Formula One News — September 2005

Oil prices have risen dramatically in recent weeks and on Monday hit $67.39 a barrel. This is below the record high of $70.85 in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina but still around 45% higher than a year ago.

Former World Champions Niki Lauda and Keke Rosberg have joined forces to run the A1 Team Austria operation, which will feature Mathias Lauda as the driver.

With five days to go before the start of the A1 Grand Prix series at Brands Hatch, the final details of the entry list are still coming together with around 25 teams expected to be seen in action.

BAR Honda has signed long-term agreements with Alan van der Merwe and Danilo Dirani. They will join Young Driver Programme members Adam Carroll and James Rossiter helping the team.

Austria, Kiribati, Bolivia and Guyana are not hugely important in the overall scheme of things in motorsport, although Austria's Red Bull company is a useful source of funding for a large number of racers.

There are reports that Intel may be reconsidering a $50m a year sponsorship deal with McLaren, because the FIA has done a deal with rival AMD. The stories suggest that the Intel team was to have been announced at Monza but was delayed when the AMD agreement with the FIA was revealed.

Our spies tell us that Williams has sold Jenson Button his freedom and he will remain at BAR-Honda next year. This is reasonable enough, except that the figure of $18m which we have heard does not seem to be anywhere near the kind of money needed to do the deal.

Further details are emerging about the plans for a new racing circuit close to Cape Town International Airport. The plan is to build a circuit on land which lies adjacent to the old South African Air Force base on the north-eastern side of the airport, alongside the Stellenbosch Road and close to the community of Belhar.

This week in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Fernando Alonso could become the youngest ever Formula 1 World Champion. The 24-year-old Spaniard looks likely to beat a record which has stood for 33 years, dating back to 1972 when Emerson Fittipaldi became World Champion at the age of 25 years, eight months and 29 days.

Motorsport is a dangerous business. And deeply self-absorbed. This can be a problem, particularly when things go wrong, as happened on Sunday morning on the Wales Rally GB when Markko Martin crashed his Peugeot WRC car sideways into a tree in Margam Forest in South Wales.

Lewis Hamilton continued to underline his complete domination of the Formula 3 Euroseries this year at the Lausitzring over the weekend with two more wins in the series, bringing his total to 13 victories. It is anticipated that Hamilton will shortly sign to race in GP2 next year.

Ron Walker, who is a close associate of Bernie Ecclestone, is claiming that A1 GP cannot use the term "Grand Prix" in Australia. Walker is not known for his pursuit of lost causes and it will be interesting to see whether or not the comments made by Walker will actually result in a legal action against A1 Grand Prix.

Cost-cutting in Formula 1 is a subject much-discussed at the moment and it is often said that Toyota is keen on the idea. Be that as it may, the company is obviously not skimping at the moment as it has just announced plans to build a second half-scale windtunnel in Cologne.

MotoGP World Champion Valentino Rossi says that he found it "very funny" that Ross Brawn told the media that he will be testing once a month for Ferrari next year. "I don't know anything about it," Rossi told a media conference at the Japanese Grand Prix. "For me, it is a lot of bullshit."

The Williams team has confirmed that Antonio Pizzonia will be driving the second Williams-BMW in Brazil. The team has not yeet made any announcement about the remaining two races of the year but Heidfeld's management says that the German is keen to return to the team.

It is tough enough at the moment for young drivers to break into Formula 1 but now without Minardi there seems to be only a small chance for new boys. The problem is that the cars are such complicated beasts these days that drivers need to know them inside-out before they can extract the maximum.

Nick Heidfeld has signed for the new BMW Formula 1 team and will stay with the team for three-years. Heidfeld will join the team on January 1 2006 when his contract with Williams runs out. The British team chose not to take up an option for his services next year.

Until last weekend Eddie Irvine was busy working away to buy the Minardi team. And then Red Bull came steaming in at the last minute and dropped $35m in cash on the table and told Paul Stoddart to sell.

Today is Battle of Britain Day, remembering a Anglo-Germanic conflict of years gone by. It is also the day on which Nick Heidfeld's option at Williams runs out and so all eyes have been on activities at Williams F1 where the team must decide whether or not to keep Heidfeld for 2006.

It has been a quiet day in Formula 1 circles, at least on the surface, and all manner of things have been bubbling up to fill the never-ending space on the Internet. New convoluted moves in the driver market have been dreamed up and new conspiracy theories hatched.

Mediobanca, Italy's most influential investment bank, says that it is going to sell almost $1bn worth of assets in order to turn itself into more of a banking group. Mediobanca has stakes in some of Italy's most powerful companies.

The Formula 1 Sponsorship forum, which will take place in Monaco on November 16-17, is pulling some some very big names in the sport. The event will include two keynote conference sessions, presented by globally-recognised industry leaders and 40 seminars which will cover the different fields being discussed.

The Hewlett-Packard computer company will announce later today that this is withdrawing early from its sponsorship deal with Williams. The company had been expected to continue as the team's title sponsor until the end of next year.

The subject of cost-cutting in Formula 1 in trotted out whenever it is needed by one side or another in whatever F1 political battle is going on at that particular moment.