[Valve Bounce]

I was going to post this in the Ant thread, but I would have to go Off Topic because the discussion involved Bunsen. Then there is SchM and so on.

The reason why Frank wants Bunsen is because he is a commodity - something that Frank can sell to a high paying sponsor. Could be well over 10 million dollars which means it will pay for his engines next year. So what is Ant worth in sponsorship? Not much YET!! because the Birtish media hasn't built him up to be a super hero. So even if Ant could get into the same race car and beat Bunsen after three races say, he hasn't, and he won't get that chance at BAR unfortunately.

Look at SchM: a lot of people complain that he is being paid too much by Ferrari. Well the reality is that Ferrari makes more out of having him in the team than they pay him. First of all, the team's sponsors have to pay Ferrari megabucks simply because SchM drives for Ferrari and has won championships at Ferrari. Then there are the team flags, caps, shirts, jackets and whatever else Ferrari sell that brings in oodles of cash. Then of course there are the cars which they sell, and any rich guy in Dubai, Hong Kong and anywhere else where millionaires wants a status symbol drives the most expensive and fastest Ferrari because they will then have something in common with SchM.

And that brings me back to Bunsen - he would command high sponsorship fees next year because he is going to be the next World Champion according to the British Media.

Then of course there is Ralfie who is paid a very high salary because he is SchM's brother and Frank hired him to win the championship for Williams. There have been rumours that BMW footed a large portion of Ralfie's salary, and I don't doubt that. He was the poster biy for BMW in many ads.

So I hope this, in part, answers the question why BAR wants to retain Bunsen and Frank wants Bunsen rather than the Ant.