March 05, 2009

Honda To Make The Grid In Australia! (UPDATED)

Well, actually, not "Honda" but an entity called "Brawn Racing".  Readers of The Pond may remember that Honda withdrew from the F1 grid for financial reasons, and vowed to spend the month of December looking for a buyer.  When that deadline passed, it seemed a lost cause.

Recently, however, a team of Honda F1 management led by team principal Ross Brawn seems to have purchased the racing team.  An official announcement will be coming on Monday, along with the first test of their 2009-spec car at Barcelona. 

A non-official announcement from Nick Fry, former team supervisor and also part of the purchasing group, indicated that the former Honda Racing team will be on the grid for the GP of Australia, and that the drivers will be Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello.

Which makes sense.  Both are pretty good drivers, though that hasn't shown in the results, and more importantly, both are experienced.  Considering the extreme lack of practice and setup time for the new-spec car, having two drivers who can give solid feedback to the engineers will be a must.

It's a stretch to imagine them being anything other than backmarkers for the season, though with the new rules, who knows?

Still, it means a grid of 20 cars, and even those who don't cheer for Honda will have to be happy to see them show up.  A full grid is always better than a short one.

More details to come!

UPDATE 3/6/09: It's official!  Brawn Racing will be on the grid come Melbourne.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:30 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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That's a team that sounds promising! 

Getting anxious for the season to start!  :-)

 

Posted by: Mallory at March 08, 2009 07:18 AM (WJ2qy)

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