Formula One News — November 2002

According to Oliver Behring, a 37-year-old German investment banker, his company Asset Trust & Partners has bought a 60% shareholding in Arrows for $50m.

Formula One Television, Bernie Ecclestone's digital pay-per-view television service has not been a success for the TV companies which bought into the scheme. They have all made losses on the deal and several have gone out of business.

Gordon Murray, one of the best known F1 designers of the 1970s and 1980s, will receive an Honorary Professorship from the Faculty of Engineering, Science, and the Built Environment at the Durban Institute of Technology in South Africa.

Ralf Firman Jr is to test for the British American Racing team next month in Spain. Firman (27) is the current Formula Nippon Champion and wellknown in Japan. The 1996 British Formula 3 Champion has been exiled in Japan for the last few years because of lack of money to compete in Europe

There have been rumours for some weeks that Felipe Massa will move to Ferrari as a test driver next year. He does not deny that this is a possibility but it is clear that the Brazilian is still hoping to land a drive with another F1 team - and it is logical to assume that his major target is the Jordan team

It all seemed too good to be true and it now appears that the rescue of the Arrows F1 team is going to be more difficult than some had imagined. The case between Arrows and former partner Morgan Grenfell Private Equity has not been settled - as team members had previously implied

Max Mosley has admitted that he is no sure that there will be 22 cars on the grid in Melbourne in March next year.

CART's return to Mexico City was a big success with the organisers reporting a race day crowd of nearly 175,000 people and a three-day attendance of 350,000.

The Australian Grand Prix launched its program of events on Monday with a lot of emphasis being placed on the progress which has been made by Mark Webber. Next year Webber will be racing for Jaguar after a good learning year with Minardi in 2002.

Bernie Ecclestone was in Vienna a couple of weeks ago to receive an award for ""entrepreneurs whose innovative accomplishments have positively influenced the business world, thereby achieving international recognition.". The award was given as part of an event to mark Men's World Day

The Sauber team will unveil its 2003 challenge in Zurich on Sunday February 9. The cars will then be sent straight to Italy where they will do their first shakedown runs at the Vairano test track the following day.

Australia's Will Davison has been appointed alongside Mark Webber and James Courtney as an international ambassador for the Australian GP.

Work has begun in earnest on the construction of the new Grand Prix circuit in Bahrain and if all goes to plan the construction will be completed in 16 months, in time for the start of the 2004 Formula 1 season.

The 1980 World Champion Alan Jones chose the beach on Daydream Island as the venue for his wedding. The 56-year-old married Amanda Butler-Davis, the mother of his two 20-month-old twins Jack and Zara in a very private ceremony in the perfect tropical setting.

The little-known French Formula 3 Champion Tristan Gommendy won the Macau Grand Prix on Sunday. Gommendy ran second early in the race but then managed to overtake Finland's Heikki Kovalainen on stayed ahead all the way to the chequered flag. Third place went to Japanese champion Takashi Kogure.

World Rally Championship driver Colin McRae has signed a new management deal with Essentially Sport, the company which manages the career of Jenson Button. The news is a minor coup for the relatively new company which only appeared last year.

The Arrows Formula 1 team says it has applied for an entry for next year's Formula 1 World Championship. It remains to be seen whether the entry will be accepted by the FIA. The news that Arrows has gone ahead with the entry will not please the team's creditors as the entry costs around $250,000

Minardi has announced that they have signed Russian Sergei Zlobin as an official test driver in 2003. The 26 year old tested for the team in September, and is scheduled to test again for the team in late November, when the testing ban ends.

The entries for the 2003 Formula 1 World Championship close today and all eyes are on the Arrows team to see if an entry will be made.

The Belgian Grand Prix may be off but members of the country's Senate Social Affairs Commission have voted 8-7 in favour of postponing the country's anti-tobacco legislation until 2006.

The annual Macau Grand Prix provides young drivers with an opportunity to show off their talents against the best Formula 3 drivers in the world and any driver with a Macau GP victory on his CV will be taken seriously by the F1 community.

Former Grand Prix driver Ukyo Katayama has signed as a factory driver for Toyota - for the Paris-Dakar Rally in January. Ukyo will race an official Toyota Land Cruiser in the event which is extraordinary in that it is going nowhere near Paris nor Dakar.

The third of the Red Bull young drivers, Joel Nelson from Nevada, will race in the European Formula 3000 series next year with the John Village Automotive team, which finished runners-up this season with France's Romain Dumas scoring three wins in the series.

Peter Hansen, the former CEO of Confederation of Australian Motor Sport, is currently acting as the chief executive in charge of the new Grand Prix Circuit to be built in Bahrain, is to join forces with the circuit's designer Hermann Tilke to race a Honda S2000 in the forthcoming Bathurst 24 Hour race in Australia.

The European Formula 3000 runner-up Romain Dumas is to be given a test by Renault F1. Dumas, a protege of longtime Renault favourite Erik Comas, was a frontrunner in the Euro F3000 title this year driving for John Village Automotive in a 1999 Lola Formula 3000 car.