Niki Lauda, the new team boss of Jaguar F1, ended his Grand Prix career with McLaren in 1985. Next year he will briefly return to the cockpit to test Jaguar’s 2002 car, but his last team-mate – Alain Prost – might not even have a team to run next year.
Niki Lauda, the new team boss of Jaguar F1, ended his Grand Prix career with McLaren in 1985. Next year he will briefly return to the cockpit to test Jaguar’s 2002 car, but his last team-mate – Alain Prost – might not have a team to manage next year.
The Austrian is certainly riding a wave of success at the moment. Earlier this year, Lauda ousted former CART driver Bobby Rahal and assumed the reins of the Jaguar F1 team. To top it all, the three-time world champion will make a brief F1 comeback when he tests the team’s 2002 contender on January 13.
According to Autosport.com, the 52-year old will get behind the wheel only for the day just so that “he can gain a better understanding of how the car works”.
Although the drive will surely generate a great deal of interest among team personnel and fans alike, Lauda has done his best to assure everyone that it is not his intention to try to upstage the team’s regular drivers, Eddie Irvine and Pedro de la Rosa.
“It’s just that I would like to better understand how the car functions,” he was quoted as saying. “It is not my goal, to leave Eddie Irvine and Pedro de la Rosa in the dust. I am only concerned with the technical details.”
Lauda’s last race was the Australian Grand Prix in 1985. He qualified 16th for the season finale, but was forced to retire due to an accident on the 57th lap. His team-mate at the time was none other than Prost, who won his first of four world championships that year. At the end of 1985, Lauda’s run had ended, but Prost’s career was building up to its highest point.
And now, 16 years later, the tables have turned on the diminutive Frenchman. This week, the owner of the embattled Prost Grand Prix team hinted for the first time that he may not be able to save his team from liquidation before the start of next season.
Prost Grand Prix was placed in receivership by a Versailles commercial tribunal in November and has six months under French law to find a buyer and avoid liquidation. However, Prost and legal administrators have since set a deadline of January 14 to secure a rescue package to pay off the team’s debts. He believes that if the team’s uncertainty goes beyond that date, it will be unable to prepare to race with any conviction in 2002.
"If, by January 14, I have found no partners, it will very likely mean the liquidation of Prost Grand Prix," Prost told French newspaper Les Echos. Prost’s optimism about finding a backer was waning, the report said.
"Two or three projects seemed very serious," Prost told Les Echos. "We pressed forward with one and thought we would sign a deal. But in the end we realised that the partner would not bring financial security for the firm."
Saudi billionaire Prince Al Waheed and Canadian group Vector have been linked to possible rescue bids, but at this point nothing has materialised that could save Prost.
