Formula One News — January 2002

Johnny Herbert has said he is out to win the 2002 Indianapolis 500 and the Le Mans 24-hour classic in a bid to become the first man to bag this double in the same year since US racing legend A.J. Foyt did so in 1967.

BAR team principal David Richards has specifically rejected any contractually possibility of Jacques Villeneuve leaving the team in a swap deal with Renault driver Jenson Button.

The Ford Motor Company has announced that it is to close five of its factories in North America and lay-off 35,000 workers.

The BMW Williams team is to unveil its new FW24 on January 25 at Silverstone.

It has been expected for a long time but the interesting thing about the Orange Arrows announcement that Enrique Bernoldi is to stay for a second season with the Leafield team is that the press release completely failed to mention that Jos Verstappen has already been confirmed as a driver.

The EJ11 Jordans of Giancarlo Fisichella and Takuma Sato topped the time charts during the last day of testing in Barcelona on Friday.

Renault has announced that Oliver Gavin will rejoin their testing team in 2002 to help in the development of the car's launch control and traction control systems.

Enrique Bernoldi will drive for Arrows in 2002 the team announced Friday.

The sheer scale of the Toyota F1 effort has started to dawn on rival F1 teams amidst rumors circulating at this week's Barcelona test that the Japanese car giant had committed to a $1.45 billion budget.

Wolfgang Reitzle, the president of Ford's Premier Automotive Group, will join Niki Lauda at Valencia on Sunday where he will drive one of the Jaguar R2C development cars after the former triple World Champion has taken his turn at the wheel.

The Ford Motor Company is to announce today that it is to reduce its global production capacity by one million units.

As France waits for news as to whether or not Prost Grand Prix is going to be saved, there is speculation that as part of the deal the team will run a young French driver in the second car.

The current focus in Formula 1 circles is on who will end up driving the second KL Minardi Asiatech.

There were rumors at the Autosport International Show on Thursday that the boss of the Ford World Rally Championship operation Martin Whitaker is to leave the team to return to Formula 1

Conditions improved for the first time Thursday for teams testing in Barcelona.

Minardi announced Thursday that Dutchman Christijan Albers will test for the team when they begin their on track preparation for the 2002 season on January 15th.

Toyota F1 has announced that their new car has passed all the FIA safety tests, and has been cleared to compete in the 2002 Formula One World Championship.

Renaullt-controlled Nissan says that it is planning to expand its operations in the United States in the next couple of years with six new Nissan models and four new Infiniti cars.

Peter Sauber says that he has bought Red Bull's share of the Sauber F1 team but says that he is planning to sell it on to the team's sponsor Credit Suisse.

Renault will launch its new Formula 1 team in a couple of weeks from now in Paris.

The start of a new season is always a time when there is a great deal of media interest in the sport.

The World Rally Championship has managed to build up quite a following with its computer games and Formula 1 is following suit as sales of Sony's Playstation 2 console boom.

Alain Prost has finally confirmed that his team will run with Ferrari engines in 2002 - if it survives the January 15 deadline which has been set by the team's legal administrator.

There has been a flurry of reporting about the first Formula 1 tests of the year with all the latest quotes being rushed out by the drivers.

Tomas Enge, who raced for the Prost team at the end of last season, has given up his plans to try to find a ride in Formula 1 this season.