he now has a more than full grid and a team in the wings - he doesn't need to prop any team up

yes even schumacher paid 200.000 DEM for his first race to Jordan..so he was payable driver

Do not fool yourself, Mercedes paid that amount. Thats big difference. MS was their driver and they wanted to give him F1 experience


rest is history


2010 is payback time

I just red that Campos won't (likely) participate in any pre-season tests.
http://f1.gpupdate.net/en/formula-1-news/2...season-testing/

Will they be allowed to test during the season?

it is not important who paid..he was "payable" driver

Probably not.

you are fooling yourself, its a big difference

paying driver -the one that has wealthy daddy, or wealthy fammily, lack of talent but big money, probably his daddy/uncle/grandpa was F1 driver too (Piquet, Senna etc...)

backed driver -the one that has talent and is backed by big company (MS -Mercedes)

Campos are finished. Nobody in their right mind would bail them out. Can you image the cash flow needed for pre-season testing, as well as the first 4 fly away races? What sponsors want to be associated with a half failing business? If I had money to invest, I would want to know what decisions were made at Campos, prior to getting themselves in the mess they are today. Any smart business man will hang Campos out to dry till the 11th hour and pick up the assets for peanuts. After watching this Campos saga unfold, IMO he doesn't deserve bailing out.

did you mean backed driver ..to be backed by team orders, FIA ,...etc.?
this is campos/bruno thread
schumacher has paid for his 1st F1 race ....brunno has not till now

Nah. Super Aguri still had sponsors as well, and heaps of fans. Look at Minardi too. Also, as long as they'll be on the grid in Bahrein there's hope for them.

I do agree it doesn't look too good for them.

Please take the Schumacher pay driver discussion to an appropriate thread.

Super Aguri and Minardi were at least up and running, and established. Campos on the other hand is just a start-up venture, with not even enough money to get over the 1st hurdle, in order to pay their suppliers. Super Aguri and Minardi could at least could show they had the business acumen to attract sponsors and get to the grid. In Minardis case, he could always race, but never had the money/spending power to compete with the manufacturer backed teams. Super Aguri was let down by the sponsors he had signed, but who later reneged on their deals and he failed because of that.(little did he know this was the beginning of the global credit crunch)

But Campos? He owes money to Cosworth and Dallara, as well as numerous other suppliers. This is the definition of a shabby operation, if ever there was one. IMO Campos should go on Dragons Den and ask for an investor. That would be a laugh. It begs another question, was Campos born into money, or was he self made? Judging by his F1 venture I would say the former. It appears from the outside looking in Campos entered this venture purely based on the promises of others, and we all know "A promise is a comfort to a fool"

You have no idea at all do you?

Campos was former F1 driver and has run succesful campaigns in lower formulas. They said they were always going to struggle once they found out that the budget cap was not being enforced. They are clearly tight on funds but no way have they failed.

Wait until they withdraw thier entry(unlikey) then you can start bashing

I can't say for sure, but one of the reasons why he was tipped to join the grid back in June and July was because he'd run a highly-successful GP2 team. On paper, he pretty much stood the best chance of success. His problem was that he did an Alain Prost and over-estimated the support for a Formula 1 team in his home country. Spain might be mad for Formula 1, but I can't imagine that they care for too much outside Fernando Alonso.

http://begthequestion.info/

;)

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKLDE60P2PV20100127

INTERVIEW-Motor racing-A1 boss in talks to buy into Campos F1

imo the tie in with A1GP is the reason the deal will never fly

Teixeira wants A1GP link for Campos

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/81074



Save us. Doesn't he realised A1 is dead in the water?

There is reportedly an article in an Serbian newspaper that reports about a meeting between Campos and Stefanovic that took place in Belgrade.

Campos reportedly offered to sell the whole team to Stefanovic for an "incredible amount of money" (said Mr. Stefanovic). It is said to be 12 million EUR plus the debt to Dallara.

The problem with Campos, as Mr Stefanovic sees it, is the fact that they don't have a team to sell. They don't have any cars, because Dallara refuses to deliver (unpaid bills).

