NEWS ARCHIVE
COSWORTH TO SELL FORD CUSTOMER V10S
COSWORTH ENGINEERING will be selling its Ford V10 engines to customers in Formula 1 next year, although Stewart Grand Prix will continue to benefit from exclusive developments of the engines as Ford's factory team in F1.
GOODBYE MASTERCARD LOLA
THE Mastercard Lola F1 team - which entered Grand Prix racing just a few weeks ago in Melbourne has withdrawn from the World Championship with immediate effect.
JAKOBI, POLLACK, REYNARD AND OTHER RUMORS
FOR some weeks there have been whispers in Formula 1 circles that Reynard Racing Cars is once again planning to enter Grand Prix racing.
JOHN BARNARD AND ARROWS
JOHN BARNARD and Tom Walkinshaw are discussing working together in the future - after Barnard buys the Ferrari Design and Development facility and turns it into an independent design house.
MORE TELEVISION PROBLEMS
EXECUTIVES of Europe's TV stations are not happy with the increasing restrictions being placed on their crews and reporters in Grand Prix racing.
PROBLEMS FOR LUXEMBOURG GP?
THE Brazilian Grand Prix marked the first occasion on which Bernie Ecclestone's Formula 1 Communications company produced the entire television show.
PROST COLLECTING NEW SPONSORS
ALAIN PROST's package of financial backers continues to grow with the news that the team has landed a four-year deal with the Bic company, famous for its ball-point pens, cigarette lighters and shaving equipment.
SALO TO FERRARI IN 1998?
MIKA SALO is rumored to be on the verge of signing a contract to be Michael Schumacher's partner at Ferrari in 1998 and beyond.
VILLENEUVE RE-SIGNS FOR WILLIAMS
JACQUES VILLENEUVE has re-signed with the Williams team for the 1998 season.
... WHILE RALF IS FASTEST
DESPITE Fisichella's crash the Benson & Hedges Jordan Peugeot team had a successful Silverstone test with Ralf Schumacher setting the fastest times at the recently speeded-up Northamptonshire circuit.
...AND AT MONZA
FERRARI and Minardi decided to test at Monza and Michael Schumacher emerged fastest after his three days of running with a best lap of 1m24.13s.
A FINANCIAL PROBLEM OR A POLITICAL ONE?
THE tiresome squabbling over the 1997-2001 Concorde Agreement continues to grind on with Williams and McLaren now threatening legal action unless the teams which are signatories to the agreement allow them to sign up on equal terms.
AND WHAT ABOUT TOYOTA?
BACK in November last year reports from Japan suggested that Toyota was planning to enter F1 as an engine supplier.
ENGINE POLITICS
WITH the 1997 season up-and-running and Melbourne giving the teams an idea of how the rest of the season will develop - Williams is still dramatically ahead - attention is already turning to putting together the packages for 1998 with engines being particularly important for Tyrrell, Arrows, Benetton and Jordan.
FISICHELLA HAS A BIG ONE...
EDDIE JORDAN's decision to hire two young drivers for this season may prove to be expensive as Ralf Schumacher and Giancarlo Fisichella find their feet in Formula 1.
MEANWHILE AT PAUL RICARD...
WHILE most of the F1 teams decided to test at Silverstone, Williams and Arrows chose to run at Paul Ricard where the weather was better than in England.
RENAULT'S MASSIVE LOSSES
THE Renault car company last week announced a loss for 1996 of around $750 million, explaining why it was considered essential last June for the company to announce that it was withdrawing from Grand Prix racing at the end of this year.
BERNIE RESTRUCTURES
BERNIE ECCLESTONE has spent the last few months quietly restructuring his group of Grand Prix-racing related companies in what appears to be preparation for the rumored flotation of the entire business on the London and New York stock exchanges.
F1 TEAMS RACE HOME TO TEST
DAMON HILL may not have had a very successful time at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne but he won the race to be the first driver to be out testing in Europe after the event.
FIGHTING OVER ALAIN PROST
ALAIN PROST says he is tempted to move his team from its base at Magny-Cours but that he is still to decide whether it is really necessary.
MARTINI ON THE STAND
FORMER Grand Prix driver Pierluigi Martini was on the witness stand in Imola last week, giving evidence as a prosecution witness in the manslaughter cases against Frank Williams, Patrick Head and Adrian Newey.
MCNALLY TO BE CEO OF FORMULA ONE PLC
PADDY McNALLY is likely to become the chief executive of Formula One plc if the company which controls most of Grand Prix racing's commercial business is floated on the London stock market this summer - as is being suggested.
MONACO - THE CHANGES GO AHEAD
THE changes to the Monaco Grand Prix circuit are going ahead, despite complaints from the F1 drivers that they will detract from the excitement of driving around the harbor-side circuit.
MORE TV TWEAKS AHEAD
GRAND PRIX RACING has been at the forefront of recent television technology and there are expected to be new developments announced before the flotation of Bernie Ecclestone's company this summer.
