Phoenix Finance bought some of the remains of Prost Grand Prix, outbidding Paul Stoddart of Minardi, shortly before the 2002 Australian Grand Prix. The team hoped to enter Formula One at the next round, the Malaysian Grand Prix. The team planned to use the 2001-spec Prost AP04 chassis with Hart designed Arrows V10 engines from 1998. Tom Walkinshaw boss of the Arrows team had planned to give the new team assistance.