Formula One News — November 2005

Pedro de la Rosa won the Race of Stars kart in Colombia on Sunday by playing it safe.

Justin Wilson won the Champ Car finale in Mexico City, leading home his team mate AJ Allmendinger on a day dominated by the RuSport team.

There are now 100 countries which have ratified the World Health Organisation's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the international anti-tobacco treaty which binds its signatories to get rid of tobacco advertising.

Fourteen former F1 drivers have confirmed for the GP Masters event at Kyalami next week.

FIA GT driver Thomas Biagi will be testing for Jordan at Jerez, Spain in December 2005. Biagi will also participate in the Bologna Motorshow later that month.

Juan Pablo Montoya's annual Race of Stars karting event returns to the streets of Cartagena, in his home country of Colombia, with a strong international flavour led by IndyCar champion Dan Wheldon.

Ferrari continues to test at every possible moment with a lengthy test last week at Vallelunga and plans for a four-day test in Bahrain in the middle of November.

Mark Preston has confirmed that he is the Chief Technical Officer of the new Super Aguri F1 team, based at the team's headquarters at Leafield.

In a rare switch from its established philosophy, Foster's, Australia's most recognisable brand name worldwide, has announced that it is to sponsor A1 Team Australia. Normally Foster's sponsors individuals or events.

One of our eagle-eyed readers, Michael Tomkins, has drawn our attention to an interesting point which has just come to light about the new Super Aguri F1 team. The company, Super Aguri F1 Ltd was incorporated on October 31 this year with its address listed as the Leafield Technical Centre.

There has been talk for some days that the Grand Prix Manufacturers Association is to be headed by former Honda F1 president Shoichi Tanaka, who retired earlier this year as head of the Japanese company's F1 operations, after a long and successful career with Honda.

Following yesterday's statement by the World Health Organization about country's ignoring a European tobacco ban it is worth noting that Yamaha is to drop its Gauloises colour scheme at this weekend's MotoGP race in Valencia.

Williams F1 has confirmed the appointment of Nico Rosberg as a team race driver for next season.

Over in Japan there seem to be a lot of people getting very excited about Super Aguri Racing's planned assault on Formula 1 with Honda but one has to wonder whether this really makes sense for Honda.

Australia this weekend hosts the fourth round of the A1 Grand Prix series in the face of an attempt to stop it using the term Grand Prix by the organisers of the country's Formula 1 race.

The World Health Organization is going public to try to make sure that the European Union ban on tobacco advertising is not being flouted. The WHO says that eight member countries have yet to confirm to the European Commission that they are enforcing the measures, including Germany and Spain.

Aguri Suzuki faces a problem in getting his chassis designed in time to start the 2006 Formula 1 World Championship season. But that might not be quite as big a problem as some would imagine.

As we exclusively reported recently, Franz Tost has been named as the team principal of Squadra Toro Rosso. He will take up the role on January 1 2006. The 49 year old Austrian has been Track Operation Manager at BMW Motorsport since June 2000.

There has been much talk in recent days of compromise and the various FIA meetings appear to have gone off without any major blow-ups but that does not mean that the Grand Prix Manufacturers Association has gone away, or indeed altered any of its stated goals.

The Midland Group has announced that Christijan Albers will be one of its race drivers in 2006.

Aguri Suzuki says that he has not yet made any decisions about his drivers for 2006 and there is already speculation in Japan that Kosuke Matsuura could be one of the drivers.

Aguri Suzuki filed his entry for the 2006 Formula 1 World Championship on October 26. The team must now wait until December 1 to find out whether or not the entry will be accepted.

Dave Clapham has died at the age of 74. He was a major figure in the development of motorsport in South Africa, starting out as a competitor in 1956 and becoming the manager of Sports Car Cub of South Africa in 1960.

Aguri Suzuki was the second Japanese racing driver to become a Formula 1 regular, following in the footsteps of pioneer Satoru Nakajima. Suzuki had raced karts from the age of 12 and made his debut in racing with three races in Formula 3 (straight from karts) in 1979.

Penske Racing, the second oldest team in the Indy Racing League, is moving its operational headquarters from Reading, Pennsylvania to Mooresville, North Carolina. Penske has been based in Reading since in 1973 after moving there from Philadelphia, where the team was established in 1966.