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Honda Rejects Ecclestone's Buyout Offer

F1 supreme Bernie Ecclestone revealed he was very much interested in saving Honda's F1 team on his own during the past month, but both team boss Nick Fry and principal Ross Brawn have rejected his offer. Ecclestone was presumably interested in securing a management buyout for the Brackley-based team, but his intentions hit the brick wall built by the Honda management.

“I tried to help with the management buy-out. They should have taken what I offered. It was a very good offer for everybody concerned. It gave them complete protection but they wanted to do things on their own. Now all we can do is hope and pray,” said Ecclestone in an interview for British tabloid News of the World.

Although they refused his help in securing the survival of the Brackley-based team in Formula 1, Ecclestone insisted he is still lobbying for the team to make it to the grid for the Aussie Grand Prix in late March. And there are at least two reasons backing his approach, as revealed by the man himself.

The first one is that he really wants Sir Richard Branson become a part of the Great Circle in 2009. Ever since the rumors about a potential involvement of Virgin Group in the buyout negotiations started, Ecclestone has become a fervent supporter of Branson. Secondly, Honda's F1 outfit survival in the series would also mean the return of the “Senna” name in Formula 1.

GP2 runner-up Bruno Senna revealed he is eager to make his debut in Formula 1 in 2009, despite not doing a lot of testing with his more-than-likely new team. The fact that he terminated all his contractual links with the GP2 Series earlier this month is proof enough that he plans to continue his career in F1, conditioned of course by the Honda F1 team making it to the 2009 grid.

“The team can go one of three ways. They either go with the management buy-out, sell to Richard Branson or they could simply just close down the whole thing. The silly thing is we have got Bruno wanting to drive. It would be fantastic for everybody to have the name Senna back in F1,” added Bernie.
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