Formula One News — February 2007

Colin Kolles, the boss of the Spyker F1 team, was in fighting form at the launch of the team's new car on Monday at Silverstone. Kolles is upset at the suggestion that the Toro Rosso and Super Aguri F1 cars will be little more than customer versions of the Red Bull and Honda chassis.

The testing at Jerez on Tuesday gave Williams the first opportunity to show off the new FW29 and the times at the end of the first day suggest that the car is pretty competitive. Alexander Wurz finished the day having completed 73 laps with a best time of 1m20.035s, just a fraction slower than Pedro de la Rosa's McLaren.

Tom Wheatcroft had a dream when he first acquired Donington Park in 1973. As a youngster he had watched the Donington Grands Prix of the 1930s, in which the great German racing teams had competed, and he wanted to see Grand Prix cars back at what is Britain's oldest surviving racing circuit.

The news that Giedo Van der Garde is switching his allegiance from Super Aguri F1 to Spyker makes very little sense on the face of it - but there is obviously rather more to it all behind the scenes.

The Spyker F1 team unveiled its F8-VII design on Monday at Silverstone with a complicated explanation about how the car ended up with its designation, although beneath the new orange livery is aa car that owes much to the old Midland M16.

Lee Gill and Simon Gillett are the new owners of Donington Park. They come from very diverse backgrounds with Gill having spent much of his career at Marks & Spencer PLC, where he held several executive positions, working mainly in the supply chain.

ASM has announced its full four-driver line-up for the Formula 3 Euroseries with Kamui Kobayashi and Nico Hulkenberg being joined by Romain Grosjean and Tom Dillmann. The pressure will be on the four men as the team has now won the title for the last three years with Jamie Green, Lewis Hamilton and Paul di Resta.

Donington Park has been acquired in its entirety by a new company called Donington Ventures Leisure Ltd (DVLL). This company was founded last year by Simon Gillett and Lee Gill, who say that they intend to develop the racing circuit and to widen the appeal of the facility in other leisure and entertainment activities.

Marco Andretti will be back in an F1 Honda this week in Jerez and with grandfather, former F1 World Champion Mario Andretti, expected to attend the test to see his grandson in action, one has to ask what in the world is going on.

Today, no doubt, we will learn more about the history behind Spyker signing up Dutchman Giedo Van der Garde, when he had already been announced as a Super Aguri F1 test driver.

As we exclusively reported two weeks ago. Abu Dhabi will host a Grand Prix in 2009 on a new racing circuit on Yas Island which will combine a 1.8-mile permanent circuit with a special 1.5-mile section running through a built-up area and around a marina.

Marco Andretti will be back in action again with Honda F1 next week in Jerez. It will be second test for the young American and the word is that this time he will be accompanied to the test by his grandfather, former F1 World Champion Mario Andretti.

Williams F1 has pulled off a major coup by signing up Lenovo as a major new sponsor. Lenovo is the third largest personal computer company in the world but is little known as the brand was only a minor player before it acquired the PC businesses of IBM in May 2005.

AT&T Williams launched its Williams-Toyota FW29 this morning at the team factory at Grove in Oxfordshire with the announcement of a major new long term sponsorship with Lenovo, a global leader in the international PC market.

The Williams team will be launching its new car tomorrow and, if rumours are to be believed, it will also bre announcing the start of a big new sponsorship deal with the Chinese computer Lenovo.

Nigel Stepney has not left Ferrari yet and the chances are that he may still stay with the team, where he has been for the last 13 years, overseeing the team and making sure that everything runs smoothly.

The idea that Philip Morris might use food brands for its Formula 1 sponsorship was always a little tenuous but now it seems even less likely with the news that the company is finally planning to spin off its food operations, operating as Kraft Foods, in order to leave both companies in a better position to expand.