Belgium website slings a right-hook at Midland F1

Stomped on ?
By Huw Alban
December 19 2005

What is it with this team ? In the week that the team successfully take to the test track they've been sniped by the British press, and now a journalist working for the Belgian F1 World website has decided to publish what could be considered libelous comments about the team.

Publisher note dated 19/12/05 22:20 - This story has been editted from it's original form upon advice from Midland group.


The essence of the article is that everything concerning Midland is fine on the surface but underneath, in the parts we the fans cannot see, things are not so rosy. The so called facts that point to this, according to www.f1world.be, are:

1. The M16 will not be a completely new car, but an adaptation of the 2003 car
2. That Toyota are using their engine supply agreement with Midland to block another Japanese competitor
3. That the team are only budgetting to spend $15million which will come from TV and driver sponsorship only, with no investment from the greater Midland group. Cited as evidence of this is the recent news that Baz Leinders turned down a drive due to not being able to come up with enough sponsorship
4. Various, potentially libelous, statements have been thrown in the direction of Colin Kolles which this site is steering well clear of
5. That Annouck Heinrichs has been sacked from the team and left the country on Friday

Strikes me that someone in Belgium has an overactive imagination and needs to cut down on the coffee !

We are attempting to get clarification on some of these points from Midland, but until we do let's have a look at them shall we ?

On the car front we already know that Dallara were involved in designing a completely new chassis, but now all that work has moved in-house. With the move from V10 to V8 engines, using a two year old chassis design would be nuts - wouldn't it ? In addition, how do they know specifically that it will be the 2003 chassis ? Sounds like pretty wild guesswork to me !

The Toyota engine story is old news. We've had a statement from Midland published right here on this site, and Toyota themselves have also admitted publically that they are not involved in any actions that would block Super Aguri.

On the finances front, we already know that budgets are set to increase for 2006. I think that last week in Jerez Midland did more days testing than they did in the whole of 2005 ! The signs that things are a lot more serious are there. Where the money is coming from and how much is, and always will be, a closely guarded secret and not really a productive subject to speculate on.

We do know that Annouck Heinrichs was taken to the airport on Friday, but we don't know under what circumstances. This is one of the points we are trying to clarify with Midland.

Make of this what you will readers. One message board poster has already put forward the notion that the article was written by "a peed off Jordan fan" - I can't help but feel that there just might be a shred of truth in that statement.

More on this when we get some feedback from our sources at Midland.