Formula One News — May 2001

TOMAS SCHECKTER, the son of 1979 world champion Jody Scheckter, has had his contract as Jaguar's F1 development driver terminated with immediate effect.

REIGNING world champion Michael Schumacher came to the wheel for Ferrari as the Italian team continued testing work at their Fiorano test track on Friday.

IT seems that people are impressed by more than just European Minardi's lavish new motor homes, formerly the property of the Sultan of Brunei, following the Spanish Grand Prix.

ROGER SILMAN, the managing director of the Arrows team, is to retire. He will be replaced by Kevin Lee.

THE announcement that Jaguar Racing has taken on Ford's former CART program manager Jay O'Connell gives a clear indication that the Milton Keynes-based racing team is being run by American transplant Bobby Rahal.

PHILIP MORRIS, the owner of Ferrari sponsor Marlboro, is to float its food business Kraft Foods Inc. for around $8.7bn.

THE planned Indian Grand Prix depends on the result of the West Bengal state elections on May 10.

ACCORDING to reports in Malaysia, Tan Sri Basir Ismail, the chairman of Malaysia Airports Holdings, is offering to buy the Sepang circuit from the airport company he controls.

JAGUAR has continued the strengthening of its backroom staff with the appointment of Ford's former CART program manager Jay O'Connell.

TOYOTA may be about to learn another lesson about the harsh realities of the contemporary Formula 1 business.

DAVID COULTHARD put his traction control failure in the Spanish Grand Prix behind him as he topped the times while testing the electronic aid on the third day of testing at the Valencia circuit on Thursday.

EM.TV announced earlier this week that it made losses in 2000 of $1.28bn, nearly twice its turnover.

A terse press release from Cologne has revealed that Toyota Motorsport's technical director Andre de Cortanze has left the program and Formula 1 insiders are already suggesting that the Japanese car company has begun to realize that it is facing some serious problems in the future.

THERE is an unspoken lexicon of F1-speak which seasoned insiders can read like a book.

FERRARI continued work on their electronics systems at Fiorano on Thursday as Rubens Barrichello and test-driver Luca Badoer put the team's cars through their paces.

OLIVIER PANIS topped the timesheets on the final day of testing at the Silverstone circuit on Thursday as the British American Racing driver was more than a tenth of a second quicker than Jordan's Jarno Trulli.

REPRESENTATIVES of member states of the World Health Organization gathered this week for a second round of talks about the planned international treaty to ban tobacco advertising.

SYLVESTER STALLONE's racing movie "Driven" took nearly twice as much money as its nearest rival at the US Box Office last weekend.

MCLAREN claimed a second successive one-two on the timesheets at Valencia as the weather improved to allow a good day's testing on Wednesday.

THE FIA are soon expected to issue a clarification to the rules which will force the Williams team to modify their successful FW23.

TAKUMA SATO found life tough in testing for British American Racing at Silverstone on Tuesday because he had to run in a car set up for Jacques Villeneuve.

JAGUAR's Eddie Irvine will have to wait a month for the performance improvements he believes Jaguar desperately needs to haul themselves up into a points-scoring position.

RUBENS BARRICHELLO clocked a sub-one minute time in testing at Ferrari's Fiorano circuit as he worked on electronics development on Wednesday.

SAUBER suffered a setback to their testing program when their Finnish starlet Kimi Raikkonen crashed at Silverstone.

MCLAREN test-driver Alexander Wurz recorded the fastest time in a weather-affected first day of testing at the Valencia circuit in Spain on Tuesday.