JUNE 29, 1998
Shake-up at Peugeot Sport
THERE has been a management shake-up at Peugeot Sport with managing-director Pierre-Michel Fauconnier being "promoted" to a new position in South America and his job at Velizy being taken by public relations supremo Corrado Provera.
Provera was trained as a lawyer and worked as a journalist before joining Chrysler Italy in 1962. He later transferred to Chrysler Europe and went to Peugeot when Chrysler sold its European networks to the French company - as Talbot. Provera is a member of the board of Automobiles Peugeot.
Fauconnier was unfortunate in that he took over the job when Peugeot was in the middle of a less than successful relationship with Jordan. He negotiated a deal with Prost but the team has struggled this year because of all the changes which needed to be done to transform the team into a sensible F1 outfit.
The Prost-Peugeot deal runs until the end of the year 2000 but the company insists that it will stay in F1 in addition to launching into a World Rally Championship program with the new Peugeot 206 model.