Formula One News — June 1996

WILLIAMS kept the pressure on the opposition in testing at Silverstone last week when it outran the opposition both in terms of mileage and speed.

THERE has been motor racing in the sleepy village of Magny-Cours since 1960 when a local farmer Jean Bernigaud built a 1.2-mile track on some of his land.

RENAULT's decision to quit F1 is not indicative of an impending engine crisis in Grand Prix racing - as some of the more sensationalist elements in the European press have suggested.

RENAULT's decision to quit Formula 1 at the end of 1997 is likely to focus attention on the battle going on over which team will use Honda engines in 1998.

AS predicted in these pages in January, Renault Sport has announced that it is pulling out of Formula 1 racing when its current contracts expire at the end of 1997.

THE saga of McLaren's new factory continues.

THE Tyrrell team is obviously worried that a rival team is going to try and steal its lead driver Mika Salo in 1997.

DAVID RICHARD's Prodrive team is currently in the process of expanding its factory at Banbury, England, and it is not surprising that this has led to intense speculation as to what the space will be used for.

IN Montreal Tom Walkinshaw held discreet talks with the man who designed Chrysler's Lamborghini F1 engines in the early 1990s to see if the American company might be interested in being involved with the TWR V10 engine.

THERE were whispers in the paddock in Montreal suggesting that McLaren driver Mika Hakkinen may be leaving the team at the end of the season to join Benetton in 1997.

TOM WALKINSHAW RACING won its third Le Mans 24 Hours last weekend with the Joest Racing-run Porsche, which was designed and built by TWR.

THE FIA WORLD MOTOR SPORT COUNCIL - which met on Tuesday of last week in Paris - issued a rather strange provisional calendar for the 1997 Formula 1 World Championship. It included only 13 races and some of the dates were decidedly odd.

IT is now clear that there are two major well-funded bids by groups wanting to host the United States Grand Prix: one in Las Vegas, Nevada and the other in Walt Disney World in Florida.

FOLLOWING a successful test in a plain white 1995 Ligier-Mugen Honda at Suzuka last week, Jos Verstappen is expected to test Bridgestone tires on an Arrows-Hart at Silverstone within a few days.

THE San Marino Grand Prix organizers have been fined $250,000 and threatened with being expelled from the Formula 1 World Championship and fined another $750,000 if there is another track invasion.

WILLIAMS's chief designer Adrian Newey is once again the target for rival Formula 1 teams - which would like to snatch Grand Prix racing's star designer.

MARTIN BRUNDLE emerged fastest during last week's two days of testing at Silverstone.

FORMULA 1 team owners are poised to make vast profits in the next few years as a series of new commercial arrangements are finalized by F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone and the team bosses.

THE AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX is to be sponsored by Australia's airline Qantas for the next five years.

GIANCARLO MINARDI is once again trying to convince Fiat management that he should be sold old Ferrari engines.

MARTIN BRUNDLE's career with the Jordan Peugeot team is rumored to be under threat - because of lack of results.

CANADIAN hero Jacques Villeneuve had a day and a half of testing at Barcelona last week as he prepared for his "home" Grand Prix this weekend in Montreal - at the circuit which is named after his father.

FERRARI's head of engine research and development Osamo Goto is tipped to be leaving Maranello to take up a new position, helping Cosworth Engineering to develop the new Ford V10 engine.

THE Belgian parliament is expected to vote later this month to ban all tobacco advertising from January 1, 1999.

IT may be a coincidence but last week the ABC Television Network launched a campaign designed to win back ratings and take ABC back to the top in the network war.