This interview is also available in French!

When do you think your deal to take over Ligier could be finalised?
I will not cite a date, because it is premature to do so. It talks, in the Ligier dossier, of a business buy-back with all that implies of legal, financial or sporting complications, and therefore there is the preparation of the rest of the project.

Will taking over the Ligier team lead automatically to changing the name to make Team Prost?
Automatically, in so far as certain partners have made it an essential requirement.

Would that be immediate? In other words, if it works out, Olivier Panis and Shinji Nakano will be driving Prost-Mugens this season?
That ought to be it, in effect. But I ought to add that this is an extremely complex situation. I don't want to say anything else.

Have you reached the stage of planning an organisation for the team?
Everything is marching on and I well understand there is a lot of work involved, but there is no contract signed with anyone who might be involved. I have the assurance, if my team sees the light of day, of having very solid people around me, but I don't like seeing names in newspapers.

The project is perceived to have a lot of support from the government.
It constitutes a great advantage to know that political power is favourable towards a project for a strong French F1 team. But the project on which I am working is not a state team.

So you can't say that this or that is done, but you are confident?
Yes, that's it. Nothing is done, but everything remains possible.