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WhiteBlue wrote:Then we just have the question left who is investing in HRT to enable this budget.
Private investors is the likely source. Tony Teixeira is the only one that is publicy known but there are probably several like him. Question answered.
Investors invest to get return on their investment , how will HRT create returns?
WhiteBlue wrote:Then we just have the question left who is investing in HRT to enable this budget.
Private investors is the likely source. Tony Teixeira is the only one that is publicy known but there are probably several like him. Question answered.
Investors invest to get return on their investment , how will HRT create returns?
The investment return could be part of a long term plan - say 3 years. Part of this deal could be on the hope that there are major sponsors on-board within 3 years thus generating the return.
I read an article a few weeks ago about Sauber’s Club One. Sauber has secret sponsors who don’t want to publicity due to current economic climate in their respective countries. My guess is that there is a major Spanish sponsor behind HRT F1, maybe they can’t show themselves yet possibly because they are involved in other sports or even in other teams. F1 is still very popular in Spain and if you read the Spanish press and the general population of F1 fans want HRT F1 to succeed.
José Ramón Carabantes said on a number of occasions over the winter, they were in final talks with a major Spanish Company. So if it was Santander the obvious reason they would not want publicity would be their involvement with McLaren and Ferrari/Alonso. As for other Spanish companies Telefonica, Repsol and Mapfre are involved in Motor GP so I am not sure how they would justify tor their share holders a switch to Hispania F1. BBVA I am not sure? This might be a nice way of encroaching on their Completions Turf (Santander). Either way there is no reason why Panda security is the only Spanish sponsor so far.
Judging by the HRT F111, Hispania has spent manpower and money developing it from scratch. They must have funding from somewhere.
I think it is pretty clear where the money comes from, that small guy in the suit in fornt of Kolles is the Don of the Sicilian maffia, money enough i guess...
ESPImperium wrote:
One wonders if they have gone back to Dallara and bought the IP to the F110 and just simply re worked that design to be a little more effective with a new front wing and rear end. That should cost no more than $6-8m to my estimation.
Why then is Geoff Willis still with this team? What is his motivation? I respect him as a designer and he knows how to sort a bad car out, but clearly the 2011 car is not a clean sheet as surely Willis would of wanted. It sounds like he is more like a technical consultant rather than a designer.
They did buy the IP of the chassis last year already, since their falling out with Dallara started. And they did use it as a starting point for this year's car, as they did not have the time to design a completely new one after the negotiations fell through with Toyota.
I heard the F111 is shorter than the F110, could this be due to a new chassis or could it be due to the Williams gearbox? They say there is a B spec due out in Monaco possibly this will be Geoff Willis car.
May be we not seeing something here, maybe the role of TATA is more significant then we suspect. I know this is just speculation but consider this. Why exactly did HRT select an Indian driver again, was it really to gain access to the Indian market? Possibly TATA were already a significant investor in HRT as they may have ambitions of eventually running their own team in F1. Did you notice how significant the TATA logo is on the F111, the Livery excluded Hispania’s own logo? HRT said they are also introducing an Upgrade in Monaco with the assistance of TATA’s CFD program. If you think of it TATA is a significant automotive company and why wouldn’t they want run their own team? It just makes me wonder!
TATA is in for Karthikeyan in deed, and will supply the team with €21m of finance, €600,000 to €750,000 a race for the race seat, and the rest in non moneytry support from CFD support. However, i would think, Narain would have to qualify for the race for the payment to be deposited in the Hispania bank account. That would be between €12m to €15m monetry support.
They also have secured Panda Security as a sponsor as well, this i think is a €2m deal for the season.
Id recon that Hispania will need €45m in hard cash for the season with arround €25m the same in technichal support that cant be qunatified. Williams are embedding 7 engineers with the team to run their gearboxes as this will protect Williams image, Hispania are paying €2m for the season to Williams for the gearboxes. Cosworth will have anywhere up to 25 to 30 engineers in the team with up to 18 at each race, Hispania are paying €5m for the CA2011 for the season.
Id recon that Hispania will have up to 60% of their race team made up of embedded engineers from their suppliers or technichal partners.
Hispania will make it thrugh again, but they need to not just make it like they did last year, they neet make 2011 a base on whitch 2012 can be leaped into and not just half arsed made again it appeal. If they want a strong car for 2012, id drop the F111 arround half way and follow the Team Lotus T128 blueprint and drop updates arround Silverstone for the current car.
Interesting budget figures. So euro 7 million can buy a competitive and complete powertrain along with embedded support. This is a big improvement over 5 or 10 years ago when backmarker teams had to pay 15 to 30 million per season for an engine that bolted onto their heavy, antiquated gearboxs.
ESPImperium, do you have any rough estimates for how the rest of the 45 million is spent? Design/manufacturing vs operations/racing, etc. If HRT starts qualifying comfortably within 107% then do you think they will ditch Antonio for a second pay driver? I appreciate the HRT insight you've given so far.
For a compeditive chassis set, power train and embedded support is put a figure closer to €12m including R&D and costs to get it to the first test or race. Transmussion usage of the Williams LG14 that Hispania will use this year will be €2m, Cosworth CA2011 usage will be €5m, leaving arround €5m for a chassis set of 3 F111s that you would need to be able to call it a complete team set at any GP, that incluses 2 racing chassis and one unbuilt tub as per the rules. Taking a 2011 tub will cost €655,000 to make, the rest of the costs of the chassis will go toward R&D and manufacture.
So you would have €12m of the €45m spent in hard cash, leaving you €33m. Then you would put a value of anything from €7m to €13m on staffing costs, rent and other associated costs of trade, depending on how scattered the team is, not to mention its suppliers and how far away they are from the main HQ.
Id give a rough estimate of €20m Hispania will be able to play with, this should be able to give their package 2 good updates of €4m to €6m each and the rest should ideally be spent on various other things for the cars, and operating costs, they sould be able to feasably squeese a couple of smaller detail updated of up to €1m out of the rest of the budget. However they need to keep some budget aside for the 2012 car in this area as well, so that makes this €20m tighter than a ducks, to pardon the pun.
Personally i think that Hispania will need Tonio when they put the updates on the car as theese will need baselining against what they had. If Hispania do sell a ride in a F1 car it wil be for FP1, and id recon they could get anything up to €100,000 for this priveledge, also they could sell the Test & Reserve seat as part of this for up to €5m for the season, that will give a driver up to 19 FP1s in the season (Expect him to sit out at least Monaco, India and Singapore) and be given between 2 and 4 days in the young driver testing at the end of they year.
Its quite hard to say exactly without having some insider trading, but the assumptions i have made are all based arround costings i have read in corperate magazines and buisness pages, not to mention what i also have read from trusted media and blogs.
Does anyone know an approximate value for how much income HRT lost for not racing this Sunday, and how much they may have spent just to turn up at an event? Just wondering how many more races would force the colapse of the team.
