Formula One News — November 2001

The talks currently taking place between Kirch Pay-TV and the American group Liberty should not have any dramatic effect on Formula 1 unless the acquisition by Liberty of shares in the struggling business could lead to F1 pay-per-view on television in the United States.

Richard Parry-Jones, Ford's Vice President for product development, is to be the new head of the Mazda Motor Corporation in Japan.

The McLaren-Mercedes and BMW Williams team are busy preparing uprated versions of their 2001 cars in readiness for the resumption of F1 testing from 3 January.

Mark Webber, the Benetton test driver, was planning to concentrate on Formula 1 in the next few months, hoping to get a break in Grand Prix racing.

The Premier1 Grand Prix series continues to make the most of the lack of F1 news at the moment and has announced that two more soccer teams have been signed up for the planned racing series next year.

British American Racing's Anthony Davidson had a big accident in qualifying for the Macau GP and spent the night in the hospital under observation after complaining of neck pains.

Formula 1 designers tend to develop themes these days and so there has been speculation in recent months that Gustav Brunner's Toyota F1 car will probably have a strong flavor of Minardi about it.

It is 10 years since Luca di Montezemolo took over the running of Ferrari and in that time he has achieved great success for the production car business and for the racing team.

The Miller Brewing Company is expected to announce at the end of the week that it will be sponsoring an assault on the Indianapolis 500 next year by Team Rahal.

With the future of CART uncertain and the Indy Racing League cars not really expensive enough to warrant a lot of research and development, Lola Cars in Huntingdon is rumored to be looking to Formula 1 teams to stop the loss of good young engineers to F1 teams and to keep up the revenues.

The European Automobile Manufacturers' Association (ACEA) has announced that the automobile industry in Europe is strong, despite the weak economy.

It is a curious fact that the world's economy is currently hanging on what happens to a fugitive terrorist somewhere in the wastes of Afghanistan, but there is little doubt that this is the case.

The German media is reporting that Heinz-Harald Frentzen is close to agreeing a deal to race for Arrows in 2002. Frentzen has visited the Leafield factory.

A one million dollar purse for each of their two race meetings on the international calendar was promised by the organizers of Premier 1 grand prix.

General Motors has announced that it is putting 69-year-old former Chrysler executive Bob Lutz in charge of its North American automotive operations.

The Korean car company Hyundai, which has admitted to having ambitions in Formula 1, is doing remarkably well at the moment, despite the world's economic problems.

The Interpublic Group of Companies, which owns Octagon Motorsport, has just announced a $477.5m loss for the third-quarter.

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway has raised $187,356 for the victims of the World Trade Center from its auction of F1 apparel worn by the drivers in this year's United States Grand Prix.

With Formula 1 testing now finished for six weeks and only a few early Formula 1 launches to look forward to, the attention of race fans around the world will be on Formula 3 with the annual Macau Grand Prix.

Flavio Briatore has always liked to be in the newspapers.

Having very publicly failed to sign up Adrian Newey and, more recently, the Williams design duo of Gavin Fisher and Geoff Willis, Jaguar Racing seems to have run out of options for new technical managers.

Jerry Forsythe, a shareholder in British American Racing and various other racing enterprises including the Rockingham oval in Britain, has shut down his secondary CART team because he cannot find any sponsorship for next season.

In recent weeks there has been much scare-mongering about the financing of Formula 1 in the immediate future. This has been the result of the downturn in the US economy which followed the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

It is now eight months since Jacques Villeneuve's BAR-Honda cartwheeled down the wall at Albert Park, sending parts flying in all directions.