Formula One News — July 2007

Ferrari has been given the right to appeal to the FIA International Court of Appeal, following a letter from Luigi Macaluso, the head of the Italian national sporting authority CSAI, to Max Mosley.

Former Ferrari engineer Nigel Stepney has once again protested his innocence, denying that he sent Ferrari information to McLaren chief designer Mike Coughlan. Stepney spoke out after being named as the man responsible by Ferrari team boss Jean Todt.

There was a time, not so long ago either, when Minardi was a no-hope team in Formula 1. But now Paul Stoddart has reinvented Minardi in America and Robert Doornbos - the team likes to refer to him as "Bobby D" - is battling for the championship lead in the Champ Car World Series.

Sebastian Vettel has joined Scuderia Toro Rosso with immediate effect. He replaces Scott Speed, following the American's clash with team boss Franz Tost at the Grand Prix of Europe.

The Italian press is reporting that Ferrari is to lodge a complaint against McLaren with the public prosecution service in Modena. The Italian investigators would then look at the case when there is time available and would decide whether there is any evidence to warrant action.

In the next day or so Scuderia Toro Rosso has to take up or drop an option on Sebastien Bourdais, the triple Champ Car champion, who has tested for the team several times in recent months.

Renault has confirmed that it is investing heavily in a new computational fluid dynamics (CFD) facility at its F1 factory at Enstone. The investment would seem to suggest that the French company is keen to stay in F1 in the long term but CFD cana lso be used in road car development.

Honda Racing F1 has announced the appointment of David Butler as its new marketing director. Butler joins the F1 team from Laureus, where he worked promoting the Laureus Sports Awards, the Laureus World Sports Academy and the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation.

The FIA says that Luigi Macaluso, the president of the FIA-CIK must have been mistaken when he said that he was the only World Council delegate to have been against the decision not to punish McLaren. "We can confirm that the World Motor Sport Council's decision was unanimous," said an FIA spokesman.

The FIA does not approve of its World Council members talking to the media and thus there is likely to be a slap on the wrist coming for Luigi Macaluso, a Italian who sits on the World Council, thanks to his role as President of the CIK-FIA International Karting Commission.

Ferrari boss Jean Todt has revealed a pact between McLaren and Ferrari to avoid the need for the two teams to go to the FIA and to sort out their problems between themselves.

The dust has been settling over the Stepneygate decision at the FIA World Council yesterday in Paris and while Ferrari and a few media outlets have been making outraged noises about the decision, the fact is that the federation has said its piece and unless Ferrari can come up with some real proof that McLaren used the information found in Mike Coughlan's house, it seems that the issue is now dead.

The FIA World Council has come up with a calendar for next year's Formula 1 World Championship. There are 18 races, as expected, with the disappearance of the United States GP and the arrival of new events in Valencia and Singapore.

McLaren has reacted to the findings of the FIA World Council.

When Ron Dennis emerged from the six hour hearing of the FIA World Motor Sport Council, he said: "The punishment fits the crime". That said it all.

The FIA World Motor Sports Council has decided not to impose any penalty on the McLaren F1 team. The FIA said after the hearing that it would pursue action against Coughlan and Ferrari engineer Nigel Stepney.

As we exclusively predicted yesterday morning, the Spyker F1 team has announced that Sakon Yamamoto will partner Adrian Sutil for the remaining races of the World Championship.

Ferrari is using Britain's Quest company for its investigations into the espionage activities of Mike Coughlan. Quest is a private company that bills itself as "The Professional Intelligence Company".

We are hearing that Spyker will soon announce that it has signed up Japan's Sakon Yamamoto for the rest of the Formula 1 season. Yamamoto joined Super Aguri F1 a year ago, made his F1 debut in Germany and did the second half of the year with the Japanese team.

Scott Speed has decided that he has had enough with Scuderia Toro Rosso team manager Franz Tost and launched an uncompromising attack on the Austrian in an interview with Speedvision.com's Adam Cooper.

Bernie Ecclestone has had a meeting with the French Prime Minister Francois Fillon and the country's Minister of Health, Youth and Sport Roselyne Bachelot and the word is that the future of the French Grand Prix has been secured at Magny-Cours for two more years.

In the run-up to the FIA World Council to discuss the Stepneygate affair, the stream of wild stories about their activities seems finally to have slowed down as everyone concerned realises that leaking too much information to the media could affect the outcome of the process.

Things are going from bad to worse at Scuderia Toro Rosso, where tensions have been high for months because of the team's unusual attitude towards motivating its drivers and because of poor reliability and disorganised qualifying sessions and pit stops.

The European Grand Prix of 2007 was a quite extraordinary race. A rainstorm broke over the event after just one lap of action. A debutant - Markus Winkelhock - took a risk and found himself leading his first F1 race by half a minute - in a Spyker.

European GP - Race Notes