Backmarker wrote:Wizzie wrote:According to Martin Brundle on Sky a minute ago, rumour has it the Lotus team might be changing ownership in the next few months. Make of that what you will.
From Genii Capital to someone else? I guess it makes sense, given that we knew the Group Lotus money couldn't be that secure. Will be interesting to see who the new buyer is - David Richards, turning the team into Aston Martin Cosworth?
Prodrive did submit a rival bid to Genii Capital when Renault announced that they were cutting their ties with the team, but whether Richards would consider having a second crack at buying out the Enstone outfit remains to be seen. He has been rather critical of the current regulations for being too restrictive, and he has been especially critical of the top four teams in the sport for watering down spending caps in order to protect their position.
Speaking of budget caps, Bernie has been suggesting, as part of the ongoing discussions about the Concorde Agreement, that a budget cap should be put in place across the teams, although he was suggesting that it should cover all aspects of the team (including driver salaries), not just their technical activities. Mind you, Bernie's suggestion wasn't exactly restrictive - he was suggesting a limit of £155 million should be put in place.
By way of comparison, McLaren's estimated expenditure for 2011 was £160 million, whilst Mercedes's accounts indicate they spent £125 million - only Red Bull Racing and Ferrari would, by the sounds of things, be especially badly burned by such a deal (Ferrari's accounts do not seem to have been published yet, whilst Red Bull Racing spent about £177 million - however, that only covers 52 key employees (the BBC claim that sum rises to £210 million once the activities of Red Bull Technologies, where Red Bull's design team is based (and has nearly 500 employees in total, though some of those are Toro Rosso staff), are factored into account). Perhaps Bernie is trying a little bit of his old "divide and conquer" tactics by suggesting a limit that might appease the medium sized teams but antagonise the larger teams?
Interestingly, though, Whitmarsh has been rather critical of Bernie's proposals, even though arguably McLaren might benefit from that budget cap (if that figure of £160 million is reasonably accurate, they are only just over the spending limit of £155 million whereas their two major rivals seem to be spending significantly more than them if the accounts are reasonably accurate).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/20110248
His manager says that Petrov has has contact from two teams other than Caterham - despite claims to the contrary, it only makes sense for those to be two from Force India, HRT and Marussia, and of those I would say that HRT would be most amenable to having him. I do wonder what the line up will be next year, de la Rosa - Petrov, de la Rosa - Clos, Petrov - Clos, or some other combination involving Karthikeyan and/or Ma.
