The small but spirited Super Aguri Honda team has shut down after two and a half seasons in F-1 where, despite financial struggles, it often punched way above its weight.
“Regretfully, I must inform you that the team will be ceasing its racing activities as of today,” team founder Aguri Suzuki said in a statement May 6.
The team’s money woes started last year when a sponsor defaulted on payment, and talks with the Magma Group and then the Weigl Group for financial backing eventually fell through.
“The breach of contract by the promised partner SS United Oil & Gas Company resulted in the loss of financial backing and immediately put the team into financial difficulties,” Suzuki said. “Also, the change in direction of the environment surrounding the team, in terms of the use of customer chassis, has affected our ability to find partners.

“It wasn’t a complete shock as we have all known how difficult things have been, but I’m obviously really disappointed that the team is unable to see out the rest of the season and beyond, and gutted not just for myself but for all the guys at the factory who have worked so hard.”

— Anthony Davidson

“Meanwhile, with the help of Honda, we have somehow managed to keep the team going, but we find it difficult to establish a way to continue the activities in the future within the environment surrounding F-1, and, as a result, I have concluded to withdraw from the championship.”
Suzuki has no intention of making a comeback.
“According to the rules, you can skip three races in a season, but I have no intention to return,” he said in a news conference.
“I’m exhausted,” Suzuki added. “I definitely need a break. It’s a piranha club and I kind of feel that I don’t want to stick my fingers back in.”
The team has now gone into receivership, and the British accounting firm PKF is overseeing the company’s affairs and hopes to sell the team. But the business model for a small independent team in F-1 is tenuous at best at the moment because there is no agreement on a new Concorde Agreement, which would define the parameters for independent teams and customer cars.
Drivers Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson are, of course, bitterly disappointed, but both vow that they will race in F-1 again.
“It wasn’t a complete shock as we have all known how difficult things have been,” Davidson said, “but I’m obviously really disappointed that the team is unable to see out the rest of the season and beyond, and gutted not just for myself but for all the guys at the factory who have worked so hard.”
Sato said, “At this time, I am not sure what will happen next as I have been concentrating all my efforts on racing for SAF1.”
There are now 10 teams in the line-up for the first time since 2005, which leaves two open slots before reaching the maximum of 24 cars allowed by the regulations. A mere multi-millionaire can’t afford to run a small team in F-1 anymore.
F-1 has become the domain of the car manufacturers and the billionaires like Dietrich Mateschitz of Red Bull and Vijay Mallya of Force India.
And nothing is going to change until the FIA’s plan for budget caps begins in a couple of years.