Formula One News — January 2005

Arden International is to run Heiki Kovalainen and France's Nicholas Lapierre in the GP2 series this year.

Last weekend at Isola 2000 Martin Brundle made his debut in the Trophee Andros ice racing series at the wheel of a Renault Megane which is usually driven by Laurent Battut and Philippe Gervoson.

There is no threat to the British Grand Prix despite the spat last night which ended up with British Racing Drivers' Club chairman Ray Bellm being voted out of office - although he remains a member of the BRDC board.

Luca Badoer the Ferrari test driver since 1997 has agreed to another two years helping the team develop cars for Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello.

Michael Schumacher, Rubens Barrichello, Jean Todt and others will be meeting the Pope in Rome next week. No doubt the pontiff will be asking these miracle workers what he should do to make the Catholic Church run a little more smoothly.

The board of the British Racing Drivers Club has voted Ray Bellm out of his role as chairman in what appears to be a dispute between Bellm and BRDC president Jackie Stewart over the terms of the contract for the British Grand Prix.

Rio de Janeiro's Jacarepagua racing circuit, which played host to Formula 1 in the 1980s and Champ Cars in the 1990s is to be partially demolished as part of the plan to build a sports complex for the 2007 Pan-American Games.

Petrobras has announced that it is increasing is sponsorship activities by 30% and plans to invest $16m in sports sponsorships, although this goes up to $21m when added to sponsorship which is coming from the Petrobras subsidiary Petrobras Distribuidora (BR).

A court in Cologne ruled on Tuesday that former Panasonic Toyota Racing team manager Ange Pasquali was dismissed unfairly.

Mark Webber and Nick Heidfeld continued to set the pace at Jerez where more F1 teams have now turned up to begin their first tests of the new season. Webber concentrated on tyre testing, evaluating various compounds for the team's tyre partner, Michelin, as well testing brake duct configurations.

The Dakar Rally has claimed another two victims following the death on Monday of Jose Maria Perez and on Tuesday afternoon of the former double winner Italian motorcyclist Fabrizio Meoni.

Mathias Lauda, the son of triple World Champion Niki Lauda, says he is more interested in going to America to race in Champ Cars than to compete in the new GP2 series.

Nick Heidfeld wants to be a BMW Williams driver in 2005 and he started the new year with the fastest time of the day at Jerez, beating Mark Webber's best time of the day by a tenth of a second.

The British Racing Drivers' Club has announced a new initiative to train up young drivers. The Silverstone Motorsport Academy. The Academy is founded on the Silverstone Racing School, the latest in a long line of racing schools to be based at the Northamptonshire track.

Ryan Sharp is the first British driver to sign up for the new GP2 series. The 25-year-old from Aberdeen will be joining David Price Racing in 2005 and will be overseen by longtime engineer/manager Andy Miller.

Toyota has one chairman, two vice chairmen, one president, six executive vice presidents and 14 senior managing directors and at times it all seems to be rather complicated as to who is important and who is not important.

As we reported on Friday BAT and Honda have completed their acquisition of the BAR Formula 1 team from the administrators Grant Thornton.

American John Edwards is moving to Italy to compete in the Italian Karting Championship. The 13-year-old from Arkansas was picked to become part of the Red Bull Driver Search last year and will race for the factory CRG team in 2005 under the guidance of CRG team manager Danilo Rossi.

Mark Sharman has been appointed ITV's new controller of sport. He will oversee the British TV channel's coverage of Formula 1, which may not be an easy task because of the expected problems with British legislation and F1's tobacco sponsorships from the end of July this year.

Mika Gascoyne's first complete car at Toyota was unveiled in Barcelona on Saturday with the team hoping that the new chassis will move the team up the Formula 1 grid. Gascoyne said that the team compromised the development of the TF104B in order to try to gain an advantage for 2005.

Although the world of Formula 1 on the web continues to reduce in size as the non-sustainable sites go out of business, there are still a number of websites which are keen to push up their hit rates with sensationalist stories designed to attract the interest of any web surfer with a vague interest in F1.

Steiner may sound like a German name but in fact Gunther Steiner is an Italian, born and brought up in the city of Bolzano in the Alto Adige region where German remains the dominant language despite the fact that modern borders means it is linked to Italy.

David Pitchforth says that he was already looking around at other possibilities for work before he was dumped by Red Bull Racing this morning. The Yorkshireman, who was managing director of the team until this morning, says that he was aware that there were problems with the relationship.

The new BMW Williams F1 livery reveals a few interesting changes in the relative importance of the various sponsors. The team has signed what is obviously a major new deal with the Royal Bank of Scotland and the RBS logos have replaced Allianz on the engine cover.

British American Tobacco and Honda are expected to complete the purchase of British American Racing later today. The Formula 1 team was put up for sale before Christmas as part of the necessary paperwork to establish a new onmwership structure.