Just when you thought Jacques Villeneuve was
not coming to CART, it appears the door may have reopened, at
least a crack. We spoke to Gerald Forsythe today
regarding Jacques Villeneuve. It appears that David
Richards may have been the one who dropped the ball on the
negotiations. He claims he spoke to Pollock and gave him
the verbal $50 million offer, but Pollock rejected it as part
of his negotiating ploy he told Forsythe. Therefore,
Richards claimed he did not deliver the written offer.
"When I found out that Craig Pollock thought I
was a liar I had my people track him down so I could speak to
him myself," stated Forsythe. "My people found Craig and
we spoke. Craig said that if the offer is in the range
he saw in the newspapers, we're definitely interested. A
written offer is being delivered to Pollock by Richards this
weekend in Spa and I expect to hear back from Pollock by close
of business Monday."
The possible problem now is Olivier Panis has
already accepted an offer with Toyota and if Richards were to
lose Villeneuve too, he would be left with an entire new
driver lineup. We asked Forsythe about that and he said
he told Richards he might be able to pick up the services of
someone like Dario Franchitti for one year. That would
save him the money he's looking to save in his 2003 rebuilding
year. Drivers are a dime a dozen these days, so finding
two new drivers won't be difficult for Richards if he wants to
cooperate.
It appears this soap opera is far from over,
and knowing that Pollock lost his bid for Arrows, and assuming
he had an eye on moving Villeneuve to Arrows after 2003, we
find it hard to believe that Pollock and Villeneuve would walk
away from a 3-year $50 million guarantee. Stay
tuned as this story evolves. It should come to a head
this week.
Original article
AutoRacing1.com was contacted by
Gerald Forsythe this afternoon. He, David Richards, Bob Bexon, Chairman of Imperial Tobacco
which owns Players) and Craig Pollock
were not able to come to terms over a 3-year deal that would
have seen Jacques Villeneuve drive for Forsythe next year in CART before
moving back to F1 with BAR, this despite the fact that Villeneuve
himself was interested. The amount of money Pollock demanded
for Villeneuve's services was more than Forsythe and Richards
were willing to pay. It was strictly a business
decision.
"We would have
loved to have had Jacques, but Pollock was asking for the same
salary for Jacques that's he is currently making (estimated to
be close to $19 million per year) for the next three years,"
stated Forsythe, "and that was more than we were willing to
pay." We had to set a hard deadline of today because we
had to make our plans for next year and could not let the
negotiations go on forever." Villeneuve would have
been paid less than he is currently making in 2003 to drive in
CART, but more than he's currently making in 2004 and 2005 to
return to the BAR seat.
"Overall the 3-year
$50 million package was
quite lucrative and it's unfortunate that they decided to
leave so much guaranteed money on the table," stated Forsythe.
Perhaps Pollock
thinks that Villeneuve can make his guaranteed $19 million
next year from BAR (probably as just a test driver behind
Button and Panis) and then get even more money in 2004 and
2005 from another team. That's a big risk considering
the current driver job market and Villeneve's long winless
streak. If he is relegated to test driver in 2003, which
now seems very likely, he will be the highest paid test driver
in history. What's an even greater risk is how damaging
being a test driver might be to his career and his chances of
making more money in 2004 from another team. It's quite
possible he will be worth even less by the time 2004 rolls
around, and Pollock's gamble will have backfired.
"We are now
putting all of our efforts into securing an associate sponsors
to supplement our Player's deal. We are looking at
running three cars in CART for 2003 and the idea is to bring
on an American sponsor and a European we are talking to, as
associate sponsors in 2003 with the goal of moving up to
primary sponsor in 2004 if Players is not able to continue,"
stated Forsythe.
Considering what
transpired today, we can hear a great sigh of relief coming
from Patrick Carpentier already. This almost guarantees
he will drive alongside Paul Tracy and Alex Tagliani in a
three-car all-Canadian Players team in 2003.
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