Two months back when Narain Karthikeyan was talking to Spyker F1 about a drive, he was actually offered a race free to help him make up his mind.
NEW DELHI: Two months back when Narain Karthikeyan was talking to Spyker F1 about a drive, he was actually offered a race free to help him make up his mind. Karthikeyan turned it down.
Pit lane buzz further has it that Spyker was willing to offer him an incredibly cheap deal but the Indian actually chose not to drive for the team. Unlike what was reported earlier, the Indian did not lose out of the race for a seat. He had opted out.
Unless Vijay Mallya gives Karthikeyan the assurance of reshaping Spyker to make it competitive, he really can’t expect the man from Coimbatore to jump on board just because it is an Indian team. On the other hand if Mallya is looking to tap the burgeoning corporate advertising budgets back home he will have to have an Indian in the car.
As of now the driver holds the stronger hand as he is no longer desperate to be out on track, the package and car performance are crucial motivators. For cash strapped Spyker — to be rechristened with India figuring in the name — Karthikeyan can bring in the big kitty of about $10 million that his sponsors can put up for the drive.
Of the 193 brands that featured on F1 cars in 2005 when Karthikeyan was driving for Jordan, Tata placed 58 in terms of visibility. Tata’s total exposure that season was five minutes and forty seconds and its media value is put at a phenomenal $4,258,115.This comprised only the race feed and the exposure in the Indian media does not even figure in this equation. Tata’s sponsorship expense was to the tune of $3.5 million.
As such, corporate India already knows that an Indian in F1 is a win-win situation as far as cost-benefit of brand publicity goes. That’s exactly the vein that Mallya will be looking to tap to raise the approximate $150 million annual budget needed to reshape Spyker into at least a mid-rung team.
Given the fact that it takes a new outfit close to six months to figure out the nuances of a car, Karthikeyan will also be looking for a longer contract than just a year. After all the 2008 season will be more about the team finding its feet before it can hope to run up to the pace of the better ones. Realistically, Spyker will be really competitive only by 2009.
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