Minardi up to strength for Malaysia.

The European Minardi operation expects to have a full complement of three cars at Sepang for this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix.

Having travelled to Melbourne for the 2001 season opener with just a car apiece for drivers Fernando Alonso and Tarso Marques, Paul Stoddart's outfit has managed to build a third car for round two this weekend. Eager to build on the promising showing from Australia, where rookie Alonso out-qualified Gaston Mazzacane's Prost and Luciano Burti's Jaguar before finishing the race twelfth overall, the team wants to have a spare car on hand to prevent problems should one or other of the drivers lose a car in qualifying or practice.

This happened in Australia, where Marques struggled to use Alonso's car after his own was rendered hors de combat, and the Brazilian was only allowed to take part in the race after being granted special dispensation by FIA officials.

Where many teams allowed their race teams time to enjoy the delights of Australia and Asia between rounds, European Minardi flew its crews home to work on the third car, which will have been shaken down in Italy before being flown to Kuala Lumpur for this weekend's race.