Brawn: F1 cannot afford to lose teams
| By Jonathan Noble and Pablo Elizalde |
Friday, May 9th 2008, 13:39 GMT |
 Honda team principal Ross Brawn says Formula One cannot afford to lose any more teams following Super Aguri's exit.
"I think it is all a great shame to lose any team from F1," Brawn told a news conference in Istanbul.
"We can't afford to lose teams and I think they showed a lot of character, a lot of effort in the last couple of years but circumstances prevailed and they were not able to carry.
"It was a shame they could not find the funding to continue."
Super Aguri announced their withdrawal from Formula One earlier this week after failing to reach a rescue deal with the Weigl Group.
Their exit left Formula One with just 10 teams, in a season where there was supposed to be 12 outfits, with the planned entry of Prodrive having collapsed last year.
Brawn admitted he was sad to see Super Aguri leave.
"First of all I am sad to see Super Aguri to go but it had no impact on our team," he said. "I think Aguri Suzuki made the statement in Japan that he wasn't able to find the money to continue, but there is no strong relevance to our team."
Brawn also defended Honda Racing CEO's Nick Fry following the criticism he was subject to from Aguri Suzuki.
"I am sure Aguri is at a very difficult time for him, he has worked for two years on this project and he realised the end had come, and when he reflects on some of the things he said he will reflect differently," he added.
"What I saw was Nick making big efforts at time to keep the project alive, beyond any reason for us, it was because of the connection of Aguri with Honda. Nick did a lot of work to try and find a viable solution for Aguri.
"The Magma solution which Nick worked hard to put together was a strong and viable solution, and when that didn't happen there were no other viable solutions."
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