Sauber soap opera, what was not revealed...

What was not revealed at the time was that a few days before that announcement a new investment company called Islero Investments AG, was registered at the Sauber factory address. 

An Islero is a Spanish fighting bull, but the name was used by Lamborghini for one of its models in the 1960s. This is probably just a coincidence because it is not very likely that Alfa Romeo would be sponsoring a team with links to Lamborghini, which is owned by the Volkswagen Group, although Lamborghini boss Stefano Domenicali (formelry the boss of the Ferrari F1 team) is very keen to get the Italian supercar brand into F1 in 2021.

The board of Islero consists Vasseur, Picci, Rausing and four lawyers. The first of these is Italian Alessandro Alunni Bravi, who works closely with Vasseur and was once the team principal of the Trident GP2 team. More recently he has been involved in looking after drivers who are managed by Vasseur. The three other lawyers are not known in motor racing. The declared purpose of Islero is to administer shareholdings in other businesses and it is logical to assume that it is the new holding company of Sauber, thus taking Longbow out of the picture, which would make sense given that there were rumours that the other Rausings were not too keen on the Sauber investment. Replacing Longbow with Islero thus makes sense and having Vasseur, Picci and Rausing on the board is logical. No-one knows Islero and so Rausing's desire for privacy was not really an issue. 

The key question however is who else is involved and the key to this comes with the lawyers, who are most likely acting a nominees for the real investors. The president of Islero is Liechtenstein's Ernst Walch, who is foreign minister of the tiny principality, which is famed for being a place where the very rich put their money. Maurus Winzap is a tax lawyer but the interesting person in this case is Swiss lawyer Shelby du Pasquier. His connections may explain what is going on. In addition to his legal business, he has been a board member of the Geneva-based verification and certification company SGS SA for the last 10 years. 

The chairman of SGS is none other than Sergio Marchionne, who ran the firm from 2002 to 2004 before he was taken on by Fiat. He remains the chairman of the board and thus has worked for more than 10 years with du Pasquier. One can suggest, therefore, that Marchionne is probably the motive force behind Islero, with du Pasquier looking after his interests until the time is right. 

Thus it could be that Sauber is already under Fiat control but any announcement will only come after the 2021 rules are settled and Alfa Romeo confirms that it is entering F1 in a more active way...

Source:JSBN

NASCAR BUYS ARCA

NASCAR has acquired the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA) stock car series. It is not entirely clear why this has occurred as the two sanctioning bodies have worked side by side for more than half a century. ARCA is often used as a training ground for young stock cars drivers who then go on to the three NASCAR national series. There is some overlap with regional NASCAR series, but ARCA has also been a place where NASCAR teams can sell their old equipment.


The series was founded in 1952, as the Midwest Association for Race Cars (MARC) by John Marcum, a friend and racing rival of Bill France Sr, who had also worked with NASCAR in the early years. At the time MARC was aiming to be the NASCAR for the northern states, while NASCAR was still concentrated in the south-east. MARC was transformed into ARCA in 1964 and has worked with NASCAR ever since, holding races on all kind of tracks from small dirt ovals to superspeedways. ARCA will continue to operate with its current structure until the end of 2019 after which it will be merged into the NASCAR structure. This will help to simplify the different stock car series, which are less sustainable given the current state of the industry, By taking away some of the options, consolidation should result in stronger series. The chassis and engines used are currently similar and it will not be expensive for racers to convert with ARCA engines also able to be used in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, which will probably result in increased entries in NASCAR at regional and national level. It remains to be seen how this will be integrated with NASCAR's Pro Series East and West championships, which act as feeder series for national series.

Source : JSBN

MCLAREN AND INDYCAR

The French Grand Prix marked another low point for McLaren in Formula 1 and while some in the organisation argue that it should expand its motorsport activities, others say that if the Woking team is to return to its former glory, it must focus completely on Grand Prix racing and not confuse matters with other motorsport projects such as IndyCar or the World Endurance Championship. There have been rumours that Zak Brown wants to run McLaren teams in both series to boost the brand and sales of its road cars. However, there is a strong argument that trying to do too much is the wrong way to go. 

