MAY 15, 2002

Prost sales all week...

THE first of four sales of Prost cars and equipment took place 10 days ago with 12 cars going under the hammer at the Palais de Congres in Paris. The cars raised only $900,000. This week there are three further sales with racing material and equipment from the Prost F1 and F3000 teams being sold today at Guyancourt. Tomorrow the team's computers will be auctioned off and on Friday the company's machine tools will also go under the hammer.

Thus the history of Prost Grand Prix will come to an ignominious end although it remains to be seen whether the operation's entry to the World Championship will continue. There is currently a court case over whether or not the Prost entry was correctly licensed to Phoenix Finance Ltd. or whether the attempted transfer of rights was acceptable. It would not be the first time that the right to compete had been licensed from one company to another the best example in recent years being with Team Lotus when Peter Collins and Peter Wright acquired the right to use the original Lotus entry under licence to the Chapman Family.