“Present me the cash!” 5 F1 entries that went nowhere

It's a cliche, however no much less true for being oft repeated, that the quickest approach to make a small fortune in motor racing is to start out off with a big one.

Alongside the massed ranks of those that have misplaced nice pots of cash within the service of their motor racing goals there may be one other class of entrant – those that consider that they'll make it huge whereas investing little or no of their very own cash.

This week Autosport obtained an electronic mail saying the putative return of the Caterham title to the Formulation 1 grid.

“We're saying that Saad Kassis-Mohamed Capital plans to return a dormant F1 entrant to the grid below a brand new entry, SKM Racing, concentrating on 2027, topic to FIA approval and settlement with the business rights holder,” mentioned the e-mail. Given the sturm und drang surrounding Cadillac's bid to area an F1 entry, expertise suggests the latter two conditions won't be forthcoming.

Saad Kassis-Mohamed, the Kuwaiti “entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist” fronting the venture, most lately emerged as a possible purchaser of the troubled English League One soccer membership Studying. The funding didn't go forward.

There are numerous causes to not give credence to bulletins of latest groups. Listed below are only a few of them.

LKY SUNZ (2021/2023)

Benjamin Durand's on once more, off once more journey via the margins of F1 started in 2019 when he introduced the formation of Panthera Group Asia. Durand, who had most lately managed the SMP Racing LMP2 squad within the World Endurance Championship, claimed to be concentrating on an entry “following the Haas mannequin” (ie utilizing as many bought-in elements from different group and suppliers as attainable below the foundations).

The pitch was that whereas F1 had been chasing growth within the USA following the acquisition of the business rights by Liberty Media, it had carried out nothing to develop the viewers base in Asia. In itself this wasn't an authentic idea: Panthera co-director Michael Orts was a director of Bronze Fortune Ltd, registered within the UK on the identical handle as Panthera, which had been the supply of a lot pleasure in the summertime of 2017 when it was briefly renamed China F1 Group Racing.

However for all of the discuss of hiring personnel and working from premises at Silverstone with a view to securing an entry in 2021, Panthera by no means received so far as lodging an entry. Ross Brawn, then the managing director of F1, mentioned no new entrants could be thought-about till 2022 on the earliest: “We should study from historical past, so many small groups got here and went, and did not actually add to F1.”

Durand briefly reappeared in 2020, insisting that he nonetheless had personnel engaged on preliminary designs and the premise of a deal for an engine provide, however “we're ready to see what occurs with F1 earlier than we are saying extra”.

Nothing extra was heard of the venture till 2023, when it was revived and subsequently rebranded as LKY SUNZ (pronounced ‘fortunate suns' in reference to the solar being revered in lots of Asian cultures) following the FIA's resolution to launch a young course of for a brand new group. Now the plan was to have an operational base in Asia, be “youth culture-focused”, and to have a powerful emphasis on group outreach.

Regardless of claims of a $1bn finances, backing from the US-based Legends Sports activities Advocates Group, and a acknowledged willingness to pay $600m into the anti-dilution fund (triple the speed on the time), the bid was rejected. It's understood that the dearth of granular technical and monetary element within the bid, together with the outfit's lack of precise sporting pedigree, counted in opposition to it.

The corporate was dissolved in December 2023.

Stefan GP (2010/2019)

Maybe one of many causes for F1 managing director Ross Brawn's resolution to slam the door on new entrants on the finish of the final decade was his assembly with Serbian businessman Zoran Stefanovic throughout the weekend of the 2017 Austrian GP.

There, Stefanovic introduced his intention to arrange an F1 group based mostly in Italy.

“Earlier than coming to Austria I've put collectively some essential agreements,” he informed Autosport. “I outlined that it will likely be based mostly in Parma, which is positioned an inexpensive distance from the wind tunnel.

“I've additionally signed a contract with a specialist in aerodynamics to assist work on the venture.”

The specialist in query was mentioned to be Enrique Scalabroni, an engineer with a considerable pedigree and fingerprints on the likes of the Williams FW11 and Ferrari 640.

Many sequels basically observe the plot of the unique guide or film, and Stefanovic's pitch got here freighted with deja vu. He was among the many unsuccessful bidders for a spot on the 2010 grid when Max Mosley introduced three spots could be accessible to new entrants within the wake of the worldwide monetary disaster.

