OCTOBER 25, 1999

Tyrrell business still in the courts

THE Tyrrell Formula 1 team may have disappeared a year ago but business related to the operation is still being settled.

THE Tyrrell Formula 1 team may have disappeared a year ago but business related to the operation is still being settled. Last week Oxford Crown Court in England heard that Lebanese businessman Sulaiman Al-Kehaimi allegedly obtained $60,000 by falsely representing himself as a wealthy Arab sheikh with contacts in the Saudi Arabian royal family. In 1996 Al-Kehaimi is said to have offered to buy 51% of the team for $7.5m and to have promised the team that he would find $33m a year in sponsorship for the team.

Rupert Manwaring, formerly commercial director of Tyrrell, appeared in court and revealed that Al-Kehaimi convinced him by flying the team to the Hungarian GP that year in a rented Boeing 707.