Formula One News — January 2005

There may be some in Formula 1 circles who think that the battle over the future structure of Grand Prix racing is over but there is no sign that the GPWC is going to give up and our sources tell us that there will be a meeting of the manufacturers later this week to discuss their reaction to the news.

Jurgen Hubbert, the boss of the Grand Prix World Championship, the automobile makers' alliance designed to get a better deal in Formula 1 racing, has urged the Formula 1 teams not to sign the deal being offered to them by Bernie Ecclestone until they have heard what the GPWC has to offer.

Luca di Montezemolo said last September that Ferrari was 100% behind the GPWC. Last week this proved not to be the case when Ferrari announced that it had agreed a deal with Formula One Management instead of sticking with the GPWC.

German race fans will be getting excited this weekend at the ninth annual Cologne 24 Hour kart race which pits professional racers up against rising stars and amateurs.

The second Minardi is still up for grabs and team boss Paul Stoddart has made no secret of the fact that the drive will go to the man who brings the most money with him to the negotiating table.

Bernie Ecclestone has tried to sidestep the three banks which control Formula One Holdings, the parent company of the Formula One group.

Paul Stoddart meets Max Mosley this afternoon to discuss the unhappiness that exists amongst the F1 team owners with some of the decisions made in recent years by the FIA and the hope is that the meeting will result in a new understanding between the teams and the federation.

Marco Andretti, the son of Michael Andretti and grandson of F1 World Champion Mario Andretti is to race this year in the Toyota Atlantic Championship in the United States, which meeans that he is one step away from moving up to either Champ Car or the Indy Racing League.

A few years ago Stephane Sarrazin was a Formula 1 hopeful. He made his debut as a Grand Prix driver in Brazil in 1999, driving a Minardi, had a big crash when his front wing failed and then hung around the edges of F1 as a test driver.

Reading too much into the testing times at this time of year is a very dangerous thing to do and so one should be very careful about being sucked into the belief that Red Bull Racing is going to be competitive this year because David Coulthard topped the time sheets today in Barcelona.

Alain Prost may have been called The Professor but in Formula 1 circles there has always been only one "Prof" and he has been on the Grand Prix scene fulltime since the Swedish GP of 1978 when Bernie Ecclestone, then the owner of the Brabham team and the boss of FOCA, asked Watkins to help make F1 safer.

Formula 1 race fans can help tsunami victims and at the same time enjoy their favourite sport. This win-win situation has come about because the governments in the affected areas have sufficient aid and are now asking that tourists do not desert them and thus bring about economic problems in the future.

German Formula 3 team owner Colin Kolles has been involved with the Midland F1 team since the very beginning of the project and he has now been named managing director of Midland.

Professor Sid Watkins, the man who has been chiefly responsible for the improvement of safety in Formula 1 in the last 25 years is to step down from his role as the FIA Formula 1 Medical Delegate.

The Sauber Petronas team has let it be known that once again it has no intention of running a third car on Fridays because it does not have the budget to necessary and wants to use all its resources on running the two race cars.

The testing in Barcelona continued on Wednesday with Mark Webber leading the way ahead of Nick Heidfeld and Michael Schumacher.

If Formula 1 was a board game, solely about the exercise of power without any need to account to its fans, then there would be much applause about the deal that has just been announced by the FIA, Ferrari and Formula One Management.

The FIA, Ferrari and Formula One Management have announced that they have reached an agreement to prolong the Concorde Agreement from 2008 to 2012. It is not clear what the details of the agreement are but it is certain that the deal will upset Ferrari's supposed partners in the GPWC.

Michael Schumacher likes to win races but he also likes to get away from Formula 1 in the winter months and spend time with his family at his various houses which are dotted around Europe.

It seems that the vogue at the moment is for former Formula 1 engineers to design road cars. Hot on the heels of the news that MB Roadcars is to build its EOS, comes word from Italy that legendary Ferrari designer Mauro Forghieri is hard at work designing a road car called Project 1221.

The Durango team is one of the GP2 teams about which little has been heard in recent months but the latest word from Italy is that the team will have the budget to run a pair of cars in 2005 and that it will be fielding Clivio Piccione from Brazil and Italian Ferdinando Monfardini.

The younger generations in the United States have been smitten of late by a new sport called drifting. This originated in Japan where youngsters developed skills of controlling their cars in a series of elegant slides as close to the limit of adhesion as possible.

The British Racing Drivers' Club held its annual awards at Silverstone earlier this week and handed out its annual awards to those that gathered for the event at Silverstone.

Chris Chapple has been named as the head of finance of WilliamsF1. A former Royal Marine Commando who saw service in the Gulf War after graduating from Oxford with a law degree.

MB Roadcars is a company established last year by Michael Blaize, a Formula 1 aerodynamicist who worked in the missile business prior to his involvement in the sport.