Feature: Prost Team the Latest in Line of F1 Failures

While Alain Prost remains one of the most successful Formula One drivers ever, his team on Monday joined a scrapyard littered with failed projects and broken dreams.

Here lie the great and the not so good, ranging from Colin Chapman's once-world beating Lotus to lesser lights such as Simtek and Onyx. Prost's record reads as a tale of personal success - on the track the four times champion's 51 wins were bettered only last year by Ferrari's Michael Schumacher - but of business distress.

He retired as a driver in 1993 and took over Ligier, a team with nine wins over the previous decade, at the end of 1996. Italian Jarno Trulli led the 1997 Austrian Grand Prix until he fell back to second and then retired and they ended that season sixth overall with 21 points. Trulli gave them a second place in the 1999 European GP.

Since then, Prost has gleaned a meagre 14 points in four seasons with none at all in a nightmare 2000. On Monday they were declared formally in liquidation. Lotus were the last major team to go under, shutting up shop on January 17, 1995 after a steady decline in the previous years.

Chapman died of a heart attack in 1982 but the team continued, although with less success than in the days of Emerson Fittipaldi, Mario Andretti and Ronnie Peterson.

Ayrton Senna joined them in 1985, the late Brazilian taking his first victory with the team, and Mika Hakkinen started his career with them in 1991. The name lives on, however, with rumours periodically suggesting a comeback. David Hunt, the last team owner and brother of Britain's 1976 World Champion James, had been linked to Prost in the last couple of years.

Backmarkers

Lola, winners of the 1967 Italian Grand Prix with a Honda-powered car, departed in 1993 but returned in 1997 for a brief and ill-fated Formula One comeback. Starting the season with Brazilian Ricardo Rosset and Italian Vincenzo Sospiri, the team pulled out on the eve of the second race of the season in Brazil due to financial problems and were liquidated a few weeks later.

Neither driver had qualified for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix and that scenario was likely to have repeated itself at Interlagos. The team, separate from the successful Lola Cars company, were believed to be some $5.0 million in the red after a sponsor pulled out.

Further back, British-based Simtek went into receivership in 1995 after missing the Canadian Grand Prix - again because promised sponsorship dried up. Forti entered in 1995 but, with bills mounting, an Italian court wound them up mid-season in 1996.

Italian teams have come and gone with some regularity - armchair fans will remember Coloni, who became Andrea Moda, and EuroBrun as cars that hit television screens solely when crashing or being overtaken by leaders. EuroBrun were particularly dismal, with Switzerland's Gregor Foitek failing to qualify - and often even pre-qualify - while Argentine Oscar Larrauri was equally unfortunate.

Andrea Moda had the rare distinction of being banned from the 1992 Championship for tarnishing the image of the sport after the team boss Antonio Sassetti was arrested and charged with fraud. Brabham, founded by three times World Champion Jack Brabham and once owned by Bernie Ecclestone, gave up the ghost in 1992 after being sold to a Swiss financier who was subsequently jailed for fraud.

Of other teams in the last decade, Pacific raced in 1994 and 1995 and then closed, while Larrousse ground to a halt in 1994. March and Dallara left the scene in 1992, AGS in 1991.