WhiteBlue wrote:AMS reports that Toro Rosso and Force India have agreed on a sum of 4.5 mil € to settle their dispute about customer cars. FI asked twice the money but eventually an agreement was reached after Bernie Ecclestone applied some pressure.
Well, that was much ado
about nothing then. Considering what must've been the cost of reaching this settlement and the general level of expenditures in F1, the sum seems paltry at best. And to top it all off, Force India isn't exactly short of cash; I bet the concerned parties would rather have kept as quiet as possible about this - the real deal-breaker was Super Aguri's exit from the sport anyway. They were the ones really left up the creek without a paddle when customer chassis were pulled from under their feet, both by the series and ultimately quite literally by Honda F1 itself. David Richards backed out at a much earlier point with far greater resources than Aguri, even.
Interestingly,
Berger wants a carmaker to partner STR, it has emerged virtually simultaneously. Mateschitz protects his investment and will finance Toro Rosso through 2009 if need be. Given the level of investment this requires for all the technical changes, the potential returns have to be great indeed. That the FIA (
Mosley) has now set a timetable for the evolution of F1's rules (
to be presented in three months' time by the teams, or else), this eventuality will push any serious negotiations with Mateschitz, Berger and a yet-to-be-F1-affiliated manufacturer beyond that point at the earliest. This won't stop media (
or us) speculating about prospective suitors who fill the criteria, I'm sure.
Also, Ferrari might not be entirely satisfied with their client openly seeking to introduce a serious competitor to them, especially as STR will become intimately familiar with their KERS designs and all. Gerhard isn't at the end of his tightrope with this one. The story certainly hasn't run out of steam for 2008 either. And I'm not entirely certain whether the €4.5M gets FI off STR's back for this year only, or whether this solution covers 2009's not quite accepted but compensation-tolerated "customerisation" as well.
