Despite financing Super Aguri’s Spanish action, the Japanese manufacturer Honda has ruled out rescuing the beleaguered F1 team ahead of the Turkish grand prix.
The Japanese language daily Sankei Shimbun quotes a Honda official as saying: “We will not provide relief on a race-by-race basis any longer.”
Honda’s Barcelona bail-out for Super Aguri reportedly cost the carmaker about 2 million euros, but the Leafield based team now faces either finding an investor before Istanbul in two weeks or admitting that Spain was its last ever race.
While on the face of it Aguri Suzuki’s team seems like a bargain, the outfit has little in the way of assets — its Leafield factory is leased and not equipped to design and build a modern F1 car, while even the team’s transporters are believed to actually belong to another company.
Super Aguri is also believed to officially owe much of Honda’s financial assistance to the Tokyo giant, meaning that any buyer would need to take on that debt — apparently as much as $60m.
Suzuki is due to meet with Honda chiefs in Tokyo on Wednesday in what Shimbun is describing as a “final” encounter.
Honda F1 chief executive Nick Fry confirmed: “It was never Honda’s intention to fully fund two F1 teams. Aguri need to find funding of their own.”
