Ross Brawn has suggested
Super Aguri's demise was due in no small part to its fellow teams' instinct for self-preservation over the health of the sport.
The Japanese minnows folded earlier this month, after two potential buy-out deals both crumbled [see separate story –
click here]. Brawn has argued that those teams who have traditionally opposed the running of customer cars within the top flight – with Super Aguri receiving ‘customer' backing from parent company Honda since 2006, racing with old versions of the Brackley-based squad's chassis' – were prioritising their own needs over the greater needs of the sport.
Following Super Aguri's collapse ahead of the Turkish Grand Prix, just 20 cars now remain on the grid for the first time since 2005 – only eight of them non-manufacturer entries, in the shape of
Williams,
Red Bull Racing,
Scuderia Toro Rosso and
Force India. Indeed, there is the potential for further diminishment as Red Bull magnate Dietrich Mateschitz has expressed his desire to sell off the second-string
STR concern before
F1's governing Concorde Agreement outlaws all customer cars as of 2010, stipulating that all teams must build their own cars.
This rule caused Prodrive – which had planned to run customer McLarens after gaining the twelfth and final entry into the uppermost echelon – to subsequently backtrack on its grand prix ambitions. Brawn has claimed that the current regulations mean only major car manufacturers would have the resources to start up new F1 outfits.
“There are a number of teams who felt aggrieved by the possibility that non-constructors could compete in the future,”
Honda's team principal told
ITV Sport. “They saw situations where they felt their [sponsorship] rates would be undermined.
“They were really looking at self-preservation rather than what was in the best interests of
Formula 1.
“I think it's extremely difficult to see a privateer coming in because of the investment and the facilities needed, but it's viable for a lot of manufacturers at the moment, and there's no reason why it shouldn't be viable for other manufacturers in the future.”
