Formula One News — January 2003

The political situation in Formula 1 has calmed down since the Technical Working Group meeting on Tuesday and the signs are that things will now return to normal with the teams working on getting their cars ready for the new regulations.

Testing continued for seven of the teams Thursday in Valencia and Barcelona. It was Kimi Raikkonen setting the pace in Valencia, while Michael Schumacher was fastest in Barcelona.

There is a mystery as to which tyres the Minardi team will be using in 2003 following remarks by Michelin's Pierre Dupasquier.

The Moscow City government has given up any idea of holding a Formula 1 race on Nagatino Island.

Former McLaren and Ferrari driver Stefan Johansson has signed former CART champion Jimmy Vasser and rising star Ryan Hunter-Reay to be his drivers in his new American Spirit Racing operation this year in the CART Champ Car Series.

In recent days there has been some rather silly stories suggesting that Alain Prost is not interested in running Jaguar Racing. This is good news because there is absolutely no sign that Jaguar Racing wants him to do that job.

Eddie Irvine is finally admitting that he is not going to get a drive this year in Formula 1, despite lengthy talks with Jordan Grand Prix, which began in July last year.

The mystery of the GPWC press statement deepened this week as BMW men Mario Theissen and Gerhard Berger both came out in favour of the changes put forward by FIA President Max Mosley and the compromise reached at yesterday's Technical Working Group meeting.

Pedro de la Rosa has had a very quiet winter since being dropped by Jaguar Racing at the end of last season. But de la Rosa has not given up on his Formula 1 career and the Spaniard was spotted recently visiting the McLaren headquarters in Woking

The meeting of the Technical Working Group yesterday in London finally hammered out a working set of regulations for the season ahead with both the FIA and the F1 engineers accepting compromise in an effort to things forward.

Former Jaguar Racing test driver James Courtney was hoping to race for Arden International in the International Formula 3000 series this year but the Australian F1 aspirant has had to settle for second best and is off to drive for the TOMS Toyota team in the Japanese Formula 3 Championship in 2003.

The FIA Technical Working Group met in London Tuesday where they agreed to adopt most of the cost-cutting measures put forward by FIA President Max Mosley last week, including a complete ban on traction control and automatic gearboxes effective mid-season.

The F1 teams continued testing Tuesday at circuits in Barcelona, Valencia, and Le Castellet in the south of France.

Stories doing the rounds suggesting that McLaren might boycott the first race of the year should not be taken too seriously.

Although the Sepang International Circuit has been sold by the Malaysian Airports Holdings company to the Malaysian government it seems that the change will not have any effect at all on the running of the event.

The CART Champ Car series will not be racing this year at Spa-Francorchamps, which means that the classic Belgian racing facility will have to survive on income from its only big event left on the calendar: the Spa 24 Hours touring car race.

Jaguar Racing has unveiled its R4, which the team says will build on the lessons learned in 2002 with the troublesome R3 chassis. The new car is the work of a design team led by the team's new managing-director Dave Pitchforth.

Michael Schumacher started his 2003 season with a real howler when he went off on his first lap in his Ferrari since last October.

Adrian Dawn of Beeston in Nottinghamshire has won a Jaguar Formula 1 car in a competition to find the sport's biggest enthusiast. But Dawn's problem is that he is too big a fan - because he cannot fit in the cockpit of the car.

American Townsend Bell, who has ambitions of becoming a Formula 1 driver, has joined Bjorn Wirdheim in the Arden International Formula 3000 team. Bell has signed a two-year deal with the team and says that he wants to use F3000 as his route into Formula 1

Renault confirmed at its launch in Luzern, Switzerland, that it has signed Allan McNish and Franck Montagny as its two test drivers for 2003 but also gave details of new signings in its Driver Development programme.

The FIA Technical Working Group will meet tomorrow in London, the second such meeting in five days. The new meeting will be chaired as usual by Charlie Whiting and it is anticipated that the message from Whiting will be that the changes put forward by FIA President Max Mosley will go ahead with immediate effect,

Renault says that it is aiming to become Michelin's number one partner in Formula 1, leap-frogging McLaren and Williams. The recent rule change which allows tyre companies to develop tyres specifically for individual teams means that the number one status will be decided upon by results.

Jaguar's new engineering director Ian Pocock has spent the last couple of years at Pi Research but has a healthy pedigree in Formula 1 which dates back to 1987 when he worked with Benetton while studying for his doctorate at the Cranfield Institute.

Jaguar Racing has announced the appointment of Ian Pocock as Director of Engineering. Pocock was working at Pi Research. Ian will look after all the management, administrative, personnel-related, financial, budgetary, marketing and strategic aspects of the role, while Malcolm Oastler will concentrate on the technical operation.