Formula One News — August 2004

Hungarian GP - Practice Session 1 Results

Hungarian GP - Preview

The latest word in America is that the Champ Car series could end its season with a race on the island of Puerto Rico.

The Formula 1 circus pitched up in Budapest but there was little to report on Thursday with Jenson Button making no comment about the recent problems with BAR and Williams. David Coulthard said he was interested in joining BAR and that was about it. Behind the scenes however things are still moving along.

Cristiano da Matta was in the United States last weekend, attending the Champ Car race at Road America and the word on the street in US circles is that the Brazilian has the offer of a job in the series next year with Paul Newman, who is planning to run his own team in 2005.

While the Formula 1 spotlight is currently on Jenson Button, we are hearing suggestions from Germany that Toyota has now finalised its deal for next year with Jarno Trulli, our sources saying that the contract was signed at the start of the week.

On Friday Ryan Briscoe will take to the circuit in Budapest in a Toyota Formula 1 car but it will not be the first time that someone from the Briscoe family has raced in Hungary.

British American Racing says that the dispute between Jenson Button and the team over the English driver's contract with Williams for 2005 and 2006 cannot go beyond the Contract Recognition Board. They argue that the Concorde Agreement signatories accept decisions made by the CRB

The Minardi team pulled in 60,000 spectators on Monday in South Africa with its Altech South African F1x2 Charity Grand Prix at Kyalami. The event featured two 10-lap races between the fleet of Minardi two-seaters.

The 41-year-old Budapest-based Israeli driver Chanoch Nissany will make his F3000 debut in Hungary this weekend, replacing the Turkish driver Can Artam at Coloni Motorsport.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway is currently closed as work begins on a resurfacing of the oval, the first since 1995. The $2m project will involve the removal of the old surface of the 2.5-mile oval with 36,500 tons of new asphalt being laid in its place.

There has been a lot of weird and wonderful talk about what has been going on between Jenson Button, Williams and BAR and it is worth taking a look at the issues involved in an effort to throw some light on the likely development and outcome of the situation.

BAR has lost its appeal against the decision of the German Grand Prix stewards to ban a software-controlled torque-transfer device which the team briefly tried out on Friday at Hockenheim.

There has been a big shake-up at Toyota Motorsport with the chief victims being the team manager Ange Pasquali and Norbert Kreyer.

There has been a further outbreak of madness today about the future of Jenson Button with BAR putting out a statement saying that the Contract Recognition Board has "acknowledged that as of today Jenson Button is the only valid contract registered for the 2005 season". This means nothing.

A South African consortium is bidding for a Grand Prix in 2007. David Gant of Parallel Media South Africa, a member of the consortium, says that a site near Cape Town's international airport has been picked out as the site of a new facility and that preliminary talks have been held with a number of private sector companies.

A great deal of rubbish is currently being said and written about Jenson Button's decision to switch from BAR-Honda to BMW Williams next season. BAR may have tried to claim the moral high ground by claiming that Button is breaking a contract but this has yet to be proven.

Sebastien Bourdais has been the dominant force in Champ Car racing this year with four wins in seven races but in the eighth round of the series at Road America at the weekend the Frenchman was beaten by in a chaotic race by Alex Tagliani, who scored the first victory in the series for Paul Gentilozzi's Rocketsports Racing.

BAR team bosses may want to drop Jenson Button for the rest of the year because of his decision to move to BMW Williams next year but this is not going to achieve a great deal.

Renault rising star Heikki Kovalainen scored two dominant wins in the Nissan World Series at the weekend at the Lausitzring.

While the Fomula 1 press has been getting its knickers in a twist over whether or not Jenson Button should move to BMW Williams next year, Bernie Ecclestone has stepped up on to the moral high ground, telling The Daily Star that "morally Jenson has an obligation to stay" at BAR.

Alexandre Premat won the prestigious Marlboro Masters in Zandvoort at the weekend for the ASM Formule 3 team. Premat took advantage of a mistake by his team mate Eric Salignon, who spun while leading the race.

World Rally Championship commercial boss David Richards was due to show up for the latest event in the series and, by pure coincidence, one of his guests for the weekend is a local motor racing type by the name of Mika Hakkinen.

Sir Frank Williams has been explaining what happened to allow him to get Jenson Button as a BMW Williams driver in 2005 and 2006.

This weekend at Zandvoort the talk will be of genetics as Nico Rosberg, the son of 1982 World Champion Keke Rosberg, takes on Nelson Piquet Jr, the son of three-time World Champion Nelson Piquet at the 14th annual Marlboro Masters Formula 3 race.