OCTOBER 20, 2016

Fernandes not ruling out future F1 return

Tony Fernandes says he has not closed the door on formula one forever.

Tony Fernandes says he has not closed the door on formula one forever.

The prominent Malaysian businessman headed the backmarker team Caterham until late 2014, when it collapsed.

"It was very hard to manage everything," Fernandes told Vedomosti, a Russian business daily.

"All my life I was focused but businesses such as football and formula one need a lot of attention. You need to be doing it yourself or find someone you can really trust."

Fernandes also admitted that F1 as a sport and industry caught him by surprise.

"Formula one will never be a business in itself," he said. "You need a parallel business, like McLaren and Ferrari do. It took too much time and money and I could not jump between Caterham and (his airline) AirAsia.

"So we closed the team," he said.

"But I believe in the car business and I'm considering the option to develop it. And some day, when I'm done at AirAsia, I will return to racing.

"I have to admit I failed but I would like to try again," Fernandes added.

(GMM)