MARCH 11, 1996
Dome to launch next week
THE Dome Formula 1 team is being launched next Monday at the Spiral Event Hall in Tokyo, and testing of the prototype F105 will begin next month in Japan with Italian Marco Apicella - who won the Japanese Formula 3000 title with Dome in 1994 - expected to do most of the work, although he will be joined by Dome's current F3000 drivers Shinji Nakano and Katsumi Yamamoto on occasion.
Dome will use Mugen Honda V10 engines and will run with Goodyear tires. After initial testing in Japan, the team will head to Europe in July with tests planned for Magny-Cours and Silverstone. Eventually Dome will establish a European base from which the team will be run. This will be somewhere in England.
The entire F1 program, however, remains dependent on finance and according to team manager Tadashi Sasaki, who was in Melbourne during the weekend, there is still a lot of work to be done before the team has the necessary budget.