All Hail Ross Brawn: But Not Just Yet

The protracted saga of Honda F1 metamorphosing into Brawn GP must hold some fascinating secrets.

We know that Honda's preference was to sell the team with its liabilities, but they could not find a buyer. As a management buy-out became the only alternative to total closure, it seemed for a while that CEO Nick Fry would emerge as head honcho. Yet at the end of days, it was Ross Brawn who emerged from the snake-pit triumphant.

Certainly the deal is expensive for Honda. They have settled the charges on the old Reynard Racing buildings in Brackley that BAR moved into and Honda inherited, and they are providing most of the financing for Brawn GP to compete in 2009. It would seem that FOM is giving them a good slice of the TV rights money/ Also, Ross Brawn has acknowledged the help given by other teams, although that is most unlikely to be in the form of cash.

Mercedes would have needed guarantees that the engines would have been paid for. It is inconceivable that private equity could have been found for an F1 team, even before the current financial crisis, so again it must be Honda picking up the tab.

However, Honda are still looking at a profit of $2 billion in the current financial year; they can afford a little generosity. It has been estimated that closing the F1 team would have cost them $150 million, so funding Brawn is probably a good way for them to avoid the humiliation of firing everyone.

After 2009 Brawn must stand on their own feet, which means bringing big-money sponsors on board. To do that, they need to hit the ground running, they need to be successful.

Everything really hinges on one man.

Ross Brawn

We all know Ross, don't we? He was the guy in Ferrari overalls who looked smug when Michael Schumacher was breaking all the records.

And before that?

He was the guy in a Benetton skin who looked smug when Michael Schumacher won his first two world championships.

The above could be put another way. Brawn's F1 glory days have been when he was part of Schumacher's flying circus, the greatest and most successful show in F1's history. We don't hear too much about his sojourns at Hass Lola and Arrows.

That is not to belittle Brawn, only to sound a note of caution.

There is maybe one word that sums up what an F1 team needs to consistently put a driver on the podium; focus.

All the expensive talent in the world will not put a car first past the checkered flag, resources do not a great team make. Honda themselves have proved that, as have Toyota.

There needs to a consistency of purpose in the team, an unblinking concentration on putting a driver on the podium. In teams like McLaren and Williams that focus has come from the team principals, in Michael Schumacher's time it came from the driver.

Every effort at Scuderia Ferrari in Michael's day was directed at his taking the checkered flag. He had the driving ability to deliver the goods, and he had the disciplined personality around which the whole team could be moulded. In F1 today, I can only see Fernando Alonso as that sort of driver, it is clear that the Renault team is a glove to fit his hand.

Honda F1 had resources poured into it, but to no avail. Individual talents were not pulled together, problems were not identified and solved. They were not a good team.

Brawn GP is largely the same team, and still includes Nick Fry as CEO. Over the last couple of seasons bloggers claiming to be Honda F1 insiders have pointed the finger at Nick Fry over the team's disastrous performance, and have noted Jensen Button's lack of inspirational qualities.

In the absence of a driver to lead the team from the front, it is hard to see how Ross Brawn can get habitual losers to blossom as winners. In testing the 2009 Brawn car has looked tasty, but translating that into a season-long challenge for the title is a mammoth task requiring a first-rate team.

My guess is that Brawn GP will struggle for a few years, and that at the point of death, it will be reborn as Honda F1.

Check back in 2014 to see if I'm right.