Formula One News — December 2002

Sauber announced Friday the beginning of a partnership between the team and German drinks company Adelholzener Alpenquellen. Starting in January, the Swiss team's transporters and pit box partitions will bear the logo of Adelholzener's Active 02 brand, an oxygenated mineral water designed to provide internal organs with extra oxygen.

F1 cars will run on the streets of Long Beach next year, 20 years after the last Formula 1 visit to the West Coast race. But the reappearance in 2003 will be for historic F1 machinery, most of it from the 1970s and early 1980s.

Romain Dumas and Tiago Monteiro were given their first chances in Formula 1 at Barcelona yesterday both men running for the Renault F1 team. Dumas impressed with his quick ability to adapt to F1 power while Monteiro did not make such an impression although he did a workmanlike job.

Former F1 driver Tora Takagi is to become Mo Nunn's second driver in the Indy Racing League, alongside Felipe Giaffone. Takagi will drive a Toyota-powered Panoz GForce with sponsorship from Pioneer and Denso. Takagi has been a Toyota driver in CART for the last two years after his F1 career ended.

Team Rahal is to run a car in the Indy Racing League next year, in addition to its planned involvement in CART and in the Toyota Atlantic series. Bobby Rahal has announced that he has signed up former driver Kenny Brack to be his driver in IRL.

There are an increasing number of reports that the remaining staff at Arrows have now been laid off. This will mean that the team will have to reach some kind of settlement with them but only if money can be found.

David Coulthard set the pace at the final day of testing at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona Thursday. The McLaren driver was joined by fellow Briton Gary Paffet, who was sixth quickest on the day.

BAR has announced the launch date for the BAR005 to be January 14th. The launch will take place in Barcelona, where the team will be busy testing.

Gunther Steiner may not be managing-director of Jaguar Racing any longer but that does not mean that he will definitely leave the team. Steiner is believed to be considering the offer of a job as team principal at Jaguar,

The restructuring of Jaguar Racing continues with Gunther Steiner, who has done sterling work keeping the team moving in the right direction in the last year, standing down as managing-director. He will be replaced in that role by Dave Pitchforth.

The Formula 1 team bosses and technical men met on Wednesday in London to try to push forward ideas about how to cut costs in the sport in the future. All plans for radical change were, not surprisingly, rejected.

The German newsagency DPA is reporting that Arrows's investor Oliver Behring has set a deadline for the team to get a solution to the problem of its Formula 1 entry and if the deadline is not met he will pull out of the planned sale.

Six of the teams returned to Barcelona Wednesday for the second day of testing at the Spanish circuit this week. Olivier Panis was the fastest man on the track while conducting tire testing for Michelin.

A total of 74 staff have been cut at Jaguar Racing in recent days with the major victims being the chief aerodynamicist Mark Handford, the chief engineer Vincent Gaillardot and production manager Colin McGrory.

The announcement that Arrows is going to appeal its exclusion from the FIA Formula 1 World Championship was no surprise but the question that now needs to be answered is how that appeal will happen.

Nico Rosberg had his first runs in a Williams-BMW F1 car yesterday in Barcelona and in doing so became the youngest driver ever to test an F1 car. The 17-year-old son of former World Champion Keke Rosberg won the chance by dominating the Formula BMW series in Germany this year.

General Motors has honored the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with its GM Racing Pioneer Award, the first time the award has been presented to anyone outside of the General Motors company.

Shanghai is continuing its push to become an internationally-recognised location, following up its bid for a Grand Prix by announcing that it has won its bid to host the 2010 World Exposition.

Arrows has formally confirmed that it intends to appeal against the FIA's decision not to grant it an entry in the 2003 Formula 1 World Championship.

Arrows is to challenge the decision of the FIA to not include the team on the entry list for the 2003 World Championship. This is not a surprise as the team is famously litigious. There is expected to be an announcement shortly. Arrows says that it would like a decision on the matter from the F1 Commission.

The Dutch are getting very excited about the possibility of Jos Verstappen being confirmed as a Minardi driver for next season but www.grandprix.com remains unconvinced that a deal is in the pipeline. And if that is the case, the only Dutchman who might be in line for the drive is Christjian Albers.

Renault will launch its new Formula 1 car on Monday, January 20 in the Swiss city of Luzern in German-speaking Switzerland. The event will take place at the Luzern Kultur und Kongresszentrum, a vast modern building which overlooks the tranquil waters of Lake Luzern.

The European Health Ministers have voted 13 to two to approve new anti-smoking legislation which will ban all tobacco advertising in newspapers and magazines and all sporting sponsorships. If the law goes ahead as planned the ban ccould come into effect at the end of July 2005

The Formula 1 world has spent the day waiting to hear any reaction from the Arrows F1 team over the FIA Formula 1 entry list which means that the team does not have an entry in the 2003 series.

As we suggested would happen Rupert Manwaring has moved to Lola to take up a new job as managing-director of the Huntingdon car maker.