Formula One News — August 2002

<b>Belgian Grand Prix Saturday Qualifying Report</b>

Giorgio Pantano kept the F3000 championship battle wide open by winning the Belgian round of the series. The Italian battled all race with Sebastien Bourdais, who finished second and reclaimed the points lead from Thomas Enge going into the final raound of the series.

<b>Belgian Grand Prix Saturday Photos</b>

<b>Belgian Grand Prix Saturday Morning Free Practice Report</b>

Grand Prix racing will have a high profile political visitor on Saturday at Spa with the European Commissioner for External Relations Chris Patten expected to appear at the track to watch the action.

om Walkinshaw was not able to run his Arrows cars on Friday at Spa but the Scotsman was hoping to complete the deal to sell a part of his team to a group of American investors in time for the team to be able to compete on Saturday morning. But as one inside source in the team said om"there was a mountain of paperwork...

<b>Belgian Grand Prix Friday Afternoon Free Practice Report</b>

Sebastien Bourdais took a step towards reclaiming the F3000 points lead in Belgium Friday by capturing the pole for Saturday's race.

<b>Belgian Grand Prix Friday Photos</b>

Arrows has announced that it will not compete in this weekend's Belgian Grand Prix, as it was unable to complete the massive amount of paperwork involved with the pending sale to American Carl Smith and a consortium of US backers.

Malcolm Oastler has joined Jaguar Racing as Acting Director of Engineering. The Australian engineer will help the team during the development phase of the Jaguar R4 chassis but it is not clear whether he will be retained on a long-term deal.

<b>Belgian Grand Prix Friday Morning Free Practice Report</b>

The Orange Arrows team stayed in the garage when practice for the Belgian Grand Prix began on Friday morning. The session was delayed by an hour because of fog in the Liege area which meant it was impossible for the medical helicopter to land at Liege if there had been a serious accident.

Craig Pollock was wandering around the paddock at Spa telling anyone who cared to listen that he has never had any negotiations with Gerald Forsythe and that the American's recent revelations in Canada newspapers about negotiations with Jacques Villeneuve are pure fabrication.

Heinz-Harald Frentzen may have nominated by Arrows to drive at Spa this weekend but the German is staying in Monaco

Mika Salo will be paid next year's salary by Toyota and goes into retirement a happy (and wealthy) man as a result. The Finn always said that he would retire at the end of the Toyota deal.

Tom Walkinshaw probably did not get much sleep last night. The supposed takeover of the Arrows team by an American investor Carl (or Cal) Smith remains a bit of a mystery as there are one or two people called Smith in the United States...

Jordan Grand Prix said at Budapest that there would be an official statement about the team's deal with the Ford Motor Company within a matter of days. Two weeks have slipped by and not a word has been heard from Detroit,

The uncertain future of the Belgian Grand Prix is one of those reassuring certainties in the ever-changing world of Formula 1. Every year there is doubt that there will be another race at Spa.

The deadline to nominate drivers for the Belgian GP was 4 pm local time today, and Arrows nominated Enrique Bernoldi and Heinz-Harald Frentzen.

The rumors have been circulating in Spa about who the planned new owner of Arrows might be and the latest suggestion is that an American mulitmillionaire named Carl Smith may be the man behind the supposed deal.

Amongst all the other issues in Belgium was a question of whether Bridgestone is happy to let Fernando Alonso, a Michelin driver, race for Arrows this weekend.

The word in the paddock in Belgium is that the new investor in Arrows is none other than Red Bull and that the original plan for Arrows to be transformed into Red Bull Team USA will now go ahead as originally planned.

Toyota has announced that Olivier Panis has signed a two year deal for 2003 and 2004, replacing Mika Salo.

Arrows Grand Prix has released a statement today announcing that a letter of intent regarding the purchase of the team has been signed.