. “We have had these races where Rubens was very good in qualifying and it hasn’t quite come together in the race, but today he was perfect.

“He pushed exactly where he needed to, and kept the gaps exactly what he wanted.

“And then when we got on the radio and said we had to push, then the little red lights came up. So it was just a fantastic performance.”

Brawn To Lose Driving Licence

Ross Brawn, the owner and team principal of Brawn GP looks set to lose his driving licence after officials caught the Briton excessively speeding.

Brawn was driving his Mercedes Benz at an estimated 161km/h (approx. 100mph), when he was caught by police.  The road in Devon has a 70mph limit.

Ross is a well respected member of the Formula One fratenity, and before starting his team he has worked with Ferrari, Benetton and Honda.

He isn’t the first F1 associate to be caught out by police for speeding.  His #1 driver Jenson Button was clocked at 230km/h in France driving a diesel powered BMW.  Nelson Piquet had to re-take his driving test for multiple speeding offences, Giancarlo Fisichella lost his Italian licence in 2005 for speeding home (allegedly to his unwell son), and Juan Pablo Montoya got clocked at 240km/h in France, he was non too happy with the Police afterwards.  Also last year Lewis Hamilton had his Mercedes impounded for speeding.

German GP 2009: Webber Takes Maiden Victory

Mark Webber took his first ever win in Formula One today at the German Grand Prix, after 8 years of Grand Prix racing.

The former Minardi, Jaguar and Williams man stood on top of the podium for Red Bull racing capping off another 1-2 despite a penalty.  Felipe Massa took Ferrari’s first podium of the year.

Race Review

Webber didn’t get a great start from pole position, with Rubens Barrichello and KERS runners like Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa getting the run on the Australian he was swallowed.  In attempts to stop Barrichello, he swung to the right and hit the Brazilian drivers Brawn – an event to which he would later be penalised.

Hamilton went through the gap created by Webber using his KERS system to full effect, but braking early into T1 his rear tyre was tagged by an off balance Webber leading to a puncture for the British racer.

Towards the back there were a few other incidents, Jarno Trulli getting held back in an incident he described as ruining his race.

There were few overtakes in the race, mostly around Lewis Hamilton who was a lap down having to crawl around the 3 mile Nurburgring GP track back to the pits.

Massa got ahead of Button and Vettel from the start, with Raikkonen just behind dropping off Adrian Sutil who drove fantastically well in the Force India.

On lap 2 Button managed to but the superior Brawn car down the inside of Massa, Massa driving a fantastic race today holding off Vettel for a long period of time.

Webber got a drive through penalty and completed it on lap 14 when Rubens Barrichello, his sparring partner at the front took his first of three stops.  Damage limitation working a treat in the end for Red Bull.

Kovalainen and Massa had held up the bunch so Webber got out in front.  Kovalainen slipped back on a lighter strategy to eventually finish the race in 8th place after a long tustle for the final points including drivers right down to Nakajima (12th).

Massa stayed out until lap 25, and with both Brawn’s being on 3 stop strategies he was in with a good chance of a podium.  Vettel was released in front of Massa and never looked like catching Webber but ran much better than he was behind Felipe.

Kimi Raikkonen looked slow, and for a reason.  He had a power shortage which eventually led to smoke coming from the back of the Ferrari and a retirement on lap 35.  It could have been a high double point finish for the Scuderia.

At Rubens Barrichello’s second stop the fuel rig broke and the team had to use the spare, putting less fuel than they wanted to – they had planned to move him onto a competitive 2 stop strategy.  By the end Button was ahead of the Brazilian, and Rubens has claimed the team are favouring Jenson not using the original rig deliberately.  Whether this is true or not is unknown, but Ross Brawn does have a history of team orders….

By the flag, Webber took a comfortable win ahead of Vettel and Massa.  Rosberg worked his way up the field well to take 4th ahead of the 2 Brawn’s and a brilliant Fernando Alonso who worked his way through the field with massively fast laps all this despite a spin on the parade lap.

Sebastien Bourdais retired early on in what could be his final ever F1 race.  The rumour mill circulates he is on his way out of the Toro Rosso team for poor performance.   Jaime Alguersari and Bruno Senna are top of the list to replace the Frenchman, but one newspaper reckoned Sebastian Loeb could be in with a chance of finishing the season with the Faenza based outfit.

Classified Results Standing:

Pos	Driver	Team	Time
1	M. Webber	Red Bull Renault	1.36.43.310
2	S. Vettel	Red Bull Renault	+9.252
3	F. Massa	Ferrari	+15.906
4	N. Rosberg	Williams Toyota	+21.099
5	J. Button	Brawn Mercedes	+23.609
6	R. Barrichello	Brawn Mercedes	+24.468
7	F. Alonso	Renault	+24.888
8	H. Kovalainen	McLaren Mercedes	+58.692
9	T. Glock	Toyota	+1.01.452
10	N. Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	+1.01.925
11	G. Fisichella	Force India Merc	+1.02.327
12	K. Nakajima	Williams Toyota	+1.02.876
13	N. Piquet	Renault	+1.08.328
14	R. Kubica	BMW Sauber	+1.09.555
15	A. Sutil	Force India Merc	+1.11.941
16	S. Buemi	Toro Rosso Ferrari	+1.30.225
17	J. Trulli	Toyota	+1.30.970
18	L. Hamilton	McLaren Mercedes	+1 lap

Fastest Lap: F. Alonso, Renault: 1.33.365

Retirements

Driver	Team	Lap	Reason
K. Raikkonen	Ferrari	35	Engine
S. Bourdais	Toro Rosso Ferrari	19	Mechanical

Zander Parts Ways With Brawn GP

Joerg Zander, the instrumental designer and deputy technical director in the Brawn GP team has resigned.

