Financially, Prost were on the ropes. The only financial lifeline being the every ready Diniz millions if only he could buy the rest of the team from Alain. Prost himself would have none of that. He pledged that he would remain as the team boss in 2002. He didn't actually say that he would still own the same 40% slice of the team though. He would have been helped in his quest to keep control of the team by their improved performance in 2001. The helping of points grabbed by Jean Alesi before his switch to Jordan looked enough to get the team into the top ten in the championship which then would bring the team a larger slice of the money distributed to the teams by the promotors.