Formula One News — April 2007

Bernie Ecclestone says that he would like to see an Asian version of GP2 in Asia during the winter months, in order to help the sport grow in the emerging markets.

The surge of interest in motorsport in the Middle East has resulted in a number of race tracks and proposed race tracks in Bahrain, Dubai and Qatar. Abu Dhabi has also jumped on tne bandwagon and now Kuwait says it wants to join the party.

Nigel Mansell will race a Scuderia Ecosse Ferrari 430 GT car in the FIA GT Championship race at Silverstone on May 6. It is 15 years since Mansell won the Formula 1 World Championship and 12 since he departed F1 after an embarrassing interlude with McLaren.

The forthcoming GP Masters event in Bucharest appears to be in danger because the promoter seems to be having second thoughts about fees he needs to pay to the series taking part.

Sheikh Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa , the Crown Prince of Bahrain, has acquired 30% of ART Grand Prix and its sister operation ASM in Formula 3. The remaining shares in the teams are shared equally between founder Frederic Vasseur and Nicolas Todt, the son of Ferrari team boss Jean Todt, who is also the manager of Felipe Massa.

Former F1 driver Tomas Enge is on the road to recovery after his heavy accident in the recent American Le Mans Series race at St Petersburg. The Czech driver suffered serious elbow injuries which required reconstructive surgery.

There have been a large number of different rumours about the future of Scuderia Toro Rosso with the Austrian media convinced that Dietrich Mateschitz will sell his share in the team.

Will Power drove to his first Champ Car victory at the weekend on the streets of Las Vegas. The 26-year-old Australian was on pole and despite a bad start was able to get back into the lead to win for Derrick Walker's Team Australia, ahead of rookie Robert Doornbos (Team Minardi USA) and Paul Tracy (Forsythe Racing).

Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro went to Malaysia with a collective spring in its step. The Melbourne win had been dominant and Ferrari was confident that it had a car that was well clear of the opposition. And thus the Italian team got a hell of a shock as Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton blitzed the red cars in the race, scoring a solid 1-2 result. The first for McLaren for many a moon.

Although a deal has yet to be struck the planning for the street circuit in Singapore is well advanced with Hermann Tilke's engineering team having now come up with a masterplan for the track

Malaysian GP - Race Notes

Malaysian GP - Sunday Photos

Malaysian GP - Sunday Press Conference

Malaysian GP - Sunday Team Quotes

Malaysian GP - Race Results

Felipe Massa took pole position for the Malaysian Grand Prix on a hot and sticky Saturday afternoon in Kuala Lumpur. It was a perfect lap from the Ferrari driver, who had been overshadowed in Melbourne by Kimi Raikkonen.

Malaysian GP - Saturday Photos

Malaysian GP - Saturday Press Conference

Malaysian GP - Saturday Team Quotes

Malaysian GP - Qualifying Results

Malaysian GP - Practice 3 Results

At the recent Formula Nippon race at Mount Fuji, the Japanese introduced a new idea to motor racing when a string quartet went to work outside the Mobilecast Team Impul garage.

The Zandvoort Masters of Formula 3, the traditional midseason gathering of the Formula 3 teams from around Europe, will take place this year at Zolder in Belgium.

Target Chip Ganassi Racing, PDM Racing and Playa Del Racing have all now put in entries for the Indy 500 bringing the number of cars to 32 although there is no word on who will drive the PDM and Playa Del Racing entries.

Both Flavio Briatore and Jean Todt made subconscious errors yesterday during the Malaysian Gp press conferences when they made reference to their drivers. Briatore mentioned "Fernando and Heikki" when saying how happy he was with the current driver line-up, a slip of the tongue that will not be very confidence-inspiring for Giancarlo Fisichella.