David Brabham’s complex bid to revive the family name remains on track to field an LMP2 contender in the World Endurance Championship next year.
Project Brabham’s initial successful crowdfunding strategy now moves to the stage where prospectus documents have been dispatched to potential investors.
Brabham attended the Le Mans 24 Hour in France recently where he had more meetings with interested backers in a bid to generate revenue to enable the team to race next year.
The WEC is expected to announce next month the identity of the four LMP2 constructors for 2017 with a decision on what engineer supplier it will go with in September.
“We don’t need to make a decision right now,” Brabham told Speedcafe.com.
“We are not in a position to buy it (a chassis) anyway.
“The main thing is to go to the investment world and get the money behind the project.”
Brabham has set a five-year plan for the project in an effort to revive the family name on the racetrack.
“We are now at the stage where three weeks ago the prospectus has gone out to people,” he said.
“They are only just landing on people’s desks.
“I’m hoping over the next three or four months we can get the investment and then it’s a case of getting ready to race in 2016.
“It’s a big deal, it’s building a race team from scratch.
“What we are selling is the Brabham Digital experience.
“We want to give people a different experience in motorsport through an open and transparent race team.”
Managing expectations in the fan and marketplace is vital for Brabham as he continues to fashion the unique project into a viable business entity.
“As you know, a normal race team faces a struggle at the end of every year and I’m not prepared to do that,” he said.
“This plan gives it solid business footing where it will generate revenue because it’s a subscription-based model.
“Brabham stands for inspirational, innovation, engineering so whatever we do we have to do like that.
“Our internal strap-line is ‘inspiring wins through pioneering thinking’.
“Companies have knocked on our door since we’ve launched and we are not even ready for them.
“It’s been fascinating. To me its the right product at the right time.
“Next year will be 50 years since dad won the championship for a third time.”
Brabham has opted for the WEC because he views it as a more open rulebook and it also has credibility as a world championship.
“The ACO (Automobile Club de l’Ouest) is much more open to a liberal program and also it’s a world championship,” he said.
“When we launched we got 64 countries involved in Project Brabham.
“There are key markets where we could grow our products and a world championship, WEC, LMP2 is okay; it’s expensive but it’s not too expensive.
“Then we can start looking at partners for an LMP1 program for the future.”
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