SPYKER
updated: 25th Sep 2008
13:36:04
F1 team, formerly Jordan via Midland, now owned by a surprisingly profitable Dutch sports car maker
Marcus Winkelhock, of all people, leads the 2007 European Grand Prix in a Spyker, of all things.
Spyker was the 2007 version of Jordan/Midland, this time bankrolled by the surprisingly profitable Dutch sports car manufacturer of the same name. A measure of their success in this venture can be gleaned from the fact that their road cars were not significantly slower than their racing cars.
The Midland team was actually sold to Spyker before the end of the 2006 season but one of those pesky FIA regulations prevented them from racing under their own name until the start of 2007, although they did paint the cars a different colour, just to make the point.
Season highlights for the struggling team were few and far between but Marcus Winkelhock did briefly lead the rain-hit European Grand Prix, following a canny choice of tyre
1. Team bosses, understandably delighted with Winkelhock's performance, wasted no time in replacing him with Sakon Yamamoto.
The new owners of the team followed the established pattern by selling it after just a year, when it was offloaded to Indian entrepreneur Vijay Mallya, to become Force India.
1Just to be clear, Winkelhock wasn't following the canny choice of tyre in the race. He wouldn't have been leading if he had, obviously.
