Reynard goes out of business

The move will be seen as an inevitable outcome by motorsport insiders following months of work to recapitalise Reynard, which has been the top chassis builder in the US-based Champ Car series for the past decade.

A Reynard statement claims that job losses will number over 100, although the company will continue to run under the management of receivers for the immediate future. It has trade creditors of over £3 million, in addition to founder Adrian Reynard, who is the company's single largest creditor.

Reynard says he is "devastated" by what has happened. "It is the worst day of my business life and in the history of the company," he said. "Reynard has had so much success over the last three decades and I'm devastated that it has ended this way, but we had no choice."

Only last week Reynard told AUTOSPORT magazine that he was fighting to keep his company in business and denied that the administrators were about to move in. He even reckoned there was "light at the end of the tunnel".

But speculation has been rife in motorsport circles for months that the constructor was in serious trouble. Reynard's former business partner Rick Gorne rejoined the company and then left again last year when his attempts to recapitise it came to nothing.

"It has been a combination of factors which has led to our situation today," Reynard explained. "Our aborted float on the US Stock Exchange which put a strain on our financial resources, and the subsequent changes in the US autoracing market are just some of the influences on the downturn in fortunes of the company.

"Reynard has suffered from several management changes and strategy shifts over the past three years and it eventually found itself in two of the wrong market places at the wrong time, having invested huge amounts of money in those products. I had hoped that we could retrieve the situation, but sadly we were not able to achieve this."

Reynard Motorsport was founded in 1973 and went on to enjoy success in all the major single-seater categories below Formula 1. But its fading fortunes began to come clear over the past year when many of the leading Champ Car teams began to switch over to arch rival Lola. Other projects like its prototype sportscar have proved unsuccessful. Reynard also failed to land money-spinning contracts to build single-spec racers for categories like Formula 3000.