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Race boss grabs icon


Ford, which has owned the company since 1993 will keep a 10 per cent holding.

The company at the heart of the takeover, Prodrive, is a specialist motor racing business based in England which spread its tentacles to Australia where it has owned a V8 Supercar team since 2003.

Ford Performance Racing evolved from Prodrive's buy of racer Glenn Seton's Ford team.

Prodrive has become a leading player in the world of motor racing and is scheduled to run a team in Formula One after being allocated the 12th team franchise in 2008.

Richards, right, led the takeover of the Gaydon-based (Warwickshire) sports car icon yesterday for $1.1billion, reputedly far less than what owner Ford wanted.

Ford will reportedly continue to supply engines and components to Aston Martin which was established in 1913 by two Britons and which has had a chequered ownership and financial history having gone bankrupt and been rescued a number of times.

Richards, who has regularly attended V8 Supercar races over the last few years, won the World Rally Championship co-driving for the great Ari Vatanen in 1981.

Prodrive also runs the Subaru World Rally Team which has Gold Coast ace Chris Atkinson driving.

He is being touted as a future world champion.

It has won six WRC titles with Subaru (three driver's and three manufacturer's gongs).

Rallying success also extended to involvement with Porsche, BMW and MG over the years.

Other headline successes for Prodrive include five British Touring Car Championships and it was a class winner with the Ferrari 550 GTS Maranello at Le Mans in 2003.

Prodrive also runs the Aston Martin Works sports car team which races cars in the American Le Mans Series and the Le Mans 24-hour where up to six cars will be entered for the June marathon.

Under Prodrive Aston Martin Racing returned to competition in 2005 when it won its first two races with the awesome DBR9.

Prodrive is one of the world's biggest motorsport and motor vehicle technology firms.

It has more than 900 staff in Europe, North America, Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.

From 2002 to 2004 Prodrive managed the BAR Honda F1 team before control reverted to Honda.

Prodrive owns 51 per cent of Ford Australia's performance road car arm, Ford Performance Vehicles.