Formula One News — November 2001

Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah of the Selangor province, the man who was largely responsible for getting international motor racing to the country, has died at the age of 75.

Ford and Bridgestone-Firestone have had talks about re-establishing a relationship which broke down some months ago over who was to blame for a series of accidents which resulted in a series of deaths in the US and a string of law suits.

Pedro Diniz has not had much to do in recent months as a result of his falling-out with Alain Prost but it seems that the Brazilian multimillionaire has been working on the launch of a Brazilian Formula Renault Championship.

Event Vision, the organization which organizes the Grand Prix balls, has been sold to a listed company called Podia in a deal worth $3m.

A few years ago there seemed to be a never-ending supply of Irish racing drivers but in recent years most of the youngsters have come from Northern Ireland.

There have been reports in the Belgian press in recent day suggesting that the giant brewing company Interbrew, owner of Stella Artois, Labatt and Becks, could become a major sponsor of the team for the coming season if Prost agrees to run Belgian Formula 3000 driver Bas Leinders.

No-one knows what will be discussed at the meeting of the Volkswagen supervisory board on Friday but what has been revealed is that this will decide on whether to accept the chairman designate Bernd Pischetsrieder's proposals for the revamping of the company's automobile brands.

Bernie Ecclestone said the other day that a recession will not hurt Formula 1 although it is not clear whether he was talking about the sport in general or his company of that name.

The inquest into the death of a marshal at this year's Australian Grand Prix is due to open in Melbourne on Monday, December 3 and our sources in Australia say that it is likely to last a couple of weeks at the most as the coroner hears various depositions about the accident.

Sebastian Stahl, Michael and Ralf Schumacher's half brother (but not by blood), is trying to get a serious racing career going in Germany.

Our spies at Leafield tell us that Heinz-Harald Frentzen has put to pen to paper on an Arrows contract for 2002.

Christian Estrosi, who is the French Republican party's spokesman on national security issues, has suggested that if the Republicans are elected to power in June next year the party will create a new ministry for national security which will link together the various forces of law and order.

The Ford Motor Company may have its own Premier Automotive Group but Volkswagen AG under its new chairman Bernd Pischetsrieder will have a sporting division, when the German takes control of the firm in April 2002.

There continue to be stories that Renault Sport will have a camshaft-less engine.

Takuma Sato has become the first Japanese driver to win the Macau Grand Prix with a strong performance in the two races on Sunday in his Carlin Motorsport Dallara-Mugen.

Flavio Briatore says that he is to remain in charge of the Renault Sport F1 team for the next three years. Briatore says that he had the agreement of Renault Sport chairman Patrick Faure.

BAR test driver Anthony Davidson has pulled out of the Macau Grand Prix and is now facing several weeks in which he will be unable to do any running in racing cars following a crash in practice on Thursday.

BAR must sharpen up its act in 2002 and whatever changes that are necessary will be made by the management in a bid to ensure its future success.

Ferrari ramped up the F1 stakes today with the announcement that Luca Badoer would be joined on the test team from the start of next season by the 26-year old Brazilian driver Luciano Burti.

Mark Webber, the Benetton test driver, was planning to concentrate on Formula 1 in the next few months, hoping to get a break in Grand Prix racing.

The McLaren-Mercedes and BMW Williams team are busy preparing uprated versions of their 2001 cars in readiness for the resumption of F1 testing from 3 January.

Guildford cathedral turned into a who's who of international motor racing yesterday afternoon as a galaxy of F1 personalities turned out for a service of thanksgiving for the life of Ken Tyrrell.

The Premier1 Grand Prix series continues to make the most of the lack of F1 news at the moment and has announced that two more soccer teams have been signed up for the planned racing series next year.

Jean Alesi has firmly agreed to drive an AMG Mercedes CLK in next year's DTM touring car series.

British American Racing's Anthony Davidson had a big accident in qualifying for the Macau GP and spent the night in the hospital under observation after complaining of neck pains.