Formula One News — January 1997

FERRARI has confirmed that 29-year-old Italian racer Gianni Morbidelli will be its test driver in 1997.

HEINZ-HARALD FRENTZEN set the fastest time of last week's testing at Jerez, using a Williams-Renault FW18B, although his best lap of 1m21.90s was still somewhat slower than Gerhard Berger's 1m21.27s set with the new Benetton-Renault B197 the previous week.

THE launch of the Williams-Renault FW19 which was to have taken place last Friday at the team's old Didcot factory has been delayed and will now take place this Friday.

THE Formula 1 teams have been circulating a document in recent days in an effort to have the stringent new testing regulations eased a little to allow them to test at four circuits (Barcelona, Magny-Cours, Silverstone and Monza) rather than at the one which they had to nominate.

MCLAREN is getting ready for a huge team launch at London's Alexandra Palace in mid-February.

AT the launch of the new Ligier in Monte Carlo last week team owner Flavio Briatore confirmed that he is negotiating to sell the team to Alan Prost.

WILLIAMS has stopped working with Italian lawyer Roberto Causo and has appointed British solicitor Peter Goodman to represent the team when it faces charges manslaughter charges relating to the death of Ayrton Senna at Imola in May 1994.

TOMMY BAKER, the man who is trying to organize a Grand Prix in Las Vegas was in London last week to see F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone, just days after a meeting with Steve Wynn of Mirage Resorts, the most powerful casino owner in Las Vegas.

THE Mastercard Lola team has yet to give any real details of its 1997 plans although we understand that the team will use Cosworth Zetec-R V8 engines.

BERTELSMANN AG, the world's third largest media company, after Disney and Time Warner, is to handle the merchandising for Ferrari and Stewart and is talking to Tyrrell about a similar deal. We understand that the Ferrari deal is for seven years.

MARTIN BRUNDLE - out of work in F1 since being dropped by Jordan - has been appointed a director of Tom Walkinshaw's Arrows Grand Prix International and will be the lead driver of TWR's Nissan GT sportscar project.

MICHAEL SCHUMACHER left the Italian media speechless last week during the Marlboro-sponsored week of skiing at Madonna di Campiglio when he said that Japanese tiremaker Bridgestone is to supply Ferrari with tires in 1997.

THE West McLaren Mercedes Benz team hosted a "sneak preview" of its 1997 car at Woking early last Tuesday morning before the new MP4-12 was loaded into a specially-chartered Iluyshin cargo plane and flown to Jerez de la Frontera, in southern Spain, where David Coulthard began testing on Wednesday afternoon.

HELMUT WERNER, the chairman of Mercedes-Benz AG since 1993 - and the man who has championed the company's involvement in top level motorsport - will leave the German car company this week.

GIANCARLO MINARDI will run Italian rising star Jarno Trulli alongside Ukyo Katayama this season.

BENETTON, Ligier, Jordan, Ferrari and McLaren have all been in action in testing at Jerez de la Frontera in recent days, despite the fact that the weather in southern Spain has been unsettled.

BENETTON FORMULA has signed what it describes as a "major sponsorship" deal with the Akai Electric Co Ltd. and, as expected, has announced a deal with Italian oil company Agip Petroli.

TOM WALKINSHAW is in the process of regaining complete control of his Tom Walkinshaw Racing Group, buying back the 49% of the company which has been controlled since September 1992 by Benetton family-owned companies 21 Investimenti and Benetton NV.

THE Sauber team is hoping to have the Sauber-Petronas C16 ready to test by mid-February with an official launch being planned in Zurich on February 20.

THERE have been some interesting developments in recent days with IMSA's parent company the International Motorsports Speedway Group (IMSG) announcing that it has bought two of North America's most famous racing circuits: Sebring in Florida and Mosport Park in Canada.

FERRARI launched its F310B at Maranello last week with the clear intention of going into the 1997 season with a reliable car, prepared for the season.

JOHN BARNARD, Ferrari's design chief since August 1992, said at the launch of the Ferrari F310B that he is discussing his future at Ferrari with team boss Jean Todt and company chairman Luca di Montezemolo.

THE Danka Arrows Yamaha team unveiled its 1997 car - the Arrows-Yamaha A18 - at the Autosport International Show in Birmingham, England.

AT the launch of the Arrows A18 team boss Tom Walkinshaw was highly critical of Ross Brawn, his former TWR technical director and of Ferrari, which now employs Brawn.

GIANCARLO FISICHELLA has been confirmed as Ralf Schumacher's partner at Jordan in 1997 and 1998.