The other day I was merrily telling someone that we have already reached the shortest day of the year – the winter solstice – but I have just realised that I was a month ahead of myself and that it is not until December 21 that this occurs. Great news, another month of days that end at tea-time. I have been been rushing around England in recent days and it has been quite a rewarding period in some respects. I don’t understand how anyone can endure the endless traffic jams and constant roadworks, but what can you do? I have paid fortunes to local government for car parking and I have concluded the Borough of Kensington & Chelsea should reinvest some of its ill-gotten gains installing machines that take credit cards rather than shillings and threepenny pieces.
And while all this was going on I got a call at some point from a little bird in Cologne who told me that the staff of Toyota have been told that their entry has been sold on to someone else – and that some of them are going to be asked to stay on to build and run their car for a man called Stefan from Serbia. Apparently the government down there is paying for “Stefan Grand Prix” to become a reality.
You heard it here first. Now I have to get going. More London traffic to get through. Tonight I will be back in Paris and tomorrow it will be the joys of the south-west of France.
joeblogsf1 
Hmm…
In Denmark right now, sunrise is after 8am and it gets dark by 3:30pm.
That is, when the sun actually comes out 😉
Question for you Joe: I am assuming the ‘Stefan’ referred to here is in fact Stefan GP. Did they also appeal to the courts about being refused entry into the 2010 F1 championship like N.Technology have?
Well, I find it hard to imagine that the Serbian gov. will pay for it.
Maybe some “dark entities” will …
Very interesting! OK, go ahead Stefan Grand Prix (sounds a bit weird, ha?) but on whose place? Anyway, if this Serbian F1 team becomes reality, I’ve got my No.1 candidate for a cockpit: Milos Pavlovic of Serbia!
Joe said: “You heard it here first.”
Actually Dieter Rencken reported on this already on the 25th (http://www.autosport.com/features/article.php/id/2518 – subscription required)
😉
Well, that goes to prove two things: I don’t subscribe to Autosport and obviously not many other people do either because if anyone had read it two days ago it would have been all over the Web 36 hours ago… Obviously the subscription model is not the way forward.
Who is Stefan from Serbia?
Oh, good news. I thought they would compensate their stuff and leave like 50 to help their NASCAR and JGTC efforts. May be Toyota didn’t ask for astronomical figures as BMW 😉
The guy’s name is actually Zoran and his family is Stefanovic. May be the company was founded by his grand-father or smth, because it’s very, very old.
I think they were organizing Motorsport Technology exhibitions in Belgrade, and I didn’t know about them until last year. There were EuroBOSS demos, which were exactly on the day Kosovo announced its independance, so at one end of Belgrade there were 70k spectators cheering F1 cars and on another various embassies were on fire:)
I wish them luck, but they don’t have experience running a team. They have experience running engineering team, but not a racing team. Mallya is the same, hopefully they will have success.
On another note, I was always amazed how Milos Pavlovic didn’t receive enough backing in his early career from such Serbian companies. He was beating Jenson in karts and now he’s nowhere.
Oh…and then what would happen with Sauber’s entry?
This is a real mess. Now that it seemed Qadbak was making way for some new (serious?) investors from America, this news appear.
Poor Peter, hope his team can make it to Bahrain…in some way
An Interesting race emerging for the last spot in F1
Will it be Toyota or Sauber
Why not “Super Stefan” or “Go Serbia GP!”?
My. God.
You’re joking, Joe, right? If true, this is the sort of thing we can expect from Stefan Grand Prix — this is their _official_ press release from September of this year. It’s long, but definitely worth a read… And we thought QADBAK was a dodgy proposition…
——————-
We are alive and ready
Talking with Mr. Zoran D. Stefanovic from Stefan Grand Prix, in light of new information about FIA 2010 Formula 1 World Championship, regarding some remarks from Mr. Ecclestone’s interview to BBC in which he points that “one or two team’s will not make it to Bahrain next year”.
Head of Stefan Grand Prix Mr. Zoran D. Stefanovic wanted to share his thoughts about this matter, because everybody from SGP strongly believe that what SGP has to offer to F1 can be very interesting from every angle.
Nobody from SGP including myself, will just try to convince anybody why should we have to be in F1 next year, but we would like everybody to know that we are not just ready, but we also did a lot of work in last couple of months. We will try to share our thoughts and apply to logics and common sense of everybody who want to know for example how did we raised money for next year already, in other words how did we found title sponsorship without even being accepted from FIA for the 2010 Championship.
When you have all the pieces of the puzzle right: when you have one of the biggest shows on the face of the earth – the F1 brand – which is in my opinion organized almost perfectly, and when you come from an extremely interesting part of the world like Central – Eastern Europe, you have something fresh, something new, something worth looking at. And that is the essence of our effort. The idea of F1 car from Serbia makes everybody start thinking very fast. You must agree that what we have is something never seen before, something far more interesting than you usually expect, something very unique.