He was vital in designing the BGP001, which has won 6 races already this season and been on the podium at every single event.  With Jenson Button now leading the championship, the BGP has been highly successful in turning around the fortunes of the former Honda team.

Zander has been in F1 for some time, working with BMW Sauber, British American Racing and Honda.

“Joerg contributed significantly to our success so far this season for which we thank him and wish him all the best for the future,” a Brawn spokesperson said.

Branson Unlikely To Put Money Into Brawn As Virgin Sponsorship Dwindles

Sir Richard Branson has dashed hopes for Brawn GP of more sponsorship finances, a new livery and possibly new name as he claimed he would not be putting millions into the GP team as we head over towards the half-way mark of the 2009 season.

The British born billionaire owner of the Virgin group began sponsoring Brawn GP not long after the cars appeared in Australia with minor logos which have expanded across the cars which remain largely blank.  With Brawn’s early successes, and Virgin using BGP in their current online and newspaper commercials, many analysts believed that Virgin could be on the verge of re-branding the team altogether.

However in a 5Live interview all this seemed to be gone.

“We got in when it was very cheap and it’s been great for us with global coverage, but I suspect next year the price will be astronomical and we may have to look somewhere else with a smaller team,” Branson commented.

It is believed that Branson invested £250,000 into Ross Brawn’s small team.

F1 Is Over As FOTA Pull Out

Good evening everyone who is reading, or follows my blog.  Today is one of the most pivotal days in Formula One’s history.  As we enter the British Grand Prix weekend, it was annonuced very early this morning that the remaining FOTA member teams will be leaving Formula One and starting their own racing series.

The announcement follows months of political deliberation, open letters, arguments, scuffles, driver questions, theories, rumours and a good helping of bad publicity for the sport which has been thrown into disrepute repeatedly since 2007 with Spy-Gate, Max Mosley’s dealings in a sex dungeon and now the end of the motorsport as we know it.

FOTA members; Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, Brawn GP, Red Bull Racing, Panasonic Toyota F1 Team, BMW Sauber, Scuderia Toro Rosso and ING Renault have all said they will leave F1 after no agreement between FOTA and the FIA has been reached over rule changes.

If you follow F1, this has been coming for a long time.  Too many rule changes, too many restrictions and Max Mosley took it one step too far this time and has led to the downfall of the sport.

“The teams cannot continue to compromise on the fundamental values of the sport and have declined to alter their original conditional entries to the 2010 World Championship,” said a statement issued by FOTA after the meeting.

“These teams therefore have no alternative other than to commence the preparation for a new Championship which reflects the values of its participants and partners. This series will have transparent governance, one set of regulations, encourage more entrants and listen to the wishes of the fans, including offering lower prices for spectators worldwide, partners and other important stakeholders.

“The major drivers, stars, brands, sponsors, promoters and companies historically associated with the highest level of motorsport will all feature in this new series.”

Max Mosley has done what he always does and says “They can’t do that” and will be launching a legal case against FOTA, which will probably get nowhere.  It’s a knee-jerk reaction which may cause minor ruptions but Mosley seems to be missing the bigger picture.  And with Bernie Ecclestone saying Max needs to sort it out, the head man of the FIA looks set to be the bad guy in this, which in all truth’s is deserved as his meddling has got us into this mess.

“The FIA’s lawyers have now examined the FOTA threat to begin a breakaway series,” said the FIA in a statement.

“The actions of FOTA as a whole, and Ferrari in particular, amount to serious violations of law including wilful interference with contractual relations, direct breaches of Ferrari’s legal obligations and a grave violation of competition law.

“The FIA will be issuing legal proceedings without delay.

“Preparations for the 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship continue but publication of the final 2010 entry list will be put on hold while the FIA asserts its legal rights.”

It has left F1 with a roadshow for 2010 and only 5 teams.  Williams and Force India who brokeaway from FOTA are now stuck in F1, along with Manor, US F1 Team and Campos who all were accepted entries into the sport for next season.  The teams which failed including Lola and N.Technology have all swiftly withdrawn any such entries in the wake of the FOTA break-away and one can imagine they will be applying for the new series if such applications are formally allowed.

“With much regret, taking into consideration the highly questionable process conducted by the FIA, which is affected by many irregularities, and the uncertainties regarding the 2010 FIA Formula 1 World Championship, the MSC board decided last night to withdraw its application, as Team N.Technology, under the new regulations allowing entry of ‘capped budget’ teams,” said the statement.

“MSC believes that through its wrong actions and objectionable management methods, the FIA severely hurt MSC’s efforts to become a new team and undermined the Formula 1 sport, taken as a whole.”

So what next for FOTA and indeed for this blog.  Well, I am probably going to loosely cover the F1 event of this weekend the British GP [in time] and again some coverage until the end of the season.  But if FOTA launch a rival series, F1Fanatics WILL, i repeat WILL be following the teams and supporting the new series.  A post will be brought up soon with how FOTA could go about launching the new series.  Keep your eyes peeled, and remember support FOTA’s actions.