Richard Branson has admitted that his Virgin Group's sponsorship of Brawn GP in Formula 1 could ultimately materialise in his ultra-successful globaꦅl brand taking over the team's name.

It was announced earlier today that Virgin is to become a backer of the Brackley-based outfit in a significant deal [see separate story - 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:click here] - and 🃏both𓆉 sides anticipate the agreement developing into a 'broader relationship' over the forthcoming weeks.

The partnership was concluded and made public in Melbourne ahead of this weekend's 2009 curtain-raising A🔯ustralian Grand Prix, and Virgin dec🐠als have appeared on the pace-setting BGP 001 machines of pole position star Jenson Button and fellow front row-sitter Rubens Barrichello from FP3 onwards.

"We all need more time," billionaire Branson is quoted as having said by ITV-F1. "We are a Virgin bride and someone else may come in and offer sꦬomething even better before this bride marries them - but I'm sure we will get something together."

Branson has been tempted by a foray into the sport for some time, and looked semi-seriously into purchasing Honda F1 after the Japanese parent company put the squad up for sale back in December - but he ultimately backed out of a bid, citing the fact that he ꦿwould not be truly interested until th🌺e top flight becomes both cleaner and greener.

Amidst the FIA's current focus on drastically cutting costs and saving energy, however - with the introduction of KERS (Kinetic Energy Rec♛overy Systems) technology and plans to bring in an optional ?30 million budget cap for teams from 2010 onwards - the 58-year-old could be set for a change of 🐷heart.

"I've enjoyed it (F1) for years and in the past go﷽t tempted," he admitted, "but it's been such an expensive sport. The rec♍ession has been bringing the cost of entry down to a more reasonable level, though, and the new rules that are coming out to encourage new teams to come in for more sensible amounts of money will make it a more exciting sport.

"When the Honda team got into trouble and it looked like a possibility of it disappearing altogether we spoke with Honda, [but] I think we've ended up with the best of all worlds with a fantastic engineer and a greatꦓ brand like Virgin. I♔t's something which could develop into something exciting in the years to come."

And as part of those 'exciting' developments to which he alludes, the British entrepreneur refused to rule out a name c🙈hange from Brawn GP to Virgin - what w🍸ould be a firm indication of his company's long-term commitment to the cause.

"It's a possibility," he reflected. "We'll see what happens over the next three or four weeks. The team don't want to waste the na🌟me of the team on something that is not promoting anything.

"Everyone knows that it has a great engineer; the team doesn't need to be named after an engineer, and that may well change. If it happened we'd be committed for 🦂a long time."