Asiatech

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Asiatech was a Formula One engine manufacturer that supplied engines in 2001 and 2002. When Peugeot decided to sell its Formula 1 operation in 2000, a company called Asia Motor Technologies emerged to buy it. This was a mysterious company which boasted Asian support but the only investors ever mentioned were Hideo Morita, the son of the late Akio Morita who founded the Sony Corporation, and the Japanese machine tool company Yamazaki Mazak. The company was taken over by financier John Gano and the technical side of the operation by Enrique Scalabroni. A deal was struck for the ex-Peugeot engines to be supplied free of charge to Arrows in 2001. The programme was not a success and at the end of the year Arrows decided to give up the engines and pay for Cosworth V10's instead. Minardi then stepped in and took over the Asiatech deal for 2002. While this was happening, Asiatech began to talk about starting up its own F1 team and set up a design office in the old WilliamsF1 factory in Didcot. The team had designed an F1 prototype car by the middle of 2002 but it then became clear that all of the money had run out and Asiatech, unable to find a customer for its engines, closed its doors at the end of the year.

Year	Team	Driver	# of GPs
2001	Arrows-Asiatech	Enrique Bernoldi	17
2001	Arrows-Asiatech	Jos Verstappen	17
2002	Minardi-Asiatech	Alex Yoong	16
2002	Minardi-Asiatech	Mark Webber	16
2002	Minardi-Asiatech	Anthony Davidson	2