Formula One News — January 2006

Japan Tobacco will announce later today that it is withdrawing from Formula 1 at the end of the 2006 season. The company has been involved in the sport since 1992 when its Cabin brand sponsored Tyrrell and it switched to Benetton in 1994 with Mild Seven.

Fernando Alonso has been talking about his decision to leave Renault to join McLaren in 2007.

Carlos Ghosn, the president and CEO of Renault, has been talking about F1.

The Renault F1 team says that it intends use success in F1 much more to sell cars.

Carlos Ghosn, the boss of Renault, has given no long-term guarantees for the future of the French car company in Formula 1. The team, he said, needs good results to remain in the sport in the future.

Renault Sport chairman Patrick Faure says that the team must aim for more world titles this year.

The news that the British Racing Drivers' Club has the basis of a deal with St Modwen to redevelop the facility has created problems within the consistently problematical club with some members beginning to argue that the planned 150-year lease which will be granted to St Modwen is not the best answer.

Germany's leading motor sport politician Hermann Tomczyk says that he does not see why the country should have two Grands Prix and says that he can easily see a situation in which the German GP is switched between Hockenheim and Nurburgring.

Eighteen months ago France's Jacques Regis was openly critical of Max Mosley'st policies and was even being mentioned as a possible candidate to face the FIA President in elections.

Dan Wheldon may not have got a Formula 1 drive this winter but the Englishman is adding to his list of successes all the time and has now won the Daytona 24 Hours to add to his successes in the Indy Racing League and his win in the Indianapolis 500.

Although the motorsport industry has not been represented at the World Economic Summit at Davos in Switzerland we hear that Tata Consultancy Services has used the opportunity to highlight its involvement with the sport as a technology partner of Ferrari by displaying a Ferrari F2003 GA in one of the cafes in the town.

The British Racing Drivers' Club has confirmed that St Modwen Properties plc has been chosen as its proposed preferred developer and the board is seeking the approval of the members to move ahead with the deal.

Although Mercedes-Benz is saying that everything is in order the rest of the F1 circus is picking up the vibes that there are serious problems with the new engine and even Kimi Raikkonen is now beginning to make complaining noises that the Stuttgart company's engine-makers are not where there need to be.

The Williams car launch and announcement of Narain Karthikeyan as the team's fourth driver stole much of the thunder yesterday but what was not noticed was that the team took the opportunity to bring onboard some new sponsors, each with potential for the future.

Today Williams F1 unveiled the team's latest challenger, the FW28 powered by a Cosworth V8, at their Grove headquarters, with which the team hopes to return to the front-end of the grid after a disappointing season last year.

The World Economic Forum at Davos in Switzerland featured a discussion on the subject of sport, for the first time in the 36-year history of the event.

The FIA has confirmed that Super Aguri F1 has gone through the necessary process for a late entry in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship and will be allowed to compete against the 10 existing teams.

The news that Valentino Rossi is to test for Ferrari next week in Valencia is a clear indication that Ferrari is getting serious about the idea of running the high-profile motorcycle racer in Formula 1 in the future.

Twenty-year-old Dutchman Giedo van der Garde, a protege of Jos Verstaooen, will join reigning Champions ASM for the 2006 F3 Euroseries season. Van der Garde has raced for the past two seasons in the series and should therefore be a title challenger.

Battery, one of Nico Rosberg's sponsors in GP2, has announced a long-term deal to sponsor Williams. The deal will see the Finnish energy drink's logo on the drivers' visors, drinks bottles and in the garage.

The new Team Red Bull Toyota NASCAR team is tipped to be buying the old Penske Racing South facility on Knob Hill Road in Mooresville, North Carolina. Penske recently moved out to a new 425,000 sq ft facility, leaving the old workshops available.

India's respected Business Standard financial newspaper is reporting that Narain Karthikeyan has signed a deal to become the Williams F1 team's second test driver.

Two years ago the Malaysian Minister of Youth and Sport Hishammuddin Tun Hussein said that the government was pushing for qa national team funded by Malaysian corporations.

Juan Pablo Montoya has told the German magazine Auto Motot und Sport that he is shopping around for a drive in 2007. The Colombian has a contract with McLaren until the end of 2006.

Redefining the meaning of the word "manufacturer" is all the rage at the moment.