RIP European Minardi

[Ellie]

Looks like the rumours about European Minardi are true, have just found this


"The European Minardi team has announced it is to close. It follows weeks of speculation over the future of the team which has struggled for points, and to attract drivers with a budget.
The team will not be at the official FIA test at Monza tomorrow, and unless a buyer can be found quickly will not be at the Nürburgring for the sixth race of the season in less that two weeks time.
Unless a team takes part in every round of the championship, their entry is cancelled by the FIA."

What a shame, do we think this is a very clear signal as to what is going to happen to the F1 Minardi team.

Has been a eventful week so far in F3000 especially if you include Alex Muller quiting after claiming the results he has achieved are not worthy of the funding he is bringing to the team. His replacement is said to be Derek Hill son of Phil Hill.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT?

[AndyF]

Originally posted by Ellie


His replacement is said to be Derek Hill son of Phil Hill.

Who, going on last year's performances, will be just as slow

[Mekola]

I think the considerations about "cutting costs" must extend to other monoposto categories and not allowing only F1. F3000 increased the costs too much in last years and I think it was only because it was with F1. The results were the F3000 entries shrinked since 42 to 18.

[ghinzani]

Is'nt Derek Hill still finishing last years races? I'll never forget last year at Imola when the entire F3000 field was under a caution period but half a minute or so of waved flags was'nt enough time to filter thru to Del boy who proceeded to crash into the cars in line astern.... what a clown!

[B/Mark]

F3000 was set up by the F1 powers to get rid of their old engines. They then had them running on qualifying day, not race day, so no good for sponsors. The F1 teams then proceeded to ignore F3000 as the route into F1 and with the rapidly escalating costs, gossip suggesting this is in excess of $1,000,000, no wonder that F3000 is struggling.
The best routes into F1 these days are F3 and Nissan, both infinitely cheaper.

[sceptic]

Originally posted by B/Mark
F3000 was set up by the F1 powers to get rid of their old engines. They then had them running on qualifying day, not race day, so no good for sponsors. The F1 teams then proceeded to ignore F3000 as the route into F1 and with the rapidly escalating costs, gossip suggesting this is in excess of $1,000,000, no wonder that F3000 is struggling.
The best routes into F1 these days are F3 and Nissan, both infinitely cheaper.

F3000 was set up eleven years before it became an F1 support series, and has never used ex-F1 engines since it became an F1 support series.

The best route into F1 is to be a talented driver with decvent sponsorship, whatever series you race in.
F3000 is certainly more successful at producing graduates to F1 than F Nissan which seems to be a dumping ground for drivers who either have no money, or have no talent, or both.

[Rob29]

Actually F3000 supported 4 F1GPs in its first season (1985) It was originally meant to be for the redundant 3000cc cars when the F1s all went turbo. In the event it also replaced F2. I have info from a hopeful entrant that the required budget is £1.2M.not suprising that entries have fallen to 19,with no Brits.

[unofficialf3000]

Bad news about European Minardi, if not particularly surprising. I can't believe that grids have shrunk so dramatically since 1999. It's clear that with Dallara Nissan and Euro 3000 (and maybe Italian F2 & FC Euro Series) there are too many series at the sub-F1 level, but at least Euro 3000 and Dallara Nissan manage to get full grids at the moment. International F3000 needs changes quickly, but it'll probably go on being neglected and ignored by the self absorbed F1 brigade...

[Rob29]

Anyone know what has happened to Italian F2? It's official website and the unofficial one have not been updated since April.

[Stephen Green]

Coloni and Astromega have both shown an interest in buying or taking over the European Minardi F3000 team.

[Rempie]

It seems that European Minardi is up for sale for only 500.000 dollar! ...probably because Stoddart wants to ensure that the members of the team can keep their work.

I don't think it will take long before the team gets sold, this sounds like a bargain to me! However, Astromega wanted to start a 2nd team 2 years ago (I think?) after they bought the equipment from the McLaren junior team, but they weren't allowed to enter!

