Minardi call for engines to upset F1 status quo

IF Minardi team principal Paul Stoddart had to choose 1970s rock as the soundtrack to his team's season launch in Melbourne yesterday, perhaps Status Quo would have been more apt than Meatloaf.

After all, no matter how well the new Cosworth PS04B performed in winter testing, when compared to the Ferrari or McLaren it will hardly fly like a bat out of hell.

Stoddart helped peel back the covers on the new car in a low-key ceremony at Albert Park and while confident the team made great strides off-season, his ambitions remain limited and realistic.

For Italian rookie Gianmaria Bruni and Hungarian Zsolt Baumgartner, Minardi's new drivers for 2004, the aim is to get the team on the scoreboard for the second time since the turn of the century.

"One or two times last year the boys were a bit unlucky not to get a point but a lot of that came from the incredible reliability of the top four teams," said Stoddart.

"If we see a few expensive puffs of smoke over the course of the weekend through this new engine rule, then perhaps there is a chance Minardi, and the other teams who will perhaps be struggling to get points, can get some.

"I think we have made big progressions over the winter. I am also a realist and I accept the fact that other teams will have done the same.

"In this sort of world, where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, if we have managed to keep the status quo and perhaps improve a little bit ... then hopefully we can be there or thereabouts.

"I would be more than happy with four or five points this year and I would be particularly happy if one of those points was in Melbourne."

Should Minardi succeed, it would mark their best season since 1994, when Pierluigi Martini and Michele Alboreto earned five points.

Last year was another duck as Minardi finished bottom of the constructors' championship.

With a full budget for 2004 secured by the announcement yesterday of Wilux Benelux as the new title sponsor, Stoddart declared the team was in its best shape for four years.

"All the gremlins of last year and questions about our future can be completely dispelled," he said.

Nevertheless, Stoddart reiterated his determination to win a fair deal for the smaller teams by securing action over the promise of affordable engines which is yet to materialise.

The Australian has threatened to withdraw his support for the deal, signed on April 29 last year, which allowed smaller teams access to cheaper engines in return for the retention of traction control.

"There was an absolute commitment in writing ... from the team principles on April 29 last year," he said.

"The leading teams purported ... that in return for the retention of traction control, they would provide commercially affordable engines to the independent teams.

"We have not received one penny of assistance on the engines. Ford have supported Minardi enormously through their Cosworth engine supply, but the others are just not coming in line.

"This is not Minardi whinging, it is a statement of fact. We were promised commercially affordable engines, we haven't got them. If we haven't got them on Friday, what's the point?"