 | |
| Full name | Prost Gauloises Blondes (1997) Gauloises Prost Peugeot (1998–2000) Prost Acer (2001) |
|---|---|
| Base | Guyancourt,Yvelines,France |
| Founder(s) | Alain Prost |
| Noted staff | Bernard Dudot John Barnard Loïc Bigois |
| Noted drivers |  Olivier Panis Jarno TrulliJean Alesi Nick HeidfeldHeinz-Harald Frentzen Shinji Nakano Tomáš Enge |
| Previous name | Équipe Ligier |
| Formula One World Championship career | |
| First entry | 1997 Australian Grand Prix |
| Races entered | 83 |
| Constructors' Championships | 0(best finish: 6th,1997) |
| Drivers' Championships | 0 |
| Race victories | 0(best finish: 2nd,1997 Spanish Grand Prix and1999 European Grand Prix) |
| Podiums | 3 |
| Pole positions | 0 |
| Fastest laps | 0 |
| Final entry | 2001 Japanese Grand Prix |
Prost Grand Prix was aFormula One racing team owned and managed by four-time Formula One world championAlain Prost. The team participated in five seasons from 1997 to 2001.
The team was the lastFrench Formula One team based in France, inYvelines (in the surroundings ofParis).
As early as 1992, Alain Prost had ambitions to buy theLigier team, and had tested their1992 car incognito, wearingÉrik Comas's crash helmet, with a view to being a driver-owner, even setting competitive lap times.[1] Ligier was being supplied withElf lubricants andRenault engines at the time, and the French manufacturers had strong ties with Prost. They were pushing to keep him in F1 after his sacking byFerrari at the end of 1991. Prost wanted to bringJohn Barnard, who had designed his title winning McLaren cars in 1985 and 1986 on board as part of the package.[2] The deal fell through just before the season openingrace in South Africa however, and Prost sat the season out before joining the similarly Renault poweredWilliams team for 1993, and won his fourth world championship before his retirement from racing.[3]
In the meantime, Ligier was bought instead byCyril Bourlon de Rouvre. The team enjoyed an upswing in fortunes under his ownership and went on to be reasonably competitive in the mid 1990s.[4]
De Rouvre then sold up toBenetton bossesFlavio Briatore andTom Walkinshaw in early 1994 after being convicted for fraud. Briatore saw this deal as a way to gain access to the Renault engines for Benetton, which at the time were the dominant engines in F1. Briatore placed Walkinshaw at Ligier as team boss, but he walked away and boughtArrows after a disagreement with the Italian, taking chief designerFrank Dernie with him.[5]
Prost completed the purchase of the Ligier team in February 1997 after several months of speculation.[6] The new owner immediately changed the name to Prost. An exclusive contract for full-factory worksPeugeot engines was announced for 1998, but the team continued with Ligier's plannedMugen-Honda engines for 1997. As there was no time before the season started to design and build a new car, the team simply used the Ligier JS45 designed byLoïc Bigois and renamed it theProst JS45.[7]
The season started strongly.Olivier Panis lay third in the championship early in the season aided by podium finishes inBrazil (third) andSpain (second). Form seemed to be on Panis' side, but the Frenchman crashed heavily at high speed inCanada, breaking both his legs.[8]
With its lead driver forced to miss much of the season, Prost struggled with novicesJarno Trulli andShinji Nakano until Panis's return at theLuxembourg Grand Prix. There were glimpses, a commanding drive by Trulli inAustria where he led for much of the race before his engine expired, and a run by Trulli again to fourth atGermany showed potential, and a dogged points finish for Panis on his return in Luxembourg meant that Prost wasted no time in signing the pair up for a further season.[9]
1997 world championJacques Villeneuve later remarked that in the year of his title victory, he had regarded Panis as something of a threat.[citation needed] Panis had been fastest in Spain, and was running right behind Villeneuve inArgentina when his car gave up on him. He was close to winning in Canada too as hisBridgestone tyres were better equipped than theGoodyear tyred cars around him.[citation needed]
