NEWS ARCHIVE
FERRARI GETS AN APPEAL
Ferrari has been given the right to appeal to the FIA International Court of Appeal, following a letter from Luigi Macaluso, the head of the Italian national sporting authority CSAI, to Max Mosley.
STEPNEY NAMES BRAWN AS PART OF BREAKAWAY TEAM
Former Ferrari engineer Nigel Stepney has once again protested his innocence, denying that he sent Ferrari information to McLaren chief designer Mike Coughlan. Stepney spoke out after being named as the man responsible by Ferrari team boss Jean Todt.
REMEMBER MINARDI?
There was a time, not so long ago either, when Minardi was a no-hope team in Formula 1. But now Paul Stoddart has reinvented Minardi in America and Robert Doornbos - the team likes to refer to him as "Bobby D" - is battling for the championship lead in the Champ Car World Series.
VETTEL JOINS TORO ROSSO
Sebastian Vettel has joined Scuderia Toro Rosso with immediate effect. He replaces Scott Speed, following the American's clash with team boss Franz Tost at the Grand Prix of Europe.
FERRARI'S COUNTER-ATTACK?
The Italian press is reporting that Ferrari is to lodge a complaint against McLaren with the public prosecution service in Modena. The Italian investigators would then look at the case when there is time available and would decide whether there is any evidence to warrant action.
THE FUTURE OF SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS
In the next day or so Scuderia Toro Rosso has to take up or drop an option on Sebastien Bourdais, the triple Champ Car champion, who has tested for the team several times in recent months.
RENAULT CONFIRMS NEW CFD FACILITY
Renault has confirmed that it is investing heavily in a new computational fluid dynamics (CFD) facility at its F1 factory at Enstone. The investment would seem to suggest that the French company is keen to stay in F1 in the long term but CFD cana lso be used in road car development.
HONDA F1 APPOINTS NEW MARKETING BOSS
Honda Racing F1 has announced the appointment of David Butler as its new marketing director. Butler joins the F1 team from Laureus, where he worked promoting the Laureus Sports Awards, the Laureus World Sports Academy and the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation.
FIA CLARIFIES MACALUSO REMARKS
The FIA says that Luigi Macaluso, the president of the FIA-CIK must have been mistaken when he said that he was the only World Council delegate to have been against the decision not to punish McLaren. "We can confirm that the World Motor Sport Council's decision was unanimous," said an FIA spokesman.
TAKING SIDES?
The FIA does not approve of its World Council members talking to the media and thus there is likely to be a slap on the wrist coming for Luigi Macaluso, a Italian who sits on the World Council, thanks to his role as President of the CIK-FIA International Karting Commission.
JEAN TODT REVEALS MCLAREN-FERRARI PACT
Ferrari boss Jean Todt has revealed a pact between McLaren and Ferrari to avoid the need for the two teams to go to the FIA and to sort out their problems between themselves.
NOW WHAT?
The dust has been settling over the Stepneygate decision at the FIA World Council yesterday in Paris and while Ferrari and a few media outlets have been making outraged noises about the decision, the fact is that the federation has said its piece and unless Ferrari can come up with some real proof that McLaren used the information found in Mike Coughlan's house, it seems that the issue is now dead.
A CALENDAR FOR 2008
The FIA World Council has come up with a calendar for next year's Formula 1 World Championship. There are 18 races, as expected, with the disappearance of the United States GP and the arrival of new events in Valencia and Singapore.
A DECISION BASED ON FACTS AND REALITIES
When Ron Dennis emerged from the six hour hearing of the FIA World Motor Sport Council, he said: "The punishment fits the crime". That said it all.
MCLAREN REACTS
McLaren has reacted to the findings of the FIA World Council.
NO PUNISHMENT FOR MCLAREN F1 TEAM
The FIA World Motor Sports Council has decided not to impose any penalty on the McLaren F1 team. The FIA said after the hearing that it would pursue action against Coughlan and Ferrari engineer Nigel Stepney.
SPYKER CONFIRMS YAMAMOTO
As we exclusively predicted yesterday morning, the Spyker F1 team has announced that Sakon Yamamoto will partner Adrian Sutil for the remaining races of the World Championship.
FERRARI USING QUEST
Ferrari is using Britain's Quest company for its investigations into the espionage activities of Mike Coughlan. Quest is a private company that bills itself as "The Professional Intelligence Company".
