Formula One News — August 1998

INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY boss Tony George and Formula 1 chief Bernie Ecclestone are entering the final stages of their negotiations to agree a deal which will see Formula 1 cars racing on an infield circuit at Indianapolis in the Spring of 2000.

McLAREN, Williams, Jordan and Sauber were in action last week at Jerez de la Frontera in southern Spain in very hot conditions, with temperatures around 100-degrees Fahrenheit. This was good preparation for the Hungaroring as temperatures in Budapest are often very high.

WHILE the other teams were busy at Jerez and Silverstone, Ferrari chose to stay at home in Italy, running at its Fiorano test track.

PROST GRAND PRIX is expected to give Formula 3000 driver Stephane Sarrazin a run in one of its cars at Magny-Cours within the next month.

STEWART GRAND PRIX had been hoping to continue as the Ford Motor Company's only factory-supported team until the end of the 2000 season, but the team's failure to score any really strong results has prompted Ford executives to take a short-cut to the top and do a deal with Benetton for the 2000 season.

IT is now two months since Bernie Ecclestone met with Indianapolis Motor Speedway boss Tony George to discuss the possibility of running a Grand Prix on the infield at Indianapolis.

BERNIE ECCLESTONE will meet South African President Nelson Mandela later this month to discuss a South African GP in 1999.

ALTHOUGH all the Formula 1 teams have now finally signed the 1998 Concorde Agreement we understand that contrary to earlier reports the final draft of the document has NOT yet been signed by Max Mosley, President of the FIA.

AFTER the excitements of the last couple of weeks on the Formula 1 driver market things have now settled down with announcements expected within the next couple of weeks confirming that Damon Hill will stay with Jordan and that Olivier Panis and Jarno Trulli will continue as team mates at Prost Grand Prix.

BENETTON, Prost, Arrows, Stewart and Tyrrell decided not to bother with the long trip south to Jerez and did their preparation work for the Hungarian GP on the familiar sweeps of Silverstone.

THE FIA World Council added to the confusion over team orders last week by explaining that team orders were not actually banned when it met in March but that it had simply been pointing out that the rules prohibited acts "prejudicial to the interests of any competition".

GERMAN tiremaker Continental AG says that it is interested in becoming involved in Grand Prix racing in a few years - but may be considering accelerating its plans because of the availability of top teams Williams and Ferrari, which will lose Goodyear tires at the end of this year.

THE FIA International Court of Appeal has rejected McLaren's appeal resulting from the British GP at Silverstone and so Michael Schumacher is confirmed as the winner, despite not being punished for overtaking Alexander Wurz under a yellow flag.

McLAREN will retain Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard in 1999, and Ferrari will continue its relationship with Eddie Irvine.

THE three FIA stewards at the British Grand Prix - India's Nazir Hoosein, Canada's Roger Peart and Britain's Howard Lapsley - went before an extraordinary meeting of the FIA World Council in Patis and "voluntarily" handed in the licences which give them the right to be Formula 1 stewards.

JORDAN technical director Gary Anderson is a man in demand at the moment with paddock rumors in Hockenheim linking him to engineering jobs at Arrows, Prost and Williams.

TOM WALKINSHAW is still working hard to put together a deal to enable him to run Supertec V10 engines in 1999, although he may prefer to have these badged as Arrows V10s.

MAURO FORGHIERI, who has been involved in Formula 1 for the last 40 years with Ferrari and Lamborghini, is working as a consultant to BMW on the Munich company's V10 engine program.

THE Tyrrell team will shortly lose its team manager Steve Nielsen, who has decided not to move to British American Racing next year.

BERNIE ECCLESTONE called the Formula 1 team owners together on Saturday at Hockenheim to discuss the matters of the moment and give them an idea as to the 1998 World Championship calendar.