Tony Teixiera, the chairman of the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport, has revealed that the decision to ban customer cars was the reason behind his decision not to go ahead with the purchase of a
Formula 1 team.
Teixiera was involved in talks to possibly purchase the Spyker team prior to its buy-out by Indian billionaire Vijay Mallya and has also been linked with Toro Rosso after
Red Bull chief Dietrich Mateschitz confirmed that the energy drinks company was looking to sell off its 'junior' team by 2010 because of the change in rules that will force all teams in F1 to design and build its own cars.
With A1 having signed a deal that will see it run cars designed and powered by
Ferrari from the 2008/09 season, Teixeira revealed that he had hoped to effectively become a Ferrari 'B' team in F1 with the plan having been to promote the winners of the A1GP series into an F1 race seat as a reward for their success.
"We wanted an A1 team in F1 where our winners from the A1 GP series would go and race in F1," he told
Reuters. "The reason for that has always been that every kid's aspiration ultimately is to end up in
F1.
"We wanted to be running at the top, and that means top ten. The only way we were going to achieve that was with the customer cars. In other words, we were going to be the Ferrari B team and that's why I was willing to buy Toro Rosso."
The South African added that his reason for looking at both Spyker and Toro Rosso had been because of the existing ties to Ferrari – with both running Ferrari engines – although he had stepped back from the Spyker squad to enable Mallya to come in and give India a presence on the F1 grid.
"Initially it was Spyker, because I already had a deal with Ferrari and that was the biggest thing that attracted me," he said. "I then made way for Vijay to buy Spyker because Bernie needed India and I said 'Fine, I'll make way and look more favourably at Toro Rosso', which had a similar agreement [with Ferrari]
![A1GP chairman Tony Teixeira [Pic credit: A1GP Media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/433778.jpg)