There has been a lot of media coverage about McLaren's IndyCar plans, including the suggestion that Scott Dixon might be hired to be part of the team, presumably alongside Fernando Alonso. Dixon has confirmed discussions but other sources say that the McLaren plan to run a team in IndyCar is not going to happen, because the team owners have decided that they must concentrate on returning to contention in F1. This makes sense.


Michael Andretti is warning that if there is going to be a McLaren IndyCar team run by his organisation, a decision is needed almost immediately, in order to have things properly-structured. There is also a problem because everyone believes that the IndyCar idea has been developed because of Fernando Alonso. This is not necessarily the case as the Spaniard may be more of a hindrance in the process for two reasons: he is a Toyota factory driver in WEC and Honda would need to accept that if he is to race for Andretti. Honda may appreciate his ability, but it has suffered as a result of his criticisms of its efforts in F1 and may not wish to do business with him. This could mean that Andretti is not a workable option for Alonso/McLaren and they would need to look at options using Chevrolet engines. This would in effectively limit his choice of partners to Penske Racing and Ed Carpenter.

Source: JSBM

F1 negotiations regarding the commercial arrangements for 2021

Although the word is that we will soon have all the details of the new Formula 1 technical regulations for 2021, the negotiations regarding the commercial arrangements for 2021 and beyond do not seem to have been making much progress. Most of the F1 teams are happy to settle for what is on offer, but there are a number of problems that need to be resolved: Ferrari, Mercedes and Renault are all understood to have reservations about the deals on offer in the presentation made in Bahrain. The proposal was for a cost cap of $150 million from the start of 2021, giving all the teams "a glide path" of three years. 

This would not include the costs of the drivers, the marketing nor the highest paid employee, but would include specific rules in relation to capital expenditure, shared costs, bonuses, fair value and currency differences. There would be a restriction of what new entrants could spend and an independent verification process plus significant penalties to deter cheating and personal responsibility for directors, with consequences for individuals in addition to the teams. This all make sense. 

The revenue distribution would be based on the two column system used today with each of the 10 teams getting 10 percent Column 1 money, and a new percentage scale for Column 2 money of 18 - 16.2 - 14.4 - 12.6 - 10.8 - 9.2 - 7.4 - 5.6 - 3.8 - 2.0. Thus the top team would get 14 percent of all prize money and the least successful would get six percent. There would be a fixed annual payment of $40 million to Ferrari and annual payments of $10 million to each power unit manufacturer.

Ferrari and Mercedes are opposed to the cuts as they have the most to lose in comparison to the current system, which gave the bigger teams bonus payments for a number of fairly nebulous reasons, leaving the smaller operations without enough to compete. The impact of this is that the smaller teams have been struggling and dying out. It is fair to say that the big teams taking a bigger share played a significant role in the smaller teams that have failed in recent years. They do not like to hear that, but it is hard to avoid that conclusion.

 

The problem with Renault is different in that a commitment was made to Renault by the Formula One group when the French firm agreed to enter F1 for 10 years, back in 2015. The agreement included heritage payments of around $140 million, which are due to be paid between 2021 and 2025. Using this commitment, Renault borrowed money secured with its future revenues. This money still needs to be paid, or a settlement needs to be negotiated to get rid of the problem. Obviously, Renault is not keen to get less than promised. 

Talks have been taking place quietly but it is clear that if there are to be new players in F1 in 2021 (and even buyers for the existing teams in trouble), there must be a financial settlement sooner rather than later. It seems that Liberty Media has loaned Force India money (presumably by advancing prize money payments) to keep the team ticking over, but many other potential players are waiting because they don't know what the budget cap will be, and they need to know the length of the glide path.

Getting to these answers in a hurry may involve taking the bull by the horns and forcing the issue if Liberty Media is to avoid missing the boat on the much-needed new entrants and engine suppliers.

Source: JSBL