YAMAMOTO TO SPYKER
We are hearing that Spyker will soon announce that it has signed up Japan's Sakon Yamamoto for the rest of the Formula 1 season. Yamamoto joined Super Aguri F1 a year ago, made his F1 debut in Germany and did the second half of the year with the Japanese team.
SPEED GIVES TOST BOTH BARRELS
Scott Speed has decided that he has had enough with Scuderia Toro Rosso team manager Franz Tost and launched an uncompromising attack on the Austrian in an interview with Speedvision.com's Adam Cooper.
THE FRENCH GP RETURNS
Bernie Ecclestone has had a meeting with the French Prime Minister Francois Fillon and the country's Minister of Health, Youth and Sport Roselyne Bachelot and the word is that the future of the French Grand Prix has been secured at Magny-Cours for two more years.
A NEW FOCUS ON STEPNEYGATE
In the run-up to the FIA World Council to discuss the Stepneygate affair, the stream of wild stories about their activities seems finally to have slowed down as everyone concerned realises that leaking too much information to the media could affect the outcome of the process.
PUGILISM IN THE PITS
Things are going from bad to worse at Scuderia Toro Rosso, where tensions have been high for months because of the team's unusual attitude towards motivating its drivers and because of poor reliability and disorganised qualifying sessions and pit stops.
RACE REPORT - FERNANDO BARGES AHEAD
The European Grand Prix of 2007 was a quite extraordinary race. A rainstorm broke over the event after just one lap of action. A debutant - Markus Winkelhock - took a risk and found himself leading his first F1 race by half a minute - in a Spyker.
RACE RESULTS
European GP - Race Results
HAMILTON WILL RACE
Vodafone McLaren Mercedes is pleased to confirm that Lewis Hamilton has been cleared to race in today’s European Grand Prix by the FIA Medical Delegate Dr Gary Hartstein and the Chief Medical Officer of the event, Dr Klaus Zerbian. Hamilton will thus start 10th on the grid for the race.
QUALIFYING REPORT - KIMI STARS AS LEWIS SHUNTS
The heavy accident that befell Lewis Hamilton with five minutes to go in qualifying for the European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring probably skewed the results of qualifying for the race.
HAMILTON BACK IN THE PADDOCK
Lewis Hamilton has returned to the F1 paddock after undergoing medical tests at the Bundeswehrezentralkrankenhaus in Koblenz. The team will now decided whether Hamilton will race tomorrow. There is little doubt that he will be on the grid on Sunday.
QUALIFYING RESULTS
European GP - Qualifying Results
MORE ON LEWIS'S CONDITION
Lewis Hamilton has no broken bones and no pain but will be staying in the Medical Centre at the Nurburgring under observation for a couple of hours to make sure that the G-forces involved in his accident did not cause him any serious damage.
HAMILTON HAS A BIG ONE
Lewis Hamilton had a sizeable accident in the final minutes of qualifying for the European Grand Prix when his McLaren suffered a tyre or wheel failure on the right front at the high-speed Turn 8.
PRACTICE 3 REPORT - RAIKKONEN STAYS ON TOP
Kimi Raikkonen continued to lead the way at the Nurburging, setting the fastest lap of the morning session on Saturday with a time that two-tenths of a second faster than McLaren's Lewis Hamilton.
PRACTICE 3 RESULTS
European GP - Practice 3 Results
PRACTICE 2 REPORT - RAIKKONEN MOVES AHEAD
Kimi Raikkonen ended the second practice session for the European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring at the top of the timesheets, beating Lewis Hamilton by a tenth of a second.
PRACTICE 2 RESULTS
European GP - Practice 2 Results
FFSA AIMS FOR MORE RACES AT MAGNY-COURS
The French motorsport federation (FFSA) says that it is hoping to organise a French GP in 2008, despite suggestions (from Bernie Ecclestone and others) that the race will not happen next year.
PRACTICE 1 REPORT - HAMILTON LEADS THE WAY IN FIRST PRACTICE
Lewis Hamilton took his McLaren to the top of the timesheets at the Nurburgring, two-tenths of a second ahead of Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari. The Finn was two-tenths clear of Hamilton's McLaren team-mate Fernando Alonso.
PRACTICE 1 RESULTS
European GP - Practice 1 Results
THURSDAY PRESS CONFERENCE
European GP - Thursday Press Conference
SPECTRE PUSHES BRDC TO CONSIDER SILVERSTONE PLAN
Spectre Development, the property company that wants to develop Silverstone, is pushing the British Racing Drivers Club board to allow it to make a presentation to the club members.
