MagpieRacer
Premium
- 17,449
- Wymondham, Norfolk
- Seagull_Racer
Unless its ready to apply and they dont want it to be revealed until later on....could happen
Nothing on how Virgin will factor into Brawn's team - ie livery-wise - but they're showing promise and now they've got a sponsor with money to spare. At this rate, it looks like Brawn GP could well be setting themselves up as a pretty powerful force in the future. A return to the Williams dominance in the 1980s - in that a private team is the envy of the grid - perhaps?Brawn GP sign Virgin deal
27 March 2009
The Brawn GP team a signed a new sponsorship deal with Virgin; the widely recognised name, headed by Richard Branson, was one of the parties linked with buying the ex-Honda team during the off season. The cars of Barrichello and Button ran with a plain white livery on Friday in Melbourne, but announcements regarding partners of the team are expected later today.
Ecclestone declared that he has been working closely with Virgin head Richard Branson. Branson, who has admitted considering a Formula 1 entry under the Virgin label in the future, has cut short a family skiing holiday to attend the Australian Grand Prix and be present for the announcement this weekend. As well as bringing the international brand name into the sport for the first time, the news is also significant as it is the first known sponsorship deal of the newly former Brawn GP team.
"Virgin and Brawn have come to commercial terms which Branson thinks are liable," F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone told The Times. "Both he and the team are happy." Ecclestone reported the new deal as he claimed he has been of assistance in putting the partnership together: "I've been pushing, pushing, pushing and pushing," he continued. "If Brawn hadn't have done it, Richard and I would have done it anyway but I am delighted how they have just got going on it and now have a deal in place. It's good for them and it's good for Formula 1, so I'm very happy with it."
Although the 'Virgin' label itself has never been been an F1 sponsor in the past, Branson did sign a deal with Eddie Jordan for the 2002 season which saw the 'Virgin Mobile' label on the cars, as well as later completing a deal with Super Aguri driver Takuma Sato for 'Virgin Atlantic Japan'.
Unless its ready to apply and they dont want it to be revealed until later on....could happen
Make sense. Like I said, Renault's ING livery weighed six kilograms.Painting a livery takes around 40 hours for Renault and McLaren, according to Racecar Engineering - preparing the car, applying each layer of paint, drying it, adding layers of finish, then the decals.
...and ugly!Imagine how much the MyEarthDream livery must have weighed ... maybe that's why the RA107 was so slow.
Like Virgin?...unless there is a major sponsor who wants something special, like ING on the Renault.
Maybe. If they plaster a few images of air hostesses on it I won't be complaining.
The one thing that has annoyed me about Brawn, and this is not a fault of their own, is the insistence in the media that this team went from nothing to race winners in just 2 weeks. The media seem ignorant of the fact that this is basically the Honda team that kept working on the car despite not knowing if they'd be racing this season.
Sorry bud, but you've focused on completely the wrong part.Ok - but I won't believe you if you even try to say you saw it coming.
No, the team didn't come from nothing, but they did come from nowhere and the team themselves (the ex-Tyrrell/BAR team) have not been anywhere near a dominant team for over 30 years.
I have no problem with them being given this much media attention and people saying that "its not a fairytale" either only just started watching F1 or are complete morons, this was a team we didn't think would be existing this year, let alone winning. If thats not fairytale I don't know what is.
I agree they are not underdogs but I disagree that this isn't a surprise and an amazing (and much needed in recent times) story for F1.
It's a surprise simply because we were all so deeply disappointed with Honda for so long. If we look at it from the right perspective, you notice the small hints: The fact that in the previous formula, they were so crappy they couldn't really catch up. That they actually recruited, apart from Brawn, some pretty brilliant engineers and aerodynamicists on their staff in the last year. And, of course, that they began working exclusively on the 2009 car even before 2008's halfway mark.
It's still an amazing and unexpected feat, if only because of the financial uncertainty they suffered from December until, basically, now. It wouldn't be extraordinary at all if it was still called Honda, and with a car testing since February.
Sorry bud, but you've focused on completely the wrong part.
My big issue is the whole magical "2 weeks". It makes it seem that everyone else on the grid are idiots because they've spent so much longer and aren't as good. There's no denying that it takes an incredible turn around to go from back of the grid to the front even with rule changes, but to say that it happened in 2 weeks is almost an insult to the other teams.
Ok - but I won't believe you if you even try to say you saw it coming.
Just to stick my nose in, back midway through last year when there were rumours Alonso would either go to Honda or Renault I said that if I was Alonso Id go to Honda. They were always going to be at the front.