Formula One News — February 2002

The Daily Mail in London is reporting that Bernie Ecclestone is spending around $80m on a house in London.

The British Government has steered well clear of the motorsport industry in recent years, largely because of the unfortunate scandal involving a payment of $1.6m to the Labour Party by Bernie Ecclestone.

Ferrari's Jean Todt says that the Italian team is going to start the year with the F2001 rather than risking problems with the new F2002.

Ferrari has announced that they will start the new season in last year's F2001, rather than the new F2002, which has not had a chance to prove reliable yet.

Richard Burden, the British Member of Parliament for Birmingham Northfield, has been appointed by the Sports Minister Richard Caborn to work as a liaison between the government of and the motorsport industry.

British television commentator Murray Walker retired from Formula 1 at the end of last season but he is still going to be talking to the fans this year thanks to an Orange telephone service.

The need for constant Formula 1 news is wearing the websites thin at the moment with the transcripts of Max Mosley's recent press lunches providing endless amount of irrelevant copy.

Johnny Herbert is taking his time to get back into single-seater racing.

The ranks of the famed French radio reporters will be slashed in Formula 1 this year with the announcement that Radio Monte Carlo has bought the exclusive French rights to the World Championship from Formula One Administration.

A week after the signing of Heinz-Harald Frentzen and the firing of Jos Verstappen by Arrows without any comment by Tom Walkinshaw, the team boss has finally justified his decision to the world.

The latest word in Formula 1 circles is that Bernie Ecclestone is going to buy back the company which owns the commercial rights of Grand Prix racing but will do so in league with DaimlerChrysler and Fiat, the major players in the plan to launch a new manufacturer-backed World Championship.

Formula 1 fan Sheikh Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa of Bahrain is campaigning for a race to be held in the country within the next few years - and he's a powerful fellow as he proved last week when he decided to declare Bahrain a constitutional monarchy and switched from being an Emir to becoming King Hamad.

The FIA system of controlling the Formula 1 technical regulations is highly complicated.

With the Formula 1 driver line-up for 2002 now finalized (unless off course a revived Prost Grand Prix organization appears) and that means that the only jobs available are test driving roles.

The Malaysian GP organizers say that they have sold 20,000 tickets for the event but are still hopeful of getting a crowd of 100,000 people.

Gillette Australia has announced plans to build a beach at Albert Park during the Grand Prix weekend as part of its "Gillette for Women" advertising campaign.

FIA bosses were less than impressed when model Naomi Campbell arrived at the High Court in London the other day, carrying a Formula 1-branded umbrella.

Jaguar Racing has hit back at disruptive rumors by announcing a three-year technology deal with the giant EDS company.

The Kirch Group says that it has not received any offer from Bernie Ecclestone for the company's shares in SLEC, the company which controls the commercial rights to Formula 1 racing.

Now that Tom Walkinshaw and Arrows has sorted out who will drive the new A23 in the coming season, the team has announced that they will officially launch the new chassis in Melbourne just days before the opening round of the 2002 season.

Reports in the German newspapers yesterday said that Bernie Ecclestone is ready to spend $700m to buy back the shares in SLEC which are owned by Kirch Media.

The demise of the DAMS Formula 3000 project has released longtime engineer Claude Galopin onto the job market. Galopin is a former Ligier engineer who became a designer with AGS and then went back to Ligier to design for the team.

According to the latest word from the National Bureau of Economic Research, the recession is not over yet, despite a few signs that things are improving in the world's largest economy.

How fast do you need to be going to receive a $103,600 speeding ticket?

There are glamorous locations and then there is Brussels Airport, the venue for the launch of the new Jordan-Honda package on February 22.