Super Aguri’s lifeline?

While the Super Aguri F1 team struggles mightily to retain its position on the grid, with Big Brother Honda having anteed-up $2.0m Euros in order for the Super Best Friends outing at the Spanish Grand Prix, there is now apparently some talks going on with a previously spurned bidder.

Franz Joseph Weigl, a former “Scooter” racing pilot, whose Weigl Group AG provides mechanical parts to several major auto manufacturer’s, has reportedly offered to throw Aguri Suzuki a lifeline, by offering to fork over $6.5m to keep the little team afloat and thus, this will hopefully allow Honda to save face and keep Takuma Sato racing for the foreseeable future.

While it’s not believed that Weigl has the necessary funding to obtain the team outright, the move to transfer a major shareholding of the Honda “B-Team” is seen as a way to keep Super Aguri racing while other bidders or sponsorship is sought.

Now the hard part will be getting the team’s race cars to Istanbul, as everybody else has already taken the safer route via ferryboat, instead of running the gauntlet between either the Balkans or Southern Italy which are prone to truck hijackings.

Good Luck Super Best Friends, hope to see you on the telescreen next week…

Have you seen ANT?

And while we’re all holding our breath, (Well Ok, at least one curmudgeon at SPEED who claims he may be the last person to care about Open Wheel Racing!) has anybody seen “ANT”? Err, you know, Anthony Davidson, the cheeky Brit who drives for Super Best Friends.

It seems that his team, Super Aguri F1 has been doing their best impersonation of the Tony ‘N Kevin show… As apparently Aguri Suzuki has been struggling to find sufficient funding to run his “B Team” Honda squad for the upcoming season, thus the team has been largely MIA from this year’s “Winter Olympics,” having made only a few token appearances to date.

Although the team showed up for an early season test with test driver James Rossiter and Anthony Davidson on hand, Rossiter was only able to run 10 laps as the team’s website claims that replacement parts were unable to be obtained in time upon a company plane being forced to cut its flight short due to problems.

The team did show up for the last test at Jerez with an SA07B mule chassis for Taku-sun (Takuma Sato) and ANT to share and upon the teams 2008 SA08 chassis passing the mandatory FIA certification, the team had planned to launch the new car this week at Barcelona.

But then, borrowing a page from the Champ Car press corps, Super Aguri made the following announcement after cancelling the planned car launch; Super Aguri will host a Q&A session with team boss Aguri Suzuki and technical director Mark Preston on Tuesday.

But this has since been curtailed as the team has now made the following statement. “The Super Aguri F1 team will not be participating at the test in Barcelona this week due to circumstances beyond our control,”
“We would like to apologize to our colleagues in the media who had made arrangements to attend our Q&A tomorrow."
The uncertainty over the team's future has ensured that neither Takuma Sato or Anthony Davidson have yet had their contracts to drive in 2008 renewed, although the team has continued to insist it intends to retain both drivers. Yet, we are planning to attend the test at the Circuit de Cataluna next week with two cars.
Hopefully both Taku & ANT can finally get down to the business of racing and propel Super Best Friends up the grid. C’mon Honda, throw Aguri-sun a bone! And hey, since you’re doling out free engines and last years Factory chariot, the RA107 was a DAWG, perhaps the team could use some of those left over Panoz’s, eh?

Super Aguri dumping Honda?

Although a little late, it was tough watching “Jense” get passed by Taku-san going uphill during the Belgian Grand Prix. Talk about how the mighty have fallen! As the Honda factory team was once again out performed by the minuscule “Super Best friends Which is tough for me since I enjoy seeing the little minnow beat up on its Big Brother, but an disappointed to see Jense struggling so mightily!

Perhaps this is why its NOT surprising that Super Aguri has announced that they have NO intentions of running the woefully anemic RA107 in 2008 guise as the teams SA08 chassis, instead focusing upon developing their own race car next season. This comes on the heels of cyberspace rumours of Honda scuttling Super Aguri’s true performance at Spa!

But wait, I thought next year was the beginning of legalized chassis cloning. Hence Honda would build four chassis for use by its two racing teams.

Meanwhile Aguri Suzuki continues looking for possible suitors to become partners of his financially struggling F1 team. With rumours claiming that prior to the Japanese Grand Prix there were four potential bidders interested in buying a portion of the team.

