Smiling Brawn GP boss Nick Fry has said that disagreements over money were not the reason that Jenson Button decided to turn his back on the new champion team and sign for McLaren on a multi-year deal instead.
According to perma-smug Fry, the media reports on the value of the contract offer from Brawncedes to Button were well short of the actual figure, and Fry believes that the £18 million, three-year deal Button signed with McLaren would actually work out as less than he could have made from the Brawncedes offer.
"I don't think that it was a financial issue," Fry insisted, "We understand that our offer to Jenson may well have been in excess of what he might be getting with McLaren.
"We are disappointed that Jenson has decided to leave because we did make what we thought was a very generous offer for a new contract which was significantly in excess of the frankly spurious figures that were put out to the press over the past week or so."
Media reports had Button's Brawn offer as being worth around £4 million a season, with the Brit being granted extra flexibility with personal sponsors in order to add to that figure.
Fry went on to say that although the Brawncedes team had attempted to continue to negotiate over Button's 2010 contract this week, the management team on Button's side "didn't seem particularly keen" to discuss the situation. Fry admitted that he felt the situation had gone "astray" as early as last weekend, following Button's visit to the McLaren HQ on Friday.
"It was clear to us that things were going seriously astray as of Sunday night or Monday morning," Fry mourned.
"Unfortunately, over the last week there has been very little dialogue with Jenson's management team despite the fact that we have made overtures to have further discussions. But they didn't seem particularly keen, presumably because they were set on the McLaren route."
But despite the rather abrupt end to the Button/Brawn relationship, which had dominated at least some of the 2009 season, Fry insisted that he respected the Brit's decision, though rather darkly added that he basically expected him to get completely ruined by Lewis Hamilton next season.
"I respect his decision," Fry muttered, probably whilst smiling, "It's not one that I would have made and maybe he has been poorly advised.
"Clearly, loyalty would be nice but in this day and age you don't expect too much of that. I'm always happy when any employee leaves our company if I think that they've made the right decision and they are going to a better job and they always go with our blessing if that is the situation.
"In this situation, we don't understand the logic of the decision and I think Jenson is going to have to up his game if he's going to beat Lewis on home territory."
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