Formula One News — August 1999

MICHAEL SCHUMACHER is due to be at the wheel of a Ferrari in testing at Monza this week despite the fact that his recent test at Mugello did the German more harm than good.

THE Belgian government's insistence that tobacco advertising should be banned at the Belgian Grand Prix could lead to the disappearance of the event from the Formula 1 calendar next year.

THERE have been rumors for some weeks that Telefonica and other Spanish sponsors may be on the verge of buying the Minardi team.

BRITISH AMERICAN RACING is to have a new commercial director shortly with the expected appointment of Les Olson who spent 18 years with Philip Morris before moving to Imperial Tobacco for which he is currently sales director for North America.

PROST GRAND PRIX has confirmed that its drivers in 2000 will be Jean Alesi and the Formula 3000 Champion Nick Heidfeld.

JORDAN GRAND PRIX confirmed at Spa that it has signed Jarno Trulli to be Heinz-Harald Frentzen's team mate in 2000 and the Italian will stay with Jordan for the 2001 season as well.

IT has emerged that Volkswagen's board member for automotive engineering Dr. Martin Winterkorn was a guest in the F1 paddock at the recent Hungarian Grand Prix.

HERB FISHEL, the head of motorsport at General Motors, was a visitor to the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa last weekend.

AS we exclusively predicted two weeks ago Mika Salo has been confirmed as Pedro Diniz's partner at Red Bull Sauber Petronas.

PEUGEOT SPORT is expected to confirm its continued involvement with Prost Grand Prix within the next few days.

FORMULA 3000 CHAMPION Nick Heidfeld tested for the Prost team last week at Silverstone.

THERE were three days of testing last week at Silverstone although the British summer weather was once again disruptive with rain interupting activity on Tuesday and Wednesday.

RALF SCHUMACHER is expected to begin testing with the latest version of the BMW V10 Formula 1 engine within the next six weeks.

TOM WALKINSHAW and Prince Malik ado Ibrahim are currently negotiating over their shareholdings in the Arrows Formula 1 team - and all the indications are that Walkinshaw will soon buy the Nigerian out of the team.

MICHAEL SCHUMACHER was back in a Formula 1 Ferrari on Friday for the first time since his accident at the British Grand Prix on July 11.

MIKA SALO's showing at Ferrari in recent weeks has put the Finn into the F1 spotlight and in Hungary he admitted that he had six offers for drives in 2000.

PRINCE MALIK ADO IBRAHIM did not appear with the Arrows team in Budapest last weekend and although the team blamed "visa problems" it is very clear that the Nigerian is unlikely to be around with Arrows for much longer.

ARROWS will announce this week that it is reshuffling its technical staff with Mike Coughlan being promoted to the role of technical director and Egbahl Hamidy being drafted in as chief designer.

JEAN ALESI is expected to be confirmed as Jarno Trulli's replacement at Prost Grand Prix.

BENETTON is to strengthen its engineering staff with the recruitment in recent days of most of the top design engineers from the defunct Honda Racing Developments team in Bracknell.

RUSSIA continues to dream about hosting a Formula 1 Grand Prix and recently a Lebanese businessman with the unlikely name of Koueider von Heidebrand und der Lasa announced that he is planning to build a Formula 1 standard racing circuit close to the town of Tula, 80 miles to the south of Moscow.

NICK HEIDFELD won the International Formula 3000 Championship last weekend in Budapest but the young German does not appear to have much hope of a Formula 1 drive next season.

FORD MOTOR COMPANY President Jac Nasser is rumored to have paid a very quiet trip to Banbury, to have a look at the facilities owned by David Richards of Prodrive.

SIR FRANK WILLIAMS will be in America next weekend to visit the CART event in Chicago and we hear will go on to visit the new Formula 1 circuit at Indianapolis Motor Speedway - which will host the United States Grand Prix in September 2000.

BACK in March we suggested that the TAG McLaren empire might be sold to DaimlerChrysler and that the money raised from that sale would then be used to buy the Ojjeh Family and Ron Dennis into Bernie Ecclestone's Formula One Holdings.