HONDA CONFIRMS CURRENT DRIVERS
Honda Racing F1 has confirmed that Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello will remain as team-mates for a third consecutive year in 2008.
SPYKER CONFIRMS WINKELHOCK
Markus Winkelhock, will partner Adrian Sutil at this weekend's European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring.
ABU DHABI GETTING TO WORK
Work is pushing ahead for the inaugural Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Yas Island. The circuit website continues to count down to February 1 2009 and there is still much to be done on the 6300-acre island.
WINKELHOCK AND SPYKER
The Spyker team is expected to announce shortly that it is going to be running Germany's Markus Winkelhock at the German Grand Prix. The team may then switch to run Narain Karthikeyan for the rest of the year. The question is really not to do with which is the best available driver but rather who can bring the most money.
WILLIAMS UPGRADES COMPUTING POWER WITH LENOVO
Williams and Lenovo started their relationship earlier this year and that has now been extended to assist the team with its computational fluid dynamics (CFD) development.
RIVAL TEAMS PILLAGE BMW SAUBER
While Ferrari and McLaren are busy scrapping over who knew what and when, the BMW Sauber team is finding itself under attack from other teams, who want to get the best people out of the Swiss operation, which is currently running a strong third in the Constructors' Championship.
GEOFF WILLIS JOINS RED BULL TECHNOLOGY
Geoff Willis, the former technical director of Honda Racing F1, has been hired by Red Bull to be Technical Director of Red Bull Technology, reporting to Chief Technical Officer, Adrian Newey.
MCLAREN CONFIRMS THAT COUGHLAN ACTED ALONE
McLaren has issued another press statement saying that its own investigation revealed that "no Ferrari materials or data are or have ever been in the possession of any McLaren employee other than the individual sued by Ferrari.
DE FERRAN LEAVES HONDA
Gil de Ferran has decided to give up his role as the Sporting Director of Honda Racing F1 and is expected to return to America where he is likely to end up being employed - if he wishes to be - in the Indy Racing League.
A QUIET WEEKEND
It was a quiet weekend in the Formula 1 world with not much happening beyond more leaks in Italy regarding what was in Mike Coughlan's affadavit. It seems that this has been leaked to members of the Italian media by Ferrari - ostensibly the only people in Italy who have the document - although it may only be the parts that Ferrari wants the media to know.
MCLAREN REACTS TO THE FIA
McLaren has put out a statement saying that it is "extremely disappointed to note that it has been asked by the FIA to answer a charge of being in possession of certain documents and confidential information belonging to Ferrari".
GOODBYE INDIANAPOLIS
The United States Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway will not be on the 2008 Formula 1 schedule. After recent meetings, Indianapolis Motor Speedway CEO Tony George and Formula One Management Ltd. CEO Bernie Ecclestone mutually agreed to not schedule a race at Indianapolis in 2008.
SHIRT THREAT TO F1 MONEY SUPPLY
It is worth noting something that could have an important effect on the way in which sports sponsorship money is spent in the future. The international football federation (FIFA) is asking its strategy committee to consider the implications of authorising sponsorship on the shirts of the national teams involved in the World Cup soccer competition.
FORMULA ONE AND F1
Back in August 2001 Formula One Licensing BV made an application to register the UK trade mark "F1" for a variety of goods and services in 10 classes. Opposition to this was raised in December 2005 by a French company called Racing-Live which claimed that "F1" is a recognised abbreviation for the sport of Formula 1 and, as such, cannot be trademarked. A hearing was held on June 6 at which both parties presented their evidence.
THE FIA GOES INTO ACTION IN THE FERRARI-COUGHLAN AFFAIR
The FIA World Motor Sport Council has requested that representatives of the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes appear before an extraordinary meeting of the FIA World Motor Sport Council in Paris on Thursday, July 26.
KLIEN TO TEST FOR SPYKER
Christian Klien will test for the Spyker team on Thursday at Spa-Francorchamps tomorrow, but the team says that no decision has yet been made about who will drive for the team for the rest of the season. Klien has been released by Honda for the test.
FERRARI-COUGHLAN CASE FAR FROM OVER
Ferrari has won the first round of its legal action with Mike and Trudy Coughlan, regarding the current industrial espionage scandal between Ferrari and McLaren. The Coughlans have agreed to signed a sworn statement in Britain giving the full details of their involvement in the affair.
