Formula One News — June 1995

WE hear strange rumors from England of an attempt to revive the Vanwall name in Formula 1.

AS reported in F1 FOREIGN REPORT in April, Zhuhai is to bid for a Chinese Grand Prix in 1997.

THE collapse of Formula 1 team Simtek Grand Prix has been rather more dramatic than originally expected with its sister company Simtek Research also being dragged into bankruptcy.

THE FIA World Council meets on Wednesday and one of the major items on the agenda will be the Italian Grand Prix - and whether it will happen in September or not.

THE Grand Prix organisers of Monaco and Montreal are going to be in trouble this week with the FIA World Council meeting to consider what to do about the Monte Carlo course car accident and the Canadian track invasion.

THE 1996 Australian Grand Prix will take place on March 10 next year in Albert Park, Melbourne, kicking off the new Formula 1 season a fortnight earlier than in recent years.

MCLAREN has announced that Mark Blundell will be its driver for the next two Grands Prix - in France and Britain - and will probably race with the team for the rest of the season.

THE first racing circuit at Magny-Cours was built 35 years ago by local farmer Jean Bernigaud on land attached to his farm.

MCLAREN dominated the Le Mans 24 Hour sportscar race in France last weekend with its customer F1 GT cars finishing 1-3-4-5 in the classic endurance event. Victory went to former Grand Prix drivers Yannick Dalmas (his third Le Mans win) and JJ Lehto, partnered by Japanese driver Masanori Sekiya.

NICK WIRTH'S Simtek Grand Prix has gone into voluntary liquidation and will take no further part in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship.

SIMTEK'S number one driver 23-year-old Dutchman Jos Verstappen finds himself out of work after the closure of the team - but he should be back in action shortly.

TRADITIONALLY this is the time of year when F1 team bosses have the chance to take a step back and assess how the first part of the season has gone and make the changes they feel are necessary to improve their level of competitiveness.

THE details of plans to hold a United States Grand Prix in Las Vegas, Nevada, in 1996 are beginning to come to light, with all the indications being that a circuit will be laid out at the southern end of Las Vegas Boulevard - known as "The Strip" - with the race track being centered on the intersection between Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue.

THE major flights from Montreal to Europe did not take off until the Monday evening after the Canadian Grand Prix.

ONE of F1's most loyal sponsors - the French Societ? d'Exploitation Industrielle des Tabacs et Allumettes (SEITA), which owns the Gitanes cigarette brand - will shortly decide its future in Grand Prix racing.

THE pressure to get a place on the 1996 Formula 1 calendar continues to increase with yet another country declaring itself interested in holding a race.

THE Le Mans circuit has announced that it has shelved plans to bid for the next French Grand Prix contract - which will run from 1997-2001.

THE Ligier team has announced that Martin Brundle will drive alongside Olivier Panis in the French and British Grands Prix in July.

THE promoter of the proposed United States Grand Prix in Las Vegas says that all spectators will be admitted to the circuit free of charge - if they are staying in a hotel in the city.

LAS VEGAS might suddenly have emerged as the favorite in the battle to host an American Grand Prix in 1996 but the Brandy Station circuit in Virginia will still be bidding for a race at some point in the future.

JEAN ALESI'S popular victory in Montreal yesterday sparked a track invasion by over-enthusiastic race fans which will cause problems for the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in the months ahead.

F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone spent a lot of time last weekend trying to convince Ferrari boss Jean Todt that a Michael Schumacher/Jacques Villeneuve combination is what the Ferrari team needs to win the World Championship in 1996, but Todt showed no signs of agreeing with Ecclestone.

MCLAREN wants German rising star Heinz-Harald Frentzen - with immediate effect - according to paddock rumors in Montreal but it seems that "HH" cannot get out of his Sauber-Ford contract this year.

THE Minardi team has won its law suit against Mugen and Ligier, claiming that it had an exclusive deal to race the Mugen Honda V10 engine.

THE coming months will be very busy on the F1 driver market as this year we have a most unusual situation in as much as none of the top drivers currently have a contract for 1996.