Feature: Old Habits Die Hard at Minardi

Paul Stoddart picked up a bit of a bargain last week.

The Minardi boss bought enough materials, parts and equipment from the liquidators of the Arrows Formula One team to fill seven 40-foot (13-metre) long trailers and put a smile on his face.

"It's the poor man's way of making every dollar count," says the Australian, whose struggling team remain very much the paddock paupers.

What a difference a week or two makes. At the last race in Canada, Stoddart looked like a condemned man, frozen out by fellow bosses and ready to blow the lid off Formula One's closely-guarded secrets. He left Montreal with Bernie Ecclestone as a shareholder and a spring in his step.

Stoddart has an eye for a deal and old habits die hard. This, after all, is the man who got his aviation business off the ground by buying planes and spares cheaply from the Australian government.

Once a second-hand car dealer, he bought up Tyrrell equipment in the late 1990s and even acquired an outmoded Austin Maestro assembly line to turn out the cheapest new car in Britain.

Arrows were kitted out to win the championship and last week's bargain, price undisclosed but cash courtesy of a Dutch sponsor, included the stuff of dreams for Minardi.

They now have equipment like a $100,000 carbon acoustic tester, which would have enabled them to race in Spain last year rather than pull out when their rear wings collapsed, and can replace clapped-out parts.

"We've made do with five sets of exhausts from the start of the season," said Stoddart, whose cars use the same Cosworth engine as Arrows. "We just got 14 more."

Five Cars

The lot also includes five Arrows A23 cars - "they came for nothing" said Stoddart - and that is where matters become both interesting and ironic for a team who have yet to score a point this year.

Stoddart, locked in mortal combat with Arrows boss Tom Walkinshaw last year, intends to test one alongside the Minardi - with exactly the same tyres, weight and fuel load - to see what can be learnt. Some say not very much, Stoddart disagrees.

In theory, he could race the Arrows if it turned out to be miles faster since he also owns the intellectual property rights to the design.

But Stoddart has pretty much ruled that out - not entirely surprising, considering how demotivating it would be for proud factory staff to have their labour of love cast aside for a bought-in rival.

"I just don't see it happening for all sorts of reasons," Stoddart told Reuters. "Components, software problems...I think it's a non-starter. It would have to be enormously faster and I don't think it is going to be. There are certain parts of the Arrows I do not like at all...there's no way we'd ever go with the Arrows gearbox. The one we've got is lighter and better."

Stoddart said the front of the Arrows looked interesting and some ideas could help the 2004 Minardi move up from the back of the grid. "We'll test both and see which is better in certain areas. It will be a unique opportunity."

It will also be somewhat strange for Jos Verstappen, Minardi's Dutch driver who was ditched by Arrows in 2002 before he had a chance to race the A23.

Quick Car

Sergio Rinland, Arrows' former chief designer, says the car - mostly the work of Mike Coughlan, now at McLaren - was quick but testing could prove difficult without race engineers familiar with its innards.

"Aerodynamically it's a very good car," he said. "But it's not just a question of starting the engine and going for a few laps. The electronics are very, very complicated...and if the differential is not set up properly it is going to be a pig to drive.

"Then you have the traction control. What strategy are they going to run? It could be a second and a half slower."