Regardless of this rejection, Stefanovic acquired a number of the property of Toyota's canned F1 venture and pushed forward with plans to run a programme from Toyota's Cologne base, with improvement superintended by former Arrows and McLaren designer Mike Coughlan. Chances are you'll do not forget that title – he's the man who despatched his spouse to the Woking department of Prontaprint to run off copies of confidential Ferrari blueprints in the summertime of 2007.

In February 2010 Stefanovic performed a borderline surreal phone interview with Autosport through which he claimed to be in talks with Jacques Villeneuve to drive, that Kazuki Nakajima had been signed already, and that the Stefan 01 automobile had been “fired up for the primary time” within the race bays in Cologne. On different essential issues, equivalent to whether or not he would have an entry, or certainly any tyres, he was relatively extra imprecise.

“What we now have in the intervening time is a solution from Bridgestone that they're solely supplying to groups that are taking part in Formulation 1,” he mentioned. “However we're optimistic that they might provide GP2 tyres.”

Little marvel, then, that nothing materialised from this venture and Stefanovic's return to the paddock in 2017 was greeted with a lot eye-rolling.

US F1 (2010)

Confronted with the prospect of a producer exodus from F1 as the worldwide monetary disaster gripped the automobile business within the autumn and winter of 2008, FIA president Max Mosley introduced varied tender processes together with a homologated low-budget powertrain, and new positions on the grid. The id of the profitable bids, introduced throughout the Le Mans weekend in 2009, induced a lot consternation.

Manor Racing and Campos Grand Prix had racing pedigree within the junior formulae, however how had US F1 – led by former Haas technical director Ken Anderson together with Peter Windsor, the journalist and someday Williams group supervisor – crushed bids from the likes of Prodrive and Lola?

As ever with Mosley, politics have been by no means far-off. He and F1 ‘ringmaster' Bernie Ecclestone have been locked in a battle with the eight entrants who fashioned the Formulation One Groups Affiliation, which deliberate to stage its personal breakaway collection.

US F1 supposedly loved backing of YouTube founder Chad Hurley and promised to throw its doorways open as by no means earlier than in F1, with movies documenting each facet of the group's progress in the direction of the grid. It didn't need for amenities, because it was based mostly in Charlotte, North Carolina – America's ‘Motorsport Valley'.

Inside months, rumours started to swirl that the venture was significantly not on time – an impression bolstered by the absence of the promised movies. GP Racing journal was invited to Charlotte in late summer time and the journalist returned bemused, saying there was little or no to {photograph} for instance the proposed article, and that Anderson appeared borderline unhinged, disappearing off to Starbucks with peculiar regularity.

Regardless of the rumours, the group introduced Renault check driver Jose Maria Lopez, who introduced a reputed $8m in sponsorship from Argentinean sources, as certainly one of its pilots for 2010.

In February 2010, weeks away from the beginning of the season, Autosport revealed an interview with a group insider who wished to stay nameless. The revelations have been extraordinary, pointing to a elementary breakdown of the event course of – to the extent that the automobile was nowhere close to completed, and there was no sponsorship.

Anderson, they claimed, insisted on each facet of the design crossing his desk, creating a considerable bottleneck.

“There was valuable little in the way in which of formal planning and documentation,” the insider mentioned. “No manufacturing schedules, merely little or no in the way in which of planning.”

Upon studying this, Ecclestone dispatched a racing driver he knew nicely – now a revered broadcaster – to go to the manufacturing unit. He reported again having witnessed little greater than a ‘tub', some fantasies, and a stack of Starbuck receipts.

Ecclestone swiftly alerted new FIA president Jean Todt, who despatched race director Charlie Whiting – previously chief mechanic at Brabham – to examine the amenities. He inevitably reached the conclusion that US F1 was going nowhere.

It was a case of too little, too latte.

Two weeks earlier than the season opener in Bahrain, having been absent from testing, the group claimed it had utilized to the FIA to defer its entry to 2011. After which it vanished into the ether, Lopez's $8m now spent, and nothing to see on YouTube past some amusing beginner skits satirising the entire farrago.

Group Dubai F1 (2006)

In October 2004 an enterprise calling itself ‘Group Dubai F1' introduced plans to enter F1 in 2006 with Mercedes engines and technical help from McLaren, at a price of $100m per season. The group itself could be based mostly in Dubai.

Great scepticism greeted this proposal from the off, given the assorted personalities concerned and the circumstances of the time. Whereas it appeared to have at the very least some help from the ruling Al Maktoum dynasty – group ‘consultant' Timothy Fulton additionally acted as a spokesperson for the Al Maktoums – the very fact was that at the very least three F1 groups have been identified to be up on the market. Why not purchase a kind of.

