Formula One News — September 2001

THE automobile manufacturers met at the Frankfurt Motor Show yesterday and agreed to push ahead with their plans to establish their own World Championship in 2008 when the current Concorde Agreement expires.

ALAIN PROST and the Ferrari bosses are to meet at Monza to decide what to do about the team's engine supply next year.

The Formula 1 team managers (excepting Eddie Jordan who is rumored to be stuck in New York) gathered at Monza at lunchtime on Thursday to discuss the matters of the moment and it was agreed that the United States Grand Prix at Indianapolis will go ahead in two weeks time unless the United States government decides to stop the event.

THE Formula 1 team managers met at Monza at midday on Thursday to discuss the matters of the moment in F1 circles and a number of important decisions were taken.

THE international automobile federation has decided that the Italian and United States Grands Prix will go ahead as planned.

A spokesman at the Autodromo Nazionale at Monza told the German press service DPA that there is currently no reason why the race should not go ahead as planned this weekend.

NO decision about whether or not the Italian Grand Prix at Monza will go ahead this weekend is likely until tonight as the FIA President Max Mosley is currently on a airplane, returning to Europe from the FIA Congress of the America's in Lima, Peru.

IT is impossible to predict the long-term effects of the terrorist attacks yesterday in New York and Washington but the unsettling of the world's economy is something which will have a very damaging effect on motor racing, a sport which uses huge sums of investment every year. The general sense of uncertainty which the attacks have left behind have already hit the stock markets of the world.

THE Formula 1 team principals are due to meet tomorrow at Monza although the meeting is likely to be disrupted because of the ban currently in place on all private aviation in Britain.

ALTHOUGH the announcement was completely overshadowed by the events in New York, Volkswagen AG nominated Bernd Pischetsrieder as the man who will replace Ferdinand Piech when he retires early next year.

WITH Tomas Enge driving for Prost Grand Prix at Monza, and possibly until the end of the F1 season, the Coca-Cola Nordic Racing team has been hunting for a replacement for the Czech driver for the final round of the International Formula 3000 title at Monza this weekend.

MAX MOSLEY will be re-elected FIA President at the forthcoming FIA General Assembly.

HAVING apparently given up its plans to get back into Formula 1, Goodyear is now planning to enter the Indy Racing League, hoping to take over the role of exclusive tire supplier from Firestone in 2003.

MARC GENE will be retained as the BMW Williams team's official F1 test driver in 2002, it was announced today (Wednesday).

RUMORS were circulating on Wednesday morning that the Italian Grand Prix at Monza might be cancelled as a result of the attacks on New York and Washington and the subsequent ban of certain kinds of flying.

THE decision that the Italian Grand Prix at Monza should go ahead this weekend as planned is the correct one, despite the terrible happenings in the last 24 hours in the United States of America.

THERE has been much confusion in recent weeks over the contractual status of Jean Alesi in 2002 but it has now emerged that the French veteran has nothing lined up but is still hoping that a series of strong results in the final races of the year will convince Eddie Jordan to keep him on next year.

ABC SPORTS has named the men who will commentate on this year's United States Grand Prix at Indianapolis.

THERE have been some huge fires in the last day and a half in the south of France, one of the biggest being around the Paul Ricard racing circuit at Le Castellet where 400 firemen and Canadair aircraft have been fighting to contain a 2000-acre blaze around the track. Hundreds of people had to be evacuated from the area.

THE Toyota Formula 1 team has been out recruiting again and the word on the street is that it has signed a long-term deal with Sweden's Richard Goransson, who is currently third in the British Formula Ford series.

THE Frankfurt Motor Show this week is one of the biggest events of the automobile year and this year's event will see a record number of new cars being unveiled (57 in total) and a series of major announcements.

LUCIANO BURTI has been released from the University Hospital in Liege and is returning to his home in Monaco but the Prost driver will not be racing at Monza this weekend, doctors advising him that it would better if he sat out the event and concentrate on getting back to full fitness after his huge accident at Spa two weeks ago.

AS we speculated would happen Prost Grand Prix has signed up Tomas Enge to drive for the team at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza this weekend.

MCLAREN has not yet announced its drivers for the 2002 season and while this is not outrageously strange, it is still much later than all the major teams and the Formula 1 is beginning to ask what is going on.

DIETER HAHN, the man who has been doing all the negotiations between Kirch and the Formula 1 world has been named as the chairman of the new ProsiebenSat1 group, which will include Kirch.