ALAN BALDWIN, London | Thursday 12.00pm.
PRINCE Malik Ado Ibrahim is chasing a motor racing dream.
A dream to take Formula One, the sport notable for millionaire lifestyles and beloved of white European aristocracy, to the heart of Africa. The 38-year-old Nigerian arrived among the elite in motor racing in January this year when he led a consortium, financially backed by Morgan Grenfell Private Equity, which bought a 70 percent stake in the Arrows team.
He declared at the time that there was ”no reason why the next Michael Schumacher can’t be black” and the man promptly dubbed ”Black Prince” has been literally standing out from the crowd ever since. Malik, black Africa’s only Formula One player and a businessman who dresses from head to toe in black, has inevitably raised the colour element.
”There is not a racist element in the sport but it is a fact that because it is European based and European developed, it does not have that aspect of colour in it,” he said in an interview at this month’s British Grand Prix. ”It was inevitable that colour was going to come into the sport eventually.”
The Arrows team has a record of 329 races without a win and has struggled again this season, gleaning just one point with Pedro de la Rosa’s sixth place in the opening race in Australia in March. But they announced this month, at the half-way stage in the season, that theywould abandon their own engine for the Renault-based Supertec next year and Malik is confident of better things ahead.
Prince Malik’s dream, as an African and as a businessman, is to explore new markets with Arrows and try to open up a continent generally overlooked by the sport but which nonetheless provided Ferrari’s last world champion.
”Africa has had a world champion, at least a South African and a white South African at that and driving for the biggest name in Formula One, Ferrari,” he said, referring to Jody Scheckter.
”But most of the teams in F1 have an African involvement. Shell has 25 percent of its global profits coming out of Nigeria. Nearly every company here has an involvement,” the Prince said. ”I’m going to try and harness that.”–Reuters