JUNE 15, 2002
The Minardi question
Paul Stoddart in recent weeks has been asking his legal eagles for their opinion about his situation with regard to the Concorde Agreement.
Stoddart can challenge them in the International Chamber of Commerce in Lausanne but this is not the work of a moment because cases take a minimum of a couple of months to be heard. And Stoddart does not have the luxury of time.
Is there a solution to this problem? The lawyers have not been able to find one. And there is no time for the matter to be now handed on to judges. One has to say that even if there is some doubt about the money in the Concorde Agreement it would be incredibly blinkered - one might even say stupid - if the rival teams each got a million dollars which they would then waste on testing and Minardi was allowed to go to the wall.
Hopefully someone will have the foresight to tell the teams that it is in the best interests of the sport that as many teams as possible survive.