The future of BAR..?

[BSchneiderFan]

Well, tobacco sponsorship becomes illegal for 2007, and BAR is owned by a tobacco company. So what's the long-term plan? We've already heard rumours of an imminent name-change - Lotus was touted as a possibility - and for how long will Honda remain involved? Will Prodrive take the team off British-American Tobacco's hands for 2007? Will Honda buy it up as a factory team, especially if Toyota start to come on strong?

Thoughts please...

[billaboy]

My thoughts are GP tickets are so much money as it is now, whats gonna happen when the Tobacco Companies pull out of sponsoring the teams and races GP tickets will go up in price even more! What makes it worse is that more and more of the tracks are doing away with General Admision tickets, so you have to buy seats! Not only to mention ticket prices but whats going to happen to teams like BAR and Jordan who completly depend on those companies for $$$ they'll be gone and the grid will be down 4 more cars. If I'm wrong somebody correct me.

[Hungary 89]

My money is on Prodrive taking the team over Dave richards is already in charge,

About two years ago I popped in to a Machinists to collect some samples or something. He does the odd bit of work for various motorsport organisations so he knows a few people in the industry. An old mate of his dropped by we were chatting and he suggested that When Dave sold shares in Prodrive it was to raise money to Get involved in F1 and suggested that he may try to buy BAR

at the time I took it with a pinch of salt as BAR had only just started but when Dave Richards became Team principle I started to wonder

[BootsOntheSide]

I think Prodrive and Honda will take the team ownership, probably 50/50, although Adrian Reynard may remain involved.

[EERO]

Boots, I agree with you except that i thought Reynard was out of the picture now.

[alesi95]

Yeah i thought Pollock kicked Reynard out?

[kmchow]

Originally posted by EERO
Boots, I agree with you except that i thought Reynard was out of the picture now.

OTOH, if BAR really gets into financial trouble and Reynard comes with money in his pocket...things may change!!

[neilap]

IMO, Honda will take the team over. Already they are heavily involved in the chassis development. In fact they only lack the experience on the aerodynamic side of things, which is why I suppose GW and company are there.

Forget Toyota. Honda has bigger and better things in mind. They want to be winning again. They dont enjoy having their fate in the hands of others. EJ would not give Honda the invlovement they wanted so they came to an "amicable decision.

* Kinda strange how they are still having engine trouble with their new and better Ford.

[EERO]

Originally posted by kmchow
OTOH, if BAR really gets into financial trouble and Reynard comes with money in his pocket...things may change!!

Considering that Reynard, (the Company) went into receivership and no longer exists, I think we can safely discount that possibility.

[climb]

Theres'a already been a thread concerning BAR's Future.
I had said, and kept my mind, that a strong involvement of Prodrive could be dangerous to the company.
Despite Prodrive being maybe the best motorsport company in the world, F1 nowadays is too demanding for a multibusiness firm like that.
I fear that their other activities (which are numerous and important: rallys, Sportscar, automotive, etc) would risk to be choked by F1 overweight.
It would be better, in my opinion, a huge company like Honda as a large-majority shareholder, with Prodrive keeping a small share and staying as a technical partner.