KARTHIKEYAN VERSUS PIQUET FOR SPYKER
The word on the street is that Spyker will replace Christijan Albers with Narain Karthikeyan, the Indian driver who is keen to get back to racing after a couple of years on the sidelines. Karthikeyan is currently a Williams test driver thanks to his links with the team's sponsor Tata.
ZANDER IS HONDA'S NEW TOP MAN
Jorg Zander, currently the chief designer at BMW Sauber is to move to Honda Racing F1 to be the new deputy technical director, under Japan's Shuhei Nakamoto.
HIGH COURT IS F1'S CENTRE COURT
The Formula 1 press corps descended on the High Court in London to day to hear the opening day's activity in the case of Ferrari SpA versus Coughlan & Another. This turned out to be Mrs Coughlan. Ferrari's QC Nigel Tozzi, who specialises in contractual litigation, commercial fraud and misuse of confidential information.
TORO ROSSO LOOKS FOR ASIAN CASH
Total Sports Asia has been appointed the official sponsorship agent in Asia and the Middle East for Scuderia Toro Rosso. TSA has six offices in the region and hopes to be able to bring in substantial sponsorship.
SPYKER CONFIRMS ALBERS IS OUT
Spyker F1 has announced that Christijan Albers will no longer race for the team. The decision was taken as a result of one of Albers's main personal sponsors failing to make a payment.
ALBERS DROPPED BY SPYKER
Christijan Albers has been dropped by Spyker because his sponsorship has failed to appear. The Dutch driver has struggled to stay competitive this year with his rookie team-mate and it was clear that his position was dependent entirely on funding.
AN OLD SCANDAL REVISITED
Ten years ago British Prime Minister Tony Blair ran into his first scandal in office when Bernie Ecclestone donated £1m to the Labour Party and, coincidentally, the party changed its views about tobacco advertising at racing circuits.
MEANWHILE IN THE HIGH COURT
Today in Court 59 at the High Court in London the case of Ferrari Spa versus Coughlan and Another will be heard by Mr Justice Briggs. It is anticipated that Ferrari's lawyers will give more details of their plans regarding legal actions but will probably also include a request to extend an injunction against McLaren chief designer Mike Coughlan which forbids Coughlan and others from giving data to a third party.
RACE REPORT - KIMI WALKS AWAY
After his pole position on Saturday, Lewis Hamilton was a national hero but down in the McLaren camp there were worries that the Ferrari pace was going to be too quick to stop.
RACE RESULTS
British GP - Race Results
STEPNEY SPEAKS OUT
Ferrari's Nigel Stepney has been giving his version of events in the ongoing scandal over espionage and sabotage in Maranello. Stepney has been accused of both by Ferrari.
QUALIFYING REPORT - HAMILTON KEEPS THE FANS HAPPY
Lewis Hamilton blasted to pole position for the British Grand Prix in a knife-edge finish during the qualifying. Hamilton made no mistakes (as usual) and ended up edging out Kimi Raikkonen by a small margin when the Finn drifted wide at the final corner and lost traction in the run down to the start-finish line.
QUALIFYING RESULTS
British GP - Qualifying Results
AND SO THE SCANDALS ROLL ON...
The British Grand Prix weekend has seen the espionage scandal roll on with huge amounts of rumour and gossip, making it very difficult to figure out what is truth and what is speculation.
PRACTICE 3 REPORT - KIMI STAYS AHEAD
Kimi Raikkonen remained at the front in the Saturday morning practice session ahead of McLaren's Fernando Alonso, Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton. Onbce again the fastest of the chasers was Nico Rosberg in the Williams ahead of Ralf Schumacher's Toyota, the Toro Rosso of Tonio Liuzzi and Heikki Kovalainen's Renault.
PRACTICE 3 RESULTS
British GP - Practice 3 Results
PRACTICE 2 REPORT - FERRARI ON TOP AT SILVERSTONE
On Friday afternoon Kimi Raikkonen was again at the top of the F1 timesheets with Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa behind him. Whether this is a clear indication for the rest of the weekend remains to be seen but third fastest was Ralf Schumacher, a long way back in his Toyota.
PRACTICE 2 RESULTS
British GP - Practice 2 Results
KLIEN STANDS IN FOR BUTTON
Jenson Button is suffering from back pains and so is to miss the second practice session for the British Grand Prix. It is hoped that Button will be fit enough to be back in the car tomorrow.
COULTHARD RE-SIGNS WITH RED BULL RACING
David Coulthard has been re-signed for another season with Red Bull Racing. The team is also expected to keep Mark Webber and that means that the young Red Bull drivers at Scuderia Toro Rosso will not be moving up into the main team.
