JANUARY 17, 2000

Williams and Compaq

WILLIAMS and BMW showed off their new colors last week in Munich but failed to name the team's big new sponsor. The only news from Munich was confirmation that BMW Williams F1 is interested in young British driver Jenson Button and that the team will have support from Reuters - as we predicted in October. The team's other sponsors include all the current names, notably Nortel Networks, Andersen Consulting, Castrol, Petrobras and Veltins. The cars will run in white and blue colors as predicted.

A major sponsorship announcement is pending, however, and our spies tell us that BMW Williams F1 has landed a major multi-year deal with the US computer company Compaq - the world's top personal computer supplier which ranks third in all computer sales behind IBM and Hewlett-Packard.

Headquartered in Houston, Texas, the company ranked 28 in the Fortune 500 list last year and is listed on the NewÊYorkÊStockÊExchange. The company has recently elected a new chief executive Michael D. Capellas.

Ironically, one of Compaq's big competitors is Dell, which sponsored the Williams-run BMW sportscar program last season...