Canada: No announcement on Monaco offer

By Huw Alban
June 25 2006

It's official folks - there is no word, and will be no word for the next two weeks on the offer made for the Midland F1 Racing team. We have been clamoring for news from the team for weeks and this is the first public article we've seen on the subject.

In Monaco it was widely reported the Dutch billionaire Michiel Mol had made an offer for the Midland F1, rumoured to be around US$140 million. Alex Shnaider only paid $55 million for the ailing Jordan outfit a year and a half ago, so many were seeing this is an offer that the Canadian businessman could not refuse.

"It's impossible to know which way it's going to go because the decision rest with Alex and Alex alone," team spokesman Ron Fine was quoted as saying to autonet.ca yesterday. "But the longer it goes on the less likely it seems that something will happen."

I have already stated on this site that it seems unlikely that a decision would be made this weekend anyway, since the team preview stated that Alex was having guests to the Canadian Grand Prix. I could not imagine that he would be inviting friends and family to see him tell the world that he was selling the team on. In fact, I feel it is far more likely that he will be showing off the team and the sport to potential investors and to any doubters in order to convince them that F1 is worth the effort.

"There will not be a decision this weekend or next weekend at Indianapolis," Ron Fine continued. "Whichever way it goes the team will be better off for it.

"Alex is really torn. On the one hand he is facing a business decision that is almost a no-brainer. On the other hand at the level he's at it's not about business anymore. It's about his legacy; it's about achieving his goals, fulfilling his passion. These two conflicting emotions are really playing off each other very strongly right now."

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