Just when the Internet was in a uproar because of the Nanshan carbon fiber matter, Rao Yongxiang, vice president of R&D of Xingchen Automobile, was reporting the latest progress of an acquisition project to Cao Yang in Europe.

If you want to become a luxury car brand, it is definitely not enough to simply continuously improve the configuration.

Participating in some top-level events is also an important marketing tool.

Through these events, it is also a way to convey its super strength, which is also very recognized by consumers.

Formula 1 is one of the most important races.

Whether it's Ferrari, BMW, or McLaren, they all have their own F1 teams.

Among them, Ferrari has been the most famous team in Formula 1 since 1950 without any interruption.

And this result has also brought a lot of feedback to Ferrari's sales.

For a long time, Xingchen Automobile has had the idea of participating in F1 races.

But before the financial crisis, the threshold for joining F1 was high and the cost was high.

At that time, the necessity of F1 racing was not so high for Xingchen Automobile.

Now it's a little different.

On December 5 last year, Honda withdrew from F1 racing.

Honda has been involved in Formula 1 since 1964 and has had some great results, even winning three Grand Prix.

According to the data released by Honda, they spend more than $300 million a year on F1, which is definitely not a small amount.

The most important thing is that after 2000, the Honda team has not won any awards.

Coupled with the impact of the financial crisis, withdrawing from F1 is an option that must be considered.

Since then, the interior of Xingchen Automobile has once again started F1-related preparations.

In the past, it was just a small bit of technical reserves and forward-looking research and development, but now a special project team has been set up to develop F1 cars.

In this case, Rao Yongxiang naturally went to the matter of buying an F1 team in person.

"Mr. Cao, BMW AG has officially announced today that after the end of the 2009 season, the BMW Group will not continue its F1 activities."

"It means they're out of the field just three years after they've been in Formula 1."

"According to the BMW CEO, this is part of the strategic restructuring of BMW Motor."

When Rao Yongxiang reported the news, his mood was actually a little complicated.

On the one hand, there are more choices for Xingchen Motors.

Whether it is the Honda team that has already withdrawn or the BMW team that is about to retire, it is a choice.

However, so many teams have announced their withdrawal from F1 racing, so does it mean that Xingchen Automobile's choice to join F1 racing is not necessarily so correct?

Rao Yongxiang had some such concerns in his heart.

"For BMW, maybe Formula 1 doesn't really give them a big boost to sales, and it's no surprise that they're abandoning the field."

"It just so happens that we have a good relationship with BMW, so we can talk to them and buy it if the price is right."

"However, I also heard a piece of information that has not been confirmed, but you can use it when negotiating with BMW."

Speaking of BMW's withdrawal from F1 racing, Cao Yang immediately sounded Toyota, which followed suitably to withdraw from F1 racing.

It can be said that at this stage of the financial crisis, Honda, BMW, and Toyota have withdrawn from F1, which has brought many bad effects on this event.

Even when the Honda team withdrew, there were rumors of a transfer for $1.

Of course, with such a bargain, there must be some debt behind the fleet.

This means that their convoy may not be seen by anyone.

No matter what you're selling, if there's no buyer, it means that the industry is doing a bit badly.

After all, buying up or not buying down is the choice that most people will make the most.

The most obvious is to buy a house, when the price rises, everyone is grabbing, and the negotiated price can regret continuing to increase the price, and then there are buyers who accept it.

By the time house prices start to fall, it's a different story.

That also means that the industry is starting to have problems.

"What's the news?"

Rao Yongxiang asked very cooperatively.

It is naturally the best to be able to win the BMW team smoothly.

In the case of the Honda team, after all, the fame is still not as great as BMW's.

And in March of this year, it was sold to Ross Brown to become the Brown team.

So if you want to buy it, you can only buy it from Ross Brown.

In this way, even if the Honda team performed better than BMW in the past, it would not make much sense to Xingchen Automobile.

After all, the most critical reason for a team's performance, in addition to the driver's factor, is the car itself.

After Xingchen Automobile joined F1, it will definitely launch its own racing car.

Then the achievements accumulated by the team in the past are of little significance.

No one will pay too much attention to it.

"Toyota is also considering withdrawing from F1 and will not participate in the 2010 season."