And although I couldn’t find any information prior to watching the Chinese Grand Prix, SPEED’s bob Varsha mentioned on two separate days that a “Mysterious”
(Chinese?) Businessman had invested substantial capital to buy shares of Super Aguri. If the rumours are correct, then perhaps an announcement will be forthcoming at the Brazilian Grand Prix?

New F1 Alliances?

Interestingly while Spyker appears to have been sold) Once again) speculation also centers upon the possible suitor of Aguri Suzuki’s Honda “B” Team which is also in search of a new infusion of cash.

Rumours suggest a possible partnership with Alejandro Agag. Whose interestingly a business associate of Flavour Flav’s as well as having ties to a company ironically sharing its mailing address with Emperor Bernardo’s GP2 Motorsport Ltd.

It also appears that Agag will be named one of the board members to Flavio & Bernie’s buyout of the beleaguered English Foosball team Queens Park Rangers. Yet along with the close working relationship Agag has with Briatore, there is speculation towards the Spaniard’s involvement possibly being with Prodrive next season. For more insight on Agag, see
Who is Alejandro?

Canadian Beaver

Last night while watching the 3 hour cavalcade ‘O Formula 1 Live, during the “Super Best Friends” driver interview. “ANT” (Anthony Davidson) made the remark about hitting “Juan” ‘O those furry critters that was previously viewing “Ralfanso’s” tires up close.

ANT took great glee in saying that they’d had great fun calling it a Beaver. Since that seems to get quite a bit of humour Up North Eh? Hence the reason that Davidson dived into the pits unexpectedly while running in 3rd place, as he’d struck a “Beaver” (Marmot) with the front wing of his chassis…

NOT so “Super Best Friends”

With Spyker heading for arbitration against Super Aguri (and Toro Rosso) Giedo Van der Garde appears to be the odd man out. You may recall that Van der Garde spurned Super Aguri in favour of a Spyker testing role. And with Super Aguri holding a contract on him, they’re in NO hurry to release him to Spyker.

And the rub for Van der Garde is that without being released, he’s unable to secure his Super License that’s required prior to driving in Formula 1…

”ANT” not Backing Out

Anthony Davidson who was taken to hospital after completing his maiden Grand Prix for Super Aguri, appears to be ok after back spasms incurred from the massive hit taken when Adrian Sutil’s Spyker ran into him. Of course this incident wasn’t nearly as stunning as ‘ol DC’s manic attempt to overtake Alexander Wurz…

Super Aguri SA07

Super Aguri has finally launched its 2007 challenger, the SA07 from the pit lane in Melbourne. And all of the team members are saying the obligatory “we’re much better” newspeak. The team has also copied Toro Rosso’s stance of being completely “legal.”

The SA07 heavily borrows from Honda Racing’s parts bins by utilizing the Honda F1 power train, including a new carbon gearbox. I did find it interesting to read that the team failed its initial FIA monocoque crash test, delaying the launch by one month. And with the addition of “ANT” (Anthony Davidson) I do expect the team to move up the grid. Of course so do all of the other F1 teams.

Still the team has made impressive strides in its short history. Recall that this time one year ago the team was running a four year old Arrows chassis that was taken from the Australian airport where it was on display as a show car…

For previous F1 car launches, See; Scuderia Toro Rosso STR-02

Not so Super

While Super Aguri remains the only Formula 1 team to have not launched its 2007 challenger, comes word that the team will further delay the launch of its SA07 from March 12 to March 14. The team will now unveil itsnew chassis in the Albert Park pit lane…

Super Tug ‘O War?

Apparently Spyker F1 Racing has taken a page from Scuderia Toro Rosso’s Gerhard Berger’s playbook? In an attempt to cause a minor controversy Spyker has just announced Dutchman Giedo van der Garde as one of its four test drivers…

The only problem with this most curious announcement is that back in December Super Aguri announced van der Garde as its test and reserve driver! And the team has just put van der Garde behind the wheel of one of their F1 chassis in hopes of giving the Dutchman the opportunity to rack up enough miles to qualify for his required Super License…

So who will van der Garde ultimately drive for?

Yamamoto’s Super Best Friends

Super Aguri F1 has confirmed that Sakon Yamamoto will remain with the team in 2007 as its second test driver. Yamamoto like Glock will compete in another race series in addition to his limited testing role. Yamamoto most likely will compete against Glock in GP2…