Rumours say buyout talks Sauber-Andretti have completely broken down
Oct.28 - Michael Andretti's attempted buyout of the Formula 1 team currently known as Alfa Romeo has collapsed.
Amid swirling rumours in the paddock about US-based motor racing giant Andretti Autosport acquiring 80 percent of Swiss-based Sauber Motorsport, former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone admitted his doubts.
"I doubt there will be a deal with Andretti," he told Blick newspaper.
"Switzerland is not exactly the ideal Formula 1 location. British people don't really want to go there and if they do they leave pretty quickly."
The real problem, however, seems to have been the hefty and firm financial demands of Sauber's current owners, led by Swedish billionaire Finn Rausing who controls the parent company Islero Investments.
"The following numbers are rumoured in the paddock: the purchase price of EUR 350 million, in addition to a bank guarantee of 250 million over the next five years," Blick reported over the US GP weekend.
"The Swedish owners want to ensure that Alfa-Sauber can continue to operate properly."
Now, Italy's Corriere dello Sport - and other authoritative sources - claim that three months of talks between Mario Andretti and Islero have completely broken down.
"The negotiations had already been disturbed by the rumours coming from the United States at the beginning of October," the newspaper reported.
"It created a lot of publicly for Andretti, further fuelled by rumours about Colton Herta's immediate arrival in Formula 1. But it all irritated Islero."
Veteran Blick correspondent Roger Benoit said: "The son of Mario Andretti gambled and probably did not expect that the current owners would put the Swiss employees first."
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Good sense? If so, Michael has been saved from himself and so have hapless US investors.....for now.
Interesting Idea, guarantee for 5 yrs, i suspect investors in the US didn't like that one bit......... and very different to Williams, they were very short of money, Mr Rausling Isn't....
Yeah, we US investors like 5 hr timelines, not yrs. Also, note the total weekend attendance at the USGP was 265,000, not that 400k BS, and 80,000 of the count was for the Taylor Swift concert. Actual count, from the Austin Business Journal reported by Autoweek. We go for the concert, get high, and take a peek at the racing.
ABC averaged 1.23 million viewers for the F1 U.S. Grand Prix on Sunday afternoon, marking a record audience for the race, which started in '12. The previous high for the race at Circuit of the Americas was 1.05 million in '17. The F1 race was up 42% from '19..
So just how successful is F1 in America ?
Good news, but still needs a lot of work. To put it in perspective over 13 million viewers watched a second tier NFL game, on a THURSDAY night. On Sunday, biggest sports day of the week, 1.23 mil F1 viewers was 1.3% of the worldwide audience, in a country that has 4.5% of the world population. BASHCAR averages over 3 million viewers per race Numbers can support any side of an argument.
Depends how you spin it. Liberty says "great news", the world says "who cares?".
Ultimately, perhaps a good thing this buyout didn't occur after all.
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