sexta-feira, agosto 30, 2002
Do blog da Elo:
Pollock and Villeneuve deny CART offer: It was never made, says Pollock
Craig Pollock and Jacques Villeneuve have refuted claims by Gerry Forsythe that the Canadian racer was offered a 50 million dollar contract to return to the CART series in 2003. Reports in the ‘Le Journal Montreal' claimed that Villeneuve was offered a very lucrative deal to return to the Players Forsythe Team but turned down the offer claiming he wanted more money.
The report stated that the deal, organized between Players and BAR, would have seen him compete in CART for the final season under British American Tobacco's sponsorship before anti tobacco legislation came into play at the end of 2003. After that the driver would return to F1 and his current BAR team for 04 and 05. Said to be part of BAT's plan to go all out in their final year in the series, Craig Pollock claims the offer has never been made, either verbally or in writing.
"All this is false. We never received an offer, either verbally or in writing,” he said. “I was very surprised and immediately called Gerry Forsythe and also Bob Bixon (president of BAT), and they were as surprised as I was. It is clear that Jacques has a concrete contract with BAR for 2003. There were perhaps internal discussions between BAR and British American Tobacco as during the GP of Montreal, Players asked me whether Jacques would be interested in doing a final year in CART. I simply answered that it would be necessary to talk with BAT and BAR because he is under contract with them. That is all."
Jacques was also asked about the deal and he too denied that it was ever made and if it was, he would have given it serious thought as you don't pass up that amount of money lightly.
“For six months I have been saying that I have a contract for next year,” he said. “I never received a proposal for anything. There were rumours saying that it would be a good idea, but there was never an offer. It makes me laugh. If a proposal like that was made, I would think about it, but it was not.”
Parece que a silly season está à toda velocidade este ano!
posted by
Viviane at 10:16:00 AM
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