After such a promising 1997, hopes were high for the partnership with Peugeot as this was an attempt at becoming an all-French powerhouse and thus Prost earned Peugeot's direct factory support. It was established just a few days before the partnership was made official that Peugeot had changed the terms of their agreement with Prost meaning they had to pay Peugeot for the engines over a period of three seasons rather than receiving them for free over a period of five seasons; this left Prost with little to no choice but to agree to the new terms as it would have left them with little to no time to find a new engine supplier, with potential flow-on ramifications of key sponsors pulling out,[10] things took a turn for the worse in the following seasons. After serious gearbox problems in testing, the team almost did not start the 1998 season-opener as their car still had to pass a crash-test. They made it to theAustralian Grand Prix, but the season proved to be a failure. Only Trulli's sixth at Spa kept the team from last in the standings. In the first few races of 1998, the team also ran with X-wings until these were banned on safety grounds.[11]
The 1999 season saw an improvement. John Barnard was hired as technical consultant.[12] Several points finishes were achieved and a second place coming by way of Trulli's strong drive at theNürburgring. At times the car looked genuinely competitive with strong qualifying displays. Yet the results often failed to materialise. At Magny-Cours Panis had started third, but was unable to capitalise and finished outside the points. Trulli was under contract for 2000, but the team's relative lack of success enabled him to leave for Jordan. Panis was dropped and went on to become McLaren's tester.[13]
In 2000 the team began its sharp decline. Veteran racerJean Alesi, Prost's former teammate atFerrari in 1991, was signed to the team. The team also signed up rookie F3000 championNick Heidfeld for 2000.
Despite a promising driver lineup, Prost finished last in the Constructors Championship, failing to score a single point during the season. Heidfeld was disqualified from theEuropean Grand Prix at the Nürburgring for his car being two kilos underweight. Prost firedAlan Jenkins, the car's designer after Monaco.[14] At theAustrian Grand Prix their two drivers crashed into each other, putting them both out of the race. The relationship between Prost and Peugeot collapsed.[15]
In 2001 the cars now ran withAcer-badgedFerrari engines. The season began with Alesi and ex-Minardi driverGastón Mazzacane, but after four races, the latter was dropped from the team and replaced byJaguar'sLuciano Burti, who himself was replaced at Jaguar byPedro de la Rosa. Alesi was very consistent, finishing every race, occasionally in points scoring positions, most notably inCanada when he did a few donuts afterwards and after getting out of the car, threw his helmet into the crowd. It was his best finish with the team. A fallout after theBritish Grand Prix, however, saw Alesi walk out after theGerman Grand Prix. For his final race with Prost, Alesi scored another championship point in that race of attrition. The first start for the race was red-flagged when Burti was launched into the air after crashing at high speed into the back ofMichael Schumacher's ailing Ferrari just seconds off the line. Alesi moved toJordan Grand Prix for the rest of the year, and was replaced at Prost byHeinz-Harald Frentzen, who himself had been sacked from Jordan afterSilverstone.
InBelgium, Frentzen qualified a surprising fourth on the grid after getting his first and only dry lap right in drying conditions, but threw it away when he stalled on the initial formation lap, the first of three red flags. The third one saw a long delay after a huge crash at the fastest part of the circuit involving Burti andEddie Irvine's Jaguar. Burti was transported away from the circuit by helicopter and taken away for medical observation. AtMonza,F3000 driverTomáš Enge became the fifth driver to drive for the team in 2001. There would be no more points that year.[16]
At the end of the season, speculation began surrounding the fate of the team in the light of its increasing debts. Finally, in early 2002 the team went bankrupt, just before the start of the season. Prost had been unable to raise enough sponsorship to keep the team afloat. Deeply hurt by the episode, Prost described it as a disaster for France. Frentzen had hoped to stay, but ended up atArrows. The team never managed to replace the money thatGauloises stopped supplying when they withdrew their title sponsorship at the end of 2000.[17]
Reflecting back on the experience, Alain Prost stated that Prost Grand Prix was his biggest mistake.[18]
A consortium fronted byPhoenix Finance – run by Charles Nickerson, a friend ofArrows'Tom Walkinshaw – purchased the team's assets, believing that together with their purchase of oldArrows assets, specifically the engines, it would gain them entry for the 2002 season. However, the FIA viewed the consortium as a new entry (subject to an entry fee) and the project did not go ahead.[19]
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