Formula One News — May 2007

Ferrari dominated last week's Barcelona testing during which Felipe Massa was quoted, saying that the development of the F2007 was "at least half a second faster than before". This is bad news for the opposition and there have been suggestions that when practice begins in Spain later this week we may see Ferrari as much as a second ahead of everyone. And this has been achieved even with Ferrari having redesigned the floor of its cars to withstand the FIA's flexibility tests.

Energy Efficient Motorsport, a programme which is run by Motorsport Development UK, a collaboration between the Department of Trade and Industry, four regional development agencies, the sport and the industry that supports it, has announced that Geoff Goddard, Professor in Motorsport Engineering Design at Oxford Brookes University, is to be its first EEMS Ambassador. His role will be to help stimulate energy efficiency in motorsport.

Motorsport in France has been in the doldrums since the days when Guy Ligier had the ear of President Francois Mitterand and his team was supported by a string of government-controlled companies.

Nigel Mansell returned to racing at the weekend, finishing seventh in a Ferrari (which he shared with Chris Niarchos) in the FIA GT event. This naturally drew some attention and Mansell was happy to expound a little.

Tomas Enge will be back in action on May 19 at the wheel of his Petersen Motorsports/White Lightning ALMS Ferrari in Salt Lake City, a month ahead of schedule. The Czech former F1 driver crashed heavily at St Petersburg on March 31, smashing his left elbow.

It was a quiet weekend for single-seater racing with much of the action being with touring and sports cars. At Indianapolis the first running began for the 500 with rookie and refresher tests led by Michael Andretti lapping the track at 219.871mph ahead of Ryan Briscoe (218.215mph), Davey Hamilton (218.022mph), Jacques Lazier (216.467mph) and Milka Duno (214.128 mph).

Richard Petty, who is known in the United States as "The King" thanks to his extraordinary success in NASCAR racing, is flying to Louisville, Kentucky today to attend the 133rd running of the Kentucky Derby horse race and to meet the Queen of England.

Paris Hilton may still be able to turn up at Monaco to represent potential Spyker sponsor Rich Prosecco but she will then have to go home to the United States to go to jail for 45 days.

Peter Kerr has died at the age of 73. Kerr was a New Zealander who arrived in Britain in 1964 and worked as the chief mechanic with Roy Winkelmann Racing in Formula 2.

Alistair Watkins, the head of marketing at Honda Racing F1, has been hired to be the marketing chief of Team Alinghi, to work finding sponsorship for the Swiss America's Cup syndicate in the world of yachting.

There is no doubt that the Red Bull-Renault is improving all the time, with the arrival of the team's seamless shift gearbox and a number of other aerodynamic modifications which have made the car rather more competitive but David Coulthard's unofficial lap record at Barcelona yesterday should be treated with care.

As we reported in February Red Bull's Dany Bahar has been taken on by Ferrari to be the head of a new division of the company which will operate alongside the car business and the sporting department. This department will manage and develop the Ferrari brand around the world. Bahar will report to the company's managing director Jean Todt.

Ferrari has dominated the first three days of the Barcelona test with Felipe Massa setting the best overall time of 1m21.506s. Kimi Raikkonen was fastest on the first two days before he handed over the work to Massa.

Ferrari has won the prize for being the best workplace in Europe in 2007. The award, which is made by the Great Place to Work Institute Europe, recognises that the history of Ferrari is in part responsible for the remarkable team spirit that exists inside the Italian team.

The sons of famous fathers have been flooding into motor racing for years and another hopeful will be joining the fray this weekend at Oschersleben in Germany when 16-year-old Adrien Tambay, son of Grand Prix winner, Patrick, begins his single-seater career in the opening round of the Formula BMW Deutschland championship. Tambay will be racing for current champions JK Racing, the team which launched Nico Rosberg and Adrian Sutil on their way to Formula 1.

The Barcelona testing has not been kind to Williams. On Monday Kazuki Nakajima had a sizeable crash and damaged the FW27 test car. This was repaired overnight wikth new parts being sent over from Britain but then the rains came and little was achieved on Tuesday.

The Royal Bank of Scotland came into Formula 1 at the start of 2005 as a sponsor of the Williams team. That three-year deal did not result in huge success on the race tracks but the Scottish bank was more than happy with the results of the sponsorship and has now agreed to a three-year extension to the deal.

Ilmor Engineering has disbanded its MotoGP racing team in order to focus on the development of the motorcycle racing engine which the company designed. The decision was taken not to race because money was short and work was needed on the Ilmor bike but riders Jeremy McWilliams and Andrew Pitt remain under contract to the team for the moment although they are being allowed to race for other teams in the interim.

Former Grand Prix driver Hans Stuck is now out of hospital after a sizeable accident at the weekend during a race on the old Nurburgring. Stuck (56) was at the wheel of a BMW Z4 when he went off the road while passing a slower car and hit a stationary car beside the track.

There is no doubt that 19-year-old German Nico Hulkenberg is a decent prospect for the future. He has impressed this year in the A1 Grand Prix Series, although the opposition has been at best patchy, but it was still a decent achievement in just his third year of car racing.

There have been a couple of big crashes in Formula 1 testing in Barcelona in recent days with Spyker newcomer Adrian Valles having a sizeable hit on Monday when he piled the Spyker into the wall at Turn 3.

There is to be a Formula 1 sports bar in Holland following the announcement of a deal between Heineken and Spyker. As part of the deal Heineken will become the official beer supplier of trackside events organised by the Etihad Aldar Spyker team.