Friday, September 4, 2009

MALAYSIA EYES F1 TEAM ENTRY?

This is interesting. It's not wrong to dream and dream big at that. It seems that rumours are now circulating that Malaysia wants to have a sort of national F1 team. There's 3 possibilities.

One is via Lotus as what is happening now. Lotus has just recently brought in Dany Bahar as CEO. Dany was previously the Commercial and Brand Development & Partners director at Ferrari. I don't know what's so special with Bahar but he did work with Red Bull to setup their F1 strategy. And Lotus is owned by Proton.

Second is via Petronas buying up BMW Sauber and running it as its own team. This option is expensive as the whole team is ready to run but it is the best in terms of getting competitive straight away.

Thirdly, there is Team Meritus which is Malaysian based and is the most successful Asian motorsports team to date. The team has rapidly progressed up the Asian motorsport ladder, winning 32 international titles in just 12 years, and is currently the only Asian team granted a licence to race in the GP2 Asia series, an F1 feeder series.

While I laud any effort to get Malaysia on the F1 map and the world stage, I would offer caution first as Malaysia is known for talking big then falling flat on our faces. Well, to be accurate it's not Malaysia, it's more of our politicians.

Yesterday, Mailsport highlighted that a Malaysian consortium, led by several prominent individuals with the “blessings” of the government, are to bid for a spot in F1.

Prominent individuals in Malaysia are normally politically connected individuals and when politicians who are glamour crazy get involved, you can bet your last Ringgit that they will fuck it up. So be careful of your expectations.

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