The Weekly Grapevine

Imagine "committing substantial amount of time, effort and money over a period of 18 months" to a major property purchase, then raising further finance for crucial developments to the project - and doing all of the above in the complete absence of planning approval, with merely the say-so of the local council providing grounds for action.

Then, take this entire scenario one step further: do all of the above in the face of well-founded threats of legal challenges from various affected parties.

Yet that is exactly the situation Prodrive found itself in when the company committed to entering Formula One way back in April 2006.

To recap, at the time the sport's controlling body, the FIA, demanded that all teams wishing to enter the category's brave new world in 2008 - after expiration of the Concorde Agreement, which had governed the sport since 1998 - should submit their entries by 31 March 2006.

As there was a vacancy for a twelfth team following the demise of Arrows, hopefuls were required to submit applications by the same date.

The Prodrive factory in Banbury © Prodrive

Twenty two teams applied - some of which were serious; some, frankly, little more than an embarrassment - with Prodrive getting the nod on 28 April.

It was, though, a period of high drama: the GPMA still wielded considerable clout (a peace deal between the motor manufacturers and the FIA was only struck six months later, with details of the deal only emerging towards the end of the year).

Renault Sport chairman Alain Dassas had not yet myopically committed the teams to accepting 50 percent of the sport's 2006-12 revenues instead of the demanded 60 percent of its 2008-12 monies (the difference could add another billion to Formula One Management's balance sheet by the end of the term; any wonder the Frenchman's F1 tenure was so short?).

And finally, the sport's present owners, CVC Partners, were not even in discussions with Bernie Ecclestone, who was then partnered by three squabbling banks.

Super Aguri was still a year away from passing off year-old Honda chassis as their own intellectual property, Toro Rosso still with V10 engines - meaning their 'customer' deal with Red Bull Technology was still brewing - and Alex Shnaider still hoped for big things with a pre-Spyker Midland F1.

That, in a nutshell, has been the rate of change within F1 in just 18 months - and into all this stepped Prodrive, continually hopeful of running customer cars based on promises made, no doubt sincerely, 18 months ago by FIA President Max Mosley, who at that stage was on a mission to attract privateer teams to counter the threat of the GPMA and its increasingly dominant teams.

However, there was, mainly as a result of the foregoing, at that stage no sign of a new Concorde, nor any realistic hope of one being signed for a considerable time to come, regardless of what the sport's power brokers believed at the time.

And in order to facilitate Prodrive's entry in F1 (and legalise Super Aguri and STR's future use of bought-in chassis), at least one clause would require amendment, namely:

"Only a constructor may enter a car" (in the F1 championship) before going on to define the constructor as an entity that "owns the intellectual property rights to the rolling chassis it currently races and does not incorporate in such chassis any part designed or manufactured by any other constructor of Formula One racing cars, safety equipment, engines and transmissions being excepted".

Now there is talk that, in the absence of a new agreement between the teams, FOM and the FIA, the existing covenant will simply be 'rolled over' for a year or two while a new deal is (possibly) thrashed out for the future.

And, crucially, this lack of a revised Concorde Agreement and its vital clause - which equates to the 'planning permission' in our opening paragraph - has killed off Prodrive's dream of entering F1 for its own account.

At the time, though, Prodrive - which stood out head and shoulders above the other applicants, some of whom had not even the most basic motorsport experience or facilities - ticked all the FIA's boxes.

Company boss David Richards is highly respected for his motorsport achievements, both as competitor and executive, and it was a genuine privateer team uncontrolled by the motor manufacturers who seemed intent on taking over the sport, or worse, breaking away to start an opposition series.

Furthermore, the company was able to demonstrate enviable expertise in precision engineering; its staff drew on experience gained in virtually all branches of the sport, including, crucially, F1.

Martin Whitmarsh and David Richards at Silverstone © XPB/LAT

And last but not least, Richards, as commercial rights holder for the World Rally Championship, had all the right connection is the corridors of power.

He was confident, he said when told that Prodrive had been chosen as 12th team, that new cost-cutting regulations due to be introduced in 2008 would allow his team to make an immediate impression:

"We are confident that the new regulations will not only allow Prodrive to be competitive on an affordable budget, but will also make Formula One more exciting and, ultimately, even more entertaining for spectators and TV audiences around the world."

To achieve this, Prodrive would source engine and chassis from an existing team, and run these from its 'Fulcrum' facility in Warwickshire, suitably upgraded for the task.

