Formula One News — July 2007

Spectre Development, the property company that wants to develop Silverstone, is pushing the British Racing Drivers Club board to allow it to make a presentation to the club members.

Honda Racing F1 has confirmed that Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello will remain as team-mates for a third consecutive year in 2008.

Markus Winkelhock, will partner Adrian Sutil at this weekend's European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring.

Work is pushing ahead for the inaugural Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Yas Island. The circuit website continues to count down to February 1 2009 and there is still much to be done on the 6300-acre island.

The Spyker team is expected to announce shortly that it is going to be running Germany's Markus Winkelhock at the German Grand Prix. The team may then switch to run Narain Karthikeyan for the rest of the year. The question is really not to do with which is the best available driver but rather who can bring the most money.

Williams and Lenovo started their relationship earlier this year and that has now been extended to assist the team with its computational fluid dynamics (CFD) development.

While Ferrari and McLaren are busy scrapping over who knew what and when, the BMW Sauber team is finding itself under attack from other teams, who want to get the best people out of the Swiss operation, which is currently running a strong third in the Constructors' Championship.

Geoff Willis, the former technical director of Honda Racing F1, has been hired by Red Bull to be Technical Director of Red Bull Technology, reporting to Chief Technical Officer, Adrian Newey.

McLaren has issued another press statement saying that its own investigation revealed that "no Ferrari materials or data are or have ever been in the possession of any McLaren employee other than the individual sued by Ferrari.

Gil de Ferran has decided to give up his role as the Sporting Director of Honda Racing F1 and is expected to return to America where he is likely to end up being employed - if he wishes to be - in the Indy Racing League.

It was a quiet weekend in the Formula 1 world with not much happening beyond more leaks in Italy regarding what was in Mike Coughlan's affadavit. It seems that this has been leaked to members of the Italian media by Ferrari - ostensibly the only people in Italy who have the document - although it may only be the parts that Ferrari wants the media to know.

McLaren has put out a statement saying that it is "extremely disappointed to note that it has been asked by the FIA to answer a charge of being in possession of certain documents and confidential information belonging to Ferrari".

The United States Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway will not be on the 2008 Formula 1 schedule. After recent meetings, Indianapolis Motor Speedway CEO Tony George and Formula One Management Ltd. CEO Bernie Ecclestone mutually agreed to not schedule a race at Indianapolis in 2008.

It is worth noting something that could have an important effect on the way in which sports sponsorship money is spent in the future. The international football federation (FIFA) is asking its strategy committee to consider the implications of authorising sponsorship on the shirts of the national teams involved in the World Cup soccer competition.

Back in August 2001 Formula One Licensing BV made an application to register the UK trade mark "F1" for a variety of goods and services in 10 classes. Opposition to this was raised in December 2005 by a French company called Racing-Live which claimed that "F1" is a recognised abbreviation for the sport of Formula 1 and, as such, cannot be trademarked. A hearing was held on June 6 at which both parties presented their evidence.

The FIA World Motor Sport Council has requested that representatives of the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes appear before an extraordinary meeting of the FIA World Motor Sport Council in Paris on Thursday, July 26.

Christian Klien will test for the Spyker team on Thursday at Spa-Francorchamps tomorrow, but the team says that no decision has yet been made about who will drive for the team for the rest of the season. Klien has been released by Honda for the test.

Ferrari has won the first round of its legal action with Mike and Trudy Coughlan, regarding the current industrial espionage scandal between Ferrari and McLaren. The Coughlans have agreed to signed a sworn statement in Britain giving the full details of their involvement in the affair.

The word on the street is that Spyker will replace Christijan Albers with Narain Karthikeyan, the Indian driver who is keen to get back to racing after a couple of years on the sidelines. Karthikeyan is currently a Williams test driver thanks to his links with the team's sponsor Tata.

Jorg Zander, currently the chief designer at BMW Sauber is to move to Honda Racing F1 to be the new deputy technical director, under Japan's Shuhei Nakamoto.

The Formula 1 press corps descended on the High Court in London to day to hear the opening day's activity in the case of Ferrari SpA versus Coughlan & Another. This turned out to be Mrs Coughlan. Ferrari's QC Nigel Tozzi, who specialises in contractual litigation, commercial fraud and misuse of confidential information.

Total Sports Asia has been appointed the official sponsorship agent in Asia and the Middle East for Scuderia Toro Rosso. TSA has six offices in the region and hopes to be able to bring in substantial sponsorship.

Spyker F1 has announced that Christijan Albers will no longer race for the team. The decision was taken as a result of one of Albers's main personal sponsors failing to make a payment.

Christijan Albers has been dropped by Spyker because his sponsorship has failed to appear. The Dutch driver has struggled to stay competitive this year with his rookie team-mate and it was clear that his position was dependent entirely on funding.

Ten years ago British Prime Minister Tony Blair ran into his first scandal in office when Bernie Ecclestone donated £1m to the Labour Party and, coincidentally, the party changed its views about tobacco advertising at racing circuits.