Congratulations to Jenson Button

You car racing fans may have noticed that at the end of last years Formula One season Honda announced that they were pulling out and the team was up for sale. F1 racing is an expensive business, McLaren has a reported 1,000 employees, and Honda wasn't doing very well anyway. I was wondering what would become of the Honda drivers, there are not that many openings for F1 drivers and all the other teams seemed set.

Just before the start of this years season, Ross Brawn who had been leading Honda's effort, managed to gather enough support and he bought the team, hence Brawn racing was born. The first thing they did was dump the Honda powerplant and partner with Mercedes for engines. I didn't give them much chance of being competitive with so little time to prepare. So what did they do? Took first and second place in the inagural race of the 2009 season in Australia. Jenson Button was first and Rubens Barichello took the team's other car in for second place.

I say, good show! To top it off, Brawn announced Virgin as the team sponsor like the day before the race and they managed to get the logo on the distinctive lime green and white cars. (Although you can't see it in the picture. Maybe Brawn didn't have time to hire a team photographer) I suppose there will be more red in the paint job once they have to time fully integrate Virgin into the scheme.

BTW, Honda still supplies all the engines for the Indy Racing League (IRL) cars. How pathetic is that league now that it's proven that Honda engines can't compete? Further BTW, last years champion driver Lewis Hamilton came in third in a McLaren.

Looks like an exciting season ahead.