Saturday October 12th, 2002

By Timothy Collings

Outspoken Minardi team boss Paul Stoddart is set to throw in the towel, quit Formula One and fold his team if four rival teams carry out a threat to take legal action and recover television revenues allocated to him earlier this year, he said on Saturday.

Faced by mounting difficulties, the Australian owner of the Italy-based perennial strugglers said he was on the brink of giving up because he believed that the other teams, led by McLaren team chief Ron Dennis, were intent on forcing him into ruin.

In an impassioned outburst at Suzuka, in advance of Saturday's qualifying for Sunday's Japanese Grand Prix, he revealed that four teams - McLaren, Williams, BAR and Jordan - had given notice of their intention to commence arbitration proceedings against Formula One Management (FOM) 'in relation to the status of the Prost Concorde Agreement benefit monies.'

In short this was, he said, a bid to prevent him receiving an estimated eight million dollars that had originally been intended to go to the now-defunct and bankrupted Prost Grand Prix team for finishing 10th in last year's Constructors' Championship.

He had fought successfully to win the right to receive this money earlier this year following a legal battle with Arrows owner Tom Walkinshaw in the now infamous 'Phoenix case' and he said this latest action was a clear example of big teams trying to profit from the sport's weakest outfits.

Stoddart was forced to speak out - against the advice of rival team chiefs and against the 'code of understanding' among them - after receiving official notification from Bernie Ecclestone's company Formula One Management that the four teams had given notice of their intention to commence proceedings.

He confirmed that if the teams' action against FOM is successful it would force him to have to repay a loan of five million dollars (from FOM), plus interest, and any other sums owing, immediately. In effect, Stoddart said these debts if repaid would force him to abandon the sport.

Stoddart said it would cost him two million dollars to take action by becoming a party to the arbitration and defend his position and that he could not afford to do this. "If they go ahead, that's it," he said. "It's me and Minardi out. The end. I've run it this year with 17.5 million dollars - in cash - and I just cannot spare any more money or any time to fight this again."

Stoddart said that Dennis was the ring-leader in the action to recover the money that the teams involved - McLaren, Williams, BAR and Jordan - felt was due to them because, he said, he believed it was a "matter of principle."

He suggested this matter of principle would lead, eventually, to Minardi's demise and the removal of all the smaller teams in the business as the big manufacturer-based outfits gained total control of the sport for their own ends.

"Bernie has notified me that this is going to go ahead," he added. "But it will cost me two million dollars in legal fees and I've already won this case twice in the High Court. Ron Dennis sees himself as some kind of champion of the Concorde Agreement and you have to wonder about his motives and his timing.

"I am astonished this is happening at a time when Formula One has so many other problems to resolve, but Ron probably knows what he is doing. But does he want to see Formula One cut down again. There are only 10 teams now and soon there could be nine, or eight."

Stoddart said that it could be possible that the manufacturer-supported teams would be happy to see the Championship reduced and for teams to enter three or four cars each, but he believed that a third car would not be recouped by sponsors.

He also said that the actions taken by the teams, even if successful, would only lead to each of them receiving 680,000 dollars each. "I can't believe they are doing it for the money, though I should think Eddie (Jordan) needs it," he said. "To be honest, I am lost for words."

Stoddart added that he questioned seriously whether Mercedes-Benz or BMW, engine suppliers to McLaren and Williams, supported the actions of their racing teams' principals. "How can they? It stinks. This is about the big teams pushing a small outfit like Minardi out of business after 19 years fighting to survive.

"The big get the money and the small get kicked out. That's modern Formula One. McLaren have just reported a profit that is more than double our annual budget! I am absolutely gutted. If it was not for the team and the people, I would go now. They are good people, but there are precious few good people in Formula One."

Williams owner Sir Frank Williams has not come to Suzuka, but Eddie Jordan defended his position stoutly and claimed that Stoddart had failed to deliver on all aspects of an agreement made by the teams at the Austrian Grand Prix in May.

He suggested that Stoddart had, in fact, reneged on that deal and this was one of the chief reasons for the action, added to the fact that Minardi had contravened the strict Concorde Agreement rule that said revenue would only be distributed to the teams that finished in the top ten.

The Jordan team had been in a similar position in 1992, he said, when they finished outside the top ten. When the Leyton House March team collapsed at the end of the Championship, they were rejected in an approach to receive their part of the money generated from television income.

"Paul had a lot support from everyone and there was a deal to help him out, but the money was going to be split up so that everyone had some," said Jordan. "That is what was supposed to happen and it didn't. And don't forget, whatever anyone says, he finished 11th. Not 10th."

Ecclestone had paid Minardi the television revenue, originally earmarked for the defunct Prost team earlier, in the season after a prolonged campaign by Stoddart for the funds. Stoddart said he had agreed, as a condition of payment, to indemnify Ecclestone, with interest, if a court of arbitration subsequently ruled that he was not entitled to the Prost money.

It is understood that the gross sum involved in 12 million dollars for distribution and that Stoddart, who signed an agreement with FOM on June 21 this year, may face a fight to justify his deal.

"Ron is well aware of that, as indeed are the other teams," said Stoddart. "I have circulated a document to them from Bernie's solicitors to me putting me on notice that they have now received the papers for this to go to arbitration," he said.

"At this time, with all the problems Formula One really does have, for this to happen for me is nothing short of self-destruction," said Stoddart. "In the last 12 months we have been through so many problems, the sport as a whole, and we've lost two teams.

"I have gone through hell and back again this year and this is the icing on the cake," said Stoddart. "It's bad enough having to deal with the problems I have had to deal with, but when you get knives in your back from your co-team principals, I'm not interested.

"It's a case of 'Is this the straw that breaks the camel's back, do I want to be involved in a sport with such individuals in it?' I'm not sure that I do."

Stoddart, who rescued Minardi from near-extinction at the start of last year, has experienced the high of two unexpected points in Australia in March tarnished by bickering over money.

His main opponent until recently was Arrows boss Tom Walkinshaw but that team is fighting what seems to be a losing battle against closure and has missed the final five races of the Championship and faces a winding up order.

With Arrows on the brink and Minardi tottering, Formula One faces a tough struggle to live up to its self-styled image as a globe-trotting sport for corporate millionaires.

Published at 06:44:12 GMT