Formula One Conspiracy: Who's Involved?

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?

At the 11th hour, it was announced that Ross Brawn had bought the Honda outfit and was to rename it Brawn GP. An eponymous team in F1 has almost always succeeded.

With no sponsors, no new drivers and no-one leaving the team an engine deal with Mercedes was already in place.

Talks with Ferrari to supply engines amounted to nothing but Brawn was very appreciative of these talks and of any other assistance engine suppliers had given.

There seemed no panic amongst the new Brawn GP team as the pundits worried how embarrassingly a new team with limited preparation was going to perform in the new season. Established teams were struggling and had been for years. A new team therefore, one in Brawn GP’s shoes, should struggle.

Then it was announced that Button and Barrichello were to be the drivers of this fledgling team. No surprise there. Testing made everyone put the glasses down and what staggered many was the lack of questions being asked when Brawn GP blew every team off the race track.

Here was a new team on the grid and no-one could catch them remembering that all teams had been testing for months. Brawn GP came in for the last sessions of sanctioned testing.

Richard Branson’s Virgin Empire’s name was mentioned again but would wait and see how the team preformed. Come Australia, the first race, and Brawn GP rewrote the record books.

The first team since March 1970, almost 40 years, to secure the front row on debut. By the end of the race the record books had been opened again, Brawn GP became the first team since Mercedes in 1954, over 50 years, to score a one-two finish on debut.

This result was accepted as the best thing to happen in F1 for a long time as most people dreamed of the day a lower ranked team could win.

And as we all know the team has continued on its winning ways. The new rules and regulations shrouded any questions that should have been asked as to how did this happen.

Effectively, Brawn GP has gone from last on the grid, in Honda guise, to a winner in Brawn GP guise. Then Virgin appears as a sponsor on the car with an added interest to be negotiated at a later date. Even talk that it will ultimately buy the team.

The FIA and FOTA together with Ross Brawn, Button, Barrichello, Branson and Honda collaborated to run this team with enough allowances to attain these results. As authorities are involved, they are in a position to dismiss any allegations or talk of cheating or favouritism.

All this is to show future teams that F1 is a motorsport category for anyone who has a desire to be at the top. Max Mosely and Bernie Eccelstone are at the twilight stage of their respective careers, and what better way to leave F1 than with a full grid compliment? It has to be shown that F1 success is within reach of private teams.

The diffuser situation was a clearly a smoke screen as was the debate about the rules for next season. As with the diffuser issue the rulings for the season 2010 will fade away with a settlement appeasing all.

Lewis Hamilton and Dave Ryan unknowingly created a thicker smoke screen when they became embroiled in a lying affair after the race in Australia. It was in relation to a passing manoeuvre by Toyota’s Jarno Trulli.

The authorities ruled in Toyota’s favour. Toyota threatened to withdraw. With the subsequent resigning of Dave Ryan from McLaren and Hamilton’s disqualification from that race, it gave the F1 world another direction in which to apply their interests, away from Brawn’s success.

It is a season where unprecedented team harmony has evolved. After all when was the last time McLaren and Ferrari were at a level where they visited each other?   The rule changes were designed then implemented to level the playing field thus being about the driver more than the car.

Results this year are to the contrary. Those in the know readily admit that any of the current drivers on the grid would win in a Brawn GP car.

Is it Brawn GP’s engine the success factor, well two other teams use the same unit. Is it Brawn GP’s Chassis, well it is Honda’s chassis and they were tail-enders last season. Is it Brawn GP’s drivers, well they were both under achievers last season.

These collective factors are not far from many minds and as the season settles down a lot of questions will be asked. Renault’s Flavio Briatore is one suggesting that something is obscure, with his statement that the World titles will be tainted if Brawn GP wins them.

As in the F1 world 24 hours is a long time and situations change rapidly. It will be an interesting season and everyone is awaiting the next move in what is most definitely a changing F1 world.