Motor Sport/Italian Grand Prix: Eddie Irvine's bid to become Formula One's newest team owner suffered a blow yesterday as paddock rumour in Monza, ahead of tomorrow's Italian Grand Prix, insisted the Irishman's ambitions could be scuppered by Red Bull. The drinks company may launch a bid for struggling Minardi to be branded as Red Bull Team USA, in direct competition with its own Red Bull Racing team.
Former Jaguar and Ferrari driver Irvine was first linked with a Minardi buyout in early summer after his courting of Midland, the company which bought Jordan at the end of last season, fell through, with the firm's Canadian/Russian owner Alex Shnaider insisting it was not for sale, though Irvine said the asking price was simply too high for him and his backer, another Russian billionaire, Rustam Tariko.
The Irishman switched his attentions to Minardi and since Monaco has once again become a regular face in the Formula One paddock as he sought to seal a deal with Australian owner Paul Stoddart.
In the meantime, Stoddart has claimed he has had over 40 suitors knocking on his door, though only Irvine has been a consistent visitor to the team's motorhome at the bottom of the F1 paddock.
Now however, it appears Irvine may actually have found a real rival for Stoddart's affections in Red Bull's multi-billionaire owner Dietrich Mateschitz. The Austrian's bid on the surface appears strange. Why, in the middle of attempting to establish Red Bull Racing as a competitive entity, and more importantly a brand, would the company consider competing against itself?
Red Bull has long been keen to up its sales in the US and has used Formula One promotional devices in the past such as a driver search, which turned up Scott Speed, the Californian racer coincidentally named on Thursday as Red Bull Racing's test driver for next season. Why install their American favourite as test driver if a US-branded second team was about to take to the track?
Yesterday, though, Stoddart admitted he was now entertaining only three serious bids for his team, Irvine's, an offer from an Arab consortium, and one from an anonymous interested party, all of which served to give the Red Bull rumour wings.
Stoddart confirmed he held meetings with Irvine's backer Tariko during the weekend of the Turkish Grand Prix in Istanbul two weeks ago.
In Monza yesterday, Irvine confirmed he had visited the Faenza-based Italian team's factory. "Minardi? Yes, we are talking to them. But really there is nothing to say," he said.
Stoddart confirmed that a figure in the region of €35 million would be enough to buy the team but said any prospective buyer had to prove he could supply a budget to take the team forward.
Meanwhile, on track in the day's practice sessions, Michael's Schumacher's faint hopes of a home circuit revival for Ferrari were dented when the champion crashed into a tyre wall.
The German, likely to be mathematically out of contention for the championship after tomorrow's race, lost control at the fast Parabolica corner and skidded across the gravel and backwards into the barriers, though luckily for him the damage was not bad enough to warrant an engine change which would have brought about a 10-place grid penalty.
McLaren, though, made a rapid start to the weekend with their three drivers, title contender Kimi Raikkonen, Juan Pablo Montoya and tester Pedro de la Rosa taking up positions behind the Ricardo Zonta, test driver for Toyota who was fastest in the afternoon session.
Meanwhile, the man Raikkonen is chasing for the title, Renault's Fernando Alonso, failed to take to the the track in the morning session, in a bid to protect the fresh engine he will race with tomorrow, and then finished 10th in the afternoon, seven spots adrift of Raikkonen.