Therefore, almost over-night, you find yourself in the spotlight of the right eyes. Soon enough sponsors will recognize your position and they will follow you, like they did. We are in an area populated with over 400 million people, including Russia that is a brotherly nation with Serbia, so we have 800 millions eyes focused on something that was unimaginable for this area just a year ago.
This is the main reason why we have raised funds, why we have continued work on our car, and why we have our mind set to work as we are looking to be in Bahrain next year, because we think we will have two cars there.
Don’t forget, people tried to convince the Wright brothers that they would never fly, said Mr. Stefanovic.
What F1 must understand is that they will have the unique new team and will conquer, geographically, a very important part of the world. But if you ask who will really profiting, proper answer is – the fans, Mr. Stefanovic said.
He also continue, ‘The everyday normal, smart man from all Central – Eastern Europe, from Russia, is just waiting for a strong emotional connection with something, and we think that our F1 project is exactly what they have been looking and waiting for. We want to develop SGP into a strong recognizable F1 brand and we are determined to do so. Don’t forget, we have 400 million reasons to do it.
In the end, Mr. Stefanovic says that they will keep pushing, that SGP will make their car, and that they are acting like they are already in for the 2010 championship, and he finishes with words:
Success is very predictable. You need to know what is the nature of your business, and you need to sell your product. We have unique product, which we already sold, so it is predictable that we expect to be in F1.
This is a test, right, to see how long it takes certain Antipodean “news” outfits to pick it up? Must be…
Formula 1’s equivalent of Christmas shopping Joe?
Hi Joe
That’s very interesting stuff, about Stefan Grand Prix.
Not sure how seriously we should take it although we did publish this article back in September, which might interest you as well:
http://f1.gpupdate.net/en/news/2009/09/29/stefan-grand-prix-hoping-to-race-in-2010/
Obviously, it doesn’t include the Toyota connection back then in late September but the comments are an interesting read nonetheless.
Kind regards,
Greg
And here I thought F1s “silly season” was meant to be in mid-summer.
If there really was a chance of Toyota being reborn and their entry for 2010 (& beyond) still being valid would Peter Sauber really have agreed a deal with BMW?
Ah who knows, theres likely so many conditions attached on both sides that guesswork is pointless.
Hi Joe
Just read from the Tax Payer’s Alliance that the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has the highest parking meter take per capita of the population of anywhere in the UK. Perhaps you should try to avoid it 🙂
That would be Zoran Stefanovic, owner of AMCO and the guy who took the FIA to the EU Commission for not allowing his entry next year on the basis of Stefan Grand Prix not signing with Coswrorth for engine supply.
They are more than capable of running a team, have the money, backing and the facilities in place (they do aero parts and design). Looking forward to the Serbs entering F1. Milos Pavlovic was in GP2 and didn’t do well, so might not be good enough for an F1 seat, but you never know.
Stefan Grand Prix were one of the teams that lost out before, along with Lola. No wonder it’s taking ages to let BMW know one way or the other.
Ah, good old Zoran Stefanovic, the man who tried to enter in 98 with the old Lolas
This could be fun. A dodgy-sounding Serbian team taking over Toyota and getting the TF110 (and team members and maybe Kobayashi). Could be like Andrea Moda getting hold of a McLaren
It’ll be interesting to see what happens now. If Stefan do buy/have bought the Toyota entry, they are obliged to enter, which isn’t going to be popular given that everyone seems to think Sauber is a dead cert and deserves to get an entry and will presume that Stefan GP will just be a bunch of Serbian idiots (which isn’t necessarily the case – they’ll have some of the remnants of Toyota and have hired Mike Coughlan)
Also, an early driver suggestion – Milos Pavlovic, a Serbian who drove in F2 this year, and has previously won races in the World Series by Renault
Milos Pavlovic for F1? Lovely guy, but I’m not sure how quick he is these days. He did’t shine in F2 this year, but then nor did several other people of whom I expected more.
Probably run by the same people who have made a fortune supplying horse placentas to English football teams.
shame this comes about on the day that sauber agrees to buy his team back on the condition that they get an entry – would much rather see the hinwil boys back than the serbian owned toyota team
One of the big concerns about Stefan Grand Prix is that Stefanovic has (for some reason) hired Mike Coughlan in a consultancy role to the team. I don’t see how the FIA are going to let that one slide – maybe Stefanovic thinks that the Todt era are going to be more forgiving of Coughlan.
Peter Sauber is an insider and the new guy is, well….a new guy. Let’s see how Todt/Ecclestone handle the rewarding of the remaining entry.
I hear the name of Colin Kolles mentioned as a “broker” for this deal, a busy, wealthy, man with no scruples but I guess lots of contacts. He might not be that welcome in Switzerland in the future. I do like the thought of Mike Coughlin working in/near the Gulags
People in Serbia are very educated in much percent,of coutse,there are problem ex leading idiots,bat I think that Stefan is smart guy fun of F1 ,and he know what he doing.I hope next year you see different pictures of Serbian team.
Joe: “Obviously the subscription model is not the way forward.”
So what does that say about GP+ ?