Honda to sell Super Aguri team?
The Mohali-based company is reportedly leading a consortium of fellow Indian corporates, possibly including the business group Tata as a potential sponsor, who are keen to join the grand prix circus and bring former Jordan racer Narain Karthikeyan back to the grid.
Spice Group is already involved in single seater motor racing and Karthikeyan through promotion of the Indian A1 GP team.
The Indian publication Daily News and Analysis (DNA) reports that the Spice consortium proposes a buyout price of just $1, including underwriting the small Japanese team's $47m in debt. Aguri Suzuki will reportedly be left in charge.
Spice CEO Andaleeb Sehgal on Wednesday would not confirm that the Super Aguri takeover is complete.
"There has been no acquisition yet," he said. "We are talking to two teams at the moment. One of them is Super Aguri.
"As now we are waiting to come up with a realistic valuation of the team. Should we find a number within our reach we will then proceed to buy," Sehgal added.
01/30/08 The Super Aguri F1 Team seems to be in big financial problems. There were already earlier reports on the money troubles of the Japanese team but it appears that the future looks less bright every day for the Leafield-based outfit.
It all started with a major sponsor that refused to pay the contributions promised. After that a great number of employees were fired because of the financial issues. From that moment, talks about a Super Aguri sell-out have never been far away.
The Japanese team is the only one that is yet to confirm its 2008 driver line-up and that has not set a date for a car presentation. As the team is not participating in most of the pre-season test sessions, the rumors about a sale have been flying around.
At Jerez, Super Aguri turned up for the test session but due to a problem on the car, the team had to wait two days for new parts coming in from the factory. The parts never arrived and the team had to move back to Leafield after only 10 laps out on track.
Last week at Valencia, Super Aguri was again the only team not to come in action and it is understood that they will not participate in the upcoming Barcelona test which will start on Friday.
If you add this to the continuing reports about financial problems, you can suggest that Super Aguri won't last an entire F1 season. This is also the conclusion of FIA President Max Mosley. When asked if he is confident that all eleven teams will contest the entire 2008 championship, Mosley repeated: "Not very." F1Technical.net
An Indian consortium led by the CEO of the Spice Group, promoters of A1 Team India, are in talks with the Super Aguri team about a possible investment opportunity.
However, Andaleeb Sehgal, CEO of the Spice Group, has denied reports the deal was already done and dusted.
"There has been no acquisition yet," Sehgal told the Indianinfo website.
"We are talking to two teams at the moment.
"One of them is Super Aguri. As now we are waiting to come up with a realistic valuation of the team. Should we find a number within our reach we will then proceed to buy."
On Tuesday Super Aguri managing director Daniel Audetto confirmed that the Japanese squad were looking for a partner who will invest in the team.
"We are talking with different people but first Honda has to approve it," he told Reuters.
"We are also looking for a strong partner. If they bring a lot of money and they want a driver from wherever, then he has to be good and accepted by the FIA." Setanta
12/15/07 (GMM) Honda officials have decided to keep the satellite formula one team Super Aguri up and racing in 2008, it is reported.
The fate of the financially struggling 'B' team was discussed by Tokyo chiefs earlier this week, the German specialist magazine Auto Motor und Sport said.
It is understood that Honda, the small Leafield based outfit's engine and chassis supplier, heavily subsidized the Super Aguri budget in 2007 to the tune of dozens of millions of Euros.
Despite speculation that the manufacturer could simply pull the plug, then, the Honda meeting resolved that Super Aguri will continue to exist on the grand prix grid in 2008.
Auto Motor und Sport explained, however, that the detail of Super Aguri's continuing Honda support remains unclear, including whether the team will ultimately need to be sold to investors.
The magazine said the situation is currently "completely open".
12/11/07 (GMM) The fate of the struggling Super Aguri team will be discussed this week, reports from Germany suggest.
The authoritative magazine Auto Motor und Sport claims that Honda, the engine and chassis supplier that heavily subsidized the Leafield based team's flagging budget in 2007, could pull the plug on Super Aguri.
Aguri Suzuki-led Super Aguri, despite scoring 4 points this year, failed to attract lucrative sponsors and actually lost its main backer SS United mid-season.
Auto Motor und Sport claims that Honda paid for "more than half" of the satellite team's bills in 2007 — a situation that will reportedly be discussed by chiefs of the Japanese manufacturer this week.
It is suggested that one option is to abandon the 'B team' project altogether, but there are also tangible benefits of the association for Honda; like increased data acquisition and – as controversially emerged in recent tests – divesting some of the 30,000km per team annual test limit.