36 replies to this topic

[917k]

Just posted at Autosport.I can't get the link to work,but i'm sure someone will do it for me ;)

Bad news for F1,CART and motorsports in general.

[dutra]

This news is particulary worse to BAR.

[Romulus]

Another nail in the coffin for CART!

[Yelnats]

Reynard Bankrupt!

Now I'm off to read it myself.

[Andre]

Another nail in the coffin for CART!

Not good news for CART, but also I don't think it's such a serious blow to the series. I'm sure Dallara or G-Force are going to step in and provide chassis for CART for 2003 since the IRL and CART chassis will be pretty similar. Even if that doesn't happen, there's still Lola to sell CART chassis for the rest of the field. I'm sure Lola will be delighted to see their solds increasing.

[Yelnats]

To bad to lose such an effective race-car builder. But how does this effect BAR? I though they were a separate entitiy and had outgrown the stewardship of Reynard by building all of their own facilities and staff.

[Paste]

This is the turning point for BAR. Gone is the Reynard influence, and in will come a more classic setup where the work is done all under one name. This is going to be good for the team. Hang in there Jacques!

Too bad for Reynard, it's unfortunate that they were unable to do what Lola did and turn the company around.

[BARnone]

Paste - Rick Gorne joined Lola in January I think.

BARnone.

[No27]

If and how this affects BAR is unclear for me as well. There a sign on the nosecone of the BAR that says "Reynard", meaning the car it's make is Reynard, just like a Ferrari has a Ferrari sign a McLaren has a McLaren sign and a Jordan has a Jordan sign. But the car is called BAR. Or is that the type: Reynard BAR004, like a Renault Clio?

[Richard Jenkins]

This is a surprise, despite their difficulties. They've contributed a lot to motorsport and will be missed. A real shame

[metz]

Yes, they have done great things for many, many years.
Some real good talent and very inovative stuff has emerged from Raynard.
We fans will miss their contribution to the sport.

[laneatkins]

Originally posted by Romulus
Another nail in the coffin for CART!

It is my understanding that almost all CART teams currently running the Reynard have purchased Lola chassis in reserve. Andretti has already tested a Lola to much success as well as others. Lots of those babies floating around the garage area...

It really shouldn't be a huge problem in the immediate future for CART. However, it is always sad to lose such a storied manufacturer in the series.

Maybe someone will buy it out and keep the company together - just like Phoenix saved Prost

[Locai]

This has been brewing since the winter at least. Robin Miller reported on ESPN that the teams who raced Reynard chassis in CART were looking to either stockpile parts or switch to Lola ASAP.

It's very unfortunate for CART. Reynard had been the chassis of choice for quite awhile. But they've fallen from grace recently.

With CART's new engine and chassis rules next year I don't think that this will have a huge effect on the teams. The biggest question right now is just who will supply chassis to CART next year. I assume that since they will be using the IRL's tub spec that somebody could conceivably just sell the modification kits to bring the IRL tub up to CART's specs.

My best guess is that Dallara and/or G-Force will start supplying full chassis to CART next year. I don't know how well equipped Lola is to supply the whole field. Then again, the CART fields seem to be shrinking so maybe that won't be all that difficult.

[FordFan]

I thought they were the ones who built the Jag wind tunnel? It's a bit odd the the finishing of that project coincides with this announcement.

[BARnone]

Ford - I think Jaq bought Reynard's wind tunnel.

BARnone.

[FordFan]

Makes more sense then. They needed to raise cash (and God knows Jag needed a tunnel).

[Williams]

This is another bit of writing on the wall for the teams of F1 and other racing series to start getting their financial houses in order. Seems like an leading indication that the revenue streams flowing into motorsports in general are beginning to slow. Wouldn't be surprised to see some further shakeouts this year.

[Locai]

This is a bit off-topic, but Haas-Carter Motorsports has "suspended operations" in NASCAR. They were a decent mid-field team with a couple of decent drivers. They seemed to be a pretty well-run organization, but they lost their sponsor when K-Mart went bankrupt.

That should be a wakeup call to some teams, too. They need to make sure that their sponsors aren't going bankrupt.

