Who in their right mind would buy into F1 now when huge sponsors are falling over themselves trying to bail out? Especially a team with Jensen "also ran" Button contracted at umpteen millions p.a.
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I would guess any company wanting to reach a Global Audience as cheap as it can.This is the cheapest and most effective tool to do that with. However, he will be trying to get the price down, and some effective money from Bernie too.
As far as Jenson's contract is concerned, that will be with Honda, and will not be a saleable asset, nor subject to normal employee conditions. This means that Button can be hired for as little as Virgin want to offer him, or he can go live on a beach somewhere, and rake in what Honda have to pay him until his term expires with that contract. He gives up that right if he races for another team.
He is the best driver currently available, and it would be a wise move to keep him at present.
And think of the PR Branson can get by keeping all these employees in a job, and so on. This is right up Bransons alley.
However, I am not sure Virgin Racing will last. Virgin usually lend their name to something for a year or 2 then move on. I guess this is the vehicle for Ross Brawn and Nick Fry to get the management buyout in line.
I would guess a Virgin team, will be a name, with a lucrative title sponsor, and Branson flying balloons around at each circuit for a year or 2, and then they will reduce to being joing title sponser, then major sponsor, then minor, then off to something new.
Bernie seems to want this to happen, so there is something else going on too.
Bernie may get Mercedes to do a deal for the engines, that means the team would not be known as Virgin Mercedes, but more likley Team Virgin. He will have his grubby fingers in it somehow to get something out of it. Possibly some FOTA embargo for Branson, so that the money for the team, and therefore the main player, is not allowed to join FOTA and therefore starting the cracks in that group.
Last thing Max and Bernie need, is a cohesive group of the people who provide the teams for the races. Divide we stand, together we rise, does not bode well in autocratic dictatorship rules.
Plus Bernie will be after cheap airfares to get more cost savings in the public eye.
Admittedly, Richard Branson has offered Jade and her yob exclusive use of his own private island for the honeymoon. But I am sure that he wanted to make the offer discretely and privately and was dismayed when he found out that he had accidently done it by announcing to all the national papers rather than by picking up the phone for a private chat.