[Speedworx]

As yet the Minardi F3k team is NOT dead. Astromega and Coloni want to buy the team and I'm confident they will appear at the Nurburgring.

[bella]

what's the chances of something happening like in formula renault, where two other teams bought the entries of aztec, ran the cars under that name as far as entry lists went, but were actually saxon and team dfr cars, run by those teams? i guess there isn't the same number of entries issues in f3k cause it's so damn expensive.

i'm not confident they'll run at the nurburgring, unlike hakkiman. why would astromega and coloni want to buy the team? it's not like there's hundreds of drivers with millions of pounds worth of sponsorship hanging around, and it's far too expensive to pay the mechanics and assorted team members without actually running the cars.

[sceptic]

It's economies of scale.

If either Astromega or Coloni bought the team they could run it much cheaper than either Minardi or a new entrant.
They wouldn't have any new premises or factory costs because they are already paying these.
Similarly they wouldn't have any new administration, marketing or PR costs as their existing staff would be able to do this.
They would also save on transport and engineering personnel costs, although there would be some additional cost here.

I know that at least one of the teams has two drivers with budgets lined up to drive the cars if they are able to buy Minardi before next week.
If the sale takes longer than that, then there is no point going any further as the team's entry will be cancelled if they do not at least arrive at the Nurburgring and have the cars scrutineered.

[Speedworx]

We'll see what happens, but Minardi seem confident it will survive.

[DNQ]

Good knows why the FIA killed off so many teams a few years back - it's there own fault, they culled the small teams who were in it for the long term in 1999/2000, and now this has happened...

[Russfeld]

I dont think entries went down so much as they got narrowed down. You know? When they have the new car in 99 there was a *ton* of entries and that first year was to establish who had entries for the following. Some made the cut, some didnt.

What I dont understand is if this mystery team has two funded drivers waiting in the wings to take over the remnants of Minardi, why dont those two funded drivers just drive for Minardi?

[bart_jacobs]

Originally posted by Rempie
It seems that European Minardi is up for sale for only 500.000 dollar! ...probably because Stoddart wants to ensure that the members of the team can keep their work.

I don't think it will take long before the team gets sold, this sounds like a bargain to me! However, Astromega wanted to start a 2nd team 2 years ago (I think?) after they bought the equipment from the McLaren junior team, but they weren't allowed to enter!

Yeah,too bad that it didn't happen...At least they got a new trailer.You can see the pictures of it in the gallery by my name (8 pictures)

[Rempie]

Yes; so; like I said... If Coloni or Astromega buys the team, they would not be allowed to enter it based on what happened to Astromega 2 years ago!

[bart_jacobs]

I always thought of it as a strange story.You would think that they asked the FIA of the possibility's.It could be that they bought it as spare cars and parts,i was in the workshop a couple of days before they sold their cars to Draco and there were like 5 or 6 monocoques,not to mention the spare parts...They must have known that the FIA woudn't permit it.

[sceptic]

If Coloni or Astromega bought the team the team would be allowed to enter remaining races, as long as they entered them all.
What Astromega and Coloni are not allowed to do is just buy the cars and enter them as extra cars for their own teams.

[bart_jacobs]

Thank you sceptic,i didn't look at it that way...

[Rempie]

sceptic> But that is *exactly* what Astromega wanted to do when they bought everything from McLaren junior! They wanted to run a 2nd team, but simply weren't allowed by FIA.

[sceptic]

www.formula-3000.net has reported that Coloni has bought the European Minardi team and that Alex Sperafico and Alex Mueller will be driving this weekend.

[Speedworx]

Didn't the Astromega team want to run the McLaren Jr cars under a different name, other than McLaren Jr?

Coloni are keeping the Minardi name, so I think thats why the FIA are allowing it. Coloni are just keeping the team running and not having a second team as such.