03/05/2009
NEWS STORY
 |
With Brawn GP having had the best start for any new team in F1 you would have thought that people would be throwing money at the Brackley outfit. However, one person who won't be doing this is F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone. He has revealed to Pitpass' business editor Chris Sylt that the team can kiss goodbye to the £20m prize money that Honda won for finishing ninth in 2008.
On Friday evening, Ecclestone emailed Sylt with an answer to his question regarding whether Brawn will be getting Honda's money. Ecclestone's response was a simple "no," and as Sylt writes in the Independent, Ecclestone had more to say about the matter over a recent lunch.
The Concorde Agreement, the contract committing the teams to race in F1, states that prize money earned by outfits which have left the sport should be split between those remaining in the sport. However, the contract is not in force and although the teams initially agreed to give the money to Brawn, Renault recently objected to this given Brawn's 'out of the box' success. Renault has now got its wish and Ecclestone told Sylt that if the teams don't reach unanimous agreement on who should receive the money it will not be paid out. "We can keep it," he says.
Despite Brawn's success, Ecclestone says that it would have been better for the team to have retained its former name. "I opposed the name Brawn," he says explaining that it is "not a good name. Doesn't mean anything to the public...Better being Honda than Brawn."