Formula One News — June 2004

Luca di Montezemolo is going to be a busy man as he is to stay on as chairman of Ferrari in addition to running Italy's industrial federation Confindustria and being chairman of the entire Fiat group.

Rumours that Panasonic might be replaced as the title sponsoship of the Toyota F1 team have been rife for some time but although companies such as Microsoft and Sony have been mentioned as possible replacements,

Normand Legault, the promoter of the Canadian Grand Prix, was recognised at a ceremony in Montreal on Wednesday for having saved the Canadian Grand Prix.

Bruno Michel, the man who represents the owners of the new GP2 series, which in 2005 will take the place of the FIA International Formula 3000 series as the main support series for Formula 1, says that the championship will launch next year with 30 cars.

Former Grand Pix star Johnny Herbert set the fastest time in the first practice sessions for this year's Le Mans 24 Hours in his Audi UK R8 prototype. The Audis have dominated the timesheets as expected but Herbert's best lap was an impressive two seconds faster than the second quickest car.

DaimlerChrysler is reported to be considering developing and building a second vehicle in collaboration with McLaren and it is expected that this would be a more affordable alternative to the recently-launched Mercedes-Benz McLaren SLR.

Renault's weakness in F1 this year has been a lack of horsepower in comparison with some of the other teams but the engineers at Viry-Chatillon have been working away to improve not just the maximum power of the engine but also the power curve to make the engine easier to handle.

Enrique Scalabroni is not a man who gives up easily. The former Williams, Ferrari and Team Lotus engineer from Argentina spent two years trying to put together funding to enter F1 with a team led by Japanese racing entrepreneur Tetzu Ikuzawa.

This week Beijing is hosting the Auto China 2004 show, drawing attention to the country's increasingly-important role in the automotive world. Vehicles sales in China boomed by 34% last year to 4.4m, which makes it the world's third biggest market behind the US and Japan.

Former Jaguar Racing test driver Andre Lotterer won the third round of the Formula Nippon championship at Motegi last weekend in his PIAA Nakajima Racing entry and now leads the series, despite the fact that the weekend was dominated by Richard Lyons in his DoCoMo Dandelion car.

Bobby Rahal drove in Formula 1 back in the 1970s and a few years ago tried his hand at team management with Jaguar Racing. Rahal's time in F1 was not a happy time and in the end he departed the team, the victim of the politcal infighting which plagued the team at the time.

The Wilux Minardi Cosworth team is to send its fleet of two-seaters to South Africa go take part in a charity event called "The Altech South African F1x2 Grand Prix". The event will take place at Kyalami on August 9 and proceeds will go to charity.

Mika Hakkinen has told Finnish journalists that he is happy in his retirement and does not wish to change.

The city of Hyderabad in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh will not be hosting the Indian Grand Prix.

Nelson Piquet Jr has moved to the top of the British Formula 3 standings with two wins at Snetterton over the weekend. The Brazilian, son of 1981 and 1983 World Champion Nelson Piquet, was dominant in two of the three races that took place.

Ryan Hunter-Reay completely dominated the Champ Car race at Milwaukee on Saturday, leading from flag to flag and lapping everyone up to third place.

McLaren will not be debuting the revised MP4-19B until the French GP in a month.

The FIA President Max Mosley has written to all the member clubs of the federation, proposing a major restructuring. Mosley wants to divide up the work of the FIA President so that the World Motor Sport Council is chaired by the FIA Deputy President.

Jacques Villeneuve has told Montreal's La Presse newspaper that he has not received an offer to join BMW Williams. This is not news.

The FIA International Formula 3000 Championship could continue next year because teams are not happy with the deals on offer from the new GP2 Series.

The Shanghai International Circuit will be officially opened this weekend with a big event featuring a number of Ferraris past and present.

The future of the plan to host an Indian Grand Prix on a site near Hyderabad remains in the balance as the new state government begins to find its feet.

It is not a new story but there remains a certain amount of logic in the idea that the Ford Motor Company might sell its Formula 1 team to Red Bull and continue in Formula 1 solely as an engine supplier.

This week there have been rumours that Mark Webber could be on his way to Toyota next year. This is not entirely unexpected given that Mark Webber's management, which is run by Flavio Briatore, needs to find somewhere to put Webber next year.

Within the next few days it is expected that a new structure will be announced at Mercedes-Ilmor in Brixworth. For some weeks the company has been overseen by former McLaren managing-director Martin Whitmarsh.