JAPANESE GIANTS IN CUT-PRICE SALE

JENSON BUTTON'S Honda team are offering their £150million Formula One outfit for the bargain price of just £1.

And Arab consortium Dubai Investment Capital - who also tried to buy Liverpool Football Club - have already opened talks.

The Japanese car giants have launched their giant giveaway so they can quit the sport without sending it into financial meltdown.

Team chief Ross Brawn, top driver Button and the 750-strong workforce at Brackley in Northants will all come at the knockdown price.

But any buyer will have to prove they have the £150m needed to fund the team next year before the planned massive cut in F1's running costs in 2010.

Honda boss Takeo Fukui confirmed: "Just to make the team possible to exist, a nominal price is acceptable."

He blamed the decision to sell on the global credit crunch, adding: "All around the world, the November car sales went down massively - beyond our imagination. This decision did not exist in September."

But Honda insiders blame HIM for deciding to run their F1 'Earth Car', pictured above, without any sponsorship for the last two years - costing the team £200m in lost revenue.

BERNIE ECCLESTONE - warning

The team ran without any sponsors' logos on the car to raise the issue of the environment.

But a former senior Honda boss blasted: "The Earth Car must have cost them £200m.

"The money was not coming in because there were no logos on the car and Honda was footing the bill, despite what they said about it being a new sponsorship initiative.

"They should have been putting that money away for a rainy day, just as BMW and Mercedes were doing."

And F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone also blasted Honda's decision to sell up.

He said: "If you look at them I wonder if they had been third in the championship this year and fourth the year before whether they would have reached the same decision?

"They were ninth and I suppose the board were sitting there listening to stories they have heard for the last six years that they are going to win the world championship next year.

Prospects

"I suppose that has got a lot to do with it. But I think the prospects of Honda being bought are OK."

Brawn, the technical genius behind Michael Schumacher's record seven world titles, has until Christmas to find a buyer, although the team has until the week before the opening 2009 race in Australia on March 29 to finalise the sale.

The Magma group - a specialist automobile consultancy company - has started talks on behalf of DIC.

The group held talks earlier this year about saving Honda's sister team Super Aguri from the Grand Prix scrapheap but they fell through.

But taking control of Honda will be a far better prospect given the assets of the company and the relatively cheap route it offers to the F1 grid.

Successful F3 boss Trevor Carlin and former BAR Honda boss David Richards have also been linked with buying Honda but neither has the necessary budget to get the team through 2009, leaving DIC in pole position.

Chances

In any deal, Honda will ensure that their F1 assets - like the prime-site Brackley factory or the £50m wind tunnel - could not then be sold off.

Chief executive Nick Fry admitted: "I'd say the chances of us being on the grid in 2009 are 50-50.

"But we are sitting here with a lot of desirable assets and with a car we are confident will be competitive next season."

FIA president Max Mosley is sure he can use Honda's problems - and the threat of other teams like Toyota and Williams also pulling out - to force through his budgetary revolution.

The governing body want to slash F1 costs by an incredible £800m - around £85m per team - by 2010 by introducing things like a cheaper, standardised engine and gearbox. Mosley admitted: "Next season could be difficult because nobody knows how serious the world financial crisis is going to be.

Sponsors

"The moment where we can make really massive reductions is from 2010, but we have to get through 2009 first. We need a root and branch revision on costs.

"Just look at the wheel nuts. One of the teams is using 1,000 wheel nuts per year, but they only use them once because they are ultra-light, and they cost £800 each.

"That is just completely unnecessary. I would expect a team to be able to run in the £30-40m bracket.

"If we can do that, then a combination of what they get from television and central rights, and what they can get from sponsors, should make the teams viable.

"We can get the costs down to the region we are talking about and it can be done without the man in the grandstand or on television noticing any difference at all."

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