Honda, Brawn and three-quartered

Honda team lives on as Brawn GP in black, white and yellow
It took three months instead of the one it was supposed to, but Honda has finally sold its Formula 1 team -- to one of the most brilliant engineers in the history of the sport, Ross Brawn.

The team will now be known as Brawn GP and its cars, designed as Hondas for the new season starting in Melbourne on the last weekend of this month but now powered by Mercedes-Benz engines, will race in black and white with a flash of fluorescent yellow.

F1's most experienced driver line-up, Brazilian Rubens Barrichello and Briton Jenson Button, is retained -- with 423 GP starts between them, costing Ayrton Senna's nephew Bruno his F1 debut.

The team has had a quick shakedown of its car at Britain's Silverstone circuit and will go to Barcelona for a fuller test on Monday and then another at Jerez, also in Spain, before the cars are loaded for flight to Melbourne.

The survival of the outfit that began life a decade ago as British American Racing and was then taken over by Honda Motor Company ensures F1 still has 10 teams and that there will be 20 cars and drivers on the grid in Melbourne on March 29.

No details of the sale arrangements have been made public, but clearly Brawn -- who was associated, indeed instrumental, in all of Michael Schumacher's seven world titles at Benetton and Ferrari before the engineering genius joined Honda little more than a year ago -- was preferred by Honda as the front man to Nick Fry, who had headed the team since his Prodrive master David Richards was ousted from the Honda F1 helm in 2004.

"Since announcing our withdrawal from F1 racing on December 5 of last year, we have conducted various studies and discussions so that the team can continue its activities as a new team," said Honda's Hiroshi Oshima.

"We are very pleased that we could sell the team to Ross Brawn, with whom we have been partaking in the challenges of F1 competition, and are grateful for his decision.

"We offer our sincerest wishes for the new team which will be led by Ross."

While it was vital for F1 that the outfit survived, the cost-cutting environment in the sport now is likely to mean job losses -- perhaps a quarter of the workforce of around 750 in the very near future.

Brawn made no mention of that in his remarks on the announcement of the sale.

"The biggest hurdle we faced was being in a position to race in Melbourne and we will now be able to achieve that target," he said.

"Initially we may experience some reliability issues resulting from the lack of track testing, but we feel we have a good car and we hope that our performance will be respectable.

"We are confident in the fundamental design principle of our car and look forward to the opportunity to develop it further as the season progresses.

"There is no denying this has been a difficult time for everyone, but I am immensely proud of the great spirit and fortitude that I have witnessed in the factory over the course of the past few months.

"The process of designing and manufacturing our new car, which has continued concurrent with the efforts being made to secure the team, has been reasonably straightforward.

"That is particularly pleasing given that our car was designed around a different engine and both the chassis and gearbox have been modified to accommodate the new engine.

"Following Honda's decision to withdraw, we needed to find a way to secure as many jobs as possible, ensure the team's continued participation in F1 and make best use of the state-of-the-art facilities that we are fortunate to have.

"Quite simply, I have purchased the team from Honda.

"As the owner I will continue to be supported by the incumbent management team, who have worked closely with me throughout the sale process and will continue to do so in the future.

"We are very fortunate to have secured an engine supply agreement with Mercedes-Benz and we look forward to working with them as we seek to maximise the development and testing of the BGP 001 car in advance of the first race.

"We aim to get up to speed in the shortest possible time to be ready for the first race of the season in Melbourne.

"The debut race weekend with 20 brand new cars is always difficult to predict and I'm not even going to try.

"What I know we can take away from Melbourne is an enormous sense of pride and achievement at having already met and overcome our biggest challenge."