Formula One News — September 2005

The WilliamsF1 Team has confirmed that Antonio Pizzonia will race for the team at the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa this weekend, replacing Nick Heidfeld.

There are reports in Greece that Bernie Ecclestone and the Greek government are discussing plans to hold a race in Athens as early as 2007. This could be achieved because the city has a ready-made venue at the Helliniko Olympic Complex.

The word from Munich is that Nick Heidfeld has signed a two-year deal to race for BMW in 2007 and 2008. There is currently no word about 2006 as Heidfeld is under a Williams option at the moment but this runs out in about a week from now and it may be that Heidfeld can then be confirmed officially with a three-year BMW deal.

Formula 1 moves swiftly on from week to week and things fade quickly from the memory but this week Petronas reminded everyone in F1 that there is a value in using F1 technologies in the automobile industry.

Frustrated in his efforts to break into Formula 1, Belgium's Bas Leinders, Minardi's test and reserve driver in 2004, has decided expand his horizons and has established the Bas Leinders Junior Racing Team, which will enter cars in the Formula 3 Euroseries in 2006.

Anthony Davidson has stuck doggedly to his goal of becoming a Formula 1 driver and having been unable to break into F1 via the test driver route, he has decided that rather than heading off to America to try to get back to F1 via Champ Cars or IRL, he will have a try with a small F1 team.

A week ago Antonio Pizzonia was rather keen to get out his Williams contract and get on with his racing career. Frustrated that the team picked Nick Heidfeld this year (as a sop to BMW) Pizzonia has sat around all year waiting for the deal to end.

There is no doubt that some readers will have been less than happy on Saturday night when they saw a qualifying report of just a few words. Serious race fans like to have copious quantities of fascinating facts about what happened to each and every car in each and every session.

It seems that Tonio Liuzzi's chances of showing his worth to Red Bull Racing will be restricted to the last three races of the year. The team has just announced that it will field Austrian Christian Klien at the Belgian Grand Prix.

This weekend in Belgium there will be some announcements about tyres and we hear that Bridgestone will be taking on some new teams in 2006, while Michelin will be cutting back as it suggested it wanted to do a few weeks ago.

The fight is on for the FIA Constructors' World Championship, with Renault holding a slim eight point advantage over the rampaging McLaren-Mercedes team. And there is another battle in the background as the weakening Ferrari comes under increasing pressure from Toyota.

Formula One Licensing (FOL), the intellectual property arm of the Formula One empire, has had a checkered career to date, trying to trademark names in an effort to create a well-organised brand for the sport.

The rise of Fernando Alonso has caused Formula 1 interest to boom in Spain. The Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona has been taking advantage of this success in recent years and has been increasing its crowd capacity each year

The Italian Grand Prix at Monza on Sunday witnessed a very disappointing crowd of 60,000 people. Worse than that, the three-day figure for the event was only 93,000.

Tobacco sponsorship is a confusing business. What we do know for certain is that, according to European Union law, tobacco sponsorship is no longer legal and so it follows that cars should not be seen running around with tobacco branding.

Italian GP - Race Notes

Italian GP - Sunday Photos

Italian GP - Sunday Press Conference

Italian GP - Race incidents

Italian GP - Sunday Team Quotes

Italian GP - Race Results

Italian GP - Starting Grid

Juan Pablo Montoya took pole position for the Italian Grand Prix at Monza despite the fact that his McLaren team mate Kimi Raikkonen went faster. Montoya lapped the Autodromo Nazionale in 1m21.054s but he was then beaten by a tenth of a second by Raikkonen but the Finn must 11th on the grid.

Italian GP - Saturday Photos