25/02/2023
NEWS STORY
Under its new management, Red Bull's parent company is considering the future of AlphaTauri with one option being to sell the Faenza-based outfit.
Following the death of Dietrich Mateschitz in October, his son, Mark Mateschitz, who owns 49% of the company, named Franz Watzlawick as CEO for beverages, Oliver Mintzlaff CEO for projects and investments and Alexander Kirchmayr chief financial officer.
With sponsorship forming part of his remit, Mintzlaff therefore assumed the role of overseeing the company's F1 operations.
Now, according to Germany's Auto Motor und Sport (AMuS) , the company is taking a long, hard look at AlphaTauri, particularly in light of its recent loss of form.
AMuS claims that Red Bull is considering two options, one being to move the AlphaTauri operation to the UK in order that it can work more closely - literally - with its sister team, or, more likely, to sell the team which it bought from Paul Stoddart at the end of 2005.
Should Red Bull decide to sell, and most never really understood why anyone would want to fund two racing teams, it is claimed that there are three likely buyers.
The most obvious would be Andretti, however AMuS also cites Hitech GP and Mumbai Racing.
While the Andretti connection is obvious, Hitech has strong links to Red Bull having run a number of drivers from its junior programme, most recently Liam Lawson. Though it was previously part financed by Dmitry Mazepin it is now understood to have a strong connection to Dubai... which probably means the same thing.
On the other hand, Mumbai Racing is owned by the Indian billionaire who owns the Mumbai Falcons Racing Team which competes in Formula Regional Middle East and Formula 3 Asia, and has said he aims to discover India's first world champion.
Dubai... Indian billionaires... think back to what Christian Horner said only last month... "As with all these things, though, it ultimately boils down to... 'Well, who's going to pay for it?'" he said of Andretti's bid to enter F1 and the teams' demands for at least $600m in anti-dilution compensation.
"If you introduce another one or two teams, you dilute the value of the current ten franchises," he warned of the bid to increase the size of the gbrid, "which of course teams, particularly down towards the bottom end of the grid, have got a very inflated inherent value at the moment.
"I hope a solution can be found," he concluded. "What would be cleaner would be if they were able to take on one of the existing teams or franchises."
And by curious coincidence just a few weeks later a 'For Sale' sign goes up in Faenza.
Check out our Saturday gallery from Bahrain, here.