Sponsor hits out at Stoddart

Minardi boss Paul Stoddart has been fiercely criticised by his outgoing title sponsor.

Dutch bathroom company Wilux pulled out of their deal to sponsor Minardi yesterday after a dispute between the two parties stemming from the British Grand Prix.

Minardi raced at Silverstone with no sponsor logos to pay tribute to late sporting director John Walton, but Wilux chief executive Ruud Wildschut took exception.

Now Wildschut has accused Australian team boss Stoddart of jumping the gun.

He told www.f1racing.net: “If someone in your team dies, you need to let the world know how you feel about that, you are obliged to do that.

“We wanted to show how we felt about it, by putting a black sticker on our advertisement on the car. But Paul Stoddart decided to take off all sponsor stickers without asking me – I was not too happy about that.

“I have paid for that place on the car and Paul took the right from me to show my own feelings. Paul could have been man enough to redraw both his cars, but he did not do that.

“Maybe he wanted to show the world who he is, sort of narcissistic. ‘Hello, I am Paul Stoddart and I can just do things like this’.”

Stoddart admitted over the weekend that his relationship with Wildschut had deteriorated, and claimed Wilux still owed money to Minardi.

With over two years of the sponsorship deal still to run, Stoddart offered Wildschut a way out, which the Dutchman took.

Wildschut and Stoddart also disagreed over who should drive for the team, with Wilux preferring either Dutchman Christijan Albers or Belgian Bas Leinders to current racer Gianmaria Bruni.

Wildschut’s comments prior to the German Grand Prix upset Stoddart, but he has now repeated his criticism of Bruni.

He said: “He behaves a bit like a hot shot all the time and he wants to win. He knows he can’t win with this car and I think it might frighten him. He pulled over in the car a few times when there was nothing even wrong.”

Wildschut will now turn his attention to helping Albers make the breakthrough into Formula One.

Albers will test for Jordan this year and Wildschut hinted he may be preparing to sponsor the Silverstone-based team.