BTW, the "Haas" is Carl Haas, who is part owner of the Newman-Haas team in CART. The "Newman" being Paul Newman, the actor. K-Mart used to be a primary sponsor for them, too. But I noticed that this year they've moved down to being just an associate sponsor.

[Carsten]

Originally posted by No27
If and how this affects BAR is unclear for me as well. There a sign on the nosecone of the BAR that says "Reynard", meaning the car it's make is Reynard, just like a Ferrari has a Ferrari sign a McLaren has a McLaren sign and a Jordan has a Jordan sign. But the car is called BAR. Or is that the type: Reynard BAR004, like a Renault Clio?

It would be bad for BAR in the same way Ferrari going bust would be bad for the Ferrari F1 team.

[Scudetto]

Originally posted by Carsten


It would be bad for BAR in the same way Ferrari going bust would be bad for the Ferrari F1 team.

Reynard is not nearly so closely tied to BAR as Ferrari and the race team are. I think better analogy would be more akin to Ilmor going out of business as an impact on McLaren - and that's not even a fair comparison.

[RaoulDuke]

oh how I would love to be Carl Haas right now. He's the exclusive distributor for Lola in the US. He and Newman Haas racing are in very good shape right now.

cts

[random]

3 years ago it would have had a huge impact on BAR, today it will probably have no impact on BAR at all.

As I understand it, BAR has brought all of their chassis design and construction in house. And when Honda began assisting with the chassis design last season, Reynard was effectively taken out of the F1 chassis business.

BAR have their own wind tunnel, fabrication shops and everything the other top F1 teams have. And in the off chance that there were some minor components BAR sourced from Reynard, the writing has been on the wall for many months. BAR would have had plenty of time to find other sources by now.

[The First MH]

As far as BAR are concerned I really (and somewhat cynically) believe that NOT having Renard involved will only help their cause. I trully believe, incorrectly or not, that their chassis, which has always been the bain of their existance, is poorly made because of all the supposed input they recieve - everyone from Renard, Honda and BAR themselves work on the chasis. I see this as having no clear management or leadership. In fact, I think there is absolutely no direction as a result. The best thing for BAR is that Reynard (and Honda) leave them to do the chassis. Alternatively, Honda should do everything a la Ferrari/Toyota. Obviously Renard will no longer be a part of BAR, so that solves that, although I do think it is a shame that Reynard is going out of bussines. A pity to see suvch a contributing force in motorsport leave. Nevertheless, I am left wondering what this means for Premier 1? Is Premier 1 still going to happen now that Reynard, the chassis manufacturer, has gone bang? Or is Premier 1 a non-starter anyway?

[dynamite7]

[bs]

Well, seems to me that it was only a few years ago that Lola had gone tits up and Reynard was in the cat bird seat. The wheel of kharma keeps turning doesn't it? Of course, the main reason behind Lola's problem was designing a bad car for a couple of years running.

Actually, as far as CART goes, the timing isn't all that bad, as has been pointed out. Teams can still run this years Reynard tub, if they run out of parts they can always cannibalize older versions a la Adrian Fernandez's 'Frankenstein' a few years back. Dallara, Lola and G-force will fill the void when the rules change next year.

It does seem the Reynard has been less and less involved in BAR, although it's really hard to tell who was running things prior to Richards taking charge.

I don't think Premier 1 was anything more than a pipe dream. I wouldn't expect it to actually start up in today's economic climate.

[Flying Panda]

All this talk of Dallara, G-Force and Lola filling the void...

Swift still exists dosent it?
I heard a rumour that Swift were planning to enter a 'factory' team in CART in ther near future...

Can anoye rule out a Swift comeback or not?

[JForce]

How does this affect Premier1? Werent they doing all the work for that?

[clickhappy]

in another related twist, Carl Haas has been the North American importer for Reynard parts and chassis for 20 years.

Originally posted by Locai
This is a bit off-topic, but Haas-Carter Motorsports has "suspended operations" in NASCAR. They were a decent mid-field team with a couple of decent drivers. They seemed to be a pretty well-run organization, but they lost their sponsor when K-Mart went bankrupt.

That should be a wakeup call to some teams, too. They need to make sure that their sponsors aren't going bankrupt.

