JULY 15, 2001

Richards says "not yet" to Formula 1

DAVID RICHARDS, the boss of the Prodrive motorsport engineering company and the head of world rallying, has admitted that he still harbors ambitions in Formula 1. Richards ran the Benetton briefly before concentrating on rallying but moved on after he failed to agree on strategy with the Benetton Family.

There have been rumors in recent months suggesting that Richards may be planning a comeback as an F1 team owner rather than just as a manager but Richards said at Silverstone that he does not yet have any concrete plans. His focus at the moment is the flotation of Prodrive and the building up of the World Rally Championship but future F1 team ownership should not be ruled out.