Formula One News — December 1997

AS we suggested last week the announcement that Goodyear is to pull out of Grand Prix racing at the end of 1998 has led teams to consider jumping to Bridgestone and last week McLaren led the way, terminating its agreement with Goodyear and beginning work with Bridgestone in Spain on Wednesday.

THE Tyrrell Family last week sold its Formula 1 team to British American Racing (BAR).

BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO's racing team was finally announced in London last week - but the launch was far from revealing.

ANDRE MAES, who runs the Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium says that the circuit could lose its Grand Prix in 1998, following the news that the Belgian government has passed a law banning all tobacco advertising and sponsoring from the beginning of 1999.

THE FIA last week issued its provisional Formula 1 entry list and the numbers which the teams will be using next year.

THE FIA Deputy President Cesar Torres has died of cancer at the age of 54.

THE Belgian parliament last week voted in favor of a ban on all tobacco sponsorship in the country.

THE Portuguese Government's financial review body has thrown the future of the country's Grand Prix into uncertainty by rejecting the deal done between the government and the former owners of the circuit Autodril so that the race could be saved.

THERE have been one or two changes in the engineering team at Jordan Grand Prix with Ralf Schumacher's race engineer Andrew Green departing.

ALTHOUGH Goodyear has announced that it is planning to pull out of Grand Prix racing at the end of 1998 we understand that there is already a movement within the company to reverse that decision, with pressure coming from dealers in Europe, who feel that F1 is very important for their sales.

AS we revealed a couple of months ago the European Commission is to investigate whether Bernie Ecclestone's Formula 1 Holdings company should have the right to centrally-market the FIA's television rights for Grand Prix racing.

THE FIA's threat to pull Formula 1 out of Europe and relocate in other countries - notably in Asia - which the European Commission has dismissed as "bluffing" may not be as easy to achieve as Max Mosley and Bernie Ecclestone suggested to British Prime Minister Tony Blair as a meeting they had on October 16.

THE battle over the European Union tobacco ban comes to a head this week when the 15 EU health ministers meet in Brussels to vote on whether to ban tobacco advertising. Britain is insisting that it will only support such a ban if Grand Prix racing is excluded from the law.

FORMULA 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone last week received a check for one million pounds from Britain's Labour Party, which had been advised to return the money which had been donated to the party by Ecclestone in January.

THE Minardi team is to take a dramatic step forward during the winter months with the aim being to have a staff of 100 before the start of the 1998 Formula 1 World Championship.

THERE will be a lot of new faces in the forthcoming tests in Barcelona with several F1 teams planning to try out newcomers.

THE worst kept secret in Formula 1 will be officially announced this week in London with the tie-up between British American Tobacco, Reynard Racing Cars and Tyrrell expected to be revealed.