Minardi's fate to be announced today?

KL Minardi Asiatech boss Paul Stoddart has said that his team's future in F1 will be announced today [Friday].

Speaking yesterday, Stoddart told Reuters: "The facts are simple, not a penny has been forthcoming and there's yet another meeting [between F1 Tsar Bernie Ecclestone and all the team principals] at four o'clock tomorrow [Friday]."

"We're being played with. I don't think there's any other words for it. We seem to be pawns in a rather big game of politics, which I don't feel very happy about at all."

"We need to be paid. If I can come out of that meeting tomorrow [Friday] with the money paid, then I'll make an announcement that I had planned to make tonight that Minardi will continue for the rest of the year."

"If I'm shafted tomorrow [Friday], then I will certainly have a different opinion."

"I am not someone who cries wolf. This is the weekend to make a decision and it will be made this weekend, one way or the other. If we've been shafted, then I want no part of this paddock. That's pretty strong words but it's how I feel."

Stoddart has been after the money Prost Grand Prix would have got for finishing ninth in the Constructors' Championship, since the French outfit folded at the start of the year - a sum believed to be worth around ?10 million.

The Australian continued: "There are a couple of team owners, in particular (Arrows Team Principal Tom) Walkinshaw and (McLaren's boss) Ron Dennis, who are incredibly upset and seem to think that they have some legal claim to this money."

"They just don't want to accept reality."