Hearing Cao Yang say this, Rao Yongxiang was stunned for a moment, but soon he thought of Toyota's financial report announced in May this year, and said: "Mr. Cao, your news is likely to be true, affected by the financial crisis, Toyota's net loss in the fiscal year from April 2008 to March 2009 reached 436.9 billion yen, or about 4.49 billion US dollars. ”

"Especially in the first quarter of 2009, Toyota's losses amounted to 765.8 billion yen, or about $7.6 billion."

"This figure exceeds GM's $6 billion loss in the first quarter of this year, which is significantly more than people expected."

"Among Toyota's five major global markets, all of them in Europe, the United States and Japan are in the red, and sales in North America are down 25% year-on-year. The European market lost $1.47 billion, compared with a profit of $1.45 billion in the same period last fiscal year. ”

"In this case, launching an unprofitable F1 event is also an important option to improve the financial situation."

"After all, F1 will cost Toyota two or three billion dollars in a year."

Formula 1 is a very expensive event.

This is really something that the average small company can afford.

Of course, if you play it well, it works well.

The most successful is Red Bull Racing.

Because of the results of F1 events, I don't know how much Red Bull's brand power has increased, and there is no way to quantify the benefits here.

The annual investment of two or three hundred million US dollars has played a very good advertising effect.

So this is also an important reason why people can stick to it in the future.

Those who quit quickly in the middle of the process basically did not enjoy the dividends.

Those who have been reluctant to leave, nine times out of ten, have gained benefits.

That's true for Ferrari, and it's true for Red Bull.

Cao Yang hopes that in the future, Xingchen Automobile will do the same.

If Xingchen Racing Team can continue to appear in F1 events from next year, and even move some F1 events to China in the future, it will have a huge impact on the brand power of Xingchen Automobile and Nanshan Engine.

Even Autohome's Need for Speed game can benefit from it.

In the entire industrial chain, Nanshan Group can eat a large part of it.

"Yes, so negotiating with BMW at this time and letting the other party know that we have more options is definitely a help."

"If they don't sell it, they'll just be smashed in their hands."

"How much can you sell for?"

Although the relationship between Nanshan Group and BMW has eased, Cao Yang does not want to spend a penny more to buy the BMW fleet.

Don't look at BMW's style is higher than that of Honda and Toyota, but its strength is not actually stronger.

Especially for the Honda team, the results are actually very good.

Of course, the reason is because Honda has put a lot of effort into the engine of the F1 car.

If the Nanshan Group did buy the Honda team, it would not be able to own Honda's F1 engine, and it would not have any effect on future results.

Of course, Nanshan Group can also be like Red Bull Racing, where all engines are purchased from outside.

In this way, from the perspective of cost, it may be more economical.

But Nanshan Group is different from Red Bull, the other party has no intention of promoting the engine, after all, Red Bull sells drinks.

As long as the team performs well, it doesn't matter who produces the engine.

But Nanshan Group is different, one of the purposes of F1 competition is to set off the technical level of Nanshan engine.

If the engines in F1 are all purchased, then it is better not to play.

When the time comes, it will become an excuse for others to attack Nanshan Engine, which has played a negative propaganda role.

"No problem, I'll go and get in touch with BMW again."

"However, we don't have many acquaintances at the BMW headquarters, so I thought if we could also visit the people from BMW Asia Pacific and BMW Huaxia, and let them help us push in the middle at that time?"

Obviously, among Honda, Toyota and BMW teams, Rao Yongxiang is still inclined to buy BMW teams.

When Nanshan Group acquired the F1 team, everyone will only think that the BMW team is definitely better than the Honda team and the Toyota team.

After all, BMW's popularity in China is definitely not comparable to Honda and Toyota.

However, when the actual acquisition of the team, the price of the BMW team will most likely not be higher than that of Honda and Toyota, after all, in the field of F1 events, the performance of the BMW team is actually not good.

Even if they boast that they have achieved good results in three years with the F1 team, they can only deceive themselves.

"No problem, I communicated directly with Phillips and Amoha, I believe they should also have more information than we do, and if it wasn't for our purchase, the BMW team would have no buyer."

Because of the cooperation of Nanshan Battery, BMW and Nanshan Group have a much closer relationship, and Cao Yang also has direct contact with BMW personnel in Asia Pacific.

