Prodrive have given up on 2008 F1 entry

Prodrive wanted to race in cars bought from McLaren-Mercedes.

However, the team still hopes to enter the championship at some date.

A customer car is a vehicle manufactured by a constructor and sold to another team to race.

The guiding force behind Prodrive, who run the Subaru world rally championship team and would have been the 12th team in F1, is former BAR and Benetton chief Dave Richards.

Under the Concorde Agreement, the secret document which governs F1, customer cars have always been illegal.

Prodrive had pledged to enter F1 after motorsport boss Max Mosley said that rule would be changed from 2008 but Williams launched a legal challenge to this and Prodrive's bid to race customer cars.

Recently, a new Concorde Agreement has been negotiated, but not yet signed, and it is unclear how that affects the issue of customer cars.

The climate of uncertainty has led to the decision to skip the 2008 championship.