Arrows tell the fans to '... wait and see.'

The favourite
By Huw Alban
April 27 2002

Rumour and counter-rumour reached a peak last week with the news that Arrows had re-signed Enrique Bernoldi for 2002, mostly because the team refused to confirm the name of his team mate. Apparently Tom Walkinshaw is still in talks with Heinz-Harald Frentzen...

The background to this story is all old news, but basically Arrows confirmed that Jos Verstappen had signed an extension with the team way back in June 2001. At the time speculation was that Enrique Bernoldi's position with the team was looking shaky, but then came the announcement that Red Bull were staying with Arrows as a sponsor all but securing the Brazilian's drive with the team (or so the fans thought).
Then came the collapse of Prost, and stories and quotes that Heinz-Harald Frentzen was in talks with Tom Walkinshaw and that he had visited the factory at Leafield. This gave rise to suspicions that Tom was thinking of ousting Verstappen in favour of Frentzen, something that has always been denied by the team.

In last weeks press statement confirming Bernoldi, the team stopped short of naming who his team mate will be and refuse to be drawn on the subject. An Arrows spokeswoman has been quoted as saying to the BBC, "Jos was confirmed a long time ago but there is no secret to the fact that Tom has been talking to Heinz-Harald. Everyone's going to have to wait and see what happens with that."

With the large amount of Dutch sponsorship enjoyed by Arrows I am still putting my money on the team line-up being the same as 2001. Where Frentzen fits into this I'm not sure, although it is possible that Frentzen is just covering himself in case Prost fail to secure sufficient money to keep racing. It's possible that he is lining himself up with a test seat, in order to keep himself in the F1 driver circle in case a full drive seat did become available.

I guess at the end of the day, we'll just have to do what the Arrows spokeswoman told us - "Everyone's going to have to wait and see."