Formula One News — March 1995

Tom Walkinshaw is beginning to assert his control over the Ligier team, despite the fact that it has never been made clear exactly who now owns the team.

Our spies in F1's commercial circles tell us that there was a spectacular marketing brawl between at least four teams to get their hands on sponsorship money from Finnish telecommunications giant Nokia.

Gerhard Berger won the Brazilian Grand Prix five hours after the race ended.

There is a chance that Marlboro McLaren Mercedes driver Nigel Mansell will miss not only the Brazilian and Argentine Grands Prix but also the San Marino GP at Imola at the end of April.

The Arrows team is shortly expected to name Italian Formula 3000 driver Max Papis as its test driver.

Argentine Formula 1 designer Sergio Rinland has quit Dan Gurney's Eagle Toyota Indycar project and has joined the new Forti Corse Grand Prix team.

A lot of F1 teams expressed fears about refueling once again, following news that McLaren had a major spillage when testing the system at its factory in England.

The word on the street in Brazil was that the Pacific GP, rescheduled to take place just a week before the Japanese Grand Prix in October will not be taking place - despite the fact that the organizers at Aida have just announced that everything is going ahead.

Formula 1 drivers have astounded the F1 fraternity by all putting on large amounts of weight during the winter months.

The Junior Team Larrousse F1 operation will not be in Brazil this week and is also likely to miss the Argentine GP in a fortnight.

Nigel Mansell will miss the first two Grands Prix of the season with the Marlboro McLaren Mercedes team because he cannot fit into the new McLaren-Mercedes MP4/10 chassis.

The Tyrrell Racing Organization has finally confirmed that Ukyo Katayama's partner this year will be Mika Salo, and that it has finalized a title sponsorship deal with Finnish telecommunications company Nokia.

Damon Hill last week set the fastest time of the winter testing in Estoril, Portugal, taking his Williams Renault FW17 around the circuit in a lap of 1m20.95s - just three tenths of a second slower than Gerhard Berger's pole position lap in September last year - and 0.3s faster than the previous best recorded by Michael Schumacher in his Benetton-Renault.

Italian Andrea Montermini has signed a season-long deal to race with Pacific Team Lotus.

The French government is making life very difficult for tobacco and alcohol sponsors and, if this policy continues, it could have a profound effect on the Ligier F1 team, which is largely funded by the Gitanes Blondes cigarette brand.

Roberto Moreno is back in Formula 1 after two seasons in the motor racing wilderness.

The 1995 FIA Formula 1 World Championship kicks off this weekend at Interlagos in Brazil.

If your name is David Brown, there is a career for you somewhere in Formula 1 racing.

There were dramas at Estoril - just after we closed for press last week - when McLaren drivers Nigel Mansell and Mika Hakkinen began complaining that their new car is too small for them and that they cannot drive without bashing their hands and elbows against the sides of the cockpit.

Formula 1 cannot survive without constant crises; and while several middle-ranking teams are furious about the appearance of the new Ligier - which looks alarmingly like a Benetton - another potential problem is developing between the International Automobile Federation (FIA) and the Grand Prix Drivers' Association.

Grand Prix racing will have completely new refuelling machinery this season.

World Champion Michael Schumacher set the fastest time in last week's Estoril testing with a best lap of 1m21.29s.

The Tyrrell team has still not decided whether to hire Finn Mika Salo or Portuguese driver Pedro Lamy.

You can also expect to hear of more controversy about the new Ligier-Mugen Honda JS41 in the weeks ahead.

Gerard Larrousse has confirmed that the F1 team which bears his name will be at the first race in Brazil in 10 days time, but the Frenchman still needs a lot of money if the team is to make it to the end of the 1995 season.