Is “New” the new “Tried and Tested”?

Can we please get one thing straight for the 2009 season? Brawn GP is not a new team, despite what their PR people and even what the title documents say in their FIA lodgings. Brawn GP (and their new car) follows a direct lineage from Honda Racing of last year, through British American Racing and to Tyrrell Grand Prix. That’s over 40 years.

Of course they have done wonders following the announcement that Honda was to pull out of F1 – however given the PR spin that the team in Brackley simply must be saved, the hundreds of talented workers etc it’s increasingly difficult to see them as a new team. The car started design 15 months ago. In essence they have changed the name, and terminated a manufacturer’s involvement – which is what dozens of teams over the years have done when they have changed engine supplier.

Of course this idea of a "new" team isn’t itself new. Red Bull Racing, in an effort to manage expectations described itself as a "new" team despite being the previous Jaguar team, which itself was a "new" team formed from the race-winning Stewart Grand Prix. Red Bull can trace its history back a dozen years. Red Bull Racing’s B-team, Toro Rosso, wasn’t new either. It was the former Minardi team – that’s nearly a quarter of a century of experience.

Renault was a "new" team that belied it being a straight take-over of the championship winning Benetton team which was itself a take-over of Ayrton Senna’s first F1 team, Toleman, which was formed in 1981. In fact Renault was a brand "new" team twice, because it also raced as itself between 1977 - when it really was new - to 1986.

Force India? Well, of course that was Spyker F1 nee Midland F1 nee race-winning Jordan Grand Prix – which was a new F1 team in 1991.

BMW-Sauber occasionally referred to themselves as new but no one really peddled that sincerely seeing as they hadn’t even finalised their name change from the previous Sauber F1 team that dates back to 1993.

So what is the most recent, genuinely new Formula 1 team that is on the 2009 grid? I say Toyota. A team built from the ground up – yes they discontinued other motorsport efforts and re-used their sites – but F1 is very different from rallying. Did someone mutter Super Aguri? Well can a team that used four year old Arrows chassis and was a direct B-team of Honda (see above) really be new?
Of course this reference to a "new" team isn’t itself new or even novel. Prost was the "new" team that sprang from nowhere, in the same sites, using the same chassis and many suppliers as the race-winning Ligier team that the four-time world champion had bought 1997. A thirty-year old "new" team.

So, why do they do it? Well to be fair the owner is new, him and his assistants, and are new to the team which has got new logos. They may have new engines, new drivers and new sponsors too, but they can’t count as F1 teams frequently change sponsors and drivers and engines. The real reason they do it is that the newness is normally generated by some PR firm – one that probably doesn’t have any real F1 experience and anyway wants to peddle the "plucky new boys" image while the team potters around at the back of the grid. This might be true for Williams in 1978, but it simply isn’t for Brawn, Red Bull and the biggest exponent of it, Jaguar.

Jaguar really went for "new" as the new image making. Their marketing dream for Jaguar racing was huge. Backed by Ford (for whom Stewart were the works F1 team) they wanted a see of British Racing Green to be as common at Grands Prix as scarlet is for Ferrari. They brought their huge marketing budget to bear. But, given that the Jaguar name was indeed new to Formula One they made much of being a new team.

This isn’t as yet likely to happen with Brawn GP. At the moment, the largely unsponsored cars are evidence of a lack of marketing machine to really hype their efforts. As long as Brawn GP is not subsumed by shouty, pushy marketing people, we will be spared the fiction of their "newness".

On an unrelated note Brawn GP and Sir Richard Branson have announced a sponsorship deal with the quiet and reserved Virgin brand …