Brawn chief executive Nick Fry has made one last effort to mend the bridges between the new Mercedes team and Jenson Button, as the 2009 champion nears a multi-million pound deal to switch to the McLaren team.
Fry, who is set to be kept on in his role despite the purchase of 75.1% of the Brawn GP team by Mercedes yesterday, and the rebranding of the team to Mercedes GP from 2010, has claimed that the team are still desperate to keep hold of Button.
However, Fry improbably suggested that even with the Mercedes buy-in, reported as being worth nearly £500 million, the team cannot match McLaren's offer on a purely monetary basis, saying that even with the new money now in the team, he and team principal Ross Brawn would not be tempted to "spend money like drunken sailors".
The perma-smug Fry said that any increase in Button's wage offer would need to be met by cuts in other areas in order to balance the team's 2010 budget, which could lead to redundancies or a loss of development cash.
"Ross and I want Jenson to stay with our team. He's our No.1 priority. From the start we've wanted Jenson to drive for us next year," Fry bleated to the Daily Mirror, "We've a long history, especially me and Jenson. We have been very loyal to him, won a world championship and would like to continue.
"But we can only pay an amount that is sensible in the current circumstances. Just because Mercedes own us does not mean we're going to spend money like drunken sailors.
"We do things more inexpensively than a lot of teams. That's what they like about us. To change that would be undoing what they bought."
Button has already agreed a three-year contract worth £18 million with McLaren, so Fry's intransigence on the money issue is unlikely to secure any last-minute change of heart from Button, despite the Brit being renowned for flip-flopping on contract dealings in the past.
But Fry insisted that: "Times are difficult financially for everybody. We made a large number of people redundant earlier in the year and we are continuing to work in a financially sensible way.
"We are not going to spend money we haven't got. My belief, and Ross shares this, is that we made an offer to Jenson which is generous given the current economic situation.
"It is significantly more than his current driving fee and we hope he will stay. But that is a decision he's got to take, "He's got to decide how much the loyalty, and everything we have given him, counts and how much money counts if he is able to get more elsewhere - which, frankly, I doubt.
"This is a real business. It is not a money factory."
Button's offer from Brawn was believed to be in the region of £4 million a season, some £2 million less than the McLaren deal he is set to sign in the next few days.
Meanwhile, reports in the media today suggest that a deal has already been done behind the scenes that will see Nico Rosberg join the new Mercedes GP team to spearhead their 2010 challenge in the probable absence of Button, with an announcement on that expected in the next few days.
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