MAY 22, 2002

Minardi lays off 15 staff

THE Minardi team has been forced to cut back on its staff numbers because of the squeeze in finances for the F1 teams. It is the fourth team to have to cut staff, following in the footsteps of Arrows, British American Racing and, most recently, Jordan. The staff cuts have all been in England and include a number of design and development engineers including Paul Crooks and George Ryton.

The team hopes that the cuts will not have too much of an effect on performance but they will nonetheless be a blow to Paul Stoddart's ambitions to turn the Italian team into a more competitive operation.