Formula One News — December 1995

THE Italian justice system might be winning battles against corruption and the Mafia, but it is not impressing Formula 1 with its handling of the inquiry into the death of Ayrton Senna on May 1, 1994.

THE Ligier team is still in the process of deciding what to do for drivers in 1996.

IT is quite likely that the Forti Corse F1 team - which entered F1 this year with Pedro Diniz and Roberto Moreno - will not be seen in Grand Prix racing next year.

OUR spies at the FIA tell us that Bernie Ecclestone and his agents in North America have once again failed to find a deal to hold a United States Grand Prix, despite talks with both Las Vegas or Disneyworld.

THE Red Bull Sauber Ford test team, under Walter Naher, was in action at Jerez de la Frontera in southern Spain last week - with Heinz-Harald Frentzen completing four days of testing without any major incident.

EDDIE IRVINE finally had his first runs for Ferrari last week, at the wheel of a V12-engined 412/T2 chassis.

GIANCARLO BAGHETTI, who died last week from cancer at the age of 60, competed in only 21 Grands Prix but he remains the only man in the history of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship to have won the first event in which he competed.

WITHIN hours Pacific Grand Prix is expected to announce that it will not be competing in the 1996 Formula 1 World Championship.

ALTHOUGH there are reports in Europe that Mika Hakkinen's accident in Adelaide has accelerated research into the use of airbags in Grand Prix cars, work has, in fact, being going on since May 1994 when FIA President Max Mosley included airbag research in his brief to the then new Advisory Expert Group.

AFTER three weeks at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, Mika Hakkinen has flown back to Europe on a specially fitted-out medical jet, accompanied by two doctors, his manager Didier Coton and his girlfriend Erja Honkanen.

MINARDI has been testing a series of young drivers in recent days at the Ferrari test track at Fiorano.