Anthony Davidson has gone on the offensive against some of his fellow Formula 1 competitors who have criticised the Super Aguri drivers' behaviour on the track during the 2008 season so far, suggesting some of them 'would crack if they were in our position'.
The small Leafield-based outfit has spent both the winter months and opening four races of the current campaign in dire financial difficulty, with their participation in the Turkish Grand Prix – the next round on the calendar – in severe doubt. Having toed the party line for so long, Davidson has now come out fighting to settle a few scores.
Firstly describing the SA08 as a 'botched job' – before admitting that “the team won't like me for saying that” – the 29-year-old then went on to hit back at remarks made by fellow Brit David Coulthard, who uncharitably referred to the cars driven by Davidson and team-mate Takuma Sato as the 'stupid Aguris', for frequently getting in the way when being lapped.
“They can shut right up,” the Hemel Hempstead-born ace is quoted as saying by
F1SA. “When you can hardly see what the hell is going on because the car is shaking around so much, and you're just fully focused on keeping the damn thing on the track, the last thing you can do is be bothered about others trying to lap you.
“I'd love to swap cars with these drivers. I really believe some of them would struggle, or even crack, if they were in our position.”
There was further bad news for the Japanese minnows when parent company Honda – with whom team principal Aguri Suzuki is due to meet in Tokyo tomorrow (Wednesday) for what is being called a 'final' chance – ruled out offering any more financial aid to the beleagured squad to enable Sato and Davidson to race in Istanbul.
Super Aguri was only able to compete in Barcelona last weekend with Honda's help – at a reputed cost of two million Euros to the latter – but Japanese daily publication Sankei Shimbun has quoted a Honda official as saying: “We will not provide relief on a race-by-race basis any longer.”
That means Suzuki must now either find an investor within the next few days, or else accept that the F1 dream is officially over. The problem he faces is that his team boasts little in the way of assets, its Oxfordshire factory is leased and not equipped to design and build a modern grand prix machine, it is in as much as $60 million debt to Honda and even its transporters reportedly belong to another company. It was just such a prospect that ultimately caused potential saviour Dubai International Capital to pull out of the deal that would have rescued the squad a fortnight ago.
“It was never Honda's intention to fully fund two F1 teams,” CEO Nick Fry said. “Aguri need to find funding of their own.”
