Formula One News — April 2004

Jos Verstappen is trying to get back into bed with Eddie Jordan, having been kicked out last winter after a dispute between the team and his sponsor Trust.

The Ford Motor Company, which has been under considerable financial pressure in recent years, has tried to hold on to as much motorsport activity as possible in order to promote its products.

FIA President Max Mosley has called a meeting of the Formula 1 team bosses in Monaco on May 5 and it thought likely that Mosley will use the gathering to discuss a number of important issues at the moment.

The Champ Car series got underway on Sunday at Long Beach and while the race was a rather dull affair with Paul Tracy leading all the way with Bruno Junqueira shadowing him, the new owners of Champ Car made an effort to attract some A List celebrities and came up trumps.

British rising star - and F1 aspirant - Dan Wheldon won his first Indy Racing League victory on Saturday at Motegi in Japan. He becomes the first British driver to win an IRL race.

One of the problems in recent years at Silverstone has been the fact that many of the members of the British Racing Drivers' Club have not seen the new circuits being built around the world and have assumed that Bernie Ecclestone's criticism of Silverstone is based on a desire to get control of the circuit.

The Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank wll be staying with Jaguar Racing in 2005 - if the bank decides to stay in Formula 1. HSBC did receive an approach from McLaren some months ago but told the Woking team tht it was not interested. McLaren later approached Credit Suisse about a deal.

Formula 1 hopeful Scott Dixon has suffered a hairline fracture to his left ankle in a practice crash at Motegi in Japan. The Indy Racing League driver crashed during the first practice session for this weekend's Indy Japan 300.

Argentina's rising star Jose Maria Lopez set the fastest time of this week's Formula 3000 testing in Barcelona, although his best time was only a few hundredths of a second faster than Vitantonio Liuzzi in his Arden International entry.

There is an increasing trend this year for F1 race organizers to run historic Formula 1 cars alongside the modern machinery in an effort to draw in more fans. The latest race to announce an historic event is Canada which will have a field of 30 cars which wll be fielded by the Historic Grand Prix organisation.

It has not been an easy offseason for the Champ Car World Series but this weekend the championship kicks off at Long Beach, having managed to scrape together the 18 cars needed to meet its contractual obligations.

Many young American drivers do not bother with dreams of making it big in Europe and look only to NASCAR where a top level racer can make a pot of gold without ever having to leave the confines of the United States of America.

For the last few years the Formula 1 calendar has had much the same shape although the arrival of two new races in 2004 did mean that there had to be a considerable rethink and as a result the Brazilian GP was dropped to the end of the calendar to make way for the high-paying new races in China and Bahrain.

Mumtaz Tahincioglu, the head of Turkey's Motorsports Federation, says that the Turkish GP will not have tobacco advertising. Turkey is committed to eradicate tobacco advertising and the government will not bend to pressure from Formula 1.

Andrea Bertolini is not a name which rings many bells in Formula 1 circles but the 30-year-old Italian is being allowed to test a Ferrari F2004 today at Vairano, where he and Luca Badoer are doing aerodynamic verification testing.

The Super Nova Racing Formula 3000 team is aiming to win the FIA International Formula 3000 title this year with drivers Patrick Friesacher and British Formula 3 Champion Alan van de Merwe.

There is talk that there will be a change within the McLaren-Mercedes empire.

Bernie Ecclestone has been involved in a very big business deal recently. Although this is not referring to the deal for the Turkish Grand Prix or even speculation that Libya is interested in hosting a Formula One race. This involves his personal interests.

It was interesting to note that at his press conference in Paris the other day, Jacques Regis, the President of the FFSA, made an unusual remark while talking about the problems that he has faced in recent months to keep the French Grand Prix alive.

There are reports from Germany that Ralf Schumacher has signed a three-year deal with Toyota for around $15m a year. The story said that Schumacher would be the number one driver at Toyota.

Eagle-eyed observers in Bahrain noticed that on Saturday morning a number of the team bosses met with Bernie Ecclestone. The important point is that not all of the team bosses were involved.

Experienced Formula 1 observers tend to be very cynical people because of the games that they have seen played over the years in Grand Prix racing. Thus when there appears to be a flash-bang grenade of news, the cynics tend to look elsewhere rather than concentrate on the news being broken...

The FIA President Max Mosley has told the Reuters newsagency that the federation is worried about the speed of the Formula 1 cars and could act to slow them down. Mosley said that according to the Concorde Agreement this could be done in the course of the current season on the grounds of safety.

Jordan Grand Prix says that rumours suggesting that Augusto Farfus Jr might be joining the team are rubbish - although the team's actual response was rather less polite.

Jaqcues Regis gave French press details of the budget for the French Grand Prix, explaining how hard it is for a race to survive without government backing. Regis said that his budget for the French Grand Prix is between $19-20m, of which $11.9m will go to pay the fees for holding the race.