Formula One News — January 2002

The Prost Grand Prix has been put into liquidation by a commercial court in Versailles after team boss Alain Prost failed to find a solution to pay debts of $28m.

John Walton, the sporting director of Prost Grand Prix, has started work at Minardi where he will be the sporting director and team manager of the ambitious Ledbury operation.

The news that Prost Grand Prix is going out of business could signal the arrival of Mark Webber as a Formula 1 driver with the KL Minardi team.

The official liquidation of Prost Grand Prix means that Prost Grand Prix must now fold all its activities and sell off as many of the assets as it is able to try to raise as much money possible to pay the team's debts.

Testing in Barcelona continued Monday, with five teams in action. The Williams trio of Ralf Schumacher, Juan-Pablo Montoya and Antonio Pizzonia topped the time sheets, Schumacher in the new FW24.

Patrick Faure, the chairman of Renault Sport, has made the French company's position in relation the future of Formula 1 very clear.

Gustav Brunner, the technical director of Toyota Motorsport, has told the Reuters newsagency that Toyota is not expecting huge success early in its Formula 1 program.

Prost Grand Prix has been put into liquidation by the Tribunal de Commerce of Versailles with debts in excess of $28m.

Mark Webber has signed for the Minardi team - and will make his Formula 1 debut at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.

The Germany authorities are reported to be investigating the business dealings of Willi Weber, the manager of the Schumacher Brothers.

Renault has landed sponsorship from the Korean company Hanjin.

Renault took the rather strange decision to give the French TV station TF1 exclusivity for its launch in Paris on Sunday and the car had been shown on the television almost an hour before the assembled members of the world's media were given a glimpse of the new car.

After months of pretending that there are no problems, the Formula 1 community is now waking up the reality that there is a recession: the first in 10 years.

The Kirch Group has been struggling for cash in recent months and that has led to all kinds of rumors about the role of the firm in the sport.

Japan is firing in new young drivers into Europe every few weeks at the moment and the latest is Yuji Ide, who is to race in Aguri Suzuki's ARTA team this year's French Formula 3 Championship.

Ron Tauranac has been recognized by the Australian government for his services to motor racing.

The word on the street in Paris is that Prost Grand Prix is going to be liquidated on money, Alain Prost having failed to find a suitable package to save the team.

The BMW Williams team has landed a new sponsorship deal from the Federal Express company which was ousted from Ferrari by the signing of the new Vodafone sponsorship deal.

CART refugee Bryan Herta has abandoned hopes of landing a test drive with Arrows and has signed to drive for the works Panoz sports car team.

As we suggested some weeks ago all is not well at Ilmor Engineering with the new Mercedes-Benz engine having a number of problems and according to unconfirmed reports a senior Ilmor engineer has been asked to leave the company because of the problems which have been found.

The first real cutback in the newly re-branded Ford Rallye Sport empire has come with the announcement that the works-supported Ford Focus program of multiple FIA Middle East Rally Champion Mohammed bin Sulayem is to be axed.

Peter Sauber launched his 2002 package at the Swiss National Military Aviation Museum in Zurich.

Satellite Television operator BSkyB announced Friday that it has worked a deal with Formula One Management to broadcast live interactive coverage of the Formula One World Championship in 2002 and 2003.

There have been some changes in the technical structure of Sauber with Belgian Jacky Eeckelaert appointed head of track engineering and race engineer for Felipe Massa.