Formula One News — January 2007

Our spies tell us that Jacques Villeneuve will tomorrow be named as one of the drivers for the Peugeot Sport Le Mans 24 Hours programme. The French company is expected to run the diesel-powered 908 in the Le Mans European Series this year with drivers tipped to be Nicolas Minassian and Stephane Sarrazin.

Formula 1 was built on the Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest: constant competition forced the teams to seek technological breakthroughs and weeded out the companies that were not meant for success.

The new Formula 1 cars for 2007 begin to arrive this year with Toyota winning the race to get a car running first. The new Toyota will appear on Friday, two days before Ferrari plans its launch.

There has been much criticism of Ferrari over the years because of its policy in recent years of having Michael Schumacher as its number one driver.

We are hearing whispers from New Zealand of plans for a movie to be based on the life of Bruce McLaren and produced by some of those involved in the Oscar-winning "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy.

As we reported in December, the Formula 1 teams are not going to waste time when the cars are out in Australia, despite the three-week gap between the Australian and Malaysian GPs.

The FIA World Motor Sport Council has voted to establish a new motor sport Commission, the Formula One Manufacturers' Advisory Commission. As we reported in December, this will be formed of senior employees or officers from BMW, DaimlerChrysler, Ferrari, Honda, Renault and Toyota.

The loss of the V8 Supercars as a support event for the Australian Grand Prix has led the organisers to search for something interesting to keep up the interest and the decision has been taken to run the opening round of the FIM Sidecar World Championship on the Grand Prix programme.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Tony George - the man who runs the United States Grand Prix - decided this year to make a racing comeback despite the fact that he has not driven a race car since 2001.

The plans for Super Aguri F1's 2007 car are now becoming clear. The car will be completely new and will be designed for the team by outside contractor called PeeJayUU Ltd, an engineering consultancy based near Milton Keynes.

It seems that Red Bull will be building the same chassis for Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso in 2007. This is being achieved by using a third party company which is not a signatory to the Concorde Agreement.

Ferrari team boss Jean Todt has been promoted to the position of a Grand Officier of the Legion d'Honneur. This is France's second highest honour and Todt is now one of only 250 Grand Officiers in France.

Sebastien Bourdais enjoyed his Formula 1 test with Scuderia Toro Rosso in December and it seems that he is looking very seriously about a deal in 2008. Bourdais's F1 activities are now being managed by Nicolas Todt, who manages Felipe Massa as well as running the ART GP2 team,

The proliferation of choice that the digital age has brought to consumers has been a problem for many different activities. With a large number of TV channels available and the Internet, TV viewers no longer have to choose between four or five terrestrial channels and that means that audiences have been shrinking.

The Toyota Motor Corporation may not be doing very well in Formula 1 but out in the car markets of the world, the Japanese giant is enjoying huge success and it aims this year to overtake General Motors as the world's biggest car manufacturer.