Stefanovic refused to make the deal.

Talk are now supposedly ongoing with Bernie and Toyota to try and get Stefanovic onto the grid in Bahrain, if Campos folds.


I personally doubt that either of the two teams will make to the grid come March.


Oh, this is the link to the original article - http://www.novosti.rs/code/navigate.php?Id...%20srpski%20tim

Oh dear, oh dear. "It's all for A1," he says. It says it all. He should GTFO.

Then again, Campos look a lot less steady than even USF1, maybe it will suit him...

He's been talking about this for a while: he wanted to start a team with the intention of letting A1GP drivers have a race in Formula 1. And while I'm sure there are good drivers in that series, it was the way that Teixeria was talking about it that rubbed people the wrong way. He wanted A1 drivers to "qualify" for the Formula 1 drive based on their A1 results, which was fair enough. But if more than two drivers qualified, then the one who had been in Formula 1 the longest would be replaced. He was basically looking to use Formula 1 as a platform to promote A1, to give it some extra credibility.

I think the world can judge for itself who the talent in A1GP is. A spec series, it requires to be absolutely dominated each week at each different track in different countries to be seen to be head and shoulders above the rest. Ceteris paribus of course, we won't go into team resources. Only one man has achieved this, Nico Hulkenberg. A pity Adam Carroll didn't do even better last year and get himself on the radar.

Texieira calls BS on the rumour that Campos wont make the tests.

He says that with or without his backing they plan to be at the second test.

Campos apparently have some money coming in this week, we shall see

Would not be suprised if they are running the Serbian Toyota cars in Bahrain

I also noticed that. Not sure if that is a good or bad sign though. The other reports was quoting Daniel Eisen, Head of Strategy at Campos. If the teams Head of Strategy and the team principal tells two different stories on the testing subject, that can't be good really...

Either they have a plan to go testing at some point and the teams head of strategy should probably be informed about it, or one of them have forgotten what this weeks agreed story on testing was...

If Stefanovic takes over Campost he'll take Senna to?

Senna means shadow in serbian language

How cool would that be

I guess that's already one shadow cast over a deal that has every potential to fail anyway

If he buys the team outright, Adrian Campos might make it a provision of the deal that Stefanovic takes Senna. But if Campos withdraw and Stefanovic is appointed to fill the void, Campos wold have very little influence.

piši kako govoriš

I have friends yugoslav immigrants, I'll ask them

Spanish to English translators translate 'Bruno Senna' as 'the dark brown Seine'.

Imagine if we ended up with Senna and Nakajima in the same team, just like in 1987.

Probably not. Just like BMW Sauber to Sauber, Heidfeld and Kubica's contracts where ended.

According to reports in Spain the deal Teixeira-Campos is done, it could be announced tomorrow.

http://www.laverdad.es/murcia/20100127/dep...o-20100127.html

Teixeira not only will bring money, but the deal will also allow Campos to get money from the local government in Murcia since they were waiting for a main sponsor

The team could be renamed as Campos A1 or Campos Racing.

Same guy that assured the world that A1GP has secured its future financially, only to have the first three events of the series cancelled.

Interesting.

How reliable is that source? I hope it works out this way, with Campos still involved with the team.

I don't see how Stephan can take over or merge with Campos.

One already has cars from toyota and the other is working with Dallara on a new chassis.

if it happens which car will prevail..?

Id like to see what Dallara have come up with.

The toyota designs would be out of date by the start of the season anyway. Red Bull for example is skipping a test to further develop their car.

Toyota would have halted development ages ago now. Although the toyota car may be a better starting point the Dallara engineers would better understand their car and how to refine the development.

Don´t really know, it´s a generalist newspaper from Murcia, all the media from that region is keeping a close eye on the matter since Campos has a deal with the local government to establish the Campos general headquarters there from 2011, Campos is getting 6 million from Murcia, and also a line of credit of 20 million once Campos gets its financial future secure.

