Formula One News — September 1997

THE French daily newspaper La Figaro last week reported that Jean Alesi had agreed to drive for the Sauber Petronas team in 1998 although a contract is still to be signed.

OLIVIER PANIS made a successful return to F1 last week at Magny-Cours, lapping the track in a time which was faster than Michael Schumacher's pole position at the French Grand Prix in June.

FRENCH racer Jean-Christophe Boullion, who been the Williams team's test driver for the last three seasons, is looking for a way to break into Formula 1 next year and has been talking in recent weeks with Craig Pollock and Julian Jakobi about a possible management deal.

ALAIN PROST has been quietly building up his technical team in recent weeks with the hiring of a number of new young designers for his drawing office at Magny-Cours which is run by veteran Ligier engineer Claude Delbet under the instructions of chief designer Loic Bigois.

TED BALL, the man who funded both the Brabham and Lotus F1 teams in the early 1990s, went on trial last week at the Old Bailey in London facing charges of conspiracy to defraud and accepting bribes.

FIA President Max Mosley met the Portuguese Minister of the Economy last week in Lisbon and confirmed that there is no longer any reason why Estoril should be excluded from the 1998 Formula 1 World Championship.

THE Jordan Peugeot team ran two simultaneous tests last week with one team at Silverstone running Ralf Schumacher for a day of testing while another did two days of running at the Goodyear test track at Mireval, near Montpelier with Giancarlo Fisichella.

AS we suggested in June, Sylvester Stallone is planning to make a blockbuster film about Grand Prix racing.

AS we reported a month ago Don Panoz is planning to host the United States Grand Prix at Road Atlanta, starting in 1999 and running for a minimum of five years.

AFTER months of talk about a new Formula 1 super team involving Adrian Reynard, Craig Pollock and British American Tobacco, it seems that BAT has decided to look at other possibilities.

FLAVIO BRIATORE is expected to leave Benetton Formula at the end of the season.

THE battle between Benetton and Jordan for the services of Giancarlo Fisichella goes to the High Court in London this week.

TOM WALKINSHAW and Mika Salo have been in heavy negotiation in the last few days as it has become clear that Damon Hill is not likely to be staying at Arrows next season.

DAMON HILL is rumored to be close to signing a deal to drive for Prost Grand Prix next season - but the deal has yet to be confirmed and there are a number of sticking points in the negotiations.

A provisional Formula 1 calendar for the 1998 season was doing the rounds in the paddock at Monza.

THE Tyrrell team's plan to build its own half-scale rolling-road windtunnel is to be unveiled later this week, as part of the team's Racing Towards the Millennium program.

OLIVIER PANIS was back in racing car last week and will begin testing a Prost-Mugen Honda on Tuesday.

THE FIA International Court of Appeal last week ruled that the fuel in Mika Hakkinen's McLaren-Mercedes in qualifying for the recent Belgian Grand Prix was illegal and that he should be deprived of his third place finish as a result.

ALAIN PROST's three-year deal with Peugeot may be affected by the new French government's plans to hike the price of diesel fuel in France.

ALAIN PROST is currently deciding what to do about his second drive next season.

EDDIE JORDAN says that he is going to keep Giancarlo Fisichella and Ralf Schumacher next season and intends to continue his policy of employing young drivers, which he says is "a key element to the Jordan success story".

AS expected, Tyrrell has announced its deal to run Ford V10 engines in 1998 and has launched a plan called "Racing Towards the Millennium", a comprehensive program to make Tyrrell competitive in F1 by the year 2000.

WITH Williams having closed the door on Gerhard Berger - who was offering to drive for the team for very little money - and the announcement from McLaren that it is sticking with the same two drivers next year, Gerhard Berger's future in F1 is decidedly uncertain.

FRANK WILLIAMS has given a clear indication that he will be using the same drivers next season - as we predicted last week.

THE FIA International Court of Appeal meets in Paris on Wednesday to consider McLaren's appeal against the decision of the Belgian Grand Prix stewards which stated that the fuel used by Mika Hakkinen in qualifying for the event "was not the same as the one which had been approved for use by the competitor prior to the event".