Formula One News — October 2006

A wet session in Suzuka started the Japanese GP meeting off on a low note as only a dozen drivers were seen in action. Only four of the race drivers did more than one shakedown run and it was left to the test drivers to do the work.

Japanese GP - Practice 1 Results

Japanese GP - Thursday Press Conference

Fernando Alonso does not seem to be such a happy man at the moment but the Spaniard knows that there are just two races to go in the World Championship and then he can take a well-earned rest and start to think about his future with McLaren.

Damon Hill, the president of the British Racing Drivers Club, has opened a new conference centre at Silverstone, the facility is part of the Silverstone Innovation Centre.

F1 refugee Juan Pablo Montoya will race today in the Food World 250 at Talladega Superspeedway and began his stock car career with a lap of 191.765mph in a draft with four other drivers.

Michael Schumacher's retirement and the disappearances of Jacques Villeneuve and Juan Pablo Montoya mean that the older generation of F1 drivers has been cropped back considerably and the next man to feel the heat of impending retirement is none other than David Coulthard.

The Spyker MF1 team has announced a three-year sponsorship with Leaseplan, a Dutch car leasing business. This is no surprise at all because of the style in which the the team is now doing its deals.

Michael Schumacher's manager Willi Weber has won substantial damages for libel in a judgement in the High Court against Business F1 magazine.

The Dutch financial company ING has confirmed that it is in talks about the sponsorship of Renault.

Jean Todt hinted after the Chinese Grand Prix that Ferrari would be watching Renault closely to see what tactics the team employed in the battle for the World Championship.

Sir Frank Williams thinks that Formula 1 is heading into a new fight over customer cars, saying that the plan to have cars on sale was not designed to allow big teams to expand their operations but was only agreed upon in order to help small teams survive.

Renault, Nissan and GM have terminated their discussions about a global alliance, bringing to an end the French company's hopes of propelling itself into the big league in America by effectively taking over the management of General Motors.

NASCAR is taking its Busch Series to Montreal next season with a race planned on the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on August 4, two months after the Formula 1 cars run there.

Andreas Zuber, the Dubai-based Austrian, topped the timesheets of a major GP2 test at Paul Ricard as a new generation of GP2 drivers began testing for the first time. Zuber, driving for iSport International, was two-tenths faster than Giorgio Pantano, who is now with Campos Racing.

While there has been talk of a deal between Renault and Dutch bank ABN Amro, we hear that it is far more likely that Renault will do a big deal with rival bank ING. We hear that the basis of a deal is done and that it could be worth as much as $50m a year for five years.

There have been rumours in recent days about the Dutch bank ABN Amro becoming the title sponsor of the Renault F1 team. These have been denied - and that is not a surprise as ABN Amro is involved in F1 for different reasons

The Australian Grand Prix lost $15.6m in 2006, according to the financial results presented to the Victorian state parliament on Wednesday.

There are reports from Italy that Jacques Villeneuve has signed a deal with Jack Roush to race for the Roush Racing organisation in NASCAR.

Although Paul Stoddart still owns the rights to the name Minardi F1, Giancarlo Minardi is moving back up the motor racing ladder and has just merged its Euro 3000 operation with the Piquet Sports GP2 team.

Tonio Liuzzi was a great kart racer in his day, winning the World Super A Championship in 2001 - beating none other than Michael Schumacher in the final race of the year at Schumacher's own home track at Kerpen.

We hear that Dan Wheldon is still looking for a way to break into Formula 1 and could be seen testing for one of the F1 teams in the course of the winter months.

Ferrari team boss Jean Todt always like to appear to be the controlling force in whatever he does but that is not always the case. The current negotiations between Ferrari and Red Bull over engines for 2007 are a good example of this.

Chinese GP - Race Report

Anthony Davidson is expected to be confirmed later this week in Tokyo as one of the drivers of Super Aguri F1 for 2007. The 27-year-old British driver has been a test driver with BAR since 2001.