Formula One News — February 2005

There are a major series of changes to the procedures for incidents and restarts in Formula 1 this year, with the possibility that the race can be "suspended". If this happens the red flags will be shown and the cars will line up on the track near the pitlane.

There will be no news today in Formula 1 as most of the F1 personnel are flying to Australia. The cars have already started to arrive in Melbourne and things should begin to wind up on Thursday when the excitement begins with scrutineering.

There is a big surprise in Australia this week with the news that longtime Australian Grand Prix media chief Geoff Harris is leaving the operation just a few days before the event.

The new Jordan Midland F1 car was unveiled in Moscow on Friday with tobacco brand Sobranie on the cars. Sobranie has appeared on the Jordans before and is a brand owned by Benson & Hedges.

Jacques Regis has been re-elected President of the Federation Francaise du Sport Automobile for a third four-year term. The 60-year-old Frenchman was first elected in 1997 and was re-elected in 2001.

Mark Smith, recently technical director of Jordan and chief designer of Renault, has been hired by Red Bull Racing. The 43-year-old Englishman starts immediately and will presumably be the man in charge of the design of the RB2, the 2006 car.

Ferrari has unveiled the new F2005 which will be used later this year by the Italian team. The team will begin testing with the car immediately and will continue unfettered by the gentleman's agreement between the other teams which have agreed to restrict their testing in order to cut costs.

Stuart Rolt has been elected the new chairman of the British Racing Drivers' Club. He replaces Ray Bellm. Rolt is the son of former Formula 1 driver and Le Mans winner Tony Rolt, who ran the family FF Developments business,

The government of the state of Styria says it will rebuild the A1 Ring despite the fact that Red Bull has withdrawn it support for the project which was to have upgraded the Zeltweg facility to create a top level circuit.

Panasonic Toyota Racing is concentrating its efforts on Formula 1 and cutting back on its Young Driver programme. Only three men will remain in the programme, which was formerly called the Toyota Drivers Academy.

A movie to be called "Villeneuve" is to go into production in 2006 - if all goes to plan. The movie will tell the story of Gilles Villeneuve and his son Jacques, who became Formula 1 World Champion in 1997.

The BMW Williams team is not, as widely reported, in the process of "dumping" aerodynamicist Dr John Davis.

Dutchman Robert Doornbos hoped to race for Jordan this year in F1 but the last-minute takeover of the team by the Midland organisation and the nomination of Narain Karthikeyan and Tiago Monteiro as race drivers and Nicky Pastorelli as the third driver left Doornbos out in the cold.

The Ferrari and Midland F1 teams will be launching their 2005 efforts tomorrow. Ferrari will unveil its car in Maranello while Midland will use Red Square in Moscow.

On Sunday the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control will become law in the 57 countries which have signed up the treaty.

The BAR-Honda team did very well in 2004 and it has been a surprise that this winter the team has not added any new high profile sponsorship deals.

Giancarlo Fisichella is to run a team in the Formula 3000 Italia series.

The recent days have seen a string of stories based on remarks made by Sir Frank Williams and his partner Patrick Head during their annual media lunches before the start of the F1 season.

Antonio Pizzonia is staying with Williams - or at least that is what the team says. When one asks the Brazilian driver about his thoughts the answer is rather less clear cut.

Sir Frank Williams says that BMW will supply Sauber with customer engines in 2006. The Swiss team has decided that it no longer wants to meet the cost of a Ferrari engine.

British F3 driver Adam Carroll and Hayanari Shimoda from Japan will test for SuperNova at Paul Ricard this week.

Williams admits that it has been having problem with the aerodynamics of the new car - but a fix is on the way for Melbourne.

The round of the DTM which had been planned for Moscow has been postponed until 2006 because of the need to get all the necessary requirements sorted out.

The Midland Jordan and Red Bull Racing teams say that they are not going to be pushed into deals with either Formula One Management or the automobile manufacturers which are building an alternative series for 2008.

The French Signature Formula 3 team has confirmed that it will run two of its own SLC R1 chassis in the forthcoming Formula 3 Euroseries with drivers Guillaume Moreau and Fabio Carbone.