Friday 3rd January 2003

Minardi boss Paul Stoddart announced his team was up for sale, admitting that the days of private teams were numbered. “The world as a whole is not perhaps as easy a place to gather sponsorship from as it was in years gone by, but we are fighting as hard as we know how,” he said. Despite claiming to have had 41 approaches, it was not until September 2005 that he finally sold out to Red Bull.