Formula One News — June 2007

Juan Pablo Montoya has had a pretty low profile year thus far in NASCAR with just one fifth place to his name in Nextel Cup races. But put him on a road course and the Colombian was able to walk all over the NASCAR men, who are much more used to racing on ovals.

Although Formula 1 had the weekend off, there was plenty of racing action around the world with Paul Tracy winning the Champ Car race at Cleveland, his first win for two years.

Renault F1 is restructuring its aerodynamic department as it expands and prepares for a new computational fluid dynamics facility to be built at Enstone. The team's chief aerodynamicist Dino Toso is to move up to a new role.

Ferrari's Nigel Stepney has responded to accusations of sabotage, telling The Sunday Times in London that he is the victim of a "dirty tricks campaign".

While the Formula 1 world has been getting itself involved in a couple of real pot-boiler stories: with the Nigel Stepney story breaking in Italy and Ralf Schumacher's future getting them talkin in Cologne (and Tokyo), the rest of the F1 circus has been busily building new parts, testing them and hoping that the resulting performance will move them up the F1 pecking order.

The folk down at Honda have been rather busy in recent weeks and, we hear, will be busier still in the weeks ahead, as they rebuild the technical team at Brackley following the disappointments of the current season.

It has been common knowledge in F1 circles for the last month that Ralf Schumacher was on the skids at Toyota. A number of very good sources reported that Ralf had been given two races to brush up his act or face the bullet. In Montreal he survived a chaotic race to finish eighth, but he had been lucky and would not have been near the pace if the race had not been disrupted by accidents and Safety Cars.

There is drama going on in Italy at the moment - but no-one seems to be quite sure exactly what is happening. As we reported a few days ago a senior member of Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro has run into trouble with the team. Nigel Stepney, the team's technical coordinator, is now being investigated by the public prosecution service in Modena.

There seems to a move at the moment amongst the various parties involved to move the plans for 2011 away from the original idea of diesel turbos, towards a more conventional pump fuel with a percentage of biomass.

The Formula 1 manufacturers do not seem to be very impressed with the suggestion that F1 should use 2.2-litre turbo-diesels from 2011 and beyond. According to the manufacturers we have spoken to, there is no interest at all in such engines in F1.

With the British Grand Prix almost sold out thanks to the efforts of Lewis Hamilton, the French are hoping that they can pick up some of the spectators who cannot get tickets to Silverstone.

Ferrari's lack of competitiveness in recent races has been a surprise after such a strong start to the year in Australia, Malaysia and Bahrain. It seemed that McLaren had improved significantly and that Ferrari had stood still.

Was there ever any doubt that we would see a McLaren victory? Absolutely not. If the cars were reliable and did not collide with one another or someone else, these were going to be the two cars that would lead the way. We suspected that Lewis Hamilton was lighter in qualifying. But by how much? And could Fernando Alonso use that advantage to grab a victory. There was plenty to look forward to.

A new storm is due to break this week in Italy where we hear a new espionage scandal is about to break with a former Ferrari team member being accused of having sold designs to rival teams. No more details are currently available but there is expected to be some kind of public statement from Ferrari soon.

There were rumours in Indianapolis that Christian Klien may have signed a long term deal to drive for Toyota. Honda sources say that they have not been approached about releasing the young Austrian but confim that he is a free agent at the end of the current season.

United States GP - Race Notes

United States GP - Sunday Photos

United States GP - Sunday Press Conference

United States GP - Sunday Team Quotes

United States GP - Race Incidents

United States GP - Race Results

The gamblers in Formula 1 were pretty sure that Fernando Alonso would be on pole position for the United States Grand Prix. Fernando was fastest on Friday morning, on Friday afternoon and then again on Saturday morning.

Bernie Ecclestone and Tony George have spent much of the United States Grand Prix weekend discussing whether or not there will be a race in 2008. "Tony has stressed to Bernie in these meetings that we want to continue the event," said Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Joie Chitwood.

United States GP - Saturday Photos

United States GP - Saturday Press Conference