Jenson Button is set to sign an improved multi-million pound deal to stay at Brawn in the 2010 season.
But team-mate Rubens Barrichello is to get the boot even if he emerges victorious from their two-way title scrap.
The revelation will add extra piquancy to their four-race showdown for the title after they finished 1-2 in Sunday’s Italian Grand Prix, with the Brazilian enjoying the upper hand lately.
A string of drivers have beaten a path to the door of the team that is dominating the sport, among them Ferrari outcast Kimi Raikkonen, BMW refugee Robert Kubica and Williams’ Nico Rosberg.
While Button’s six-race blast at the start of the season has secured his future, Barrichello has been linked with a switch to Williams.
“Jenson is staying but Rubens is out,” a paddock insider admitted yesterday.
Mercedes are thought to be pushing for young German Rosberg and using improved engines as bait. But to the credit of the Brackley team and its boss, Brawn have insisted there will be no favouritism when it comes to the title and the two drivers will be free to scrap it out. Mirror.co.uk
Mercedes, which also owns a 40 per cent stake in long-term partners McLaren, is known to want a German driver at one of its two teams next season for marketing reasons.
The carmaker declined to comment on Monday when asked about Rosberg’s potential move to Brawn, but recent remarks made by Mercedes-Benz Motorsport vice-president Norbert Haug and McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh are enlightening. “Nico is an option,” Haug said before Mercedes’ interest in Brawn was revealed. “He’s a candidate with whom we are talking.”
Whitmarsh denied recently that his team were in talks with any drivers outside the team.
As ever with Formula One, nothing is set in stone. But if Rosberg does move to Brawn, it would mean just one race seat remains at the Brackley-based team next year. Paddock eyebrows have been raised in recent months over Brawn’s apparent reluctance to tie down Button, who won six of this season’s first seven races, to a contract extension. It had been assumed the two parties were haggling over money but it now appears likely Brawn were waiting for Mercedes-Benz to declare their hand.
If Rosberg does move to Brawn it would leave Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen as favourite to join Hamilton next year at McLaren, the team he left at the end of 2006 after falling out with Ron Dennis. Telegraph.co.uk
