Despite Aguri Suzuki revealing yesterday that his embattled
Formula 1 team is in further discussions to safeguard its increasingly precarious-looking future within the sport, parent company Honda has suggested any talk of the squad's survival being assured is somewhat premature.
Super Aguri announced that it was in the advanced stages of negotiations with the German Weigl Group AG, in an eleventh hour deal that Suzuki said included an ‘agreement for a substantial shareholding of the Formula 1 team' and one that would ‘allow [the team] to race for the foreseeable future' [see separate story –
click here].
Honda, however, have hinted that the deal is far from a certainty, and
Reuters claims
Takuma Sato and Antony Davidson's cars are still being held at
Super Aguri's Oxfordshire factory and have not yet been shipped to Istanbul. Other teams sent their cars direct from the Circuit de Catalunya to catch a ferry from Trieste in northern Italy for the three-day trip, with official scrutineering for the fifth grand prix of the 2008 campaign to be held on Thursday, 8 May.
“I am aware that Aguri Suzuki is continuing to look for an investor and we wish him well,” Honda CEO Nick Fry told the international news agency. “Since we have been looking for a partner for over a year, unfortunately, it would seem unlikely that someone appropriate is going to appear in the next 48 hours.
“It would appear unlikely that a company the size of Weigl is able to support a competitive Formula 1 team, unless of course there are other partners of which we have not been made aware.”
