German Car Zone

FRANKFURT (AP) — Mercedes-Benz says it is taking over the Formula One championship team Brawn GP while ending its partnership with McLaren.

The German car maker says it will race in the future as the Mercedes GP team.

Brawn GP, which took over from Honda when it pulled out from the sport, won this year's constructors championship. Brawn's Jenson Button also won the drivers' title.

Ross Brawn is officially filthy rich. Predicted driver lineup for both teams:

Mclaren: Hamilton & Button

Mercedes GP: Rosberg & Heidfeld

But the big question is, who do I bloody cheer for??

It seems all manufacturers who raced in their own names in recent years, quitted after a short while.

Yup, it is tough for a corporation to not show results for the money they spend, while a private team can.

I wonder where McLaren is going to get an engine from or is Mercedes still going to supply them? But I am glad Mclaren is finally free of Mercedes, no more bastards like the SLR.

Good. Macca was becoming a disgrace these years. Only valuable asset they still have is Lewis Hamilton, the best driver currently in activity.

And Mercedes was only seen as the mere motorist, a poor value for the invested money.

If I understood well, Macca will have Mercedes engines for free till 2012, when the contract was supposed to end...

BBC SPORT | Motorsport | Formula 1 | Mercedes takes ownership of Brawn
Have no idea why they are giving such a good deal to McLaren. Also why the heck are they signing Heidfield?

MB will unlikely suffer the same fate as fellow behemoth car manufacturers who've had forgettable experience in F1. Having supplied championship winning engines for some years now, MB couldn't have picked a better timing to eat the whole pie. The management of Ross Brawn and Nick Fry is perfect, and the commercial side of managing an F1 team isn't an issue for MB having worked side by side with Mclaren. Rosberg is full of untapped potential and Heidfeld is a solid driver.

Circumstances for buying a team can't be much better than this.

I´m 100% with you on this. But still don´t understand the point of being the McLaren´s engine suplier when you own another team, and even more, mantain the silver colour on the cars and probably the star on the hood, maybe this is just till 2011.

Funny enough this news explains the soap opera acted in by Brawn and Button. It seems like the strategy by Ross and Mercedes has been to offer Button a rather dysmal salary increase in an attempt to push him towards Mclaren.

As a champion, Button has little star equity. Sure he won but Germany prefer Vettel and Rosberg. Mercedes GP have very few reasons to sign Button as he does pull advertisers and neither is he as marketable as other top drivers. With Kimi and his managers playing greedy and hard to get, I forsee Mclaren passing on Kimi and signing the cheaper and soon to be desperate for a seat, Jenson Button.

Are you sure the Mercedes GP cars will carry a silver livery too?? As for supplying engines to Mclaren it's very logical. Partnerships between companies are often formed with very long term contracts and multiple clauses to protect both parties. In this instence, the Mercedes engine is an instrumental compnent of the MP4 cars and thus Mclaren would be severly disadvantaged if they were stripped of the engine supply over night.

Mclaren will enjoy MB engines until 2015 which is a reasonable time for them to seek a new engine or start their own engine programme.