Prost saga: Walkinshaw hits back

The Arrows team principle has confirmed that his eponymous company TWR is supporting a group of people who have bought the assets of Prost Grand Prix and claims that Stoddart is sore because he failed in a bid to buy it himself.

In an FIA press conference at the Australian GP, Stoddart made claims that Walkinshaw has brought Formula 1 into disrepute.

But the Scot said: "I would just like to know why he is making his comments because there was two bidders for the same assets, and one was him. It's crazy, here's this guy shooting his mouth off in an FIA press conference and he's the under-bidder!"

Asked why the French liquidator turned down more substantial bids while Prost was still a going concern before accepting an alleged 2.5 million Euro bid, Walkinshaw replied: "I've got no idea and there's nobody here qualified to say. People are just speculating on a whole load of stuff that they know nothing about. I've no idea whether the assets put up were the same as those on offer before and nobody here has either. I just think you need to put aside what was said by Mr Stoddart. He's very disappointed that he lost the bid and that should be the end of the story.

Walkinshaw tittered at the idea that Stoddart's bid was merely a spoiler and said: "If he wants to take legal action against me, let him go and do it. I'm sure he's an expert on that, just like he was an expert at putting the bid on..."

According to Walkinshaw, "TWR will help with engineering to get the team up and running quickly. Obviously the season is here so they need help to do it and that's what we are doing. I would think it would definitely happen by Brazil, maybe by Malaysia."