JULY 14, 2001

European car demand slackens

VOLKSWAGEN AG has announced that it will shut down its giant Wolfsburg factory for three weeks this summer because of a slowdown in demand for its cars. This has not happened for three years and is an indication that inflation and fears of a recession are making consumers much more cautious.

The news comes at a time when F1 teams are busy organizing their budgets for 2002 and industry analysts say that the money supply in F1 is also beginning to slacken with a significantly lower amount of money around this year than last. This does not however seem to have had any real effect on the F1 circus.