OCTOBER 23, 2000

...as AMT gives further details of program

ASIA MOTOR TECHNOLOGIES has finally given some more details of its plans for the future but once again details of the company remain very sketchy with the only investors mentioned being Hideo Morita, the son of the late Akio Morita who founded the Sony Corporation, and the Japanese machine tool company Yamazaki Mazak, which supplies its CNC cutting machines to the major F1 teams. AMT says that there are other investors who do not wish to be known at the moment.

Our understanding is that AMT has a long-term aim of running a team in F1 and concluded that the best route towards this is to buy an engine and build up the business from there. AMT technical director Enrique Scalabroni is understood to be a partner in the business and the first connections with Morita were made several years ago when Scalabroni was trying to establish a team for Tetzu Ikuzawa. Ikuzawa is not involved in AMT.

AMT has given details of its management structure with John Gano (another partner in the business) looking after finance and Belgian Didier Debae managing the former Peugeot facility at Velizy with administration provided by the Arthur Andersen management consultancy.

Debae is a highly experienced motor racing manager who started his international career as a truck driver with TomÊWalkinshaw Racing's European Touring Car team in the early 1980s. After a spell with Nissan Motorsport Europe and another with the Bigazzi touring car team he moved to become team manager at Schubel Motorsport in Germany where he remained until he joined Williams Touring Car Engineering where he first worked with Scalabroni.

A secondary company called Asia Motor Technologies UK Ltd. has been set up to look after the engines used by Arrows next year. This is headed by Graham Smale.