Formula One Features

On Friday November 8 1996 Williams chief designer Adrian Newey did not turn up for work at the team factory in Grove.

Winter testing on the latest batch of Formula 1 cars, fitted with the new-for-1997 rear impact absorbing structures, threw up an interesting vibration problem.

Alain Prost is the most successful Grand Prix driver of all time. He won 51 of the 199 Grands Prix which he contested.

You could call him the "Comeback Kid" if he was a bit younger, but at 33 years of age (this week) Italian racer Nicola Larini is a bit too old for that. He has been involved in Formula 1 racing for the last 10 years but this year has popped up with the Sauber Petronas team and he looks like having his best season to date.

It is eight years since we first heard vague rumours that Alain Prost wanted to run his own Formula 1 team. In mid-1989, when he had fallen out with Ayrton Senna and was on the verge of leaving McLaren, he and engineer John Barnard came very close to doing a deal for Renault engines. The problem on that occasion was that the world was going into a recession and they could not find any sponsorship. Alain went to Ferrari instead...

Tom Walkinshaw bought the Arrows team in the middle of last year and since then there has been a great deal of changing of the personnel. Many of the old Arrows F1 crew from Milton Keynes have moved on to other teams.

The Bridgestone Corporation enters Grand Prix racing this season, supplying tyres to the Arrows, Ligier, Minardi, Stewart and Lola teams. It will be the Japanese company's first involvement in Formula 1 but all the signs are that the world's biggest tyre seller will be very competitive with Goodyear, which has dominated Grand Prix racing for the last 10 years.

Eric Broadley's Lola Cars embarks this year on its sixth foray into Grand Prix racing with 68-year-old Broadley - who founded Lola back in 1958 - leading from the front.

The FIA World Motor Sport Council met in Monaco on 6th December last year and voted in the most radical and far reaching Formula 1 performance regulations seen for a long time.

The Danka Arrows Yamaha team unveiled its 1997 car at the Autosport International Show in Birmingham, England, on January 9. The Arrows-Yamaha A18 will be driven by World Champion Damon Hill and by Brazilian Pedro Diniz.

The West McLaren Mercedes Benz team had a "sneak preview" of its new 1997 car at its factory in Woking early on the morning of January 14. The prototype McLaren-Mercedes MP4-12 was unveiled in an orange and black livery - the color used on the old McLaren CanAm cars of the 1960s - but will be raced in a silver color-scheme this year. Silver is, of course, the traditional racing livery of Mercedes-Benz, but it is also the color used by the Germany West cigarette brand - the team's new title sponsor - for its West Lights packaging. The team wanted to get as much testing achieved as possible and so the McLaren sponsorship package will be revealed separately at a major launch in London's Alexandra Palace exhibition centre on February 14. The team says it is expecting to have 4000 people present for the event.

The Tyrrell Racing Organisation - which is beginning its 30th season in Formula 1 racing - unveiled its 1997 challenger at the Capital Radio Cafe in London's West End on January 20. The Tyrrell-Ford 025 will be raced this year by Mika Salo and Jos Verstappen with young Japanese rising star Toranosuke Takagi acting as test driver.

The Minardi Team ran its new Minardi-Hart M197 at Mugello, near Florence, on February 1 in preparation for the team's official launch at the Autodromo Nazionale at Monza on February 4. The M197 will be raced this year by Japan's Ukyo Katayama and by Italian rising star Jarno Trulli.

The Mild Seven Benetton Renault team unveiled its 1997 car in a rather chaotic fashion in London's chic - but rather too small - Planet Hollywood nightclub on January 23. The Benetton-Renault B197 will be driven by Gerhard Berger and Jean Alesi and tested by Austrian rising star Alexander Wurz.

The Rothmans Williams Renault team unveiled its 1997 car at its old factory in Didcot, Oxfordshire, on January 31. The Williams-Renault FW19 will be raced this year by Canadian Jacques Villeneuve and the team's new signing German Heinz-Harald Frentzen.

The Benson & Hedges Total Jordan Peugeot team unveiled its Jordan-Peugeot 197 at London's Hilton Hotel on January 30.

Equipe Ligier Gauloises Blondes unveiled its Ligier-Mugen Honda JS45 at the Cafe de Paris, in Monte Carlo's Casino Square on January 22. The car will be driven this year by Olivier Panis and Shinji Nakano. It will once again be powered by Mugen Honda V10 engines and will run on Bridgestone tyres.

Damon Hill was expected to win the 1996 World Championship - and he did. From the start of the season it was very clear that the Williams-Renault FW18 was the quickest car in Formula 1 and as Benetton - the only other team using Renault V10 engines - seemed to have gone off the technical rails after the departure of Michael Schumacher, it was left to Williams to dominate, winning 12 of the 16 races, finishing 1-2 in the Drivers' Championship and completely dominating the Constructors' title.

On December 10 in London - just 11 months after announcing that they would be setting up a Formula 1 team - Jackie and Paul Stewart unveiled the prototype Stewart-Ford SF1 with which Stewart Grand Prix will contest the 1997 FIA Formula 1 World Championship, with drivers Rubens Barrichello and Jan Magnussen.

Why would Ferrari, the pride and passion of Italy, risk all the complications of splitting its design office from its manufacturing and racing teams in Maranello, Italy, and site it near Guildford in England? It must be more than the desire to place it in that 50 by 100 mile rectangle that accommodates eight out of the top ten Formula 1 design offices.

McLaren's performance in recent years has been mystifying when you compare the results in the last three years with those of the late 1980s when the Woking-based team won 13 World Championships in eight seasons. Winning seemed to be easy. Team boss Ron Dennis said it was all down to good planning and even revealed that everything at McLaren was planned five years ahead.

Frank Williams is a strange man - but you can understand why. He has been paralysed since a road accident in March 1986. He is confined to a wheelchair and needs round-the-clock nursing. He cannot do all the things that people take for granted in life. The focus of his life, therefore, is his racing team and he thinks about it night and day. He is a worrier by nature, turning over in his mind all the things that can go wrong. He plans for the future but he keeps his plans very much to himself. He has learned from his mistakes over the years. There was a time in the mid-1970s when Williams was known as "Wanker Williams" because every project in which he was involved was a disaster. But he struggled on, refused to be beaten, and ultimately became a success. And now he wants to remain successful and he does what is necessary to ensure that Williams Grand Prix Engineering continues to win.

Damon Hill goes to Monza this weekend with the chance of winning the World Championship. He has a 13 point lead over his Williams team mate and rival Jacques Villeneuve with three races to go. If Hill wins and Villeneuve finishes lower than third the Englishman will become World Champion - and the first man World Champion to be the son of a World Champion.

Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad was at Estoril to have talks with Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone about the possibility of holding a Grand Prix in Malaysia in 1999.