BTW, the "Haas" is Carl Haas, who is part owner of the Newman-Haas team in CART. The "Newman" being Paul Newman, the actor. K-Mart used to be a primary sponsor for them, too. But I noticed that this year they've moved down to being just an associate sponsor.

[stephwh]

I really don't see how this is a nail in CART's coffin as there are plenty of other options.

[RiverRunner]

A quick google of Reynard LMP 900's shows they are out there,too,but they haven't found a slot there either.Plus it looks like their protos are 2KQ's,not exactly cutting edge without serious bux to customers for aero bits,the few of there are.A close look at the ALMS prototypes this shows some stout Lolas in there as well and few Reynards of note.



Wonder where they lost their focus?



Maybe BAR is a disaster for them as it is for Jacques and Honda.*

*Opinion

[ehagar]

Originally posted by bs
Well, seems to me that it was only a few years ago that Lola had gone tits up and Reynard was in the cat bird seat. The wheel of kharma keeps turning doesn't it? Of course, the main reason behind Lola's problem was designing a bad car for a couple of years running.

Faulty Wind tunnel model scaling resulted in a champcar that was far too pitch sensitive (200% more pitch sensitive than originally thought comes to mind, I would have to root through my pile of racetech mags to find out). They lost alot of CART teams because of it. The Lola F-1 project was around the same too and that practically bankrupted them.

Maybe Reynard will get a savior like Lola did. Maybe not. There are plenty of good customer chassis builders out there to take up the slack in the long run.

[random]

Originally posted by JForce
How does this affect Premier1? Werent they doing all the work for that?

If Premier has cash, finding a constructor won't be a problem at all. There are at least a dozen firms in Europe capable of bidding on such a project and another bunch in the US.

Unless they base the car on an existing design, Premier will have to get started soon in order to have a car ready by next spring.

[kodandaram]

I think it was last year ....in mid 2001 that BAR changed name from Lucky Strike Reynard B.A.R. honda to Lucky Strike BAR Honda - which in itself shows that if at all there was any involvement with BAR then it was probably just a small financial input - maybe like a sponsor ...dunno for sure !

But goto Dailyf1.com/en and search in last years archives 9post june) and i think you will find the above mentioned news in detail alongwith the near-zero association b/ww Reynard motorsport and BAR Honda.

This won't affect BAR ....Pollock was seen rejoicing last night ....someone said something about Reynard being sent an anonymous letter ......

[Locai]

Originally posted by RaoulDuke
oh how I would love to be Carl Haas right now. He's the exclusive distributor for Lola in the US. He and Newman Haas racing are in very good shape right now.

cts

Except that Carter-Haas Motorsports have suspended operations in NASCAR. They were sponsored by K-Mart, which withdrew their sponsorship of CHM's two cars after filing for bankruptcy.

[Locai]

There's another story about it on F1-live.com:

http://www.f1-live.c...329042546.shtml

Sounds like the company's biggest creditor is Adrian Reynard.

Here's a quote from Adrian:

"It has been a combination of factors, which has led to our situation today, our aborted float on the US Stock Exchange, which put a strain on our financial resources, and the subsequent changes in the US autoracing market are just some of the influences on the downturn in fortunes of the company."

Why is he putting blame on CART? The number of cars in CART has only this year begun to shrink. The problems with Reynard started before this year. And, most importantly, if Reynard had the better chassis then more teams would choose them over Lola. If they had to abort their float then they probably shouldn't have been trying it in the first place.

"Reynard has suffered from several management changes and strategy shifts over the past three years...."

Ahh, the real reason: Management incompetence! They spent a ton of money on the BAR project (probably shorting the CART development program).

[917k]

Why on earth does everyone here want to blame all the world's ills on F1,even when the person in question says otherwise?

As usual,the clever posters of Atlas have seen through Reynard's duplicity!

[zozo]

These incompetant fools thought they had it all figured out. Let's see ,they were successful in Cart,..etc .One at every level of racing, therefor F1 HA!!!! No ****ing problem. Well,,er,,, this isn't panning out like it should,thought Adrian Renerd . Let 's blame it on Craig Pollack. The truth is people that Craig's hands were tied!!!!! He could not fire oalstar and family because Adrian was controlling the design department. Craig revealed this on RDS (Canadian sports channel). People were wondering why he never fired those guys .....