A Grifter Scams Mercedes, and Other News You Can Lose
In a sport that has seen a former FIA president caught up in an [allegedly] Nazi sex sandal, an industrial spying scandal resulting in millions of dollars in fines and a driver admitting to a charge of purposefully crashing effecting the outcome of a World’s Championship it’s hardly comes as a surprise we now have a sponsorship scam to deal with.
It is surprising that’s it the Mercedes team that apparently being scammed.
The German company Henkel was reported to have signed a sponsorship deal worth 90 million euros [131,907,644.24 U.S dollars] with Mercedes.
Henkel says, not so fast buckerroo, you’ve been scammed.
The deal was signed in September before the Merc takeover of Brawn GP. Not that it matters, whether Brawn or Mercedes a deal is not a deal when brokered by a grifter.
About now I suspect many lawyers phone lines and Crackberrys are being inundated with messages form Merc’s legal beagles.
It also raises this question: With a 131 million dollar whole in the Merc budget one wonders if Mercedes should have stayed in the safer McLaren nest?
In other news:
If you’re a new F1 team, as Lotus is, you could hardly do better than signing Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen for the 2010 startup.
Well, Lotus could have done better, but it seems the on again, off again Michael Schumacher sweepstakes is on again with Ferrari announcing they would not stand in the seven-time champion’s way of a possible return.
Given that apparent go ahead many reports claim he’s signed with Mercedes.
For £20 million. Hmmm, isn’t that the same team with a giant shortfall in sponsor dollars? But I digress.
Meanwhile, Britain’s partly state-owned Lloyds Banking Group (LDC) has bought a stake in the new Manor GP Formula One team.
“Manor Grand Prix is an attractive investment opportunity that supports a highly respected UK team with proven, world-leading technical, commercial and racing expertise,” a Lloyds Banking Group spokesman said on Monday.
LDC did not give the terms of the investment but The Financial Times newspaper reported that the stake is worth about 16 million USD.
WAIT, is LDC one of the banks that are part of the 850 billion pound bank bailout, where have I heard that term before, given by the British government?
But I digress.
Again.
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Trulli & Kovi are a perfect signing for the new team. We have not yet seen the best of Kovi & I expect him to outperform Jarno, although the Italian seems to have a edge in qualifying.
Lotus have impressed me the most out of all the new teams, no highly funded rookie driver like Senna, a build program that seems on schedule with a model in the wind tunnel, a public presence in the form of a experienced designer/team principal & what appears to be solid funding. By contrast, USGP makes a lot of noise & then disappears from sight.
Will Peter Sauber lose his long-time title sponsor Petronas to the new Malaysian backed Lotus? Methinks he will.
BTW, this Henkel deal was done last year when the team was an indy………..doesn’t Nick Fry look like a complete tosser, signing a deal with a 5th level manager & apparently not even meeting with senior management.
Virgin/Manor seem to have no trouble with long term funding & their car has passed the FIA crash test.
Most intriguingly is that Nick Wirth has done the whole design using CFD with no use of wind tunnels. If his car falls short on the aero department he will be a laughing stock. Glock is a solid choice but di Grassi was passed over by Renault in favour of Grojean, despite having vastly more experience in the test role. Perhaps his 4 years in GP2 without a title has hurt him. There is no overlooking his position at Virgin was influenced by serious sponsorship.
Not much news coming out of USGP & they were up & running before these new teams got their entries.
Well, to say the least it’s HIlarious a company like Merc, even if someone at a low level gets scammed.
And really, with Lotus’ long motorsports history one would have to be pretty stupid to think they would place their millions of investment in a project that didn’t have a fighting chance at success.
You keep waiting on those performance results from Kovy Peter, I don’t think he’s got what it takes. If he couldn’t produce marginal results at Mac, why would he with Virgin?
Lotus the new F1 team has nothing to do with Lotus the car maker or former F1 designers, they bought the rights to the name. Don’t ask me how that can happen, it’s what I read.
Good point George, I’d forgotten of the name “buyout” for the Lotus name.
But I will maintain a bit of dignity by saying Lotus the “car” company would have looked long and hard at Lotus the F1 team before giving it’s blessing for use of its name.
There,George, you buying that load of crap?
Sure, what the hell, it’s Christmas!!
Thanks a a very merry Christmas to you to.
And BTW, I got a transPacific Ocean bridge to sell.
You interested?
Lotus F1 are hoping that Lotus Car owner, Proton, who just happens to be Malaysian, will take a stake in the future.
What about David Richards at Prodrive, the guy just cannot get a break. His Renault buyout has gone to another group who have a background that is strictly investment. I would have much prefered to have seen Richards rebrand Renault as Aston Martin as he planned…..maybe that had something to do with Renault’s decision..
“And BTW, I got a transPacific Ocean bridge to sell.”
A very hostile retort to a polite acknowledgment of your editorial gaff my friend. I am very wounded!
And I agree Peter, Richards can’t seem to buy steal or otherwise catch a break in the world of closed door F1 racing eh? As for the Genii investment group, they sound like bean counters looking to score a quick profit and then summarily dump the effort if the cash isn’t there. I hope it works out, but there should be some one with a racing interest behind that 75% stake, similar to the new partial owner at Williams.
George, you’re wounded?
No worries, ObamaCare will handle everything. And I do mean everything.
I can handle your criticism of whatever meager comments I offer on any racing issue: However, the fact that I/we (Americans living on U.S. soil) have to live/survive (emphasis on SURVIVE!) under Obama while you only have to snipe/comment on our elected leader (regardless of the accuracy of your astute observations) leaves me wordless. As witnessed by the above, almost wordless! And finally (Yes!) I also recognize that Obama’s actions or inaction impacts the world: Or the words /actions /inactions of the POTUS used to impact the world.
I thought this was a racing related blog??
What I’m immune from spinning out and smacking the retaining barrier on occasion?
I always appreciate your indulgence of my petty whines, but I do find the subject of politics as a potential hazard, especially regarding comments from readers.
You can crash and burn to your hearts content. As you have so wisely advised in the past, it’s your site and we can comment as we please, but it’s up to us to watch our step in our replies.
No offense taken.
Hey I’d never poop on a regular, it’s the drivebys that waltze in here and think they both now what they are talking about and know what and who I am.
In their case the feces gets let loose.