Especially with the rapid growth of the Huaxia automobile market this year, BMW does not want to spoil the relationship with Nanshan Group.

Soon, Cao Yang's phone call went directly to Phillips, and he had a more pleasant exchange of his thoughts with Phillips.

After Phillips finished chatting with Cao Yang, he naturally immediately gave feedback to the headquarters.

He also knows about the BMW team's poor performance in Formula 1.

The company announced that it was going to launch next season's competition, and he knew about it.

In this case, if there is no better buyer to appear, it should not be a bad thing for BMW to promote it in the middle and sell the team to Nanshan Group.

Of course, considering that Ai Moha, who went to Huaxia, knew Xingchen Automobile and Nanshan Group better than himself, he also communicated with Ai Moha.

"Do you think that with the blessing of F1 racing, will Xingchen Motors bring us more pressure?"

Phillips first considered the competitive pressure that Xingchen Automobile brought to BMW.

After all, as the largest luxury car manufacturer in China, Xingchen Automobile's sales have reached a point where there is no way to ignore it.

Even Phillips is not confident that BMW will be able to surpass Xingchen in sales in China in the future.

Unless the headquarters starts the X3 and X1 as soon as possible, there is also the localization of the BMW 1 Series, and the threshold for buying a car will be lowered as soon as possible.

At that time, with the price advantage, it will get a counterattack in sales.

"Phillips, in fact, I don't think the impact of F1 events on sales is not so great, and most of the technology on F1 cannot be directly used in production cars."

"Whether we sell the BMW team to each other or not, the pressure they put on us is there."

"Besides, in addition to the BMW team, there is also the Honda team to consider."

"Even what they revealed about Toyota's plans to withdraw from F1 is probably true, and we can ask the team to knock on the side, maybe we can find out."

Aymoha expressed his opinion very directly.

With Nanshan Group, cooperate if you can, don't provoke each other.

Unless you don't want the Huaxia market.

Otherwise, people have a lot of tricks to deal with you.

This is something that Amoha has seen.

It can even be said that it has suffered losses.

"After I made a phone call with Cao Yang, I went to Huaxia, Dongying and other places to make a difference, and I didn't find any news that Toyota was going to withdraw from F1."

"If the other party said that the news that Toyota is ready to withdraw from the race is true, then it means that Nanshan Group has not been paying attention to F1 races for a day or two."

"Can we let the headquarters take this opportunity to make the price too high?"

Although Phillips wants to promote the cooperation between the two parties, the higher the selling price, the better.

However, Aymoha's opinion is different, only to see him say: "If Nanshan Group has been following F1 for a long time, then the situation in F1 is very clear, now there are three teams to choose from, and it is simply impossible for us to raise the price. ”

"After all, whether it's the Toyota team or our team, we all want someone to take over."

"Unless we can find more companies to come forward with the idea of buying, I am afraid it will be difficult to raise the price."

Aimoha did not want to delay Nanshan Group's acquisition of the BMW team.

As the general manager of the Huaxia branch, the selling price of the BMW team has nothing to do with him.

If the relationship between BMW Huaxia and Nanshan Group deteriorates because the BMW team sold tens of millions of dollars more, it will be more than worth the loss.

Soon, Phillips slowly realized this.

So he didn't bother anymore and began to report to the headquarters.

However, when he made such a report, Toyota was surprised.

"President, yesterday the BMW F1 team asked our team if Toyota was going to withdraw from the 2010 season."

"This news has just been brought up internally, and it has not yet been officially approved by the board of directors, let alone announced to the public, but the people at BMW know about it."

"Someone at the top of the company should have leaked the news to the outside world."

Tetsumin Kobayashi came to Watanabe's office with a serious face and reported a bad news.

Any car company will have strict confidential information about its own internal new products.

Although the level of secrecy of the Toyota team is not so high compared to the development of new models, it is not something that can be leaked to the outside world casually.

In particular, the key information about whether the team will withdraw from F1 competition is not suitable for leakage until it is officially announced.

Dongying enterprises are very sensitive to this aspect.

"Are you sure the BMW team guy is just asking, just kidding, or really know about us?"

Watanabe was unfazed.

BMW has officially announced its withdrawal from F1 competition, so the BMW team asked other teams that were also not very good whether they would also withdraw from the race, which was nothing special in itself.

