Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Shanghaied!

I’ve been “Bo-Bo Varshaed!”

During Saturday’s qualifying session, I thought I smelled a rat when SPEED’S Bob Varsha (incorrectly) announced that Spyker MF1 Racing had secured Renault customer engines for 2007…
Watching half of the Japanese Grand Prix, Varsha commented that the Renault customer engine deal will be with Red Bull Racing, transferring their supply of Ferrari customer engines to Scuderia Toro Rosso.
During Sunday’s Chinese GP race, Varsha simply stated that Spyker had announced procuring Ferrari customer engines for 2007 and that the only unknown was which of the two Red Bull teams would use the Renault customer engines next year… (Can you say Red Bull?)
It had been rumoured that Spyker would have Ferrari customer engines as soon as the sale of Midland was completed. I’d found it a bit odd that Renault would be willing to supply engines to a competitor when one of Spyker’s team owner’s holds a 5% stake in Ferrari…

Interestingly as Varsha has the habit of constantly correcting David Hobbs mistakes, I’ve fallen prey to a typical “miss-speak” by Varsha…

Also of interest was the comment by Varsha that the Shanghai circuit took over two years to complete and cost more then $325 million…