JULY 13, 1998

Developments at Prost

OLIVIER PANIS is expected to leave Prost Grand Prix at the end of the year and German Ralf Schumacher is tipped to be his replacement.

OLIVIER PANIS is expected to leave Prost Grand Prix at the end of the year and German Ralf Schumacher is tipped to be his replacement. Schumacher has been in negotiation with Eddie Jordan for some weeks but we understand that they have so far failed to agree terms and so Schumacher has been looking elsewhere for work, talking to Prost and to Sauber.

Despite his failure to produce results in the last 18 months, the Jordan team seem to think that Ralf has potential and needs a little more time to mature. If an agreement cannot be found Olivier Panis is a possible replacement for Schumacher. Panis is not happy with the way the Prost team has been developing and it seems that Alain Prost is not too keen on keeping Olivier. Jarno Trulli remains under contract for one more year with Prost Grand Prix.

The team is still looking to strengthen its engineering staff and we understand that Gary Anderson has become a target for talks following the arrival at Jordan of Mike Gascoyne, who is expected to take over as Jordan technical director when Anderson departs. Gary has a contract which runs until the end of 1999 but may decided to leave the team earlier. Prost is also rumored to be a little worried about his future with Peugeot following the company's announcement that it is planning to enter the World Rally Championship. While no final decision is made about whether Peugeot stays in F1 beyond the end of the year 2000, it is likely that the company will move on unless Prost starts to win races.

There are also rumors that Prost has had talks with Renault in an effort to ascertain if there are any long-term plans for the company to return to F1 in the future.