Lapworth leads Prodrive's technical plans

Lapworth left the Subaru World Rally Team in February on the back of their disappointing start to the campaign. He was said to have moved to an unspecified special project within the Prodrive operation, with autosport.com revealing last month that he was assisting the company's F1 plans.

Following the announcement of Prodrive's entry for 2008 this morning, team boss David Richards has confirmed that Lapworth is currently heading up the technical organisation of the team at this preliminary stage.

"We have a core team put together inside the company," said Richards in an interview with autosport.com. "They have been in existence for three months. We have met on a regular basis, and we will now meet on an even more regular basis, to discuss our position and strategy side.

"On the technical side, David Lapworth is heading that up, and he has been representing us on the Technical Working Group. We have other people already working for us on the marketing and commercial side."

Richards has admitted that his plans for a Prodrive team have long been on the cards and are not a sudden reaction to the low-cost regulations planned for 2008.

"I think I first thought about it the day I walked out on Honda," said Richards, referring to his exit from BAR at the end of 2004. "It was very much on the cards from that moment on.

"We didn't know how we were going to go about it, but the circumstance now and the change of regulations for 2008 were manna from heaven."