What happened to Pheonix / prost

[Jstuff]

will this team compete in next years championship, I haven't heard anything about them except the commotion around the austrailian and malaysian gps

[Saltire]

Has Prost not sold all their stuff in a garage type sale to raise some money to pay their creditors. As an F1 team I think they are worthless because they went bust - part of the Concorde agreement I believe.

[Red]

Prost will not race. As for Phoenix/Dart or whoever bought it, they only bought (expensively if you ask me) several chassis, and pieces of equipment, but not the team and the right to compete in their place.

[EERO]

However, this weekends announcement by Dan Gurney and Phil Hill suggests that they will buy into the Concorde to take the space vacated by Prost.

[Kex]

Effectively there's two slots up for grabs in F1 now. The rest of the Prost stuff was auctioned off, was it not?

[Valve Bounce]

Phart is a dead issue. Somehow, Tom Walkinshaw was mixed up in this sad debacle also. When it is joined by Arrows (an announcement is supposed to be made today) there will be two places available in F1, at which any prospective entrant will have to make a deposit of 45 million dollars which is refundable. That would be a helluva lot safer than anything to do with TW.

[Red]

There're 2 ways to get into F1. 1 is to buy an existing team and right now only Arrows is available (but hurry up). The other, like VB said is to make a $48 () millions deposit. 2 years before the year in which you want to compete in! whereas the first method allows you to compete next year.

[Saltire]

Originally posted by Kex
Effectively there's two slots up for grabs in F1 now. The rest of the Prost stuff was auctioned off, was it not?

According to the FIA rules there are a maximum of 24 cars allowed. So as it stands there are two slots, and if Arrows goes, three.

[Jstuff]

The assets of prost are useless and it cannot be used for a formula one team as per the concorde agreement and whoever bought it looks like a right fool now

[Red]

Saltire, there are 2 slots with Arrows'.

[Stephen Green]

Phew, I was just going to say that Red. Was wondering how 24-4 came to 18?

[Saltire]

Originally posted by Red
Saltire, there are 2 slots with Arrows'.

Oops!
Should have used a calculator, sorry.

[Stephen Green]

You are of course forgiven the error

[EERO]

...Then there's Minardi whose future is a little grim, Hence, 3 Possible slots.

[Saltire]

Originally posted by Stephen Green
You are of course forgiven the error

Thank you kind sir. I am new to this forum, and promise to try and be more careful.

[Saltire]

Minardi are fine. Don't you think that Paul S has been a bit on the quiet side now for many months. If they were in trouble, we'd know about it!
They are about to announce the Cosworth deal, so they'll be here in '03, no worries!

[Tiresmoke]

Minardi is in a lot bigger trouble than you've "not been hearing". PS's talk of Cosworths is a proposed Webber deal, and I think it's all parp. Once they resign Irvine, there probably wont be engines for Minardi. They get Asiatechs for free and can barely get by this year. Magnum/malaysian sponsorship isn't certain next year which makes engines even more in doubt.

But, I'm a minardi fan and I hope what I've been hearing is wrong.

[RaceCarFanatic]

Eddie irvine is not interested in the 2004 Jaguar. From the way it looks he will either retire or go to Jorden. I think he will retire. He said that he doesn't want to be stuck in lower ranking team because he could be doing something else better.

[Total-F1]

I've said it before - Paul Stoddart is offering the team for free to anyone who will take on the team's $30 million-odd debts...these rumours about the Ford deal with the American GP team put a Minardi deal in jeopardy because there's apparently only the one supply of Cosworths available.

[greg.n]

The US team will not get off the ground. Apparently Phil Hill now says he has no connection with it and knows nothing about it. Gurney would be better employed putting a CART team together for next year and he would find it difficult to raise the cash for that. $48 million for a deposit(!)-no way.

[Valve Bounce]

Originally posted by Total-F1
I've said it before - Paul Stoddart is offering the team for free to anyone who will take on the team's $30 million-odd debts...these rumours about the Ford deal with the American GP team put a Minardi deal in jeopardy because there's apparently only the one supply of Cosworths available.

I think Niki said he had heaps of older old engines for Minardi if negotiations are successful. Cosworth must have a helluva lot of engines that are superfluous anyway. I also think there were reports of Minardi getting Russian Gas sponsorship - don't tell me that went up like hot air.

[ss_collins]

I have heard impliyed by somone very close to swerve that he may be looking to pastures green next season.

[Armco Bender]

a $48 millions deposit

Remember the mid 70's when all you needed was a year old March 76,Hesketh 308 or similar,a DFV engine,couple of sets of tyres and you were on the back of the grid,with a bit of luck you could even finish in the points.Ah those were the days.........

[Stephen Green]

It does make you wonder whether the FIA will waive the deposit, or at least reduce it, in the light of the current financial situation within F1?

[Red]

Yes Armco, but the current Formula 1 is about a team that builds a car, not buys a car. The deposit is just a way to ensure that the eagerly waiting team has the means to run the team. I don't know how arbitrary was that limit set, but to reduce it would have no implications whatsoever. The deposit (with interest) is gradually returned to the team when they start to compete and certainly a lower limit will not reduce the costs of that team. It just proves that the team has financial resources.