Fever building ahead of Stoddart auction.

It's still two weeks to go until the start of Paul Stoddart's auction of F1 cars, equipment and memorabilia, but already the numbers make impressive reading.

The unique event, overseen by highly experienced auctioneers, Bache Treharne LLP, has now been extended to four days, and will take place from November 17th to 20th, at one of Minardi's two facilities in Ledbury, Herefordshire. The auction will also be webcast live on the Internet, allowing interested parties to bid in privacy, should they so wish.

The auction is set to be one of the largest in Formula One history, with over 5,000 individual lots being offered for sale over the four days, including 40 Formula One cars, plus engines, bodywork, team clothing and an array of motor racing memorabilia. The auction also includes five Arrows chassis complete with intellectual property rights, relevant drawings, a spares package and a quantity of support equipment. Also due to come under the auctioneer's gavel are two F1 motorhomes, a pair of race transporters with tractor units, and a catering unit.

To add a little additional spice to proceedings, at 2pm on each of the four auction days, a lucky bidder will have the opportunity to secure the ride of a lifetime in one of Minardi's two-seater F1 cars at Misano, Italy, the following week. The proceeds from auctioning these rides will go to assist a highly deserving charity, the identity of which will be announced shortly.

Already there have been over 2,000 serious enquiries received by
Bache Treharne, and the current list of registered bidders contains individuals or organisations from 20 countries, including Australia, Canada, the United States, Germany, Italy, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

"I didn't realise how many Formula One-related items we had until we started to assemble everything in order to catalogue it," Minardi Team Principal Stoddart said. "When you consider three individual F1 teams will be represented in the auction - the entire assets of Tyrrell, a majority of the assets, including intellectual property rights, of Arrows, and, of course, Minardi - then I suppose it shouldn't come as a surprise that there will be over 5,000 lots available to the public.

"One thing is certain, and that is, it's going to be a very busy four days for the five auctioneers involved. We anticipate the auction lasting 12 hours each day, with the main items of interest, the F1 cars, coming up for sale at 3pm each day."

Bache Treharne Partner, Chris Hall, is similarly enthusiastic about the event.

"We've had an excellent response at this early stage, and it's fair to say we're very encouraged," he said. "The initial signs are that this auction is generating a large amount of interest worldwide and is likely to be very successful."