Formula One News — May 2007

The dangers of reading too much into testing times on Fridays have been highlighted this afternoon in Barcelona with Fernando Alonso going fastest for McLaren in front of an appreciative local crowd.

Spanish GP - Friday Photos

Spanish GP - Friday Press Conference

Spanish GP - Friday Team Quotes

The FIA has appointed automotive technology and engineering specialists Ricardo to provide technical support and advice on the development of future regulations.

Spanish GP - Practice 2 Results

Singapore Minister of State S Iswaran has told reporters in Singapore that the city will be holding a Formula 1 race next year in either late September or early October. It is not expected that the race will be a night event.

Lewis Hamilton set the pace in the first test session for the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona with a lap that was four-tenths of a second faster than his team-mate Fernando Alonso. The two McLarens surprised by being ahead of the Ferraris which had been expected to lead the way after some very good testing times last week.

Spanish GP - Practice 1 Results

With practice winding up at Indianapolis Scott Dixon has moved to the top of the speeds recorded with a fastest lap of 226.473mph in his Target Chip Ganassi car, but he was only a fraction faster than Danica Patrick, who has found more speed in her Andretti Green entry and was the fastest of the five team cars at 226.358mph.

Ben Agathangelou, who headed the aerodynamic team at Red Bull Racing before the arrival of McLaren's Peter Prodromou, has left the Milton Keynes team. Agathangelou has spent his entire career in F1, starting in 1994 when he joined McLaren after graduating in aeronautics and astronautics at the University of Southampton.

Renault has won planning permission to build a new computational fluid design facility at the team's base at the Whiteways Technical Centre in Enstone. The new building will be partially underground and will be linked to the existing facilities.

Spanish GP - Thursday Press Conference

The deal for Valencia to hold the European Grand Prix for the next seven years is conditional on the regional council president Francisco Camps winning an election later this month. If Camps is successful the race will go ahead next year on a street circuit which will run around the port area and up towards the city centre.

Bernie Ecclestone will be hosting a press conference later today in the city of Valencia, with the president of the regional council Francisco Camps. It is ancipated that this will be the announcement that Valencia has secured the European Grand Prix for 2008.

Later today Dale Earnhardt Jr will hold a press conference at which he is expected to announce that he is leaving his late father's DEI organisation at the end of the year.

Bernie Ecclestone has opened fire on Silverstone, slightly earlier in the year than usual, by telling Autosport magazine that he is not interested in dealing with the British Racing Drivers' Club because "you get no guarantees with them".

There are reports in Asia that Singapore is going to miss the chance to host a Formula 1 race in 2008 because the locals cannot make up their minds how to fund the event.

There are reports in Spain this morning that the government of the Valencia province in Spain has agreed a deal with Bernie Ecclestone to run a European Grand Prix on a street race in the city in 2008.

Frank Dernie has been an engineer in F1 and other top levels of motor racing since the late 1970s but. Having recently parted company with Williams, Dernie has decided to look at pastures new and has taken on the job of being a member of the Technical Compliance Committee of the P1 Powerboat World Championship.

On May 8, 1982, Gilles Villeneuve was fatally injured during the final qualifying session for the Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder. He was trying to beat his team mate Didier Pironi's best lap time when he came up to pass Jochen Mass's Rothmans March.

Renault World Series frontrunner Mikhail Aleshin will be replacing the injured Michael Ammermuller at ART Grand Prix in the GP2 race in Barcelona. The 19-year-old Russian, who became the first Russian driver to win a major international single-seater race when he won the opening round of this year's World Series, is a Red Bull sponsored driver and is racing this year for Carlin Motorsport.

Nico Hulkenberg, who showed very well in the A1GP Series, is being heavily promoted at the moment by his manager Willi Weber, the man who managed Michael Schumacher.

NASCAR has been getting an increasing amount of engine technology from F1 in recent years, with a number of firms with F1 experience working closely with teams to develop the old stock block V8 engines that are still being used in the series.

Michael Ammermuller, who drives for the ART Grand Prix GP2 team and is Red Bull Racing's test driver, is currently out of action because of a fracture to the scaphoid bone in his wrist as a result of his accident with Kazuki Nakajima in the first GP2 race in Bahrain.