Formula One News — July 1996

JORDAN GRAND PRIX is already casting around for a new driver for next season and has had discreet talks in recent weeks with the likes of Jan Magnussen, Jos Verstappen, Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Olivier Panis.

IT is with great sadness that we must report the death last Monday of one of Formula 1's most celebrated journalists - Franco Lini, shortly before his 73rd birthday.

THE current trend towards teams building their own engines - or at least considering it - continues.

ABSURD though it may sound, the Formula 1 team bosses are discussing the introduction of treaded tires, because drivers are worried about safety issues involved in the kind of rapid development seen during F1 tire wars.

JORDAN team manager John Walton - known as John Boy - is leaving the team shortly to take up a new position in the TWR Arrows organization.

THE new Stewart Grand Prix team - which will use Ford factory engines in 1997 - is rumored to be close to a vast $180m five-year sponsorship deal with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.

FERRARI president Luca di Montezemolo confirmed at Hockenheim during the weekend that Eddie Irvine is to stay with the team next season.

THE biggest - and seemingly wildest - rumor at Hockenheim was that Frank Williams is to dump Damon Hill at the end of this season and replace him with the German Heinz-Harald Frentzen.

LIGIER and Mugen Honda have confirmed that they are to stay together in 1997.

THE future of the Forti team is in considerable doubt following the collapse of the agreement between the little Italian team and the mysterious Shannon Racing Team.

THERE is another new engine company trying to break into Formula 1 and offering its services to F1 teams.

REPORTS of a mysterious white F1 car testing at Snetterton last week have set tongues wagging in Grand Prix racing.

THE Italian press corps launched yet more attacks on the Ferrari Formula 1 team last week - after the team's third disastrous Grand Prix in succession.

ITALIAN Giovanni Lavaggi - nicknamed Johnny Carwash (his name means "John Washing") - will replace Giancarlo Fisichella at Minardi for the rest of the season.

BERNIE ECCLESTONE has just announced a vast new TV deal for Formula 1 racing - with the French Canal Plus satellite TV station.

THERE is a quiet battle going on in Formula 1 at the moment over the 1997-2001 Concorde Agreement, but the signs are that unless compromise can be found bigger problems could develop as the deadline of the end of the year draws closer.

THE Hockenheim circuit was built in the late 1930s in the dense forests of the flat plains close to the mighty River Rhine.

THERE were rumors circulating at the British GP that Danish rising star Jan Magnussen could be racing for Jordan within a few weeks.

RICCARDO ROSSET, who has had a miserable season with Arrows, is to stay with the team until the end of the year.

THE Ford Motor Company has yet to decide whether it is willing to supply its V10 engines to the Sauber team in 1997.

RUMORS continue to circulate in Formula 1 about the future of Williams designer Adrian Newey and the latest stories suggest that Newey will join McLaren within the next month.

JULY is traditionally the time when Formula 1 engineers change jobs.

AS we suggested in May there will be a Grand Prix in South Korea in 1998.

JOS VERSTAPPEN is to test Bridgestone tires this week at Magny-Cours, where he will be joined by Minardi's Brazilian youngster Tarso Marques.

FERRARI president Luca di Montezemolo told Italian pressmen at Silverstone that Ferrari intends to gradually phase out its Ferrari Design and Development facility at Shalford in England and move everything to the team's headquarters at Maranello in Italy.