The end of Zakspeed?

[FIRE]

This afternoon I read on the www.racing1.de forum (see this topic) there are legal investigations against Peter Zakowski (and others). I just found a small story on www.the-Paddock.net about these investigations, see this page.


If this is true it doesn't look good for the future of the German team.

[AU N EGL]

a few of us dont read German.

Wonder what happened. The Paddoc.net story was short on details.

questionable sources of money which may have been used to fund the team's FIA-GT season.

?????

[Satorian]

From the forum at Racing1: Sport Auto, a well-known german magazine, reports that Peter Zakowski of Zakspeed has two dates in court.

The first one for fraud, by means of Zaksales, which is reported to be an illegal pyramid/snowball scheme used to finance Zakspeed. The second due to a legal conflict with Opel, who want two of their ITC cars and a test mule back and Zakspeed is unwilling to comply. Additionally they accuse Zakspeed of having sold know-how from the test mule to other parties, for which Opel wants to be compensated.

The last item is a rumour people have heard from different sources, that Zakspeed had gotten state government grants for their racing school programme but have used it for different purposes, effectively resulting in embezzlement.


It's a sad story really. Zakspeed has a lot of history and they can look back on many years of being a prominent and successful racing team. They are a german racing household name. A shame.

[Chad Rogers]

I would hate to see Saleen out of the GT1 scene. It sounds fantastic and was very fast in the right hands this year. What I love so much about sports car racing are the varied grids, it seems to be turning into a Vette/Aston grid only.

Chad

[Satorian]

Racing Box is bringing a Saleen into the LMS, so it's not completely fading out of GT1 yet.
I find the news about Zakspeed much more troubling and saddening. To compare it with over-the-pond teams, it would probably be like Dyson Racing closing shop.