Formula One News — December 2006

Adrian Campos is a very wealthy man. The maternal grandson of industrialist Luis Suner Sanchis, Campos and his brother sold the family's huge refrigerated food business back in 1991.

The tobacco world is no longer a part of Formula 1 - despite some red and white chevrons that will be seen on the Ferraris - but it is worth noting that the industry continues to consolidate and that Japan Tobacco, backer for many years of the Renault F1 team, is buying Britain's Gallaher Group Plc for $14.7bn.

Jean Todt, the boss of Ferrari, says that he would have retired from the team if Michael Schumacher, Ross Brawn and Paolo Martinelli had not all departed at once. The Frenchman told Le Figaro that he did not feel that it was right to jump ship at the same time and so stayed on to hold the fort.

Marco Andretti will climb aboard a Honda F1 car today in Jerez, Spain, marking the return of America's most famous racing name to F1 for the first time since 1993, when his father Michael departed McLaren in less than happy circumstances.

Sebastien Bourdais should not need to feel the urge to prove himself to anyone. With three Champ Car titles to his name he has shown that he is a top driver - even if Champ Car is not considered in Formula 1 circles to be what once it was.

Formula 1 is looking to the future with vague ideas of biodiesel-powered turbo engines in the medium term but by then Audi will possibly have achieved victory in the Le Mans 24 Hours using biofuels.

Williams remains tight-lipped on the subject of whether or not the team has hired Renault F1 engineer Rod Nelson. What is clear is that Nelson is on gardening leave at Renault and will not be rejoining the team - so it is really just a question of where he turns up next.

FIA President Max Mosley is talking about promotion and relegation again, hoping to create a structure in which the top GP2 team could move into Formula 1 and the weaker F1 teams could drop out of the sport.

The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg has ruled Germany has to implement a ban tobacco advertising in newspapers, magazines, radio and on the internet and also comply with regulations banning cross-border sponsoring of events, such as Formula 1.

Mike Janes, the man who has been running Cosworth's race engineering team this year, has left the Northamptonshire company and is to take up a new role as the team manager of the new Ilmor MotoGP team.

Ron Dennis had a meeting with some of the British F1 media last week and discussed a little about whether or not the team will be sold to Mercedes-Benz. For some time there have been rumours that a deal was done last summer and our sources are absolutely certain that a sale is taking place.

The talk at the launch of the new BMW Sauber supercomputer was that Ferrari will soon begin work on a second windtunnel to complement the current facility at Maranello.

BMW Sauber this morning revealed a new generation of supercomputer with mind-blowing capabilities to help the team develop better Formula 1 cars. The computer, known as Albert 2, can complete 12, 288, 000 000 000 calculations per second, which enables the team to get five times the performance of the previous computer.

BMW Sauber boss Dr Mario Theissen says it is going to be hard for the FIA to control aerodynamic development in Formula 1.

Scott Speed, the only American driver in Formula 1, will replace injured NASCAR cahmpion Jimmie Johnson in the Race of Champions on Saturday in Paris. Johnson suffered a broken left wrist when he fell off the roof of a golf cart while horsing about in Florida.

Tom Walkinshaw is the proud new owner of the Elfin car company - Australia's best known manufacturer of racing machinery - and the builder of some interesting road cars in recent years.

Bringing in Sebastien Bourdais for a test and telling pressmen that the drivers are not guaranteed for 2007 is a great way for Scuderia Toro Rosso to motivate its current incumbents to want to stay for the future.

There is much chatter at the moment about Honda colour schemes for next year and indeed about why the team is currently running in plain black. The explanation is very simple.

There is talk in Formula 1 circles at the moment of trying to organise a test in Malaysia in March next year, in order to try to make sense of the daft calendar that was presented - with a three week gap between the Australian and Malaysian GPs and then a mad dash to get everything to Bahrain.

Sebastien Bourdais has been trying to break into Formula 1 for years. The 27-year-old Frenchman went to America in 2003 after being unable to find an F1 drive despite winning the International Formula 3000 title.

Juan-Pablo Montoya's participation in the Rolex 24 at Daytona will provide him another opportunity to race Jeff Gordon,

The FIA Prizegiving Gala in Monte Carlo is beginning to expand and has started handing out new awards in addition to simply doling out the usual trophies to its champions. This year's haul included FIA Gold Medals for Sir Stirling Moss and the retiring Michael Schumacher.

Rising American star Marco Andretti is to test for Honda Racing F1 at Jerez on Friday.

The World Motor Sport Council met in Monaco this morning and made the following decisions. As plan ned F1 will undergo considerable change in the years ahead with a switch towards renewable energy to make the sport more relevant to the motor industry.

Efforts to cut costs in F1 are never easy to achieve because there is always opposition from engineers who believe that the sport should be given more freedom to develop rather than increased restriction.