Jenson Button
addresses Honda
employees in
December 2008to
reassure them that
the team will race in
2009 and that
he will be funding
his own travel to
cut costsF1 RACING DECEMBER 2019 87
Inlate2008,what had been known as
the “creditcrunch” wentvira l and became
a worldwide crisis. Banks wiltedunder the
enormity of bad debts, exposedafte r years of
concealment in obscurefi nan cial mechanisms.Ten years ago a skeleton crew ofex-Honda people
completed a remarkable turnaround as JensonButton claimedthe world championshipjust months
afterhis teamwasrescuedfrom oblivion. Thatteamwent onto become Mercedes, and therest is history.
SpeakingtoF1Racingahead of thelaunch of his
book,Survi ve.Drive.Win., Brawn GPCEONickFryexplains how the outfit survived against the odds
In respon se they cut back on le nding, andamong
the conseq uences was a collapse in thenew-car
market. Hondadecided to axe its strugglingF1
programme right away, and summoned Fryand
team principalRoss Brawn to ameeting ina
Heathrowhotel one November morning.
Nick Fry:“We knewit was going to be a difficult
meeting. We’d done enough homework to cu t the
budget byabou t a third. This poor gentleman,
Mr Oshima, our boss, was pretty much intears
as he told usthat was it –they were off. The
situation onthe business side wasthat bad they
couldn’t spendany moneyon F1.‘Pleasego to
Brackley and tell them allto go home andturn off
the lightsont he way out’ was themessage.“It wasmewho said, ‘You can’t do that–
you’ve got to give us achanc e.’ Honda is
a big, honourable company andafter so me
disc ussion we were given a month. Runningup
to Christmas with the world’sworst fi nan cial
crisis didn’tgive us alot of time and, er,we met
some dodgy characters...”Predictably,thesaleofdistressed assets
teased some interesting individuals out ofthe
woodwork. Achilleas Kallakis, supposedlya
billionaire shipping magnatebut actuallythe
son of a failedEaling nightclub owner, arrived at
the Brackley factory in a helicopter too large to
land ont he helipad.Kallakis, real name Stephan
Kollakis, was eventually jailed for seven years fo r
perpetratinga £7 50 millionmortgag e fraud.
Vijay Mallya actually provedto be one ofthe
least peculiar suitors. Mallya had only recently
bought and renamed Force India,but wa s
attracted to Honda by itssuperior facilities in
comparison withhis a cquisition,which had been
run on a shoestring byseveralprevious owners.
Ross Brawn rapidlydecided hewould be unable
to wor k with Mallya, and Fryalso wrote the
Indian magnate off as a less-than-seriousbuyer.
The pivotalmoment came whenMallya arrived
fi ve hours latefor a dinner appointment at Stowe
Castle with Fry andthe fi nance director.
Nick Fry:“It was a long wait butwe did geta
very good curry at theend of it. Vijay, frankly,
was one of the more honourablepeople who
expressedaninterest,which says a lot.It really
was a situation where wehad to kiss a lot of frogs.
There were a lot of complete time-wasters,and
around Christmas that year there was a lot of time
spent by me and Nigel Kerr, our fi nan ce director,
meeting people whowere just having a look, or
moneylaundering,or evenworse.HONDA WANTED
TO SHUT DOWN
THE TEAM
IMMEDIATELY
VIJAY MALLYA
WAS A
POTENTIAL
BUYER
WORDS STUART CODLING PICTURES
Jenson Button
addresses Honda
employees in
December 2008to
reassure them that
the team will race in
2009 and that
he will be funding
his own travel to
cut costsF1 RACING DECEMBER 2019 87
Inlate2008,what had been known as
the “creditcrunch” wentvira l and became
a worldwide crisis. Banks wiltedunder the
enormity of bad debts, exposedafte r years of
concealment in obscurefi nan cial mechanisms.
Ten years ago a skeleton crew ofex-Honda people
completed a remarkable turnaround as Jenson
Button claimedthe world championshipjust months
afterhis teamwasrescuedfrom oblivion. Thatteam
went onto become Mercedes, and therest is history.
SpeakingtoF1Racingahead of thelaunch of his
book,Survi ve.Drive.Win., Brawn GPCEONick Fry
explains how the outfit survived against the odds
In respon se they cut back on le nding, andamong
the conseq uences was a collapse in thenew-car
market. Hondadecided to axe its strugglingF1
programme right away, and summoned Fryand
team principalRoss Brawn to ameeting ina
Heathrowhotel one November morning.
Nick Fry:“We knewit was going to be a difficult
meeting. We’d done enough homework to cu t the
budget byabou t a third. This poor gentleman,
Mr Oshima, our boss, was pretty much intears
as he told usthat was it –they were off. The
situation onthe business side wasthat bad they
couldn’t spendany moneyon F1.‘Pleasego to
Brackley and tell them allto go home andturn off
the lightsont he way out’ was themessage.“It wasmewho said, ‘You can’t do that–
you’ve got to give us achanc e.’ Honda is
a big, honourable company andafter so me
disc ussion we were given a month. Runningup
to Christmas with the world’sworst fi nan cial
crisis didn’tgive us alot of time and, er,we met
some dodgy characters...”Predictably,thesaleofdistressed assets
teased some interesting individuals out ofthe
woodwork. Achilleas Kallakis, supposedlya
billionaire shipping magnatebut actuallythe
son of a failedEaling nightclub owner, arrived at
the Brackley factory in a helicopter too large to
land ont he helipad.Kallakis, real name Stephan
Kollakis, was eventually jailed for seven years fo r
perpetratinga £7 50 millionmortgag e fraud.
Vijay Mallya actually provedto be one ofthe
least peculiar suitors. Mallya had only recently
bought and renamed Force India,but wa s
attracted to Honda by itssuperior facilities in
comparison withhis a cquisition,which had been
run on a shoestring byseveralprevious owners.
Ross Brawn rapidlydecided hewould be unable
to wor k with Mallya, and Fryalso wrote the
Indian magnate off as a less-than-seriousbuyer.
The pivotalmoment came whenMallya arrived
fi ve hours latefor a dinner appointment at Stowe
Castle with Fry andthe fi nance director.
Nick Fry:“It was a long wait butwe did geta
very good curry at theend of it. Vijay, frankly,
was one of the more honourablepeople who
expressedaninterest,which says a lot.It really
was a situation where wehad to kiss a lot of frogs.
There were a lot of complete time-wasters,and
around Christmas that year there was a lot of time
spent by me and Nigel Kerr, our fi nan ce director,
meeting people whowere just having a look, or
moneylaundering,or evenworse.HONDA WANTED
TO SHUT DOWN
THE TEAM
IMMEDIATELY
VIJAY MALLYA
WAS A
POTENTIAL
BUYER