The Honda Formula One team will be on the grid for the start of the 2009 season after a management buyout. Jenson Button will spearhead the team on the track after two months of intense work on a rescue package by senior managers.
Sources close to the Brackley-based outfit confirmed last night that the deal is going ahead and that the team will conduct a “shakedown” test of their new car at Silverstone next Thursday, which will be Button’s first outing in the new machine.
The management buyout is being led by Ross Brawn, the team principal and former Ferrari technical director, and will be funded by a combination of money from Honda itself for this year, funds from Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One commercial rights-holder, and commercial sponsorship. Recent reports suggested that Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group could be a backer but this was being ruled out by informed sources last night.
It is not yet known under what name the team will operate or in what livery their cars will race. Under independent management, with a chassis designed by Honda and powered by a Mercedes-Benz engine under a supply deal with McLaren Mercedes, the “old” Honda team will be something of a hybrid that is likely to take some time to forge a new identity.
The outfit then hope to make the full team test in Barcelona on 9 March.
Team members have been told a deal is close and to prepare to race in 2009, with the new season getting under way at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne on 29 March.
It is unclear who the new owners would be, but speculation has focused on a buy-out led by the current management of chief executive Nick Fry and team principal Ross Brawn.
A senior source at the former Honda team, which is based in Brackley, Northamptonshire, said: “We’re carrying on as if we’re going to Melbourne.”
The source likened the situation to “being in the final stages of buying a house when the contracts are agreed and signed and it’s with the lawyers”.
The source added that Brawn had told employees that “everything’s positive - it’s all going ahead”.
Williams team principal Frank Williams said that his guess was that the Honda team would start the season under a new guise.
“They are a bunch of racers…I think they might make it,” he said.
Williams chief executive Adam Parr said he expected to see Honda team principal Ross Brawn, who started out in Formula One with Williams, at a Formula One Teams Association presentation in Geneva on March 5.
“I agree with Frank, I think they will make it,” Parr added. “If Honda, the parent company, wasn’t faced with any serious opportunity they would have just called it a day.
“I think the fact that we are four weeks away from the beginning of the season and they are still making kit must mean that Honda takes the proposals that are available very seriously.”
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