Arrows Aim to be 'Best of the Rest' Next Year

The Arrows team will be hoping to fight for the 'best of the rest' position in next year's Championship, according to the team's chief designer Sergio Rinland.

The Leafield-based outfit finished in tenth place in this year's Constructors' Championship after scoring only one point courtesy of Dutchman Jos Verstappen.

But after using the underpowered Asiatech engines this season, Arrows announced they will switch to Cosworth units in 2002, with which they hope to fight for the places behind Ferrari, McLaren and Williams.

"I would like to be fighting in the 'after top 3' club," said Rinland, who was the man in charge of the design of this year's Sauber C20. "That is a realistic objective. Arrows are not a big team, though we are big as a company.

"We have a lot of facilities but we are still not big enough in terms of budget and in terms of a lot of the other things that makes a team succeed - to actually say for certain that we're going to be 4th next year. But that should be our aim from where we are today.

"But, we have to remember that there is also Benetton, Jaguar, BAR, Jordan and Sauber all aiming for that one position. It is not going to be an easy fight, but it is something that we have got to aim at. We will have a good engine, we will hopefully have good drivers, and that will give us the opportunity. Then it is down to us to grab it."

Arrows, who have not won a race in 365 starts, would get the same specification engines as the Jaguar team.