Formula One News — April 2003

The Formula 1 team bosses and the the directors of the Grand Prix World Championship met in Munich, Germany today to discuss the future shape framework for the sport with what is called "a unanimous view to promote its long-term stability".

Tomorrow lunchtime in Paris it is expected that Giancarlo Fisichella will be named as the winner of the 2003 Brazilian Grand Prix. It is expected that Jordan will take advantage of the global coverage to announce a new sponsorship deal, part of which will see Eddie Irvine named as the team's test driver.

The controversy surrounding the Brazilian Grand Prix has obscured one remarkable fact. The race was the first since the European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring in 1999 that the Ferrari team did not score a World Championship point.

The Brazilian Grand Prix was the highest rating Grand Prix in three years for Britain's ITV channel, and the third highest rating show since ITV took over the F1 rights in 1997.

Satoshi Motoyama won his second consecutive victory in Formula Nippon last weekend at Fuji. The Team Impul driver led home his team mate, France's Benoit Treluyer to give team boss Kazuyoshi Hoshino a dominant 1-2 result.

Eddie Jordan says that his team has evidence that proves that Giancarlo Fisichella was on his 56th lap when the Brazilian Grand Prix was red-flagged on Sunday. This is vital as if it is established that the Italian driver had started the lap before seeing the red flags he will be declared the winner.

Fernando Alonso was lucky for a variety of reasons on Sunday afternoon in Brazil. The Spaniard emerged unscathed from what he called a "150mph" crash at Interlagos. He was fortunate to end up on the podium because the race was stopped and, many think, he was fortunate not to be penalized by the FIA.

Formula 1 aspirant Dario Franchitti has been injured in a motorcycle accident in his native Scotland. The Andretti Green Racing driver suffered a fractured vertebrae when his motorcycle had some kind of mechanical problem and he crashed through a hedge near Edinburgh.

The ITV employee who was hospitalised in Sao Paulo with symptoms of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome should be released within a couple of days. The woman, who arrived in Brazil with the symptoms having previously been in Singapore, after the Malaysian Grand Prix.

Thomas and Florian Haffa, the men behind EM.TV, the media company which used to control the Formula One group of companies, have been convicted of issuing false sales figures and have been fined $1.6m between them.

The International Formula 3000 Championship entry list has been issued by the FIA with 18 of the 20 drivers now revealed.

The important question that needs to be answered about the Brazilian Grand Prix is how it was that the classification was issued incorrectly - if it is judged that this was the case.

There is a suggestion that the timekeeping in Brazil was erroneous and that victory in the Brazilian Grand Prix should have gone to Giancarlo Fisichella. The official classification was given at the end of lap 53 and there is no official record of what happened after that.

After being taken to the Saint Louis hospital, in Sao Paolo, following his huge accident in the Brazilian Grand Prix, Fernando Alonso was released and returned to Europe to prepare for the San Marino Grand Prix in two weeks, with nothing more than a sore knee.

The Formula 1 paddock in Brazil was full of rumors raising the question of whether Antonio Pizzonia is the right man for the job as Mark Webber's team mate.

There has been a lot of talk in F1 circles in recent days about the future of Ralf Schumacher with the BMW Williams team.

Brazilian Grand Prix - Race Report

There were a number off mysteries associated with Fernando Alonso's massive accident at Interlagos. Alonso, who had already been penalized for ignoring yellow flags, was still going at maximum speed despite the fact that Mark Webber's accident happened more than a minute before he arrived on the scene.

Although Jordan Grand Prix came away from the Brazilian Grand Prix as "moral victors" and some media attacked the rules for allowing what looked like a victory to be taken away from the struggling Silverstone team, there are still serious doubts as to whether Fisichella would have made it to the finish.

Ralf Schumacher finished a lackluster ninth in Brazil although he argued that he would have been on the podium if the race had not been ended prematurely.

Brazilian Grand Prix - Race Notes

Brazilian Grand Prix - Sunday Photos

Brazilian Grand Prix - Race Results

Heavy rain could delay the start of the Brazilian GP this afternoon. Procedures exist which allow the start of the race to be delayed every 10 minutes until conditions are good enough to start the race.

A huge rainstorm hit the Interlagos circuit this morning just three hours before the start of the race. The storm was so intense that the third floor Press Room was flooded by waters coming in from the roof of the main pit building.