Formula One News — April 2002

Renault Sport driver Jarno Trulli has recently become the owner of vineyard.

There has been a certain amount of mystery in recent weeks about the role of Minardi test driver.

An unfortunate story has recently emerged in Germany about a group of Ferrari fans from Michael Schumacher's home town in Kerpen who decided to build a life-sized replica of the World Champion's Ferrari F399.

After eight years, the authorities in Bologna have released the helmet which Ayrton Senna was using when he was killed at Imola in May 1994.

BAT has been attacked by its own shareholders at the annual general meeting for having destroyed documents in March 1998.

Ferrari is keen to pull in as big a crowd as possible at its exhibition in the Contemporary Art Museum in Tokyo and has just announced that the show will include the prototype of the yet-to-be-seen "FX" model.

While the majority of the teams were at Silverstone preparing for the Spanish GP in two weeks, McLaren and Toyota conducted their testing programs at the Mugello circuit.

Ten of the eleven teams tested at four separate circuits Tuesday in preparation for the Spanish GP on April 28, seven of them at Silverstone, the venue for the British GP on July 7.

It is no big surprise that Portugal's Tiago Monteiro has been named as a member of the Renault F1 Driver Development Program.

We have suggested in recent days that things are happening between Honda and BAR which could result in an exclusive engine supply to British American Racing at the start of 2004.

The bankers involved in the Kirch business have offered to give the car manufacturers a 30% share in SLEC in an effort to revalue the company.

Paolo Barilla will not be remembered as one of the greatest Formula 1 drivers of all time but he was more than capable in a sportscar and in 1985 shared victory in the Le Mans 24 Hours in a Joest Porsche 962.

Wednesday marks the end of Ferdinand Piech's term as chief executive of Volkswagen AG.

The Tour de France automobile race used to be one of the classic events of the racing calendar but 15 years ago it disappeared from the scene because of lack of interest.

Danny Sullivan, the former F1 driver, CART Champion and Indianapolis 500 winner, is to launch an initiative to bring young American drivers to Grand Prix racing, with the backing of Austrian energy drink maker Red Bull.

BAR has confirmed that when Prodrive boss David Richards took over the running of British American Racing, part of the deal was that the tobacco company would lengthen its sponsorship of the team for another five years.

The Times newspaper in London put Bernie Ecclestone back on the front pages on Monday.

The Orange mobile telephone company will soon launch a new virtual reality experience.

CART has announced that Octagon has been appointed to provide CART with services ranging from television distribution and production, sponsorship and media sales, marketing and public relations, event staging and promotion, gaming and the creation of new events in the international markets.

We hear that there has been an official complaint from a rival team to the FIA about the behavior of the Arrows team at the Australian Grand Prix.

HRD announced Monday the appointment of Otmar Szafnauer as its first Vice-President, effective immediately.

Bernie Ecclestone was back on the front page of the The Times in London on Monday.

Jean Alesi's test drive with McLaren was supposed to be a one-off affair but the problems encountered with the new Mercedes-Benz V10 engines mean that Jean will be back in a car this week at the Mugello test track in Italy, driving alongside McLaren's regular test driver Alexander Wurz.

Dubai is planning to build a Formula 1 circuit in the course of the next 18 months as part of a new development which will be called the Dubai Autodrome and Business Park.

There have been all kinds of strange rumors floating about in Formula 1 circles in recent days but the most believable one is that the links between BAR and Honda are going to be strengthened in the years ahead.