Brawn cannot match Button’s salary demands

Ross Brawn revealed yesterday that his Formula 1 team would likely not be able to meet the renewed pay demands of their world champion driver Jenson Button when his contract talks begin this winter. He suggested instead that the team would allow the driver more freedom when it came to setting up his own advertising and endorsement deals.

Button is expected to ask for a deal worth more than £6m a year, well above the reported £4m the Briton currently earns (and which he took a 50 per cent pay cut for to allow the nascent team to compete last season). While Brawn pockets may be too shallow to match the 29-year-old's aspirations, rival team McLaren, who have been seeking to hook Button up with his predecessor as champion Lewis Hamilton, would be able to match the Brawn man's demands.

The Brawn GP team principal said: "We can offer a higher proportion of driver freedom and that will probably be the route we will go. Jenson has some freedom for his own endorsements but has a commitment to meet our obligations," suggesting that the team could let him trade off the back of this year's success as an individual, setting up his own deals while also participating in the those with the team's sponsors.

One sponsor unlikely to reappear on the Brawn car next year is the Virgin Group. Sir Richard Branson gave the young team a boost in March when he stepped in at the last moment and made the remarkably prescient decision to sponsor the team. But Brawn thinks that the entrepreneur is not going to return to the sport this coming season.

"We had a great year with Virgin but they have different ambitions next year so it's unlikely you will see their name on the car next year," he told the Daily Mail. "They had the faith or good luck to be with us from the start and won a championship with us but it doesn't look like they will continue." A link-up with Mercedes-Benz is in the pipeline, Brawn hinted, with some reports suggesting that the German automaker could take a 75 per cent stake in the Brackley-based team. ·