MARCH 14, 2008

Capito to Super Aguri?

There are rumours in Europe that 49-year-old German Jost Capito coluld be the man to be the new chief executive of the Super Aguri F1 team. The team has announced that it has a deal with Martin Leach's Magma company, but at the moment they are saying nothing about the plans.

There are rumours in Europe that 49-year-old German Jost Capito coluld be the man to be the new chief executive of the Super Aguri F1 team. The team has announced that it has a deal with Martin Leach's Magma company, but at the moment they are saying nothing about the plans. It is believed that the price of the purchase was around $100m, with the money being split between Honda, which was owed a large sum of money for the team, and Aguri Suzuki. The Japanese racer is expected to receive about 30% of the total, but it is believed that this is simply to settle loans that he made to the team.

Capito is wellknown to Leach as he was heavily involved with Ford Europe when Leach was in charge there.

Capito started his career as a biker in endurance events, notably the Paris-Dakar. He then joined BMW Motorsport as an engineer, working under the legendary Paul Rosche, developing the BMW M3 touring cars of the 1980s. In 1990 he was hired by Porsche AG™s motorsport department to oversee the organisation of Porsche™s various different championships and he later became head of Porsche Motorsport before moving to the Sauber F1 team. He became chief operating officer of the team in 1999. He remained in charge for two years before moving on to become director of Ford Special Vehicle Engineering in Cologne and remained in charge of Ford's motorsport activities until November when he was moved to a new position as vehicle line director for Ford Performance Vehicles.