End of an era! Bye, bye Minardi!

aidan_dunne

Well, that's it, folks. The end of an era. Perenial backmarkers Minardi will be no more from the 1st of November. Red Bull has announced they've just bought the team and will use it as a "Junior" team from next season onwards with the purpose of bringing in it's rookie drivers into Formula 1 and giving them a place to hone their skills before moving into the "main" team or on to other teams in F1.

From F1Racing.net

Red Bull buys Minardi

Today, at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit, an agreement was reached whereby, from 1st November 2005, Red Bull will take over all the company shares of the Minardi Formula 1 team and will be responsible for running the team. Red Bull will therefore run two Formula 1 teams from the start of the 2006 season onwards.

The second team will be positioned as a "Rookie Team" and this and the current Red Bull Racing will operate independently of one another and compete against one another on the track.

A team statement explained that "The main reasons for Red Bull deciding to enter a second team starting in the 2006 Formula 1 World Championship are:

1. Red Bull has more talented drivers than it has available cockpits. This meant there were only two ways of helping up-coming drivers: either place them in other teams or to increase the number of cockpits available to us. After much careful thought, Red Bull decided to go with the second of these options.

2. Looking at the current state of Formula 1 we feel that the second team will be able to maintain its current assets while also being able to generate its own income in the future, in order to become almost selffinancing.

3. This acquisition also means that Red Bull now has a second vote in any matters raised regarding the future of Formula 1. At the moment, no decisions have been taken as regards the name of the team, its management nor its drivers."

Bit of a sad day, this. I think everybody, no matter who they were, always secretly used to root for Minardi in some way, being the underdogs and all. I know I did. Was always happy to see them get a few points...... as long as it wasn't at the expense of Jordan, that is! Remember Melbourne in 2002 and Mark Webber finishing 5th? The team were so overjoyed it was almost as if he won the bloody race!

As I said, a sad day. Though, at least there is perhaps one silver lining to the cloud. At least we won't have to listen to Paul Stoddart moaning and complaining all the time from now on, I guess!

aidan_dunne

What are people's thoughts on this, by the way? I know that this new team will be run as a seperate team from the "main" Red Bull team but do you think it's really possible that Red Bull will be able to pull this off? I just wonder if they're not biting off more than they can chew. How will this affect the main RBR team, particularly financially? I know that the intention is for the rookie team to eventually be able to aquire they're own sponsors and things and be "self-financing", as the statement above said, but in the meantime surely Red Bull are going to have to provide financial support in some way to the rookie team. This is bound to have consequences for the main team in that they're bound to have less money available to them as a result.

Also, I have a strong feeling Bernie E. was another instrumental key in all this. Why? Well, two reasons:

1: Scott Speed. There hasn't been an American driver in F1 since Michael Andretti in 1993 (and we all know what a disaster that was! :rolleyes: ). Bernie is desperate to increase interest in F1 stateside. Bringing the U.S. Grand Prix back into the calender in 2000 and having it at the home of American racing, Indy, was the first big step in that. And, no doubt, to some extent it did work (though what happened this year certainly was a major setback). Now to generate more American interest, there needs to be an American driver in F1 and Scott Speed, currently on Red Bull's books and competing in GP2, is the most likely candidate. Expect to see him driving for this new team, if not next year, then certainly in the next couple of years.

2: Paul Stoddart. He was always a bit of a thorn in Bernie's (and especially Max Mosely's) side. I bet Bernie will be glad to see the back of him, to be honest, and would have been doing anything in his power to see this deal go through just to get rid of the whining Aussie out of the F1 paddock once and for all!

dogg_r_69

I think it's sad Minardi's not going to be there anymore There were always struggling for money compared to most teams but they stayed in F1 for so long I always cheered them on Maybe just cause they were the underdogs or just cause they kept racing without basically having a hope in hell of getting good results Still didn't stop them though
End of an era is right!!

Jonny Arson

I'm distraught about the end of Minardi. F1 is going to be an even more poorer sport without them.

I don't believe any current F1 team should be allowed to buy out another team. This will be a 4 car Red Bull team which is clearly an unfair disadvantage to the rest of the teams. I don't have a notion of where Red Bull are coming up with the funds to run a multicar F1 team but it's certainly sending out a bad precident to the other F1 teams who may look at this to purchase maybe a Jordan/Midland team and run a ''junior'' squad aswell thus pushing up costs even further and ending independent teams.

The ''main'' Red Bull team will consist of David Coulthard and Christian Klien and the ''junior'' team will consist of Vitantonio Liuzzi and Scott Speed.

I don't believe Speed is anywhere near ready to compete in F1 next year. He has done well in his debut GP2 season but he needs antoher season under his belt. Rushing him in will only damage him and IMO Christijan Albers should get the ride. I definitely think Bernie has given Red Bull the hint hint over having an American driver in F1 next year.

The Lopper

Well i don't really see the point of running two teams, it seems like financial disaster, but Red Bull clearly have a lot of money as they sponsor an absolute ton of events all ready (motorcross, skateboard, Air-race) also they have a reputation for sticking with their projects when the going gets tough, so they are not going to pull out of this at a whim.

BrianD3

I'm just wonderng how this will work. Will the name minardi be retained (eg Red Bull Minardi) and will the team continue to be based in Faenza. If it is intended that this be run as a separate operation from the main Red Bull team then in effect Minardi would still be on the grid, but under different ownership and with more money

This wouldn't be a new thing for Minardi as the team has passed through various management/ownership over the years. It was originally started by Giancarlo Minardi, then Gabriele Rumi became involved, Briatore was involve at some point and then Stoddart bought the whole team. It also merged with Scuderia Italia for the 1994 season.

The other thing to say about Minardi is that most peole think they were always at the back of the grid. Not true at all! From 1989 - 1991 when Pierluigi Martini drove for them they did well at several grands prix in both qualifying and the race. Several times they qualified in the top 5 including at least once on the front row. They had a few fourth place finishes, led a race etc. But as F1 changed and became more money and technology driven Minardi became left behind.

Kersh

I havent really cared about Minardi since Stoddart took over. A whiner..... :rolleyes:
As for RBR having 2 teams, sure didnt Ferrari have 2 teams recently......

Squirrel

What's happening to Stoddart?

Is he leaving F1 or is he staying on like Jackie Stewart did when Stewart were bought by Jaguar?

Nuttzz

I cant see how this hurts Red Bull, They will have 1 design team, 1 engine supplier, its as eay to build 6 cars (3 per team) as it is to build 3. They wont have that much extra over head if the operate from the on factory. They can try out new parts etc on the junior team and with 4 cars running tey will get extra information from test etc

McLaren are looking at running a junior team too.

mad m

How much did Minardi sell for? Pity all the same,I kinda liked Stoddart, but whats the point of burning money.

Kalina

I liked Stoddy too, he was very outspoken for the good of the sport. RBR must really value a good performance in F1 otherwise they wouldn't be pouring so much money into it. I wonder will the "junior" team be developed or will it still be at the back, as Minardi always were. It would be a great reward for loyal Minardi staff to see their driver(s) regularily scoring points.