Formula One News — August 2007

Ferrari has responded to Ron Dennis's letter to Gino Macaluso, saying that the team wishes "to state very strongly that its letter contains accusations that are both serious and false. Contrary to the statement put forward by Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, Ferrari never illegally gained any advantage.

Hungarian GP - Practice 2 Results

The Stepneygate scandal has taken yet another weird turn with the news that Nigel Stepney, speaking through his lawyer, has denied that he was the source of the e-mails sent to McLaren at the time of the Australian Grand Prix. McLaren says this tip-off resulted in the team going to the FIA to question the Ferrari's floor fixation system.

Robert Kubica set the fastest time of the first session for the Hungarian Grand Prix, although tyres were obviously an issue. The Pole had the softer of the tyre choices on his car while most of the others were using the harder tyres and it remains to be seen whether Kubica can sustain that kind of pace on longer runs.

Hungarian GP - Practice 1 Results

The Ferrari team is making no comment about the claims made by Ron Dennis in his recent letter to Luigi Macaluso of the CSAI.

Sebastian Vettel will race with Scuderia Toro Rosso in 2008 as well as in the remaining races this year. As the young German has a long-standing option with Red Bull after that it means that BMW has decided to let him go.

Hungarian GP - Thursday Press Conference

Construction on the new 2.6-mile road course to be used for the inaugural Red Bull Indianapolis GP motorcycle race has started at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The construction work will take much of the winter.

The Motor Sport Business Forum has released its latest plans. The next event takes place on December 5-6 at the Grimaldi Conference and Exhibition Centre in Monaco. The event will welcome no fewer than nine of the current F1 team bosses as well as top executives from some of the biggest sponsors in motor sport.

Ron Dennis has written to Luigi Macaluso of the CSAI to outline McLaren's position in the ongoing Stepneygate scandal. The letter, which has been published on the McLaren website, gives the first real glimpse of McLaren's arguments in the dispute, while underlining the team's obvioius anger at the way in which it feels Ferrari has dealt with the scandal.

One of the big problems with the ongoing Stepneygate Affair is that there is a huge amount of hearsay, but not a great deal of fact. There are two affidavits: one from Mike Coughlan and one from his wife Trudy.

The Ferrari board met in Maranello yesterday and discussed the situation regarding Nigel Stepney, Mike Coughlan and McLaren and gave its permission for Jean Todt to "initiate and continue any necessary legal action, in the name of the company, in addition to those legal actions already under way".

The British Racing Drivers' Club has voted 80% in favour of the club's Master Plan for the future, thus rejecting the alternative ideas put forward. The club says that it is now in a position to negotiate with the Formula One group to extend the British Grand Prix contract beyond 2009.