The future of racing at the Nürburgring seems to be secure with the word from Germany being that Nürburgring GmbH, which has been in administration since July 2012, has reached an agreement for the facility to be sold to the Capricorn Group. The agreement has not been announced because ADAC, the German automobile club, has complained to the European Commission about the way in which the sale was handled. The club bid for the circuit alone but the bid was rejected as being too low.
Capricorn is an engineering company that produces high performance parts for the automobile industry and motorsport. It has a major manufacturing facility in the Meuspath business park at the Nürburgring. It is also involved in aerospace and, unusually, has a construction business as well, which concentrates on automotive projects. The firm is run by Robertino Wild and has a major facility at the Ring, although it is based in Dusseldorf. It seems that Wild believes that the Ring should be at the centre of an automotive industry cluster and wants to develop that concept. Wild is insistent that the circuits remain open for racing but does not believe that the amusement park element of the facility is the right way to go and if the deal goes ahead these facilities will either be demolished or modified for other uses. The intervention from ADAC is inconvenient as the administrators are keen to do a deal as quickly as possible as the European Commission may complicate matters if it rules that the local authorities broke competition law by giving the circuit more financial aid than was acceptable.
The stories suggesting that Bernie Ecclestone is bidding for the Ring were probably true at one point but it is clear that the bid is not going to be successful.
joeblogsf1 
Good news that “The Ring” will continue to be open for racing & (hopefully still) for privateers to try their skills on. Anyone who ever has driven The Ring can only have massive respect for the courage and ability of those who drove F1 cars around the circuit years ago! I am not surprised that the incoming owners have little interest in the theme park, as the geographical location of the circuit hardly makes it an easy day out for non motor sport tourism!
Since the credibility of ADAC has dropped dramatically recently (with the inflated vote numbers), maybe the administrators right now have a window in which to act and be able to disregard any comments from ADAC.
Well ADAC is not in good odour at present, having recently admitted to rigging the best car “Yellow Angel” award vote in favour of VW Mk7 Golf. VW are (Quite remarkably, only) considering returning the trophy which was apparently also awarded to winners on the back of rigged figures for the previous three years as well. This seems to be large in the German automotive scene at present, let us hope that it’s influence reaches the meddling EU bods and discredits or lessens the influence of ADAC’s complaint.
The circuit(s) obviously need(s) a large well funded, solid institution to take charge and having a bunch of contributors scraping together just enough to bid, offers no future. Obviously money needs to be spent in reorganising the whole shooting match and putting it on a sustainable path.
As one of your German local previous commenters said, the circuit is in use almost continuously so that should pay its way, but probably the last thing it needs is a GP which will cost it most of the year’s income in fees unless Bernie gives it a freebie. The millstones need to be shed, and it will take a good dollop of cash to shift them, so Capricorn may well be the salvation, though one has to ask why they have waited so long. How are Capricorn perceived by the German public?
Seems like this comment from last week was spot on!
https://joesaward.wordpress.com/2014/01/15/buying-the-ring/#comment-176101
IIRC this is a return to F1 for the Capricorn name as Capricorn Seafood were a sponsor of Connew in the 1970’s.
I am sure there is no actual connection.
Er, no, they are not the Connew sponsors. But well done for a real deep dip into F1s archives. Peter Connew built an F1 car with three other blokes in Essex, One race with Francois Migault in Austria 72. Times have changed.
JB
Quite a nice looking car IIRC, saw it at The Racing Car Show one year, probably when the show was held on a Townsend Thoresen car ferry moored in the Thames.
Martin
Nothing is sold to this date and wont be until the Commision will announce a final result! I`d recommend to check http://www.ja-zum-nuerburgring.de (German) Which is the main Club/Collective to fight against the selling!
Everything till now is just speculating and got NO truth in its message!
I don’t think the main site opposed to the sale is the right one to look at for unbiased news…
Totally unschooled in high finance, but I’m guessing that a good time to put in a bid is when administrators are keen for a quick deal, as here.
Does this include the Nordschleife or just the modern GP track and associated facilities/business park?
Joe,
the Ring has not been sold yet. On Monday, the administrators announced that it will take until mid-February to revise the bids. No decision will be made before then whether any of the presented bids will be considered worthy enough for the sale.
If a contract will be signed around mid-Feb, it won’t become legally valid until the EU commission will have made their decision.
If you follow the communication of the administrators, you can easily find these statements, dated early this week.
Yes, officially this is what they are saying.
JB I resemble that remark! Bloke from Essex !
This will be interesting, as there are many lawsuits against capricorn and Robertino Wild to come up in 2014. The development company of Robertino Wild is build like a house of cards and the main investor “von Schenk” (75% of Holzstrasse GmbH) is out since last year. They are having serious problems and the stuff often waits for the salary. Almost every company they worked with had to fight lawsuits to get their invoices paid. I can´t really believe Nouvoloni didn´t check on this.