When checking the news this morning they were several newspapers reporting the negotiations, although only a few from the Murcia and Levante region were repporting a done deal, we´ll see.

http://www.lasprovincias.es/20100125/depor...o-20100125.html

Local media will report anything in the hope that things go ahead.

After all, the Brazilian media reported the Senna to Toro Rosso story.

The Brazilian media was using an Italian report as source, and in the tune of "if the Campos seat doesn't materialize...".

Brazilian media has mixed feelings about this whole situation. Some journalists (specially in the major local media conglomerate, with insiders) are creating high levels of expectation for Bruno silencing about doubts about the team, other sources (rival agencies or most non-specialist blogs, without insiders) would downplay all reports of hope for Campos as BS, some other agencies will just report/translate everything they find on the internet while some more professional blogs (without insiders) are holding judgment about it, reporting everything (good and bad news) as unconfirmed rumors.

If it was not for some messages from Bruno itself, telling people to calm down and wait, local media would be hysterical right now.

Edit: Interesting to notice is that there was the Brazilian article quoting the Italian one, and some Italian article quoting the Brazilian one as source.

In article of today on Auto, Motor und Sport,

WM-Punkte, Startnummern und Reifen

Michael Schmidt writes about deadline for Campos = February 1st 2010

Am 1. Februar 2010 soll sich das Schicksal des Campos-Meta Teams entscheiden. Keine
Finanzsicherheit, keine Lizenz. Stefan GP steht mit dem Toyota-Erbe bereits in den Startlöchern,
bekäme dann aber als letzter Neuzugang die höchsten Startnummern. Also 26 und 27.

http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/formel-...er-1705984.html

It would probably help a lot if you gave an English translation.

On 1 February is also the fate of the Campos-Meta Teams to decide. No collateral, no license. Stefan GP is consistent with the Toyota heritage already in the wings, but then would get the highest new entry as the last race numbers. So 26 and 27

I think Texeila is asking too much if he wants to change the rand in to A1, which is a kind of unsuccessful racing brand, imho...

So basically Campos have three days to prove their worth or else it's so long and thanks for all the fish?

What collateral and what has the F1 commission to do with such a collateral, same with allowing Stefan GP to F1 that's not a matter for the F1 commission either?

You can bet Bernie Ecclestone will have something to say about it. He's not going to be impressed if someone uses Formula 1 to promote another open-wheel racing series. Besides, I can't see the appeal in Teixeria, anyway - aside from his money - because he's driven A1 into the ground. They had three cancelled events and one that was quietly dropped last year, as well as four cancelled this season with two that are still to be confirmed and another that needs to be homologated. A1GP Great Britain has become insolvent, the series cannot consistently host races at particular venues (less than half of the circuits to host a race have actually hosted more than one) and then there was that embarrassment in China when the cars couldn't get around the hairpin.


It doesn't say Campos is going before the commission. It just says that the commission meets on February 1st, and that Campos have until February 1st to do whatever it is they're being asked to do.

As for collateral, they're probably going to be asked to prove that they can make the grid. The FIA has the power to revoke racing licences, and if a team like Stefan is better prepared than Campos, there probably isn't much to stop them from stripping Campos of their position if Campos don't measure up.

OK thanks, I've read the article again and you're right, still rather silly to put it somewhere in an article that is completely about things to be discussed by the F1 commission.

So Feb 1. deadline could be part of the selection process/agreement for the new teams, so they could indeed be dropped if they don't meet the financial criteria. Only then FIA can start thinking if they want to replace Campos and if so if it should be Stefan GP or another team/applicant.

Well, based on the sub-headings within the article itself, it's pretty plain that it's a round-up of enws and events. It jsut so happens that most of them relate to the commission meeting.


I don't think there are any other potential teams. It's either Stefan GP (seriously, the name Zoran GP or Stefanovic GP or Serbia GP sound so much cooler ... dare I say it, but Stefan GP actually sounds a little camp), or no-one. Unless Campos sell to Teixeria or an as-yet-unknown third party. There have been reports that Campos offered to sell to Stefanovic, but the Serbian declined because Campos was selling at an inflated price and the debt due to Dallara was included in the pricetag.