Dutch formula one team Spyker has for the first time essentially admitted the identity of the defaulting sponsor responsible for Christijan Albers’ F1 exit.
The 28-year-old Dutch driver was forced to vacate his race seat last month, and speculative press reports at the time suggested that Mingya European Resort, a Chinese real estate developer with Dutch links, had failed to pay its multi-million dollar bills.
Spyker Cars B.V, the Silverstone based team’s sports-car making parent, has now formally confirmed that Mingya began to go into default at the beginning of this year.
The carmaker said Spyker’s predecessor, Midland, initially signed the sponsorship deal with Albers’ backer last year.
“As of the beginning of 2007 Spyker has formally notified Mingya about its default to pay the instalments due under the sponsorship agreement,” a statement read.
Spyker added: “All parties involved were aware of the payment default of Mingya.”
The outfit also addressed rumours in the Dutch language newspaper De Pers that financially embattled Spyker planned to delist from the Amsterdam Stock Exchange.
Spyker said that, in fact, “a delisting might be a consequence” of a current refinancing process, but that currently the carmaker “has no concrete plans” to do so.
“Finding itself in a very early phase of the review process, it is too early for Spyker Cars B.V to anticipate the outcome of the strategic review and its refinancing operation,” Spyker added.