Tony Schulp was recruited from Haymarket to head up the commercial side and WRC supremo David Lapworth was relieved of his duties as Subaru World Rally Team principal to concentrate on the new challenge. The pointers were that Prodrive was getting on with the business of putting together its F1 team.

Yes, rumbles emanated from Warwick that all was not going well with planning permission for Fulcrum's upgrades, and many wondered when (if) Prodrive would at least start sending a shadow crew to races to learn some of the sport's intricacies (as with Toyota for the entire season before entering F1 in 2002).

But Richards soothed such questions away until July this year, suggesting during the British Grand Prix that an announcement was 'a few weeks away' and that the choice of chassis supplier had been narrowed to just Ferrari, McLaren and Renault.

In August, Ferrari dropped out of contention - no doubt after concluding a lucrative deal to supply A1GP with engines and chassis - whilst a 2007 Renault chassis for use in 2008 was never an attractive proposition for exceedingly obvious reasons.

Then, during the Belgian Grand Prix in mid-September Richards' admitted for the first time that the (lack of a suitably amended) Concorde Agreement presented a problem.

"We are there, but there are lots of issues surrounding the validity of the Concorde Agreement," said Richards, who later that day emerged unhurt from a helicopter accident on the day after Colin McRae - his first Subaru world champion - was killed.

"It is those sorts of things that leave question marks at the moment, and they need to be resolved. Every other aspect of it is cleared up."

The latter comment implied a deal had been struck with McLaren, but Richards' 'few weeks' stretched to months.

During the Chinese Grand Prix weekend a few of F1's crucial partners and suppliers - no names or pack-drill, save to state that without their products and/or services no campaign can even be contemplated, let alone mounted - admitted to having had very no in-depth contact (and, in one instance, none whatsoever) with Prodrive.

If nothing else, those revelations, made with less than six months to go to 2008's opening race, indicated that Prodrive's plans had some way to go before an announcement could even be contemplated.

At the same race McLaren CEO Ron Dennis made a telling comment:

"We have not entered into any contract with any team at this moment of time. If a team wishes to enter the 2008 World Championship and that team does not have complete clarity as to whether it is or is not permitted to enter then it is a matter for that team and certainly not for McLaren."

Sir Frank Williams © XPB/LAT

Two days later, i.e. 9 October, came news that McLaren/Prodrive negotiations had collapsed. No reasons were given, although there were suggestions that Prodrive would not be receiving the necessary clearances after Williams - the last truly entrepreneurial team - had written a letter to the FIA threatening legal action should Prodrive be permitted to compete with customer chassis.

The FIA acted swiftly and called an International Court of Appeal hearing for 24 October in London.

This move, though, appeared to play directly into Williams' hands, who pointed to a clause in Concorde stating that disagreements in terms of the Agreement had to be settled via arbitration, and immediately notified of civil action on the basis that the question of customer cars is a commercial and not sporting matter, with the FIA's courts having no jurisdiction over the former.

Thus Prodrive's fate, certainly for 2008, was sealed by that legal manoeuvre by Williams - and not a lack of funding, for the team has consistently stated it had found a backer, one new to the sport - with last week's confirmation that the company would not be participating in the 2008 championship being no surprise bar that Prodrive had taken well over a month to confirm the inevitable.

In its press release, Prodrive states: 'It was therefore particularly disappointing to face a last minute legal challenge to our entry, when our plans have been public knowledge for over a year.'

Totally true, but by the same token it has been public knowledge for over a year that no changes to Concorde had been made, and the noise surrounding Spyker's arbitration action against Aguri and STR over their use of customer chassis is ample proof hereof.

The writing had been on the wall for some time: in early November Richards spoke of a full-time return to overall control of SWRT, with Lapworth rejoining the team for Rally Ireland a fortnight ago - saliently in time to oversee development of the new Impreza which will make its debut in 2009, which would indicate that he won't be involved in any possible F1 activities for the foreseeable future.

For Richards, who headed up Benetton before returning to Prodrive, only to return to F1 with Honda in 2002 before departing three years later, his latest attempt at entering F1, this time for his own account, has certainly not been a case of 'Third Time Lucky'.

The question is, though, whether there will ever be another opportunity for Prodrive, for by failing to be on the grid in Melbourne the team has effectively broken its pact with the FIA. The whys and whatnots can be debated, but the fact remains that F1 2008-style will be contested by just 22 cars.

One need only look at Super Aguri to realise that where a will really existed to be on the grid within a short space of time, a way could be found - here was a team which, at end October 2005 had no factory, manpower or car, yet made it to Melbourne by March the following year through sheer determination.