The Weekly Grapevine

It's the Hard Knock Life

There seems to be something seriously awry with Formula One's financial model when a team at the top end of the championship spectrum announces record profits while three at the bottom of the log either are, or have been in the recent past, threatened with extinction.

To rub salt into the wounds is the stated ability of another front-runner - one which recently headed the points' logs until convicted of rather unsavoury activities - to pay a fine of 100 million US dollars out of revenues.

To put that into perspective: Vijay Mallya, new owner of Force India, formerly Spyker, formerly Midland F1, nee Jordan - all in something like four years - recently stated his team had a budget of around $110m for the entire 2008 season.

Vijay Mallya at the Force India launch © LAT

Last year Force India finished a real last in the championship, with only the single point scored by Adrian Sutil in the lottery that was Japan saving the team from a fat blob.

With the team starting this season with an updated version of a car that already proved most disappointing through most of last year, there is little reason to hope that matters will improve drastically in the short to medium term.

Not too long ago Minardi was sold to the Red Bull drinks concern for around one-third the 'petty cash' amount, and since then all sorts of rumours have surrounded Scuderia Toro Rosso, with suggestions that A1GP boss Tony Teixeira regularly sniffs around the team refusing to die despite some pointed denials from both sides.

For STR, last season was fair to middling, particularly after Scott Speed was invited out of the team, in the process enabling young Sebastian Vettel to score a sensational fourth place in China.

But, the team's season was blighted by allegations that their chassis was virtually identical to that used by Red Bull Racing, having been bought from group company Red Bull Technology.

This, said the team's opponents, was illegal as these chassis constituted 'customer cars'. Ranged against STR were Force India/Spyker, who initiated arbitration proceedings against the team, and Williams, which threatened to proceed with High Court action should customer cars continue to be used.

And, now the youngest team in the paddock is said to be facing an uncertain future despite finishing a dogged ninth in last year's championship - or tenth if the points scored by McLaren are factored into the equation - using a 2006 Honda, which according to the litigants was also illegal.

Having announced that their new car, dubbed 'SA08' and thought to be based on Honda's disappointing RA107, was due to be launched on 19 February at the Circuit de Catalunya, the team postponed the official unveiling and announced that management will instead be available for interviews.

Note: not a word was said about the team's drivers in the announcement; equally, no indication was given as to an alternate launch date, none of which bodes well for Super Aguri's immediate future, and is a far cry from the confidence that the team radiated as 2006 drew to a close.

Super Aguri were, of course, set up with Honda support in a quest to avoid a backlash in Japan, when it became clear that Takuma Sato would be unemployed in 2006 after the motor giant's primary team signed Rubens Barrichello to partner Jenson Button.

Takuma Sato © LAT

Although the working of miracles is an absolute impossibility in F1, Super Aguri's first season came close to being just that. The tiny team reworked (unsuccessful) 2002 Arrows chassis to accept Honda engines and went racing, and, although the team failed to score points that year, team principal and former F1 driver (plus the first Japanese driver to score a podium) Aguri Suzuki was an extremely happy man come the 2006 finale in Brazil.

"I proved we could finish the season, and now my $48m is safe," he said in the Sao Paulo paddock, referring to the $48m bond the sport's administrators had demanded prior to accepting the team's (late) entry.

He was adamant he, and not Honda, had paid the deposit, and that the freed funds would be put to good use in 2007 - when, as precursor to the expected 'customer car' regulations promised in 2008, the reworked RA106 was used.

Just three months earlier Suzuki's suave co-director Daniel Audetto - who has more paddock experience than most, having guided Niki Lauda to his second world championship back in 1977 - had been even more upbeat as he showed this journalist around the team's portion of the former Arrows facility they leased from Menard Competition Technologies Limited, which in turn had bought the premises from the TWR/Arrows liquidators.

Super Aguri could well win the first race of 2008, suggested Audetto at the time, adding that although it sounded far-fetched, it was not inconceivable.

"Look at this way," he said in his trademark Italian accent. "We are a small team with good experience of running a tight ship. When all the restrictive regulations (since lifted) come into force in 2008 and they allow customer cars into Formula One, we will be ready while the big teams struggle to downsize."

Unsaid was that all teams would be on Bridgestones - something SA had experience of - plus Honda had just won the Hungarian Grand Prix (the interview took place five days after Button's victory).

Added to that, team revenues were due to double in the wake of the Memorandum of Understanding agreed between Renault's Alain Dassas (then acting on behalf of the teams; now counting Nissan's beans) and Donald McKenzie (for Formula One Management/CVC), just four months previously.

It did make sense back then, and a lot of it, too, but with the regulations having basically been rolled over for another year save for the introduction of four-race gearboxes and SECUs; with there being no new Concorde Agreement (and doubts as to whether the previous version is valid) despite the MoU; with customer cars now not being permitted and the team's present fiscal situation, the odds on Super Aguri seeing points in Melbourne, let alone winning the 2008 opener, are as long as Elvis Presley starting the race.

Apart from the foregoing, the team suffered crucial setbacks last year, not least Hong Kong-based SS United Group Oil & Gas Company Limited defaulting on its title sponsorship commitments.

This blew a massive hole through Super Aguri's accounts, leading the team to: a) cut back on staff at races, b) reduce their test programme, and c) sub-contract whatever testing they did undertake to Honda's test crew, who obviously knew RA106 backwards.

Aguri Suzuki and Daniel Audetto © LAT

At season's end rumours started that noble Spaniard Alejandro Agag was considering buying into the team; last month India's Spice group was said to be interested, particularly if Narain Karthikeyan could be accommodated in the second cockpit in place of Honda protege Anthony Davidson - a situation engine supplier Honda is said to be rather uneasy with.

Aguri denies that either of the parties showed tangible interest, but did concede that prospective backers were being wooed.

"We are in discussions with some other companies that have not been identified," he told the Japanese media this week. "I don't think we will reach agreement with those (Agag, Spice) as various factors were ranged against them." So, it appears, the team's future hangs on some unidentified partners.

That something is seriously amiss at the back of the grid became clear when FIA president Max Mosley last month told reporters he feared for the future of some teams, including Super Aguri. Hopefully a backer will be found, one that permits the proven duo of Sato and Davidson to continue, one that provides the sort of financial stability that Mallya has promised the former Jordan outfit.

The much-vaunted cap, if ever it sees the light of day, will hardly prove Super Aguri's salvation, either: with little or no funding, with customer cars not permitted, what use a cap, regardless of its level? So, what is the solution to this back-of-the-grid dilemma?

Fighting funds have been tried and cheap engines promised, testing has been restricted (and even here some teams have run nowhere near the permissible time or distance) and control tyres introduced. All, patently, to no avail.

Sponsorship, too, is becoming increasingly difficult to procure, not least because of the sub-prime crisis and anticipated recession which is causing companies to act with diligence, particularly where long-term, big-dollar contracts are involved.

All the time there are mixed messages as to whether teams have received their back-dated payments as negotiated by Dassas, and whether or not they will receive their increased revenues this year as long as any new agreement (a.k.a. euphemistically as the 'New Concorde') between the commercial rights holder and the teams remains unsigned.

Over the past 58 years around 120 outfits have tried to make it in Formula One; today just 11 remain, with one having recently been still-born. That works out at an average of two teams per season disappearing. Will F1 maintain that rather sad average this year?