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Russian bank SMP cools on expanding F1 presence

The Russian bank SMP has said that it has no current plans to expand its role in Formula One in the wake of the sport's takeover by Liberty Media Group.

SMP currently backs the career of Renault F1 development driver and GP2 driver Sergei Sirotkin.

This week the bank's boss Boris Rothenberg confirmed that this support would not be affected by Frederic Vasseur's departure as Renault boss or by US business sanctions against Russian companies with links to President Vladimir Putin.

But Rothenberg poured cold water on speculation that it might up its presence in Formula One through sponsorship deals, as it has done in IndyCar where it backs Schmidt Peterson Motorsports and its Russian driver Mikhail Aleshin. Rothenberg also set-up the SMP Racing endurance racing team which competes in the Le Mans series.

Sirotkin still in at Renault despite Vasseur exit

When asked by reporters whether SMP's involvement with Formula One would be limited to suppoorting Sirotkin on a personal level for the foreseeable future, Rochenberg replied succinctly: "At the moment, yes."

Rothenberg held out hopes that the situation might change in the future, telling the Ria Novosti news agency this week that "The programme is moving forwards, but as for it growing, only heaven knows.

"For now we can count only on ourselves to build the programme," explained the Russian billionaire. "If specific objectives are set for us then we can think differently, but in the meantime we can rely only on ourselves."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.