Hurray, Hurray, Hurray folks, This is a limited
time Offer…
Perhaps it’s just Mwah? But I find All of the
Noise having been made over Mikey A’s proposed Takeover, Err Merger, Uhm
Purchasing of a controlling Shareholding in the Alfa Romeo Racing F1 Team a bit
confounding…
As think it was a Fortnight ago now when
Racer.com “Broke” the News regarding Michael Andretti’s upcoming meetings in
Austin at Circuit Of The Americas, (COTA) when Formula 1 visits for this year’s
U.S. Grand Prix on October 24th.
Firstly, why would you bother to “leak” News
about your impending negotiations? Other than I can only Arse-sume in order to
put pressure upon one party or the other, since usually aren’t these types of Acquisitions
done Privately?
Since the last Formula 1 Team sold was Williams
F1 Racing, but that was on their terms, with Sir Frank and his Co-Deputy
Director, Daughter Claire making public the need to sell their team due to
Financial woes.
Whilst I Don’t know of Longbow Capital, the
owners of Sauber AG who own the rebranded Alfa Romeo concern ever publicly
decrying their need to sell? Which leads me to believe this PR “Stunt” is only
intended to drive the price up.
Secondly, can we please Stop All of the
Sillyness over Colton Herta going to Formula 1 to drive for Mikey A’s Alfetti’
concern. As the first I heard of this is when the Indianapolis Star’s
Motorsports Beat Reporter Nathan Browne discussed All of the rumours suggesting
this, Huh? Hadn’t heard a Bloody thing until you wrote about it Nathan!
Then Racer’s Marshall Pruett, who I’m totally a
Fan of published his Open letter to Colton Herta, Begging him to Not go to F1!
For which All I can think is that Marshall’s having Fun at our expense teasing
us, since if he’d read Messer Browne’s article, then he'd know that Colton won’t
be able to muster up the mandatory minimum number of points required to acquire
the necessary FIA Superlicense anytime soon! So Game Over, you don’t get to
pass g-O or collect your $200 gory Dollars Marshall!
Or is this just another honest mistake by
Pruett a la his not knowing that only Full Season IndyCar Teams are eligible to
collect the Leaders Circle Fund provided they contest All races and finish in
the Top 22?
So if Michael Andretti does buy a controlling
Shareholding in Alfa Romeo Racing, then good for him, but it’s just one more
sign of his wealth, and his intentions of capitalizing on the perceived future
increased value of said F1 “Franchise,” Uhm Property.
Since the F1 Fraternity and the FIA have instituted their version of a Poison Pill buy requiring any new F1 Constructor to pay an Insane $250m as in Millions entry Fee, in order to cover their potential lost revenues from the FIA’s Prize Fund, instead of doing what’s best for the sport, by having New F1 Teams come onto the Grid and Bulk Up to 24 cars from the paltry 20.
Update
After publishing this, I finally got round to
reading Grizzled F1 Journo’ Joe Saward’s Green Notebook from Sultanbeyli. (Oct
12) Where Joe as typical dropped a few tidbits worth mentioning.
As Joe, who after all Knows F1 notes that Sauber
is Definitely Up for Sale, and that Z deal with a U.S. Based consortium could
possibly close at the end of 2022?
Whilst grandprix.com claims that some rumours
in Istanbul claimed that Michael Andretti had already acquired an 80%
Shareholding in presumably Sauber AG, but who knows what’s really going on
beside whomever the Playah’s are?
Joe also opines Thars a possibility of Alpine
financing a new Formula 1 concern, including paying the $200 million Entry Fee!
Instead of the apparently erroneous $250m figure I mentioned above.
With joe claiming Alpine would be keen on doing
this in order to not only develop a “Customer” B-Team a la Scuderia AlphaTauri
in order to give it another Power Unit customer, but also could aid in Renault’s
development of the next generation 2026 PU’s. (Power Units) Along with helping
it’s logjam of Development drivers finding seats on the F1 Grid.
Joe also claims that Alpine Academy member Christian Lundgaard is headed Stateside to fill the third #30 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing IndyCar seat for 2022…
