Minardi boss Paul Stoddart joined an elite club on Saturday when he caused pitpass editor Chris Balfe to be lost for words.

The Australian gave Chris a guided tour of the various items purchased in the recent Arrows auction and the pitpass editor was clearly overwhelmed by what he saw. "It was like a life size Scalextric set," said Balfe, "I found myself looking for spare track and the handsets."

Pride of place went to the five Arrows A23s, but it was the sheer scale of the amount of spares that Stoddart has purchased that knocked Balfe off his feet.

The spares fill an entire bay of the team's factory, with another two massive trucks filled with 'goodies' still to be unloaded out in the yard, it's understood that even many Minardi employees have yet to see this 'Aladdin's cave' of F1 equipment and a number of Faenza-based workers were due at the factory yesterday (Sunday) to start cataloguing the equipment.

"I can't tell you," said Stoddart when asked how much all this equipment had cost, "but it was a very small amount. What I bought were the things that I couldn't afford to buy before."

News of the purchase came days after the infamous Friday 13th press conference when Stoddart admitted that without the 'fighting fund' his team was finished, prompting F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone to buy a stake in the team.

The revelation that the Australian had purchased all the goodies prompted questions such as where did the money come from, and why buy it all in the first place. "How can Minardi be broke one minute, then buying 5 Arrows the next," asked Balfe.

"We were absolutely broke," replied Stoddart, "absolutely".

The Australian then revealed that the entire package didn't cost him or his team a penny. "First of all," he says, "just so we clear the air totally.." at this point he lifts a bunch of keys, underneath is an agreement that clearly indicates the fact that one of his sponsors bought everything.

"Secondly," he continued, "the idea behind this was simple. What Tom (Walkinshaw) had in place was the facilities to win the World Championship. He had unbelievable amounts of consumables. What we've bought was enough carbon to get us through next year (the 2004 season), in addition we got enough 'nuts and bolts' to see us through two or three seasons and enough fittings..

"What people don't realise," he continues, "is the amount of commonality between F1 cars, we all use basically the same suppliers for everything. In the areas where Minardi could not afford to buy, for example the exhaust system for the Cosworth engine the parts on the Arrows are the same as ours.

"Jos had a little fire last week," he revealed, "most people didn't notice because it was in the pitlane. That's because our exhausts were totally done, our five sets of exhausts. Teams like McLaren have got five sets per car per race, we've got five sets and these five sets that we started the season with are getting incredibly tired. Last weekend I bought enough bits to build fourteen sets of exhausts. That's just one example.

"Minardi made, through the help of one of its sponsors, an incredibly wise investment," added the Australian. "In all honesty the cars were just for free, the by-product of the deal."

"It was a very shrewd move," says Balfe.