Paul Stoddart

Paul Stoddart (born 26 May 1955) is an Australian millionaire airline magnate, and former owner of the Minardi Formula One racing team. He later took the Minardi brand into the Champ Car World Series after his purchase of a portion of CTE-HVM Racing which he renamed Minardi Team USA for 2007.

Born in Coburg, Melbourne, Australia, and attended Preston Technical School and St Joseph's College Melbourne. Stoddart's first business was a car dealership; he was a racing patron from the start and entered a number of his own GT cars in various local competitions. He was later based in England and was the Yugo car distributor for the UK and also had a hire car detailing business in Manchester detailing the ex-hire cars before sale to the public.

In late 1989, Stoddart purchased two BAC 1-11 aircraft (and three Falcon 20 business jets and a large spares package for both types) from the Royal Australian Air Force, Canberra based No 34 SQN, the VIP Squadron, intending to sell the BAC 1-11s to a VIP operator or charter service in the UK/Africa. The Falcon 20 aircraft were onsold from his Sydney base, at Hawker Pacific Mascot, to civilian buyers. The first BAC1-11 was flown to England in April 1990 with the second following in 1991. He bought a number of BAC 1-11 aircraft from DAN AIR forming European Aviation.

Stoddart returned to racing in 1996 when he purchased ten Tyrrell F1 cars, a Minardi, a Benetton, and a Brabham for his own use. European Aviation sponsored Tyrrell in 1997; the same year, Stoddart entered his numerous F1 cars in an F1 Historical Championship; he established his own team, European Formula Racing, whose driver Nigel Greensall won the championship in 1997 and 1998.

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