There is a serious piece of advice contained within the well-worn adage about the quickest way to become a millionaire in Formula One – is to start as a billionaire. This wisdom has evaded many, just ask Tony Fernandes. Yet in the week where one of the two COTA owners admits publicly, “we’re screwed” and he questions whether F1 will ever return to COTA, one man seems to known how to play F1 games.
Tavo Hellmund; son of Gustav who was a great friend of Bernie Ecclestone, will be sniggering behind the back of something whilst watching COTA crash and burn at the hands of his former partners. Hellmund persuaded Bernie Ecclestone to give him a contract for a race in Austin Texas, sketched out the design of the circuit on a napkin and sourced Epstein and McCombs to invest in the COTA project.
With the Austin circuit build under way and the details for the F1 race fleshed out, McCombs and Epstein decided Hellmund did not deserve a slice of the action, because he hadn’t put up any cash. Tavo was booted out, Ecclestone was not amused, though he gave McCombs and Epstein a new contract for COTA but with less preferential terms than the previous one. Most importantly, no regional protection was guaranteed against competing F1 races.
According to Epstein, COTA appears to be bust. Meanwhile, Tavo Hellmund’s next project, the refurbishment and renewal of the Autodromo Hermanos Rodrigues, saw the biggest F1 attendance over a race weekend for years. Irony, Karma… whatever it is.. the timing is comic.
Tavo Hellmund is currently working to bring another new circuit in the USA to Formula One. He is working with Californian investors who, “own some of the land but not all that would be required,” reveals Hellmund to the Statesman. Acquiring the rest of the site to build a new F1 circuit and getting the appropriate permits are the current obstacles in the way of it moving forward more quickly.
Once again, ‘Tavo the smart’ is primarily using other people’s money to further the cause of a new circuit. McCombs and Epstein’s reported $400m spend on COTA, is not looking so clever at the moment.
But why stop there? Hellmund is now heading up a consortium of investors including James Carney, in an attempt to buy Manor F1 for 2016. Given the rules regarding new entrants, Manor is an interesting proposition because it is guaranteed FOM payments for the next two years, whereas given the convoluted manner in which F1 funding is awarded, the Haas F1 team will get little funding before the beginning of their third season.
Tavo has already been playing the ‘all American’ card when he told the Statesman he’d like to get NASCAR’s Dale Earnhardt Jnr behind the wheel of his F1 team’s car, possibly alongside Alexander Rossi because, “has the resume.”
Hellmund the younger clearly has his feet on the ground in terms of race team ownership when he states, “We’re never going to spend $400 million a year like Mercedes, Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren. But we think you can run it respectably and not be in the red. I think you can fight for fifth.” Somewhat whimsically, Tavo reveals his interest in buying Manor F1 was sparked when he heard the news they would be running a Mercedes engine in 2016 and beyond.
Manor F1’s owner, Stephen Fitzpatrick, has already turned down a $50m offer from Tavo and his financiers given that this is the cost of the team to Fitzpatrick to date. Yet Fitzpatrick has allowed Hellmund a period of exclusivity to perform proper due diligence on the Manor finances. But time is of the essence as Hellmund indicates, “I think if we get to late January or February, it may be too late, and my partners and I would probably lose interest”.
Maybe someone close to Fitzpatrick should suggest to him that breaking even on his 2015 racing car adventure – is not too shabby a return, for anyone who has ever owned an F1 team.
Further, it could be that Tavo Hellmund is about to pull off the build of a new Californian race track and the acquisition of Manor F1, without having to call his bank manager to arrange a transfer of funds.