Formula One News — August 2005

Narain Karthikeyan hopes to stay in Formula 1 next year with the newly-branded Midland team. But a lot of water has to pass under the bridge before that happens. The major problem appears to be money.

Valentino Rossi is a very promotable young man. At 26 he is top of the world in motorcycle racing, having won four consecutive 500cc/MotoGP titles. He is leading this year's championship in dominant fashion and has just signed to ride for Yamaha again in 2006.

Fifteen teams turned up for the first collective test for the new A1 Grand Prix series at Silverstone with A1 Team Great Britain setting the pace thanks to the efforts of Robbie Kerr, who set the pace with a lap of the national circuit of 48.888s.

Two people were killed last night when a bomb exploded in Pendik, a town to the east of Istanbul, about seven miles from the new Formula 1 circuit. The blast followed the recent trend of bombs in the country, being hidden in a garbage bin.

Ferrari's need for cash in Formula 1 could be answered if parent company Fiat could sell more cars and to this end the embattled Italian car company has announced plans to launch 20 new models in the next three years in order to turn the company around.

Reports that Jenson Button could spend a year on the sidelines of F1 should not be taken too seriously.

Rubens Barrichello had a multi-million dollar contract with Ferrari for 2006 and had chosen to give it up. It does not take a rocket scientist to work out that the only reason for the 33-year-old Brazilian to do that is because he has a better deal somewhere.

The announcement that Rubens Barrichello is moving from Ferrari to be replaced by Felipe Massa sends out a clear message in the F1 fraternity: being a test driver these days is a ticket to nowhere.

Jenson Button and his management have made a pig's ear of things in recent days over the question of whether or not the British youngster will move from BAR Honda to Williams in 2006.

Jeroen Bleekemolen has been signed as the reserve driver for A1 Team Netherlands, alongside Jos Verstappen.

Ferrari has announced that Felipe Massa will race for the team next year, the deal being based on an option that has existed since 2001.

Red Bull Racing has decided that Christian Klien will be given the chance to race for the team again in Turkey and at Monza. Tonio Liuzzi will continue his apprenticeship as the team's third driver and is now expected to take over the second car in Belgium.

Yuji Ide (Mobilecast Impul) won his second victory of the year in Formula Nippin at the weekend, leading home Ronnie Quintarelli (Kondo) by 15 seconds at the end of a long hot race at Mine.

The European and British anti-tobacco legislation, which came into effect on Monday, may not be as effective as had been planned.

Officially Eckhard Cordes is still the boss of Mercedes-Benz, but sources in Germany indicate that as soon as it became clear that Jurgen Schrempp, the boss of Mercedes's parent DaimlerChrysler, was going to be departing the business, Cordes made his feeling known to the company's supervisory board.

Formula 1 folk do not discuss strategy much these days because it is almost impossible to know what to expect on a Sunday until we have seen a few laps of the race and with a track like the Hungaroring things are much more complicated.

Max Mosley switched the meeting planned for today from Cannes to Nice to make it easier for the F1 drivers to get there and it seems that things went well.

According to reports in the British press Ferrari is going to try to dodge the European tobacco ban, using the argument that the Italian Grand Prix is a national event rather than a cross-border competition.

There are ructions going on with the management at DaimlerChrysler following the news that chairman Jurgen Schrempp is to stand down. German newspapers are reporting that Schrempp will be followed out of the door by Mercedes-Benz chairman Eckhard Cordes