Prodrive signals renewed F1 hopes

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The owner of British motorsport firm Prodrive says efforts to cut Formula One's high costs could tempt smaller, private teams back to the grid.

The global economic downturn has made a big impact on motorsport recently, with some major car makers pulling out.

Honda quit F1 two weeks ago, Suzuki left rallying on Monday and Prodrive partner Subaru followed on Tuesday.

"The sport will go back to how it was in the 1970s and '80s when smaller teams came to the fore," Richards said.

"And who knows? Maybe that is another opportunity for Prodrive. We're very interested if Formula One going to address the costs issue.

"I have always said there are two criteria for Prodrive's return to Formula One: one, we want to be competitive, and two, it must be financially viable. If we tick those two boxes there is a strong likelihood we will be back there."

The 56-year-old, who has had stints in F1 as boss at BAR and Benetton, wanted Prodrive to join motorsport's top tier in 2008 but had to back down because of opposition from the grid's biggest teams.

They were against his plan of buying an engine/chassis off the shelf - a so-called "customer car". Their opposition centred on the belief that F1 is more than just a contest between drivers and that teams should develop their own cars.

But the economic climate has changed since then and the sport has been forced to reassess its dizzying costs and prohibitively high barriers to entry.

Last week, the sport's governing body, the FIA, brokered a cost-cutting pact with the remaining F1 team owners. Among the measures approved were commitments to use less powerful but longer-lasting engines and do away with in-season testing.

FIA boss Max Mosley's plan for all teams to use a single engine/gear-box package was resisted by the major manufacturers but a "common" engine built to agreed specifications by an independent supplier will be made available to smaller teams at a cost of no more than £4.5m per season.

This will reduce costs for those teams by 50% and the other belt-tightening measures should cut overall budgets for the larger teams by 30%. Mosley described the agreement as the "first step towards Formula One saving itself".

It's about time - the costs associated with Formula One cannot be sustainable," said Richards, who has been linked with the up-for-sale Honda team.

"We've seen the sad withdrawal of Honda in recent weeks and unless those costs can be brought under control I fear another manufacturer may follow.

"But the new regulations and cost-cutting programmes certainly make (F1) more appealing and far more suitable for a company such as ours. It's still a challenge, not to be underestimated, but it certainly becomes far more feasible and realistic."

Speculation about the Banbury-based firm's next move will go up several notches now its lengthy World Rally Championship venture with Subaru has come to a surprisingly abrupt end, but Prodrive is not the only British motorsport company with F1 ambitions.

Founded in 2004, iSport International has enjoyed considerable success in GP2, F1's feeder series, and has nurtured the driving talents of Scott Speed, Timo Glock and Bruno Senna.


Formula One is never going to be easy but it's achievable - it's the sort of thing you'd look into more seriously now

iSport's Paul Jackson
Like Richards, iSport boss Paul Jackson has been watching F1's efforts to rein in its spending with interest.

"We're still a long way off but Formula One is moving in the right direction," said Jackson.

"The return of pure privateer teams with the ability to buy engines, gearboxes and all the other bits of technology for a sensible price and compete on a reasonably level playing-field, would be really good for the sport.

"If that was available, and the cost was realistic, it's definitely something we would be interested in looking at.

"Until now, there has been such a gulf between us and Formula One - because you have to set up a design, R&D and manufacturing facility as well as a racing team - it would have been impossible to think about competing without the backing of a major manufacturer or billionaire.