Minardi Still Waiting for Ecclestone's Money

Minardi team chief Paul Stoddart revealed today that Bernie Ecclestone has still not financed the deal to buy shares in the struggling team - but insisted an agreement will be reached within a month.

Stoddart was presented with a deal for Ecclestone to purchase an undeclared number of shares in the team worth around $4 million to $6 million (USD) at the Canadian Grand Prix in June.

That has yet to be completed but Stoddart said: "It will be done. Everyone has been very busy recently and Bernie, in fact, has been on holiday. But the deal still stands and I expect it will be done before the Hungarian Grand Prix.

"The fact that Minardi has been able to survive without it for that little bit longer I think has strengthened us. We have gained several new sponsors and I think now Bernie can see even more that it is a good time to invest in Minardi."

The deal was brokered after Stoddart courted controversy in a press conference on Friday June 13 by publicly airing his concerns about the failure of the $16 million (USD) fighting fund due to be handed to Minardi and Jordan.

He threatened to boycott moves to cancel a ban on driver aids for Silverstone and create havoc at this weekend's British Grand Prix by running his cars without traction control and claiming his rivals cars were all illegal.

That threat passed when the manufacturers promised to hand him and Jordan half of the value of the fighting fund, $4 million (USD) each, to help them with their budgets for next year.

But Stoddart insisted the Ecclestone deal will not be scuppered by the agreement on the fighting fund and denied it was simply used as a way of cooling the hostile situation in Canada before the negotiations could be completed.