New Minardi boss aspires to be a midfield fixture

The Australian aviation boss has also promised a surprise in his 2001 driver line-up.

Stoddart, who owns the UK-based European Aviation aircraft charter company, has bought the Faenza-based squad from team founder Giancarlo Minardi and Italian Industrialist Gabriele Rumi. Minardi will stay on board, but is to take less of a hands-on role in the running of the team.

Minardi will make use of Stoddart's Herefordshire-based engineering facilities and will continue to run its three-year old Cosworth V10s in 2001, albeit re-badged as European V10s and maintained at his race HQ. But despite being up against the might of Formula 1's factory-powered elite, Stoddart still remains optimistic that Minardi will not finish bottom of the pile.

"We don't have any aspirations of grandeur for year one," he told Autosport. "Our main goal is not to finish last and I think we can achieve that. My short-term aim is stability and I think we will surprise a few people quite pleasantly.

"I have a medium-term aim to make Minardi a midfield team, but I think people who make long-term aims, with F1 being the interesting business that it is, sometimes make promises they can't always keep. My aim for years two, three, four and five is to establish Minardi solidly as a midfield team.

"For year two and three we should be in the rear to the middle of the field and then after that, comfortably in the midfield. But we're not silly enough to think that we'll ever be challenging the top four."

Spanish rising start Fernando Alonso has been tipped to drive for the team, which will be renamed European Minardi F1, but Stoddart says that one of the drivers will be a shock.

"One of them you'll be definitely wrong on because it's really changed and I think you might get a shock," he said. "We're hoping to have a young charger and then somebody with more experience alongside him. One will be announced next week and the second the week after."

The team's Gustav Brunner-designed 2001 car, to be called a PS01, is nearing completion in Faenza. Stoddart describes it as "definitely tasty" with some "real innovations on it."

Stoddart's European Racing outfit will continue to run its Formula 3000 and two-seater F1 programmes from its Herefordshire HQ.