“We in the end concluded that the acquisition of an present group would by no means allow us totally to exhibit our personal dedication and excellence since success would inevitably have been linked with the present group's model and values,” Fulton was quoted within the group assertion.

However it was the supporting forged who supplied the best causes for cynicism. The press launch was despatched by an outfit calling itself the Belgravia Group, claimed to be advising Grand Prix Investments, the physique behind the proposed group. These two entities not solely shared a registered handle, they'd a lot the identical personnel: John Byfield and Russell King.

On the time, these people have been merely thought-about to be the clowns who had mismanaged Jenson Button's affairs to the extent that he ended up in courtroom together with his personal group. BAR group boss David Richards went to Bernie Ecclestone to have King's move revoked.

Byfield would later go to nice lengths to distance himself from King, and with good cause. King, whose corpulent body, ostentatious costume sense, and the affectation of carrying a cane drew a lot remark within the F1 paddock, already had one conviction for fraud below his XXXL belt and extra was to return.

Regardless of claims of getting $48m handy as a way to lodge the mandatory entry bond with the FIA, nothing additional was heard of Group Dubai F1. When King reappeared in 2009 because the prime mover behind Qadbak, the entity supposedly shopping for the BMW group, McLaren group principal Martin Whitmarsh was among the many first to sound the alarm bells.

The soccer world didn't carry out its ‘due dil' and Qadbak received its arms on the struggling Notts County membership for the nominal sum of £1. BMW-Sauber was spared the disaster which unfolded there.

In 2018, having been extradited to Jersey from Bahrain, the place he had been dwelling undercover, King was sentenced to 6 years in jail for fraud and larceny.

Phoenix/DART Grand Prix (2002)

For a number of years within the late Nineteen Eighties and early Nineteen Nineties, grand prix entry lists have been so oversubscribed that the stragglers needed to face off in opposition to each other within the unedifying means of prequalifying on Friday morning. The losers on this sport have been packing up their tools lengthy earlier than the ‘correct' motion started.

Now think about not being allowed into the circuit in any respect.

This was the destiny of Phoenix Grand Prix, a wing-and-a-prayer outfit fronted by Charles Nickerson, a businessman who had raced TWR Jaguars with Tom Walkinshaw below the nom-de-wheel of ‘Chuck' Nickerson within the early Nineteen Eighties. Maybe alerted to the chance through the Walkinshaw connection, Nickerson acquired a number of the property of the defunct Prost group in late 2001 through his firm, Phoenix Finance Ltd.

Crucially lacking from the pile of elements which have been then transferred to the Leafield base of Walkinshaw's Arrows group was any paperwork pertaining to Prost's F1 entry.

Phoenix had the Prost APO4 automobiles and the mental property rights to them, however just about nothing else. When its skeleton crew turned up on the second spherical of the 2002 season, Malaysia, it was subsequently denied entry to the paddock. For the season opener it had submitted a pair of nostril cones to the scrutineers because the ex-Prost automobiles had but to reach on the manufacturing unit.

So, so far as the FIA was involved, it was a brand new group and needed to lodge the mandatory entry bond; Nickerson insisted that it was a continuation of the Prost group.

Though Walkinshaw publicly distanced himself from the enterprise, it was a skinny pretence because the automobiles have been identified to have been ready at Leafield and the Phoenix crew have been drawn from the Arrows check group. Additionally, within the absence of the Acer-branded Ferrari engine which had powered the AP04s, the Phoenix ‘AP04Bs' basically had the gearboxes, suspension and TWR-badged Hart V10 engines from the Arrows AX3 three-seater demonstration automobile shoehorned in.

One other Walkinshaw hallmark was the idea that the group's entry may very well be stored ‘stay' by merely tootling across the observe for a couple of laps – a tactic he tried only a few races later as Arrows itself ran out of cash.

Nonetheless, being locked out of Sepang prevented Gaston Mazzacane and Tomas Enge from having to drive what would probably have been a deathtrap.

A peculiar change of title to DART Grand Prix whereas the shenanigans ensued solely added to the tapestry of confusion and chaos.

Nickerson took the FIA and FOM all the way in which to the Excessive Courtroom however, in Might, Sir Andrew Morritt – vice-chancellor of the Supreme Courtroom – threw out the case and ordered Phoenix, DART, or no matter it occurred to be referred to as that day, to pay all prices.