JULY 5, 2002

The future of Arrows

THE talk in the Silverstone paddock on Friday afternoon was whether or not Arrows would be running on Saturday - but the more important question was whether or not the team will survive in the longer term.

In his ruling on Thursday Justice Sir Gavin Lightman said that in his opinion "if the management of Arrows is placed in competent and honest hands something of real value may be salvaged for Morgan Grenfell Private Equity and other creditors".

The issue of who owns the team is a complicated one but what is clear is that Deutsche Bank's subsidiary Morgan Grenfell is a shareholder with a voice. The team has at least $20m of trade creditors and probably more. No-one will gain anything if the team is wound-up or shut down and this probably explains the decision by Jos Verstappen's legal team not to press ahead with its winding up order against Arrows.

Verstappen is owed $900,000 from 2001 (plus interest) and has not even started action for what is owed for this year. This is believed to be something like $3m.

It is in the interest of everyone (and Formula 1 in general) that Arrows continues to operate - perhaps under a different name - and we hear that Morgan Grenfell has been looking around in recent days for someone to run the team on its behalf.

There is an obvious candidate in the person of Craig Pollock and our sources say that Morgan Grenfell and Pollock have been working flat out to find a deal to save the team.

Pollock refuses to comment of the rumors but we believe that an offer has been made to Walkinshaw to take the team off his hands and set it on the road to recovery.