British American Racing and Supertec Sport jointly announced today that they will not extend their contractual arrangement for the provision of Supertec engines to the team into the year 2000, as originally planned.

It is perceived that Honda will be supplying BAR with engines next year, though no deal has yet been finalized between the two.

"We have been very pleased with the engine, but the deal we had in place with Supertec did not allow us to develop a long-term strategy and we found we could not reach an agreement on this issue," commented BAR Managing Director, Craig Pollock. "As a result, and taking into account the interests and expectations of both parties, we have mutually agreed not to extend the engine supply partnership between Supertec and British American Racing for a second year.

"We have come to an entirely amicable arrangement and our relationship with Supertec will carry on with professionalism for the remainder of the 1999 season. We will reveal our engine supply plans in due course."

Flavio Briatore, President of Supertec Sport, said, "Clearly, British American Racing and Supertec have very good synergy. However, we both found that our strategies for the future might be diverging at some point. I can only wish them the best of luck in the future. We will continue to provide Supertec engines to the team this year, including scheduled upgrades, and we hope that together we are able to achieve some good results in 1999.

"Happily, we have an excellent product and a number of other Formula One teams have expressed an interest in securing a supply of Supertec engines. We will outline our future strategy later in the year."

It should be noted that BAR, along with Williams and Benetton, were uphappy with the performance of the Renault-dervided Supertec engine. While Williams already stated that they will make a planned switch to BMW next year, Benetton and BAR were left looking for a better engine deal. Today's announcement alludes that BAR may have found just that.