Arrows fighting for a brighter future

By Huw Alban
July 9 2002

Despite the dramas and disappointments of the British Grand Prix weekend, the OrangeArrows team are still fighting to keep going, with boss Tom Walkinshaw confident that the team’s 2002 money troubles will be resolved before the French Grand Prix in two weeks time.

The Reuters news agency has confirmed today that Tom Walkinshaw used his own money to resolve the team’s money troubles on the Friday before the British Grand Prix. Prior to that, the team were locked in a court battle with major shareholder Morgan Grenfell over the sale of team assets to raise much needed cash to pay Cosworth.

According to Reuters, Arrows were two months behind in paying for their V10 engines, and the engine manufacturer withheld the vital Engine Control Units until around $4.7 million (3 million pounds) had been paid. This stranded the team in the garage for the Friday practices whilst the parties involved negotiated an agreement.

That agreement was reached and the team participated in the Saturday practice sessions, the qualifying hour, and the race itself on Sunday, nearly scoring World Championship points in the process.

It appears that this arrangement was only a short term fix, but Tom Walkinshaw has stated that there are three parties that are keen to either buy the team or make a partial investment. Either way this would inject much need cash into Arrows, and secure it’s future for the rest of the season. The team boss is hopeful that the situation will be fully resolved before the French Grand Prix at Magny-Cours on July 21.

“Tom has set his own deadline to get everything sorted by Magny-Cours,” said a team source to Reuters.

“We have a contract whereby there were monthly payments. The decision on Friday was to fix the past, which Tom did,” explained Cosworth boss Niki Lauda about the agreement.

“Now we agreed that we get, on the Wednesday before the race, a cash downpayment for the outstanding money so we do not find ourselves in the position like at Silverstone where we were fighting all Friday to get the money.”

Lauda also seemed confident that the team’s troubles would be solved so that Arrows would be able to compete in the French Grand Prix in two weeks time. “He (Walkinshaw) did pay at Silverstone so if he gets all his other problems sorted out, why not?"

This site and all Arrows fans are going to be keeping their fingers crossed for the next two weeks...