Brawn, Branson, Button - F1's B's knees

When Richard Branson started to stud the UK's high streets with record shops in the 70s, he'd already gained a reputation for grabbing the right opportunities. During the 80s and 90s it seemed that any business he stood near would become a success merely by his proximity.

It appears to have worked with the Brawn F1 team, too. At first, it looked like Branson was going to buy the Honda team, but instead, he waited until Messrs Fry and Brawn managed to take the team over from Honda, and cement an engine arrangement with Mercedes-Benz before choosing the Australian Grand Prix as the right time to stick his company's name on the Brawn F1 car.

The off season has seen many F1 journos dust off their old and inaccurate opinions about Jenson Button and the Honda team and I hope that they're eating their words after the one-two we saw at Melbourne.

If you'd believed their opinions, the idea of Sir Richard Branson's logo stuck to a car driven by Jenson Button would have been Virgin on the ridiculous!

I'll be interested to read their UK newspaper columns over the next few days.

The other great part of the Grand Prix weekend was the return of the BBC to Formula One coverage. The ITV's dozen years with F1 was fraught with mistakes and complaints about ad intrusion and banal commentary from James Allen - who's fine in print but nowhere near a decent foil for former F1 driver Martin Brundle.

It's different now, and apart from some inexplicable decisions about what should be followed on screen - patently not Button for much of the second half of the race - the Beeb's coverage was spot on!

Brundle now has Jake Humphrey, Jonathan Legard, David Coulthard, Eddie Jordan, Ted Kravitz and Lee McKenzie with him and I'd say that each contributed very well in their first Grand Prix together.

Can't wait for the Malaysian Grand Prix next week, by which time I'd guess that the Brawn team will have gained a few more sponsors to join Sir Richard's amazingly well-judged contribution. The car's body was just about devoid of decals a week ago - as you can see by the picture.

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type49b   #1   11:59 am Mar 30 2009

FOM provide the race feed for all broadcasters. The BBC can't decide who to follow.

bemused   #2   12:33 pm Mar 30 2009

Their win, and the manner in which they have achieved it, has left me nearly speechless, and that is a hard thing to do! Good on them. I hope this brings back a meaningful degree of competitiveness between the teams as opposed to a one (or at best two) horse race to the championship.

John83   #3   01:02 pm Mar 30 2009

I agree, a great win for Brawn GP, but I agree moreso with the 'Winners and Losers' comment about the Beeb on the planet-f1 website. Martin Brundle is superb, but Jonathan Leggard, I don't think so, bring back James Allen!

pC   #4   03:05 pm Mar 30 2009

I agree with Bemused, I really hope this season will indeed see some meaningful competition between teams (on the track!).

Now all we need is A1GP and F1 to merge...keeping of course the A1 format.

Brendon   #5   09:04 am Apr 01 2009

I thought it was great for a new team to win first up. I was at the race and I think the Brawn team was everyone's favourite or second favourite team, it was just a shame they had no merchandise to sell! I think they would have made a killing. I believe the Branson deal is for the first 2 races with a longer term deal to be sorted after that, so it will be interesting to see if Branson carries on with supporting the team. Also the Tasman Revival Series ran the Formula 5000's as a support and it was a kiwi 1-2-3 for Sunday's race which was great, and watch out for Mitch Evans a 14 year old who was in the top 3 for the Formula Ford races he looks to be a talent for the future

Bemused   #6   06:41 pm Apr 15 2009

Interesting developments about these cars with potential litigation, other teams still not happy...

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