Formula One News — March 1996

THE Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace at Interlagos is in the suburbs of the vast sprawling Brazilian city of Sao Paulo.

FORMULA 1 bosses are beginning to worry about the effects of the legal onslaught on the tobacco industry currently going on in the United States.

THE Formula 1 teams have recently been discussing introducing a testing ban for one month after the season ends in October.

THE rules about F1 cockpits are not going to be changed - and that is bad news for Benetton, McLaren and Ferrari which will now have to modify their existing machinery.

GERMAN car-maker BMW will not be entering F1 in 1998 as had been rumored.

BERNIE ECCLESTONE and the Formula 1 teams are in the process negotiating a vast merchandising deal with the Walt Disney Company which could result in a chain of Formula 1 shops being established around the world, selling memorabilia and team clothing.

BRAZILIAN 20-year-old Tarso Marques is set to join the Minardi team in Brazil and Argentina.

AS predicted last month, Cesare Fiorio has finally been confirmed as a consultant with the Forti Formula 1 team.

IT will be many months before we see an F1 calendar for 1997, but already there are indications that demand for races is going to outstrip the availability of the racing teams.

THE current wave of engineer movements in Formula 1 continues with the news that Argentine designer Sergio Rinland is to join the ranks of engineers at Benetton.

LAST week's low-key announcement that the Hong Kong-Beijing Rally is to be reduced in size may be rather more significant than immediately meets the eye.

HAVING seen all the new cars in action together for the first time in Melbourne, F1's engine-builders are asking themselves how it is that Yamaha has managed to build a V10 engine which is 60 lbs lighter than all the others.

F1 FOREIGN REPORT can exclusively reveal that Tom Walkinshaw has bought a controlling interest in Arrows Grand Prix International - and will take over the running of the team from current owners Jackie Oliver and Alan Rees.

WITH Tom Walkinshaw pulling out of the Ligier operation, the French team finds itself in a difficult situation for the year ahead and current owner Flavio Briatore is going to have to spend a lot of his time finding someone to run the team on his behalf.

WITH Japanese rent-a-driver Takichiho Inoue still trying to find the money to replace his missing Unimat sponsorship at Minardi, the little Italian team has been forced to continue to search for a driver who can supply the necessary finance.

THE Brandy Station racing circuit project in Virginia has flopped after two and half years of legal battles with preservationists who wanted the land left untouched because it marked the site of the 1863 Battle of Brandy Station - the largest cavalry battle in North American history.

THE French Grand Prix is to stay at Magny-Cours until after the 1999 event.

IN a race which saw Williams driver Damon Hill being handed the victory after his Canadian team mate, Jacques Villeneuve, was forced to slow in the closing stages with engine trouble, British driver Martin Brundle was lucky to emerge unscathed from a terrifying accident on the first lap of the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne last weekend.

THE Dome Formula 1 team is being launched next Monday at the Spiral Event Hall in Tokyo, and testing of the prototype F105 will begin next month in Japan with Italian Marco Apicella - who won the Japanese Formula 3000 title with Dome in 1994 - expected to do most of the work, although he will be joined by Dome's current F3000 drivers Shinji Nakano and Katsumi Yamamoto on occasion.

GOODYEAR engineers are planning to supply quicker tires at certain circuits this year in an effort to ensure they are well-prepared for the planned entry into Formula 1 of rival tire company Bridgestone in 1998.

TOM WALKINSHAW is to quit the Ligier team at the end of this season.

THE announcement that Tom Walkinshaw is to stop working with Ligier opens the way for the Scotsman to field his own Formula 1 team.

THE political changes going on at Ligier are going to have a dramatic effect on the distribution of engines in F1 in 1998.

AMID the throng of people in the F1 paddock last weekend in Melbourne was United States Grand Prix promoter Tommy Baker, who is in the process of finalizing details for a race in Las Vegas in 1997.

THE start of the new season has seen a surprising burst of engineers moving from team to team, with the most notable transfer being that of James Robinson, who is leaving McLaren to join Williams.