NURBURGRING GRABS LONG-TERM DEAL
THE Nurburgring has moved quickly to ensure that it will host the Luxembourg Grand Prix for five years - starting this year - to avoid the race being replaced by one in the Asia Pacific region.
... BUT CANADA SAFE
THE Canadian government last week approved its controversial anti-tobacco law, known as Bill C71, which will restrict sponsorship of sporting events and cultural activities.
A GOOD WEEK FOR MCLAREN
THERE was much rejoicing last weekend in Melbourne when McLaren's David Coulthard gave the team its first Grand Prix victory since Ayrton Senna's win in Adelaide in November 1993, ending an unsuccessful run of 49 races.
A STORM IN A TEACUP
MICHAEL SCHUMACHER found himself at the center of a media storm last week after remarking innocently that the Albert Park circuit was "nothing special" and that it could have been designed to be more challenging.
ANOTHER TEAM OUT THERE?
THERE are whispers in the F1 paddock that there are plans for a big new Formula 1 team within the next couple of years.
BERNIE THE BILLIONAIRE
FORMULA 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone could become one of the wealthiest people in Britain if his plans to float his company Formula One Promotions and Administration (FOPA) company go ahead this summer.
ECCLESTONE ON SAFETY
FORMULA 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone says he agrees with Jacques Villeneuve's view that Grand Prix racing needs to relax a bit about safety issues.
F1 ACCELERATES IN ASIA
FORMULA 1's plans to expand into Asia seem to be accelerating with Bernie Ecclestone apparently trying to convince the Malaysian government that it should hold a race in 1998 rather than 1999.
FRENCH GP STILL IN DANGER
PHILIPPE GURDJIAN, the promoter of the French Grand Prix, was much in evidence in Melbourne, where he met with F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone trying to sort out the problems surrounding the Magny Cours event.
MCLAREN BIDDING FOR SCHUMACHER IN 1998?
ONE rumor which was doing the rounds in the paddock in Melbourne was that McLaren boss Ron Dennis is intending to bid to sign up Michael Schumacher for the 1998 season.
MELBOURNE'S STRIKE PROBLEMS
THE Australian Grand Prix is likely to suffer serious financial losses this year thanks to an industrial dispute which saw Melbourne's public transport system close down for the weekend.
RON AND INDYCARS
MCLAREN has yet to reveal its secret project which involves David Brown but the appearance of the former F1 engineer at the recent Indycar race at Miami, keeping an eye on the activities of Dario Franchitti suggests that it could be an American project - as we recently suggested.
WAITING FOR RENAULT'S REACTION
WHEN Peugeot signed a deal with Alain Prost to supply his Grand Prix team with its V10 engines in 1998, the company scored a major PR victory over its French rival Renault.
A SETBACK FOR JACQUES... OR HEINZ-HARALD
JACQUES VILLENEUVE is heading to Melbourne minus the motor engineer he has worked with since he entered Formula 1 last year.
DAMON'S WING FAILURE
WORLD CHAMPION DAMON HILL has not had a successful time in testing in recent weeks with the new Arrows-Yamaha A18 and the nightmare continued last week at Silverstone when Damon's car suffered a front wing failure during its final shakedown runs.
FORMULA 1 TELEVISION VIEWING FIGURES
THE FIA has just released the latest viewing figures for Grand Prix racing, revealing that 40.99 billion people saw something about Formula 1 on a television set in the course of 1996.
HOCKENHEIM UPGRADES SAFETY
HOCKENHEIM, one of the fastest Grand Prix track these days with an average lap speed of around 140mph, is to improve its safety measures.
IDIOCY IN MELBOURNE
THE protesters who have spent the last 18 months trying - unsuccessfully - to disrupt the running of the Australian Grand Prix in Albert Park, Melbourne, struck again last Friday, spraying diesel oil along the entire length of the circuit's main straight as preparations for the race were entering their final phase.
KEEPING DOWN COSTS...
THE Formula 1 teams head to Melbourne to begin a tire war between Goodyear and Bridgestone.
MAGNATE WANTS F1 AT ROAD ATLANTA
DONALD E. PANOZ, the pharmaceutical multi-millionaire who is funding the construction of his own revolutionary road cars, says that he wants Grand Prix racing to visit Road Atlanta which he recently bought.
MAGNUSSEN BACK IN ACTION
JAN MAGNUSSEN was back in action last week at Silverstone just nine days after he had to have six stitches in a leg wound after a suspension failure caused his Stewart-Ford SF1 to crash heavily in testing at Estoril on February 15.
PEUGEOT GIVES JORDAN LAST CHANCE
FREDERIC SAINT-GEOURS, Deputy Managing-Director or Automobiles Peugeot, has made it quite clear that if Eddie Jordan wants Peugeot V10 engines in 1998 the Irishman's F1 team is going to have to make a big impression in the early Grands Prix this season.
PROST GRAND PRIX ON THE MOVE?
THE euphoria at Magny-Cours following the takeover of Ligier by Alain Prost is beginning to wear off and there are rumors that Prost intends to move the team to a new base as soon as he can.
