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Vijay Mallya to buy Honda F1?

By: Karthik :+: Under: Business, Formula 1, Motor Racing, Sports
On: ⋅ August 28, 2007 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment
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Dr. Mallya chatting with Ralf Schumacher at the launch of the 2007 Toyota car. Kingfisher is one of the Sponsors of the Toyota F1 team.
Image from Kingfisherworld.com

If I had a dollar for every time I heard a rumor, I would be a billionaire. But this coming from the Richard Branson of India, seems to have a level of truth associated with it. This also stems from the fact that Dr. Mallya, aboard his yacht, The Indian Empress, threw one of the biggest parties in F1 in Turkey, outdoing his previous party at Monaco.

In an interview with CNBC, Vijay Mallya throws a few hints that he might be out to buy a F1 team.

Q: You are the king of acquisitions, we have seen you do ones which are pretty tough and people expected deals to actually fall through. So, looks like you will be able to pull this one off?

A: You are being very complimentary. But this is a very tough and hugely competitive business. You have teams here like Toyota, which have budgets running into hundreds of millions, and there is no guarantee that if you invest, that you will succeed. It takes a lot more than that.

The article adds that Mallya is looking at the team with the second highest budget, but it is not Toyota F1.

F1 buzz suggests that Mallya may not be looking at the Panasonic Toyota team even though Kingfisher is one of the sponsors. It is apparently the second most costliest team on the circuit and has been under performing.

According to some unofficial stats, McLaren International is the team with the biggest budget, about $400m, followed by Toyota at $393m and Honda at $382m. Again, there is now way to confirm these stats. I personally think Mallya is talking about Honda F1, which has has it worst year in F1 history.

If there is a misprint and Mallya is looking at the team with the least budget, he could be talking about Torro Rosso, the Red Bull Jr. team, Spyker or Super Aguri. All three have had problems either running the team or with money.

With cost cutting measures being the forefront of F1, the budgets could dramatically drop in the next couple of years and Mallya might have himself another winner.

Whatever be the case, he thinks having an Indian team with Indian drivers will go a long way in helping India establish itself in F1.

Q: Which means that there is a very strong possibility that it may happen?

A: You can draw your own conclusions, but part and parcel of bringing F1 to India is to also have an Indian company involved in F1. In what form or shape, I am not going to disclose just yet. I think it is premature. But we have drivers, we have Narain Karthikeyan, we have Karan Chandok and I hope there will be more as we go along. That is one part of the story. But to have a more significant involvement in a particular F1 team, could well have a domino effect in regenerating interest in F1 in our large country, and culminating of course in actually hosting a race.

We will keep our eyes and ears open. For all we know, we might find another team modeled after Super Aguri on the grid soon.

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