APRIL 5, 1999

Forsythe lurking

CART team owner Jerry Forsythe says that he would like to increase his shareholding in British American Racing if the opportunity arises. Forsythe has confirmed that he controls 15% of the team, having bought the majority shareholding in Mount Eagle Inc. from Craig Pollock in November last year.

CART team owner Jerry Forsythe says that he would like to increase his shareholding in British American Racing if the opportunity arises. Forsythe has confirmed that he controls 15% of the team, having bought the majority shareholding in Mount Eagle Inc. from Craig Pollock in November last year.

Forsythe says that he would like there to be a crossover of engineering information and staff between the team and his two CART operations: Forsythe Racing (which runs Greg Moore and Patrick Carpentier and is 50% owned by BAT's Canadian subsidiary Imasco) and the new McDonalds-sponsored operation (formerly the Tasman Motorsport Group) which is running Tony Kanaan.

In October 1997 we reported that BAR was intended to be only a part of a major British American Tobacco racing initiative involving not only Grand Prix racing but also CART, Formula 3000 and Indy Lights. As a result of his takeover of Tasman, Forsythe now has teams running in CART, Indy Lights and Toyota Atlantic.

It is also worth noting that Richard Dutton, who has close links with Reynard and BAR, is well-positioned to be part of such a deal with Fortec Motorsport. Dutton runs a successful Formula 3 team in Britain and has just entered Formula 3000.