Formula One News — September 2001

The future of Jenson Button was much under discussion at Indianapolis with rumors circulating that the young British driver is being offered to other teams by Benetton.

Ferrari technical Ross Brawn revealed on Sunday that Michael Schumacher came close to retiring after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. Brawn was talking to BBC Radio.

The Formula 1 paddock in Indianapolis was full of members of the CART and IRL fraternities with the visitors including a dozen Indianapolis 500 winners including this year's winner Helio Castroneves and the current CART and IRL champions Gil de Ferran and Sam Hornish Jr.

NIKI LAUDA clearly believes that he can steer the Jaguar F1 ship into calmer and more tranquil waters after the latest round of blood lettering saw former Chief Executive Officer Bobby Rahal relinquish his post in the run-up to the Belgian Grand Prix.

The official merchandising operations at Indianapolis reported on Sunday that F1 merchandise was selling faster on Saturday than its has done for the annual Brickyard 400 NASCAR race.

Andrew Craig, who ran the CART series between 1994 and 2000, has started working to help market Sauber team.

Mika Hakkinen is expected to start from fourth on grid of the United States Grand Prix despite having qualified second on the grid.

America's big hope for Formula 1 in the future, Patrick Long was robbed of the British Formula Ford Championship on Saturday at Silverstone where the young American was taken out at the final corner as he overtook championship rival Robert Dahlgren of Sweden.

Brazilian youngster Felipe Massa is the runaway favorite to get the Sauber drive which will become available next year when Kimi Raikkonen moves to McLaren.

BMW may already have the most powerful engine in F1 - with estimates of the horsepower ranging from 840-860.

Paul Stoddart, the boss of the European Minardi team, has signed up Dr. John Davies, the head of research and development from Arrows to head the Italian team's R&D and be deputy technical director.

CART team owners, drivers and engineers were in the F1 paddock at Indianapolis and some of them were very obviously looking for work.

The Ferrari, Jordan, Benetton, Jaguar and Minardi teams are all carrying the United States flag on their cars this weekend.

The Suzuka racing circuit has been undergoing considerable work in the course of the last 12 months to bring it up to modern F1 standards.

A number of planned sponsor announcements (including a major new Williams backer) were planned to take place at Indianapolis but the current terrorism crisis has resulted in teams deciding not to make their plans public until later in the year.

The European Minardi team has been flat out in recent weeks, putting together deals for next season. The team has announced a deal with the Motor Club of Argentina (MCA) that will see the team helping young Argentine drivers up the ladder towards F1.

The Honda Motor Company will have a completely new V10 engine in Formula 1 next year. The engine has already been tested on dynos in Japan and our spies say that it has some radical features but there is currently not hint as to what the vee-angle will be.

One of the major worries of F1 people in recent days has been that the people and equipment may become stranded in the United States of America if military action begins in response to the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

The United States Grand Prix at Indianapolis is going to be a poignant event for many reasons but within the F1 community it will have added significance as it marks the end of two extraordinary careers in Grand Prix racing.

GrandPrix.com, one of the leading motorsport websites, has been named as "an official source of information" by the F?d?ration Internationale de l'Automobile, the international automobile federation (FIA).

Mika Hakkinen told reporters at Indianapolis that his intention is to return to F1 in 2003 after a year's sabbatical.

The headline does not always tell the full story.

Tony George, the boss of Indianapolis Motor Speedway, has announced plans to raise money for the Red Cross during this weekend's United States Grand Prix at Indianapolis.

The British soccer club Leeds United has become the first UK team to sign up to be part of the planned Premier1 racing series.

There is to be a conference to discuss the business aspects of motor sport in Monte Carlo in December.