Prost Staff Rally to Get French Government Help

More than 200 Prost Grand Prix staff will hold talks with French government minister Laurent Fabius on Friday in a bid to keep the team in the Formula One World Championship in 2002.

The Guyancourt-based team were placed into receivership on November 22, 2001, with estimated debts of £21 million. The team's boss Alain Prost set a deadline of January 14 to find investors to save the team or they will go bust and fold. More than 200 of Prost's personnel will meet with Fabius in Paris on Friday to ask the French government to help find buyers before the deadline.

"Members of the team had a chat before Christmas and elected a delegate to act as our main representative," Prost spokeswoman Virginie Papin said. "We want to make the minister aware that 200 people want to save the team. People from the factory do not want the team to fold, but this will not be a protest or a strike.

"We will see the minister of economy, industry and finance to show we are committed to Prost and that we do not want the team to be lost."

Prost's team of personnel do not plan to ask the government for state funding, but are desperate to prove that they want to see the five-year-old team on the grid for the first Grand Prix of the season in Australia on March 3.

Fabrice Guignard who works in the design department at Prost's headquarters, has been elected as the head representative of the personnel and he will act as spokesman for the talks with Fabius in Paris.

"We are not asking for money from the government, really we just want to show that it is not just Alain Prost and his popularity that needs to be heard," Papin added. "We are simply asking for help in finding possible investors. There are many French companies who supply the team and we want to help save the team. We want to send a message to buyers."

When Prost set the final deadline the four-time World Champion revealed that he was in preliminary talks with three potential investment consortiums, but was critical that none of them were from his native France.