Wilson the fast-track investment

Justin Wilson's Malaysian Grand Prix hardly ended the way he had hoped, as he was carted off to hospital with his arms temporarily paralysed after serious discomfort from his driver's safety collar had finally forced him to call it a day after 41 of the 56 laps.

"Justin probably stayed out too long in excruciating pain," the Minardi-Ford team owner, Paul Stoddart, said.

The 24 year-old racer, who was born in Sheffield and now lives in Northampton, is expected to be fit enough to race in Brazil, once trapped nerves in his shoulder have recovered.

It was an unfortunate incident, but in its own way it could scarcely have been a better advertisement for the man who turned himself into a public limited company to finance his way into the big league.

The unique idea was the brainchild of the former Formula One driver Jonathan Palmer, Wilson's manager and the man who ran the Formula Palmer Audi junior single-seater series that really thrust Wilson into the limelight. The prize was a paid-for ride in the International Formula 3000 Championship, one rung down the ladder from Formula One, and, in 2001, Wilson became the only Briton ever to win the series.

"The idea is an evolution of the scheme I used twice, in my Formula Three days and then to get into F1 the first time in 1984," Palmer said. "But neither of them had the structure that this one does. It takes a huge amount to form a plc and to get the prospectus out and the share deal issued. I spent 70 per cent of January and February in meeting after meeting, thrashing it all out. It's been very, very complex. The process of verification, the need to prove everything in the prospectus in writing, that it is all reasonable and fair, is very time-consuming. I had 450 questions from the lawyers. It had to be totally transparent but, now that it is, it has encouraged people. They've been surprised how clear and straightforward the information is in a world where financial information is traditionally not divulged. It's given people confidence. They know it's kosher.

"With this scheme it is very important that there is no doubt at all that investors will get their due return if the driver is successful. All the effort is beginning to pay off. There is an unprecedented level of seriousness. And even the risk factor is spelled out."

Justin Wilson plc, which operates www.investinwilson.com, seeks to attract the man in the street and the man in the boardroom alike to invest in a British race driver.

"We needed £1.2m to secure the Minardi drive," Palmer admitted, "and very early on I realised that we simply wouldn't raise that in sponsorship." Not even with single-lap qualifying guaranteeing teams around three minutes of individual gold-dust airtime per car.

Palmer says he is thrilled with the take-up so far, which is around £600,000 or halfway. The flotation ends on 10 April, and he is confident they will make it. If not, Wilson's father, Keith, has pledged to make up the shortfall.

In his hospital bed Wilson no doubt pondered that he will not make Jenson Button-type money for years, as he has pledged to pay out his investors first. But his performance last weekend was reminiscent of Nigel Mansell's gritty debut in Austria in 1980, when he drove as long as he could sitting in an agonising bath of leaked fuel. Though his new-age quest for the wherewithal to race in Formula One has so far been a painful experience, Wilson has already shown that he has the old-fashioned grit to make it.