JUNE 3, 1996

Team Prost revives

OLIVIER PANIS's victory at Monaco seems to have had a curious knock-on effect for Ligier. Rather than consolidating the position of the current management and enabling them to build for the future, it seems that it has sparked new interest in the idea of the French government throwing its weight behind Alain Prost's own team - using the Ligier facilities as a starting point for the project.

Team Prost has been discussed on several occasions in the past, but it has never become a reality because no-one was willing to come up with the money and the guarantees of engines that Prost was demanding.

Now, however, Panis's win has started the ball rolling again and French President Jacques Chirac seems to have put his weight further behind Prost to get the project started.

Prost and Chirac have enjoyed close links for some years.

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