Formula One News — September 2006

For some weeks now Bridgestone has been pushing for the idea that Formula 1 teams should be allowed to have a choice two different tyre compounds at races in the future - with the fans able to tell the difference by use of coloured sidewalls, a system that is currently being used in Champ Car racing.

The word is that the organisers of the Turkish Grand Prix are to appeal the $5m penalty handed down earlier this week by the FIA World Council. It is not clear whether an appeal is possible but Turkish newspapers are arguing that the problem is being handled by no less a figure than Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Ali Sahin.

The Suzuka Circuit has told the Reuters newsagency that it will not be hosting a race in 2007.

CVC Capital Partners Ltd - the venture capital company that owns the Formula One group - is seeking $5.1bn in order to re-establish itself as the biggest leveraged buy-out firm in Europe.

Peter Sauber says that F1 driver Norberto Fontana's claim that he was ordered by Ferrari to block Jacques Villeneuve at the 1997 championship finale at Jerez is not true.

The mysterious Formula 1 payment that ended up funding the FIA Foundation and secured the commercial rights to F1 for 100 years continues to provide plenty of interest in F1 circles.

The Hungarian government, a staunch supporter of Formula 1, is under pressure at the moment, following the publication of tapes in which Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany said that he and his Socialist party had lied to the electorate in order to win the general election held earlier this year.

The A1 Grand Prix Series kicks off at Zandvoort in Holland on October 1, with a second race planned a week later at Brno in the Czech Republic. The series has had some changes over the winter with the withdrawal of the Austrian, Japanese, Portuguese and Russian teams but has signed by Greece, Turkey and Singapore.

The mystery of the $300m legal action against the Formula One group, filed by Swiss finance company Kamos-Finanz has raised much interest in Formula 1 circles.

Spyker MF1 has named its test drivers for the next three races with Alexandre Premat appearing in China, Adrian Sutil in Japan and Ernesto Viso in Brazil. The team is continuing to test other drivers at the moment and ran Adrian Valles yesterday and will be running Ronnie Quintarelli today.

Nine years after the World Championship showdown at Jerez in 1997, the then Sauber driver Norberto Fontana has decided to tell the story of what happened to him during that highly-charged weekend.

Frenchman Alexandre Premat will be the Spyker MF1 third driver for the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai. Premat will test for the team at Silverstone tomorrow.

The Spyker MF1 team will be running in orange and grey livery from now on. The switch in colour scheme comes after the purchase of the team by a Dutch consortium and will mean that the cars are now much more easy to distinguish than they have been in the past.

The FIA World Motor Sport Council has fined the national sporting authority of Turkey (TOSFED) and the organisers of the Turkish Grand Prix (MSO) a total of $5m as a result of the incident at the recent Turkish Grand Prix.

According to reports in Japan, Toyota will soon announce plans to increase its overseas production by 40% by 2008. If all goes to plan the company will be manufacturing 9.1m cars a year, five million of them in foreign factories.

Jenson Button is to take part in the Race of Champions, scheduled to take place on December 16 at the Stade de France in Paris. Button will represent England while regular RoC name David Coulthard will once again be present, representing Scotland alongside rallying star Colin McRae.

With Poland delighting in the success of Robert Kubica, there are plans for a Formula 1 standard race track in the country. The city of Gdansk, on the Baltic coast, is talking about making a huge investment to build a modern F1 facility and the local authorities have even picked a site near the town of Straszyn

The agreements made in Paris yesterday between the FIA, the Formula 1 teams and the Grand Prix Manufacturers' Association have moved the sport a little further towards a final settlement that will lay the foundations for the next Concorde Agreement.

The FIA has announced that it is planning to push back the introduction of its planned aerodynamic regulations from 2008 to 2009 to allow more research into the subject. previously the FIA had been insisting that teams would have to use the CDG" rear wing idea.

Today is the day when the FIA World Council will decide what to do about the Turkish Grand Prix podium business with a special session to hear representatives of national sporting authority TOSFED and the race promoter MSO.

The third Midland F1 has been a bit of a rent-a-car this year with a series of different youngsters having a go in the car. Giorgio Mondini has appeared nine times, Markus Winkelhock four and Adrian Sutil twice.

With the Formula 1 teams not racing last weekend, the biggest event taking place was the NASCAR Nextel Cup race at the New Hampshire International Speedway where Kavin Harvick of Richard Childress Racing winning the first event that counts towards this year's Chase to the Cup.

Olivier Panis is retiring from Formula 1 after 12 years in the business and Toyota is to replace him and Ricardo Zonta with France's Franck Montagny.

The Black Sea coastline has long been a favourite place for people to take their holidays and as the countries bordering the Black Sea open up to western ideas, so ambitions are beginning to grow.

The latest reports of the Formula One group of companies has revealed that there is a law suit against one of the companies (SLEC) and against the Ecclestone Family holding company Bambino, relating to a loan of $235m made five years ago by the Swiss banking firm of Kamos-Finanz.