Walkinshaw ordered to pay for Arrows demise.

Tom Walkinshaw, the motorsport 'entrepreneur' at the helm when the Arrows team bit the dust in 2002, has been order to repay one of the team's creditors, which had helped to keep the team afloat.

Walkinshaw, whose TWR concern took the ailing Arrows team under its wing in 1996, arranged an overdraft with the Morgan Grenfell bank in order to provide funding for the F1 project, but eventually conceded that he was fighting a losing battle to field two cars in the world championship. Despite on-going negotiations with various potential saviours, the doors closed on Arrows mid-way through the 2002 campaign, when attempts to raise the money to pay for a supply of Cosworth engines failed, leading to the sorry exercise of predicting whether the team's trucks would turn up at various rounds in the second half of the year.

Walkinshaw, a former driver himself, blamed Morgan Grenfell for not being flexible enough to entertain the offers he received for the team, and found himself left with responsibility for a ?13m overdraft facility arranged to keep the cars on track.

Despite the team having gone out of business nearly two years ago, Morgan Grenfell has continued to pursue repayment, and high court judge Justice Lindsay has now ordered Walkinshaw to stump up ?6.5m by way of liability. The sum is to have interest added to it, and could therefore increase further..