Formula One News — April 2002

Testing resumed on Tuesday following the Spanish GP last weekend. Williams, McLaren, Sauber and Renault tested at the Valencia circuit in Spain.

The town of Mahon on the island of Menorca, one of Balearic Islands off the coast of Spain, is not the first place to leap to mind as a possible venue for a Grand Prix.

Minardi has analyzed the rear wing failure that caused the team to pull out of last weekend's Spanish Grand Prix and declared that the failure was due to a "single component fitted to that car alone".

Turkish automobile federation boss Mumtaz Tahincioglu is certainly keeping up media attention in thee country's bid to host a Formula 1 Grand Prix.

Arrows Grand Prix International Ltd., the Formula 1 racing team, apparently has a new owner.

Ferrari was back at work on Tuesday with test drivers Luciano Burti and Luca Badoer conducting development work for the defending world champions.

DaimlerChrysler's United States subsidiary Chrysler has just announced its first profit for several years and has revealed plans to expand production by more than one million cars in the course of the next decade.

In the last few days there have been attempts in the Formula 1 paddock to raise fears about the financial stability of Ferrari.

It is with great regret that we must mark the death of Rob Walker, one of the great team owners of Formula 1 history - a great character and a great journalist. Walker died of pneumonia at the age of 84.

The Formula 1 engineers are always complaining that other teams are copying what they do (they never usually mention when they are copying someone else).

The rebuilding of the Paul Ricard racing circuit in the south of France, undertaken by a company owned by Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone, was welcomed by the local communities as it seemed to offer the possibility of new jobs.

The Kirch empire continues to amaze as it staggers on with only KirchMedia in administration.

A couple of years ago in Brazil, the Saubers of Mika Salo and Pedro Diniz both suffered structural failures of their rear wings in the course of practice.

It is a slow process but Formula 1 is beginning to get more coverage in the United States. The Spanish Grand Prix (dull though it was) was given a quarter of a page in the influential New York Times.

The Spanish Grand Prix paddock was rather short on A-list celebrities, despite the usual rumors that Robert de Niro, Nicholas Cage and others would be turning up and Mexico's answer to Madonna did little to raise the glamorous image of the sport.

Monza is best known around the world for its racing circuit.

It has always been planned that Asiatech would eventually start its own Formula 1 team and while supplying engines to Minardi, the operation is also quietly building up its technical capabilities.

Max Papis is to drive for former F1 driver Eddie Cheever in the forthcoming Indianapolis 500.

Although his team has yet to rise like a phoenix from the ashes, Alain Prost was back in the Formula 1 paddock in Barcelona as a guest of Ferrari.

The Formula 1 paddock is not a kind place and over the weekend in Spain there was much speculation about the future of the Jaguar Racing team.

Paul Stoddart withdrew his cars from the Spanish GP on Sunday morning following a rear wing failure on Mark Webber's car in the Sunday morning warm-up.

The Renault F1 team has done a deal with the vast Bertelsmann empire to plug the German media company's BMG and Lycos Europe brands.

Enzo Coloni used to own a Formula 1 team but he went out of the business in the last recession and since then has been running cars in the International Formula 3000 series albeit without any major success.

The stewards for the Spanish Grand Prix have decided to move Jaguar's Eddie Irvine to the back of the grid for the start of Sundays race after the FIA discovered "irregularities" in his fuel during a routine fuel test.

Motorola is expected to announce shortly that it is to produce a Ferrari-branded mobile telephone.