JUNE 8, 2004

BCN hopes for F1 future

Enrique Scalabroni is not a man who gives up easily. The former Williams, Ferrari and Team Lotus engineer from Argentina spent two years trying to put together funding to enter F1 with a team led by Japanese racing entrepreneur Tetzu Ikuzawa. That closed down in 1996 and Scalabroni then went to work with the Williams sportscar programme before designing a car for the Nissan World Series in Spain. This was followed by the Asiatech project which aimed to enter F1 by first becoming an engine supplier and then building a chassis but that program ran out of money in 2002 and Scalabroni decided that his best move was to buy the Nordic Formula 3000 team and run a team called BCN Competition in partnership with Spanish racing entrepreneur Jaime Pintanel, who was a successful team owner in Spanish GT racing in 1999-2001 and then entered open-wheelers in the Nissan World Series. The team won its first FIA International Formula 3000 victory at the Nurburgring with Enrico Toccacelo and Scalabroni's ambition to make it to F1 has once again emerged.

"With the new proposals for F1 in 2006 we are interested in a programme," Scalabroni says. "We are already engaged in a feasibility study for an F1 project."

The team is based in Spain and with interest in the sport booming in the country this may be Scalabroni's best hope yet of building an F1 team although it remains to be seen whether or not the proposals to allow F1 teams to sell cars will be agreed or not. In the meantime BCN hopes to be able to win the Formula 3000 title despite the fact that aside from Toccacelo's win the series has been dominated so far by Arden's Vitantonio Liuzzi.