Formula One News — February 2005

Today the iSe company will make a presentation to the Formula 1 teams (other than Ferrari) explaining to them the plans they have drawn up for the future of Grand Prix racing.

A year ago Jacques Regis, the president of the Federation Francaise du Sport Automobile (FFSA), the promoter of the French Grand Prix, told reporters that the FFSA was paying Bernie Ecclestone $11.9m for the right to host the event. This year, in launching the event, he was not as forthcoming with information.

The Financial Times is reporting that Fiat is about to announce a major restructuring of its car brands, following the decision by General Motors to buy its way out of the agreement which would have seen the US giant forced to take on Fiat Auto's debts.

The British Racing Drivers' Club rarely stays out of the news for long and the latest press release is a real humdinger when it comes to political interpretation. Sir Jackie Stewart says he is not going to contribute the same amount of time to the club as he has done in the last five years.

Minardi has announced that its second driver this year will be Austrian Patrick Friesacher. The former Red Bull driver has been a winner in Formula 3000 in 2003 and 2004 and moves to F1 having done some test drives with Minardi in the past.

McLaren usually like to make announcements about their drivers but it seems that Pedro de la Rosa has told a Spanish newspaper that he will be the third driver at McLaren for the first three races of the season.

Later today at the Casino in Velden, a town on the Worther See near Klagenfurt, in Austria Minardi is expected to reveal whether Patrick Friesacher will be the team's second driver this year or whether he will be the third driver.

There has been a lot in print in recent days about Minardi's involvement in the Australian Grand Prix and whether or not the small Italian-based team should be allowed to run 2004 cars for the first three races.

Wasserman Media Group, the company which is aiming to make Formula 1 racing big in the United States is expanding fast at the moment. Wasserman is in partnership with DIC Entertainment in a company called Grand Prix Entertainment (GPE).

Bernie Ecclestone has taken on a new legal team in an effort to hold on to management control of the Formula One group. Ecclestone was previously represented by Lovells.

General Motors will pay Fiat $2bn to end their five-year relationship and avoid being forced to acquire Fiat Auto, the debt laden car company owned by the Italian conglomerate.

There are rumours, leaked no doubt, that there is a possibility that Minardi could be excluded from the Australian Grand Prix because the team intends to run 2004 cars.

Former Formula 1 winner Maurice Trintignant has died at the age of 87. Born into a family that was involved in racing, Trintignant grew up watching his brother Louis racing a Bugatti but in 1933 he crashed while testing for the Grand Prix de Picardie on the Peronne circuit.

It does not take a rocket scientist to work out that with Narain Karthikeyan in an Formula 1 car this year, albeit at the back of the grid, there will be increased interest in Formula 1 in India.

Hewlett-Packard is the primary sponsor of the Williams F1 team and the US technology firm is very keen on its involvement in F1 as it spreads the word about HP computers across the world.

There were reports last week that Mexico's Mario Dominguez was going to pop up testing for Jordan. These stories were initially denied by the team but then Dominguez turned up on Friday and did one single installation lap on Friday before the test was cut short because of the foggy conditions.

It looks like Austrian Patrick Friesacher will be driving the second Minardi this year as the team has scheduled a press conference for Austria on Tuesday. The original plan was for a press conference to be held in Copenhagen to announce a deal with Nicolas Kiesa.

Students of the real world in Formula 1 will have noticed that last week the new Ukrainian government headed by Yulia Timoshenko announced that it is to reverse the controversial sale of the state-owned Kryvorizhstal steel works so that the firm can go back on the market at a higher price.

It is often forgotten in the course of the political battles in motor racing that the sport is actually an entertainment business and that the people in the grandstands want to have a good time and see a good show. In exchange they will part with their hard-earned money.

The FIA President Max Mosley had lunch yesterday with members of the British media and mentioned in passing that one of the independent teams in F1 is, he thinks, in the process of being sold. The remark has been interpreted that it must mean that Sauber is up for sale.

It seems that the mystery over the ownership of Jordan is not a mystery at all as Blackbear Limited, the majority shareholder in Jordan Grand Prix, is not unrelated to Eddie Jordan, even if he had independent legal help in the recent sale of the team to the Midland Group.

There are reports today that Bernie Ecclestone has upped his offer to the Formula 1 teams to as much as 50% of the total income of Formula 1 from 2008 onwards, but the reality is that this offer is much the same as was on the table before when there were previous discussions about money.

The Toyota Motor Corporation has named a new president but it is not thought it will have any effect at all on the company's strategy in Formula 1. The new president is 62-year-old Katsuaki Watanabe, who was previously executive vice-president in charge of business development.

As we reported, Tony George has announced that he will be running his own team in the Indy Racing League in 2005 and will run his step-son Ed Carpenter in IRL and rising star Jay Drake in the Infiniti Pro Series.

Nicolas Kiesa was due to be confirmed as a Minardi driver this week but nothing has been heard about the Danish driver and thus it is safe to assume that he is still trying to get the necessary money together to fund the drive.