Formula One News — March 1999

THE Australian Grand Prix gave the Formula 1 circus the first true indication of the relative levels of competitiveness this season, and while several teams were delighted with what they found others were rather disappointed.

TONY GEORGE, president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, led a 10-member delegation to the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, to see what lessons could be learned from the highly successful event in Albert Park.

THE Honda Motor Company will make a final decision about its plans to enter Formula 1 racing after a meeting in England on March 18.

BRITISH AMERICAN RACING representatives will travel to Geneva, Switzerland, on Friday to appear before the FIA World Motor Sport Council to answer allegations that the new team breached the International Sporting Code and the FIA Statutes during its dispute with the governing body over whether or not it could run cars in different liveries.

MICHAEL SCHUMACHER says that he is not going to retire from Formula 1 at the end of his current Ferrari contract in 2002. Stories had been circulating about Michael's future as a result of an interview published in Germany in which his manager Willi Weber said that Michael was planning to quit.

THE Formula 1 prize fund has been slashed by around $75m because Bernie Ecclestone's pay-per-view "satellite" television service is not attracting as many viewers as had been hoped.

DAMON HILL thinks that some of the leading Formula 1 teams are putting their drivers at risk with the development of flexible rear wings, which lean backwards when the cars are at high speed, thus reducing drag on the straights.

BRITISH AMERICAN RACING has unveiled the livery it intends to use this year in the wake of its battle with the FIA over running two cars in different color schemes. The result is that one side of the car is painted in Lucky Strike colors and the other side is in 555 livery.

MICHAEL SCHUMACHER's manager Willy Weber told a German magazine recently that Michael will retire from the sport at the end of the 2002 season and will almost certainly not change teams before then.

WHILE most of the Grand Prix teams did only short shakedown tests last week at Silverstone before sending their cars out to Australia, Ferrari embarked on a full-scale week of testing at Mugello, in Italy.

AN interesting advertisement appeared last week in a French motor racing magazine. A "large automobile company" announced that it is recruiting a variety of engine designers and electronics engineers for "a high level sporting activity".

EUROPEAN Competition Commissioner Karel Van Miert told reporters last week that he is not going to allow sport to be treated differently from any other big business.

WHAT can we expect this year in Grand Prix racing? Well, that is not an easy thing to predict. One can judge the teams on the money they have to spend or the number of people they have working the project but that will only give you a rough guide of where the teams SHOULD be in the hierarchy.