Even if the secret is really leaked, it will not have a particularly big impact on Toyota's management.

Of course, if it is determined that it is a human leak, then it must be investigated to see who leaked it, intentionally or unintentionally.

"That's what I thought at first, but after checking it out, I could basically tell that they really knew we were going to quit F1."

"President, although this matter will not have much impact on the company's operation, if the news is suddenly known by the media, and we are not clear about the situation, we will also be very passive."

"So I think we still need to pay attention to this matter."

Tetsumin Kobayashi is now in charge of Toyota's research and development work, and he is sensitive to leaks.

Today, an executive leaked internal information about the Toyota team, will someone leak other information tomorrow?

The key is not to find out the leaker, he can't sleep.

Who knows what's the story behind this?

"There aren't many people who know that the team is going to withdraw from F1, so let the company's confidentiality committee talk to everyone one by one to confirm and see if anyone can take the initiative to come forward and admit it."

"As long as it wasn't intentional and I confessed it, I could forgive him."

Leaking this kind of thing, simply to investigate, is very time-consuming and energy-consuming.

Besides, this time the level of personnel involved is relatively high.

If the investigation is in full swing, it may have some bad effects.

So Watanabe Tetsuaki also hopes to make big things small things.

It's just that the situation may not be as he imagined.

On the same day, Tetsuaki Kobayashi, who is the vice chairman of Toyota's secrecy committee, informed relevant insiders of the leak.

However, no one admitted that they had leaked the Toyota team.

In this way, Kobayashi Tetsumin was also very annoyed.

He was going to take this opportunity to take a good look at the company's internal situation.

Of course, in the end, it is destined to end in nothing.

And just when Tetsumin Kobayashi began to investigate this matter, in order to minimize the impact of withdrawing from F1 competitions and avoid the passive situation caused by other media exposure first, Toyota Motor urgently held a press conference and officially announced its withdrawal from next season's F1 competition in advance.

In less than a month, BMW Racing and Toyota announced their withdrawal from the competition.

At this moment, the situation immediately became lively.

"Aimoha, it seems that the Nanshan Group is very well-informed, and they know about Toyota without any information in the media."

"I feel that Toyota's press conference this time is a bit abrupt, as if it was advanced because of a sudden accident."

This time, Phillips can be regarded as seeing the power of the Nanshan Group again.

Could it be that the other party has eyes and ears inside Toyota?

Otherwise, how could such inside information be obtained so quickly?

"Judging from the questions of the reporters at the press conference, Toyota must have only recently decided to withdraw from F1 competition."

"After all, Toyota's financial report last year was ugly, and the situation in the first and second quarters of this year was not ideal."

"This should be regarded as a loss that Toyota has not encountered for decades."

"That's why they're starting to find ways to cut costs and turn losses around as soon as possible."

"I even heard the news that Toyota is investigating leaks internally."

"So this time it was indeed Nanshan Group that got the news in advance."

Aymoha gave his judgment with certainty.

And he is more determined that he should have a good relationship with Nanshan Group in Huaxia.

"I'm going to propose to the headquarters to reach an agreement with Nanshan Group as soon as possible to sell the BMW F1 team, otherwise there will be more and more choices, and maybe it will be messed up in their hands."

Phillips felt that it was better to cut through the mess quickly and sell the BMW team to Nanshan Group as soon as possible.

After all, no matter how small a mosquito is, it is still meat.

If you smash it in your own hands, it's worth a euro and it's gone.

After all, in terms of communication, the communication between Dongying enterprises and Huaxia must be better than that of German enterprises.

Rather than being robbed of the opportunity by Toyota and Honda, BMW should fight for it on its own.

"That's true, we need to make the headquarters aware of this, or we might end up trying to sell it in our own hands rather than sell it at a low price."

"That's actually a lose-lose solution."

The conversation between Aymoha and Phillips has had a positive impact on BMW's decision on whether to sell the F1 team internally and at what price.

Rao Yongxiang, who was far away in Germany, also quickly felt the change in the attitude of the BMW docking personnel.

Nanshan Group's acquisition of the BMW F1 team was brought up at a moment's notice.

Since the differences between the two parties are not particularly large, it did not take long to basically reach an acquisition plan.

Now we are waiting for the official press conference.

(End of chapter)