Three potential buyers have emerged for the Honda Racing Formula One team, which faces a race against time to find a new owner after Honda announced the withdrawal of its support yesterday.
The Brackley, Northamptonshire-based team employs some 700 skilled personnel from its state-of-the-art facility and Honda Racing chief Nick Fry told the BBC he was hopeful that a buyer would be found.
"In the last 12 hours we've had three serious people come and suggest they'd like to buy the team,” Fry said. “We're one of the best-funded teams and have the best assets and resources in the pit lane - we'll be quite a desirable asset for somebody."
Fry continued: "We're very hopeful, as are most commentators, that we'll take a big step up. It's a big opportunity for somebody. We have 700 people working for the team. It's business as usual - we have to go through the usual three month consultation period with staff to decide the future of the company and during that period we're hoping we'll find a buyer."
Honda F1 Principal Ross Brawn added that the Japanese car-makers were ‘keen to preserve the team’.
“It's a fantastic opportunity for someone to step into what will be one of the most competitive teams in F1 next year," said Brawn. “Fortunately it gives us time to react. If it had happened closer to the season it would have been much more difficult." He called the proposed closure "a tragedy", but said his team were "very optimistic" about the prospect of a new buyer.
According to the BBC’s sports news correspondent Adam Parsons the team is on sale for a nominal fee of £1 – ‘although any buyer would need to find a budget in the region of £40m to operate it in 2009,’ the BBC said.
