JANUARY 7, 2002

Will Mateschitz now buy into Arrows?

IT is possible that Red Bull boss Dietrich Mateschitz will use the money he has raised by selling his Sauber shares to buy into Arrows, his intention being to use the Leafield team to support his Red Bull marketing plans in the United States of America.

A switch from Sauber to Arrows would be a curious decision given Tom Walkinshaw's problems in the past with some of his partners but Mateschitz does not seem to care very much about management control and Walkinshaw can be very persuasive when he sets his mind to it. There is no doubt that Walkinshaw was somewhere in the background of the deal between Red Bull and Team Cheever for a two-car team in the Indy Racing League. Eddie Cheever and Walkinshaw are old friends and Team Cheever uses the TWR-developed Infiniti IRL engines.

There is a possibility that this agreement will involve former CART driver Bryan Herta racing in IRL and testing for Arrows with the long-term aim of getting an American driver into F1. It is also worth mentioning that one of the young Americans currently racing in Europe, Richard Antinucci, is Eddie Cheever's nephew.

Mateschitz has talked openly of his desire to convince General Motors to supply engines to an American-linked F1 team and the long-term goal of the Arrows-Red Bull alliance appears to be to create a team with an American flavor to help the Austrian company sell its produce in the United States of America.