Not Sailing

Last week in e-anarchy, we ran a story about Richard Branson and Virgin stepping up to sponsor the F1 Brawn GP team, which emerged from the rubble of the disbanded Honda works team. To the surprise of everyone, the cars dominated qualifying and the race, taking 1-2 in the opening F1 race in Australia last weekend. Branson wanted it known that Virgin is not the title sponsor, meaning that they aren’t giving them that much money, and that rang true as the day after the historic win, Brawn announced they were laying off over 270 people. Thanks for that!

In truth under Honda, the team had 700 employees, and this staff reduction was overdue, givin the new cost and technology reductions for 2009 and beyond.