(Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images)
The list of prospective entries for the 2010 F1 season grows with each Brawn GP victory. Success of the newest team on the grid seems to bring about raised interest from many considering an entry for 2010.
A conspiracy has emerged amongst the ranks of Formula One as there are no questions being asked as to why Brawn GP is so successful so soon.
On the back of this success Prodrive, Lola, Superfund, Epsilon, and RML are teams willing to consider an entry for the 2010 season.
It is no secret that the FIA and FOTA have a mutual wish to attract more teams to the grids of F1 and they themselves are at a dispute as to from where these teams will eventuate.
Since the pullout at the end of the 2008 season of Honda, authorities could ill afford to have another team leave F1 without a replacement. The coupling of their pull out and the global economic crisis rippled even the most ardent believer’s pool of belief.
Honda’s withdrawal should have come as no shock, as the Japanese giant has come and gone in F1 in the past as it has pleased. The threat of other manufactures to follow caused the most concern for the authorities.
The authorities’ panic set in motion an elaborate plan to keep F1 alive and with full grids. The amount of dollars generated by F1 made it a mercy mission.
What fuels the conspiracy theory are the events that lead up to the announcement that Ross Brawn was buying the team.
Honda was never for sale, but was to go through with its withdrawal, it was suggested that in a measure to attract future teams the authorities would set an example to show subsequent team entries that you can win in F1, even as a new team.
Rumours floated continuously since Honda’s announcement regarding a buyer. Virgin chief Richard Branson was offered as one of the best chances; Virgin strikes pay dirt with each move it makes.
Other interested buyers or alleged buyers came and went without much fanfare or seriousness.
When Honda drivers Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello were told they didn’t have a job this news didn’t exactly distress them. Barrichello returned to Brazil with comments that he would be a F1 driver in 2010.
Button even visited the Honda F1 factory, where work continued uninterrupted on the 2010 car, to encourage the workers that 2010 was a happening thing. Both drivers had no serious or ongoing discussions with any other teams about a drive for 2010.
But both were assuring us they would be on the grid for the start of 2010. Just how much did these two drivers know of what was to happen?
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