Formula One News — February 2008

Fumio Akita, Aguri Suzuki's partner in the Super Aguri F1 operation, says that the team will be in Melbourne, despite fears that the organisation could go out of business. Akita admits that the team is scrambling to get things ready in time for the Australian GP but said that the same was true a year ago.

McLaren says that that it is going to contact the Home Office, the British ministry responsible for law and order, regarding concerns about how the Italian police are conducting their inquiries into the espionage affairs of last season.

McLaren Racing has issued a statement saying that it wishes to place on record "its extreme displeasure" with the wording of a statement that the Italian Police are reported to have made yesterday.

The Paris Tuning Show this week witnessed the launch of a new European championship which is to be called the All Stars V8 Cup, with backing from the NRJ radio station.

The Economic and Environmental review and development committee of the South Northants Council has agreed to refer the Silvestone Master Plan back to the council, rather than giving the plan an instant go-ahead. The next Council meeting will be in March.

Gerald Forsythe has announced that he is going to close down Forsythe Championship Racing Ltd, the Champ Car team, saying that he cannot find the budget to race in the Indy Racing League.

Williams has announced two new sponsorship deals and although the team is not saying it openly, both are owned by Baugur, the Icelandic company that had been tipped as a potential investor in the team. Our sources say that this deal has not gone ahead but that this does not mean that Baugur will not be a big sponsor, even if the company decides to use different brands.

The Italian magistrates investigating a complaint from Ferrari, made last summer, have been meeting with and talking to "a number of McLaren executives" about what happened.

MSC Cruises, a division of the giant Mediterranean Shipping Company, the second largest container shipping firm in the world, is to enter Formula 1 this year as a trackside sponsor at four races.

Ashley Cooper, a 27-year-old V8 touring car driver in Australia, has died following an accident during a support event for the V8 Supercar frace on the streets of Adelaide. Cooper was competing in the Fujitsu series when he went off at high speed and went sideways into a concrete wall.

Paul Frere, a celebrated racing driver and journalist, has died at the age of 91. The Belgian never fully recovered from an accident at the end of 2006 while driving a VW Golf near the old Nurburgring in Germany. Frere, 89 at the time, suffered a shattered pelvis, several broken ribs and punctures to both lungs.

The owners of Champ Car and the Indy Racing League have announced an agreement to unify the sport for 2008. The three signatories to the agreement are Gerald Forsythe his partner Kevin Kalkhoven and Indy Racing League founder and chief executive Tony George.

Perhaps in Spain the insurance company Mutua Madrilena will be seen as heroic for having ditched the McLaren team after its difficult 2007 season, in order to follow national hero Fernando Alonso back to Renault.

Open-wheeler racing looks set to reunite in the United States with the talks between the Indy Racing League and Champ Car edging closer to a solution. It will, no doubt, take mon ths to sort out all the legal details but a reunification means that finally open-wheeler racing in the US can once again become a serious proposition.

Walter Totschnig, the logistics manager of Toro Rosso, has died at the age of 67. Totschnig was one of the great characters of Formula 1 and spent 13 years working with Sauber before switching over to Scuderia Toro Rosso.

Jacques Villeneuve has been dropped by the Bill Davis Racing NASCAR team after hitting a wall and triggering a multi-car accident during a qualifying race for the Daytona 500.

Roger Penske's racing teams have won in all the championships in which they have competed but some races have remained a problem. The teams have won in F1, Indycars, NASCAR, CanAm, TransAm, ALMS and Formula 5000. But one event consistently eluded Penske: the Daytona 500.

The Daytona 500 kicked off the NASCAR Sprint Cup season with victory going to Ryan Newman in his Alltel Dodge.

The Formula 1 teams were testing over a four day period last week in Jerez de la Frontera with the McLaren team topping the timesheets thanks to Heikki Kovalainen's 1m17.974s after a total of 180 laps during his two days.

Peugeot Sport has announced a stong driver line-up for the current season of sports car racing, which will include the Le Mans 24 Hours. The line-up includes Stephane Sarrazin, Pedro Lamy Marc Gene, Nicolas Minassian and Jacques Villeneuve. They will be joined by Christian Klien, Franck Montagny, Alexander Wurz and Ricardo Zonta.

Formula 1 team bosses have thrown their support behind the inaugural Motor Sport Business Forum Middle East and will take major roles in the event on 1-2 April 2008. Ron Dennis, Frank Williams, Nick Fry, Christian Horner and Colin Kolles have all confirmed their participation in the high-profile conference programme.

Formula 1 is a very profitable business with TV companies, in particular, pouring money into the coffers of the Formula One group of companies, which is controlled by the venture capital company CVC Capital Partners. There are additional streams of revenue coming from race fees, trackside advertising, corporate hospital and official licensing.

We are all for Formula 1 portraying itself as being environmentally-friendly. That is a very good idea and getting rid of the crazy "fuel burn" segment of the qualifying was an intelligent thing to do. However, one does have to ask whether all this pressure on Asia-Pacific races to hold races at night is really a good idea as the floodlighting in Singapore is expected to use 3.2m Watts of power.

In these days of new ideas one should not overlook Danica Patrick, who has led the way for women racing drivers in America in recent years. Danica has now achieved something that no racer before her has ever achieved by appearing in Sports Illustrated's annual Swimsuit Issue, which hits news-stands this week.

Look forward to a British Grand Prix in Gibraltar. It seems that anything is now possible following the confirmation that the Amaury Sport Organisation has agreed a deal to run the 2009 Dakar Rally in Argentina and Chile. The radical move comes following the cancellation of the traditional event this year in Africa because of terrorist threats in Africa.