You too can own and F1 car ! - I'd rather have the KTM from Dakar. Carol * * * * * Red Bull to auction two F1 cars Motorsport fans the world over will be able to bid for two Red Bull Racing F1 cars next March as the Wings For Life Foundation puts up a bevvy of motorsport exotica, topped by the two RBR cars driven by David Coulthard and Mark Webber at the 2007 British Grand Prix. Each car was covered in 30,000 pictures of race fans who made a donation through the foundation's website for the charity. Over US $1m was raised towards research for the spinal cord research foundation that has Red Bull's founder Dietrich Mateschitz as a founder. KTM's motorsport manager, Hienz Kinigadner, also said that the 2007 Dakar Rally-winning motorcycle will be up for grabs too amongst a host of other 'money-cannot-normally-buy' artifacts. Auction site eBay will host the auction in March, just before the 2008 F1 season gets underway. All works KTM motorcycle teams have been running Wings For Life logos, together with the Red Bull Racing F1 team throughout 2007. Wings For Life Spinal Cord Research Foundation is an approved charity organisation, funding international cutting edge research projects with the aim of finding a cure for Spinal cord injuries. The Wings for Life website will publish details of the items up for auction closer to the time.
Interesting. Is this the chance for a millionaire to get a "F1 Ferrari" while escaping the greedy clutches of the clienti corse programme? After all the RBR 07 was powered by a Ferrari.
Ah yes, my bad. Might not be a coincidence that the 07 car is offered and not the 06 car. Makes me wonder whether any of the customer cars will ever be sold off with a Ferrari engine in them. I know of none. The Prost car, which is now in private hands no longer has the Ferrari engine in it.
Not sure what you know about the clienti program, but to describe it as "greedy" is far from accurate. Ferrari makes a strong effort to see these cars used and not sitting in museums.
There are a few things about that program I find peculiar: For one you don't get the car sitting in your garage at home, but it is stored at Ferrari's place. Second you can't just drive it wherever you like, but at events Ferrari lets you. Then you have to pay for all the support Ferrari offers you for that, however the amount of support is defined by Ferrari not by you and finally you can't even change any of the livery on the car. While of course anybody is free to spend their money as they like, this program to me sounds more like you become a custodian of a car than an owner. Which is *VERY* different from all the other F1 cars in private hands. Neither Historic Grand Prix racing nor the cars in the BOSS series are treated this way. Owners keep the cars where they want, take them to events of their choosing, pay for the support they seem fit and even change the livery as they like. Good for Ferrari that they find enough "owners" willing to accept the conditions of the Clienti program. If I had that kind of money, I would want to have a lot more say and control over my car than this. Perhaps greedy is not the right adjective, overbearing sounds more like it.
You are of course entitled to your opinion, but not all of the services offered by clienti are mandatory. One can keep one's car outside the factory and run it separately if one has the ability and support to do so.
Interesting. I wonder what the terms and conditions are. And you still can't change the livery, right?
I know the livery has to stay the same as I've read that in articles multiple times, however I would like to know the rest of the conditions as well.
Remember the Kroyman's F1 that broke in half at Laguna Seca? He had changed the Marlboro lettering to "Kroyman" using the same font. If I owned a modern F1 Ferrari I sure would want to change all the barcodes to proper Marlboro livery, but I guess that wouldn't be allowed. From all the reports I read so far, I never came across one that mentioned that the owner actually used his own crew or kept the car at his home. Not saying I don't believe that option exists, but would like to know what prerequisites one would have to meet before they let you store and maintain the car yourself.
FoH had and probably still has an ex-F1 car that they maintain - I think they are the only authorized Ferrari Cliente facility in the US. I've seen it on several occasions in the race shop. Somewhere I even have photos of it. Carol
Interesting. Ferrari of Lake Forest also has a Prost F1. But I don't think they run it anymore, which is a shame.
ProDrive might end up buying it, because it will be the closest thing to a customer car they can get.
I think the Marlboro thing is something to do with the current licensing agreement. I know that if you buy a car from the factory there is an agreement about use of the image of the car. I think in these circumstances one cannot change the logos. However if you buy a car outside the factory I'm not sure whether that same thing holds true.
