As early as 1992, Prost harboured ambitions to buy the Ligier team. He tested their 1992 car incognito, wearing Erik Comas crash helmet, with a view to becoming a driver-owner, and set competitive lap times. Ligier was supplied with Elf lubricants and Renault engines at the time; both French manufacturers were keen to keep Prost in Formula One following his sacking by Ferrari at the end of 1991. Prost wanted to bring John Barnard -- who had designed his title-winning McLaren cars in 1985 and 1986 -- into the project. The deal fell through before the season opener in South Africa, and Prost sat out 1992 before joining the Renault-powered Williams team for 1993, where he won his fourth world championship before retiring.
Ligier was purchased instead by Cyril Bourlon de Rouvre, whose ownership brought a period of reasonable competitiveness in the mid-1990s. De Rouvre sold the team to Flavio Briatore and Tom Walkinshaw in early 1994 after being convicted of fraud. Briatore saw the acquisition as a route to Renault engines for Benetton. Walkinshaw was installed as team boss but walked away after a disagreement, buying Arrows and taking chief designer Frank Dernie with him. Briatore replaced Walkinshaw with Cesare Fiorio, and the team won the 1996 Monaco Grand Prix with Olivier Panis -- the last victory for Ligier.
Prost completed the purchase of Ligier in February 1997. The team was immediately renamed Prost and Fiorio was retained. The Ligier JS45, designed by Loic Bigois, was renamed the Prost JS45 for 1997, as there was no time to build a new car. An exclusive full-factory Peugeot engine contract was announced for 1998; for 1997 the team continued with Mugen-Honda engines that Ligier had planned.
The season started strongly. Panis reached third in the championship early on, aided by podium finishes in Brazil (third) and Spain (second). The run ended when Panis crashed heavily at high speed in Canada, breaking both legs.
With their lead driver sidelined, Prost relied on novices Jarno Trulli and Shinji Nakano. Highlights included a commanding drive by Trulli in Austria, where he led for much of the race before his engine failed, and a fourth-place finish at Germany. Panis returned at the Luxembourg Grand Prix and scored points, prompting the team to retain both drivers for a further season.
1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve later remarked that he had regarded Panis as a genuine threat: Panis had been fastest in Spain, was running close behind Villeneuve in Argentina when his car retired, and was close to winning in Canada on superior Bridgestone tyres.
Hopes were high for the all-French Prost-Peugeot partnership. Shortly before the deal was formalised, however, Peugeot revised the terms: Prost would have to pay for the engines over three seasons rather than receiving them free over five. With no realistic alternative, Prost accepted. Serious gearbox failures in testing almost prevented the team from starting the season-opener; the car only passed its crash test in time for the Australian Grand Prix. The season proved a failure, with only Trulli sixth at Spa preventing the team from finishing last in the constructors standings. The team also ran X-wings in the early races until these were banned on safety grounds.
The 1999 season brought improvement. Barnard was hired as technical consultant. Several points finishes were achieved and Trulli secured second place at the Nurburgring. The car showed genuine competitiveness in qualifying at times -- Panis started third at Magny-Cours -- yet results often failed to materialise. Trulli was under contract for 2000 but the team relative lack of success allowed him to leave for Jordan Grand Prix. Panis was dropped and became McLaren tester.
For 2000 the team signed veteran Jean Alesi, Prost former teammate at Ferrari in 1991, and Formula 3000 champion rookie Nick Heidfeld. Despite the promising lineup, Prost finished last in the Constructors Championship without scoring a single point. Heidfeld was disqualified from the European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring for his car being two kilograms underweight. Designer Alan Jenkins was dismissed after Monaco. The two drivers collided with each other at the Austrian Grand Prix. The relationship between Prost and Peugeot collapsed entirely.
For 2001 the cars ran Acer-badged Ferrari engines. The season began with Alesi and former Minardi driver Gaston Mazzacane; after four races Mazzacane was replaced by Luciano Burti from Jaguar, who was himself replaced at Jaguar by Pedro de la Rosa. Alesi was consistent, finishing every race and occasionally scoring points. His best result with the team came in Canada, after which he performed donuts and threw his helmet into the crowd.
Following a falling-out after the British Grand Prix, Alesi departed after the German Grand Prix -- scoring a further championship point in that race of attrition -- and moved to Jordan Grand Prix. Heinz-Harald Frentzen, recently sacked from Jordan, replaced him at Prost.
At Belgium, Frentzen qualified fourth in drying conditions by setting the only clean lap, but stalled on the formation lap -- the first of three red flags. The third stoppage followed a severe crash at the fastest section of the circuit involving Burti and Eddie Irvine Jaguar; Burti was airlifted for medical observation. At Monza, F3000 driver Tomas Enge became the fifth driver to race for Prost in 2001. No further points were scored.
Earlier in the season, the race following the British Grand Prix had its first start red-flagged when Burti was launched into the air after striking Michael Schumacher stricken Ferrari at high speed seconds after the start.
At the end of 2001 the team went bankrupt, unable to secure sufficient sponsorship; Gauloises had withdrawn title sponsorship at the end of 2000. Frentzen ended up at Arrows. Prost described the episode as a disaster for France and later called running the team his biggest mistake.
A consortium called Phoenix Finance, fronted by Charles Nickerson -- a friend of Arrows Tom Walkinshaw -- purchased the team assets, believing that combined with acquired Arrows assets this would gain them an entry for the 2002 season. The FIA classified them as a new entrant subject to an entry fee, and the project did not proceed.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.
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