Minardi Buys Arrows Chassis

[NateDogg]

Having purchased five examples of last years Arrows A23 chassis at an auction of the remaining assets of the defunct F1 team earlier this week, the European Minardi team plans to hold a comparative test to see how its PS03 compares against the 2002 Arrows, prompting speculation that the team could park its own cars and race the older design! However, the team itself says it plans only to see whether the Mike Coughlan-designed Arrows have any technical features that could be applied to its own cars.

"We'll have a look at the car and see if some of the ideas on them could help us develop our current cars," a Minardi spokesman told the Reuters news agency. "We are planning a back-to-back test of the A23 vs. the PS03, sometime soon and probably in England."

The team purchased five examples of the Arrows, although it is likely to use several of these purely as a source for parts. "Two [of the cars] are in good shape and could be put into service and the others are mainly for parts," said the spokesman.

 

[PettyBenson]

They ran a little better last week so I hope this helps them, that way they can get some points once in a while! Bernie Bought into the team a couple weeks ago, so i bet that is where the money is commign from to buy those cars, bc wasn't Menardi all most broke at the start of the season?

 

[BebiF1]

If Bernie is actually pumping cash into Minardi, we might see the worst team in F1 leap to the forefront next year or at least get off the back row. The last race at Montreal had Verstappen qualify 15th, nothing to be proud of but it was the best qualifying effort from a minardi badged car in like 206 grand prixs i believe. Anyways it has been a good decade or so since a minardi had done that well. I would like to see bernie pick up minardi so that way all the teams would be basically "stable". Jordan won a race this year so they should pick up a couple sponsers as well as travel money, and the only other private team is Sauber, and they seem to be just going with the flow this year, nothing too spectacular, yet nothing horrible either. The Minardi isnt that bad of a chassis if I must say so myself. Mark Webber sure figured it out last year. At the the US GP some of the greatest racing going on that day was not on camera, but included an intense 5 or 6 lap duel between Eddie Irvine in a multi-million dollar team against rookie Mark Webber in the lowest budget team in the series. Remember how Kimi and Juan ran wheel to wheel throught the stadium section of Hockenhiem last year? These two guys were doing that through the first 4 or 5 turns at Indy and did it two or three times. Eddie finally got the best of the ausie tho...YES... but none the less a great show of power from both.

 

[Tiger]

Originally posted by BebiF1@Jun 23 2003, 03:02 AM
If Bernie is actually pumping cash into Minardi, we might see the worst team in F1 leap to the forefront next year or at least get off the back row.

I highly doubt we will see that dramatic change! Don't have to look far for a team with too much cash they clearly don't know what to do with....Toyota. I think Bernie will keep them alive, but alive so much so that they still need Bernie (meaning they don't perform so well they pick up great sponsors), so basically Bernie has Minardi in his rather large back pocket.

Good luck to 'em with the A23 also!

 

[NateDogg]

the gap is closing.

oh you will see a change, as in the 0 in the points become no more. Thats right, they will score a point this year. Uh oh, thats a big limb for me too be way out on, please don't break.

As for Toyota, they are getting better every week, the screws will be tightned eventually.

 

[BebiF1]

Something I heard the other day about the A23 Arrows, and in my mind the best looking and most different car out there was that it was also the most Aero efficent which means its a lot the Renault this year with great corning abilities but no power in the back. You might just see a slightly modified A23 painted in black this weekend if Minardi got that test they wanted.