SEPTEMBER 29, 2006

No agreement on sharing new cars

Super Aguri F1 has been negotiating for some months now in the hope that all of the Formula 1 teams would agree to change the Concorde Agreement to allow it to use cars built by the Honda F1 team in 2007. Super Aguri argued that if the engine regulations are coming a year ahead of schedule it is logical to do the same with chassis. This proposal was accepted by all but one team - believed to be Spyker MF1 - which argue that such a deal would give Super Aguri a performance advantage in comparison to the now-Dutch team. The only way that Spyker MF1 would agree to the idea was if everyone agreed that TV money should be shared between 12 teams rather than 10. That would mean that everyone would have to take less money and, funnily enough, no-one was overwhelmed with the idea of such a generous gesture and so Super Aguri will have to build its own car once more and wait until 2008 to get its chassis from Honda F1.

The big question that remains to be answered is how Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso are going to create two cars without someone challenging the team over the design. There is no doubt that Red Bull will have some argument ready for such a challenge and little doubt that the FIA will accept that argument - because the Austrian drinks company would be mad to have gone this far down the line without some form of confirmation from Paris that its plans are fine.

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