The Weekly Grapevine

The Last Samurai

That Super Aguri's trucks started rolling out of Leafield last Friday was a no-brainer.

In the bigger scheme of things, ten tanks worth of diesel would hardly make a difference to the struggling team's liquidity; waiting for good news until the last possible moment could, though, have made the difference between being fully set up and not making the circuit in time.

Even better news was to follow: whilst this column was in preparation word arrived that key staff members were on their way to their closest airports - implying tickets had been pre-booked and pre-paid - with more to follow by Thursday.

All of which is good news not only for the folk involved, many of whom cater for more than one mouth and have mortgages to service, but for Formula One as well.

Super Aguri trucks in the Barcelona paddock © LAT

For in direct contrast to assurances once given by the FIA that 2008 grids would stretch to 24 cars, the reality is that just 22 cars made it to Australia, and Super Aguri's failure to pitch would have reduced that by another two cars.

Of course, as Arrows - on the back of whose cars, ironically, Aguri made its debut, and in whose former premises the Anglo-Japanese team has thus far been housed - variously proved when similarly challenged in 2002, merely being there and actually racing are two different animals. But, at least Super Aguri's spirit is willing, even if the flesh is weakened ...

The reasons for the tiny team's existence and current predicament have been regularly documented within these pages and therefore need no explanation here, but the question must ultimately be asked where to, even if the team can actually be saved.

Although talks between the team's much-vaunted prospective saviour Magma Group, said to have the backing of the Dubai Investment Corporation, and Aguri are now officially off, there are whispers that the possible buyer and potential backer are waiting in the wings for the team to collapse totally.

This could in turn result in a lower price being accepted - the essence of this business is, forget not, to buy assets at the lowest possible price, use them to cost-effectively produce high-performance cars, then sell space on these vehicles at the highest rate - with the team's unsecured creditors being treated equally.

This group is thought to include Honda, which is said to be owed upwards of $100m after providing Super Aguri with cars, engine and support services. Obviously the Japanese company is anxious to recover its debt, and as such has acted as mediator in negotiations between Aguri and Magma, headed by Martin Leach, a former Ford colleague of Honda F1 Racing Team CEO Nick Fry.

(The latter is, as this is written, in Dubai addressing a travel and tourism summit, and whilst some folk have made currency of his movements, Fry's associates have confirmed that his attendance at the WTTC summit was confirmed (sealed?) in early February - a month before DIC entered the Aguri picture ...)

However, back to the question of where to if the team is saved. Under the original 2008 rules customer cars, ie bought-in chassis, were legal.

However, when it became clear that same were illegal due to conflicts between F1's technical regulations, commercial aspects of the sport and the FIA's clearly-defined role as administrator, halfway-house regulations, whereby teams would be required to build their own chassis from 2010, were agreed upon by all.

(In the interim the arbitration case filed by Midland/Spyker/Force India against Aguri and Scuderia Toro Rosso against their use of bought-in chassis in 2007/8 continues, and this continuation is believed to be one of the reasons given for the breakdown in negotiations with Magma - although a settlement is believed to be in the offing after both STR and SA sought a resolution to the problem.)

Daniel Audetto and Dr. Colin Kolles © XPB/LAT

The 2010 imposition demands that all teams hold the intellectual property rights to any car they enter in the 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship. This regulation brings with it all sorts of ramifications, not least that a team has all the necessary facilities to design, manufacture and develop fully its own competitive car.

As can be imagined, this places tremendous demands on a team the size of Aguri, operating as it is out of rented premises half the size of those owned by the opposition, and with a design team no bigger than the test teams drawn upon by the sport's bigger teams. In fact, Aguri's entire head count is smaller than one team's aero department ...

All well and good, say most, for Aguri, in whatever guise the team may operate under in future, has 18 months to ramp itself up to the level of building its own car, something that, unlike STR - which, as Minardi, built its own cars from 1985 through to 2006 - it has never done.

But whilst the timing is tight, it seems to present a reasonable deadline if sufficient funding is available.

After all, point out the optimists, BAR, which begat Honda, went from zero to Australia in 1999 in that sort of time frame ...

Except that Aguri's greatest problem is probably not 2010, but 2009, which is effectively less than seven months away. The coming season brings with it greater changes to the regulations of the sport than it has seen for over ten years, with swinging changes to power trains, aerodynamics, overall dimensions and slicks being on the menu.

So, whilst customer cars will be (arguably) legal, the chances of teams having built up a bank stock of sufficient tried and tested chassis, and KERS power trains, to sell in time for the first race are so slim as to be fundamentally non-existent.

Consider just one aspect: this year's final race will be held later in the year than at any time in the last decade, with the 2009 opener being earlier than for at least the same period given that the sport's commercial rights holder seems hell-bent on increasing the number of races to 20 due to the financial pressures its principal, CVC Partners Ltd, is experiencing.

This means that the off-season, the traditional build and development period, is shorter than most teams remember.

And another: with Aguri currently indebted to the tune of many tens of millions of dollars, with restricted facilities and no engineering team to speak of (in F1 terms), what chances of it either building its own chassis to the 2009 regulations (which, at time of writing had not even been finally approved) or acquiring at least two compliant chassis and power train combinations in time for the first race?

Sebastien Bourdais tests the new Toro Rosso in Barcelona © LAT

Of course, these problems equally face the other 'customer car' team, STR, but the Faenza-based team holds fairly salient advantages over Aguri, not least that it is bankrolled by two shareholders who are respectively billionaire and multi-millionaire.

Also it has, as previously pointed out, built its own cars in the past, and has access, for 2009 at least, to technology produced by sister company Red Bull Technologies.

But, the mere fact that it is known that this team - with all its inherent advantages over Aguri - is up for sale as a direct consequence of the 2009/10 rule changes illustrates exactly just how steep is the mountain the Anglo-Japanese team needs to climb in the coming months - assuming it finds the wherewithal to race in Spain this weekend.

Bernie Ecclestone is said to be desperate for the team to compete, for his commitment to the FIA is that at least 20 cars will start each race - and force majeure could so easily knock out one or two cars as it has regularly done in years past.

So a grid devoid of Aguri Suzuki's eponymous white/red cars means the sport is sailing close to an ill-wind if it loses these, particularly after Prodrive's withdrawal.

When all is said is and done, Formula One simply cannot afford to drop below the 20-car mark, for that is well below the expected levels for the united IRL/ChampCar series and even below the consistent 23 entries achieved by that upstart formula, A1GP, over the past two years.

Some say Ecclestone realises this and will advance some the monies allegedly owing Super Aguri (and the rest) in terms of the Memorandum of Agreement signed by all teams in May 2006, ironically during that year's Spanish round; monies which have still not been paid out as Ecclestone awaits the signing of the latest Concorde Agreement - if ever that comes to pass, which seems increasingly unlikely.

So, where is all that money, said to amount to close to a quarter billion dollars?

"Sitting in some or other bank accounts," one team principal told this column recently.

"In whose bank accounts, then? The teams'?"

"We wish ..." was his succinct response.

On such wishes could Super Aguri's future hang.