PRACTICE 1 REPORT - HAMILTON GETS THE FANS WARMED UP
A blustery Silverstone was treated to Lewis Hamilton setting the fastest time of the first session on Friday morning. The McLaren driver lapped the track at 1m21.100s, which ended up being a tenth faster than the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen.
PRACTICE 1 RESULTS
British GP - Practice 1 Results
NOW HONDA GETS INVOLVED
The full extent of the scandal, which Formula 1 is now calling "Stepneygate", is about to drag in the Honda F1 team as well as McLaren and Ferrari. There were rumours in the Silverstone paddock on Friday that the Japanese team will make some kind of statement about the situation shortly.
GOOD NEWS FOR BRIDGESTONE MAN
There is good news from France regarding Nicolas Duquesne, Bridgestone's director of public relations, who was seriously injured in a helicopter crash at Magny-Cours.
MCLAREN'S NEW HOSPITALITY FACILITY
McLaren unveiled its vast new hospitality unit at Silverstone and Ron Dennis explained that the new "Brand Centre" will be a very cost-effective tool in the next five years.
DENNIS TALKS ABOUT THE ESPIONAGE SCANDAL
McLaren boss Ron Dennis has been talking about the espionage allegations involving Ferrari and McLaren.
MORE DETAILS ON THE F1 ESPIONAGE SCANDAL
The complicated allegations regarding Ferrari's Nigel Stepney, his connections with an officially unnamed senior McLaren engineer - and the details of the investigation into their supposed activities have led to much confusion in Formula 1 circles.
FORMULA 1 AND "SEARCH WARRANTS"
Ferrari yesterday put out a statement that said that "legal action has been instigated in England and a search warrant has been issued concerning the engineer. This produced a positive outcome".
FIA TO INVESTIGATE ESPIONAGE CLAIMS
With the full cooperation of both teams, the FIA has initiated an investigation into matters involving Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro and Vodaphone McLaren Mercedes. The federation says that the investigation will "focus solely on the requirements of the International Sporting Code and the Formula 1 Regulations".
MCLAREN INVITES FIA INSPECTION
McLaren has announced that it has completed a thorough investigation and has confirmed that "no Ferrari intellectual property has been passed to any other members of the team or incorporated into its cars".
TROUBLES AT SPYKER CARS
While F1 is fixated on the problems between Ferrari and McLaren, there is action going on at Spyker as well with reports in Holland that the larger shareholders in Spyker want to de-list the company from the Euronext stock exchange in order to restructure. The story appeared in the De Pers newspaper, which is owned by Marcel Boekhoorn, a Spyker shareholder.
MCLAREN SUSPENDS SENIOR STAFF MAN
McLaren issued a statement this afternoon saying that "a senior member of its technical organisation was the subject of a Ferrari investigation regarding the receipt of technical information' and that McLaren had only discovered about it on that day.
LEWIS WANTS A PAY RISE?
There are reports in Spain that Lewis Hamilton is asking McLaren for a pay rise. Hamilton signed for McLaren this year for a salary which is believed to be around $300,000, with a bonus scheme based on the number of points that he scores.
STEPNEY DEPARTS FERRARI
Nigel Stepney has left Ferrari. The team confirmed on Tuesday that there has been a disciplinary procedure and that Stepney is no longer employed. Stepney says he is innocent of allegations that he tried to sabotage the Ferrari F1 cars in the days before the Monaco Grand Prix.
MINARDI IS A WINNER!
Minardi Team USA scored its first victory in the Champ Car World Series at the weekend at Mont Tremblant in Canada, with Robert Doornbos, a Champ Car rookie, beating the pack and equalling Sebastien Bourdais in the championship standings.
A NEW WAY TO WATCH THE BRITISH GRAND PRIX
For the first time in Formula 1 history, fans will be able to watch the Grand Prix live on the big screen, thanks to Vue Cinemas, a cinema chain which will be broadcasting the British Grand Prix directly from Silverstone to 30 multiplexes across the UK. The company says it will create a larger-than-life experience - and there will be no commercial breaks.
RACE REPORT - OH ROUGE!
Ferrari wins the French Grand Prix! Kimi Raikkonen led Felipe Massa to a Ferrari 1-2 at Magny-Cours, but Lewis Hamilton increased his World Championship lead to 14 points by finishing third.
MORE ON THE MAGNY-COURS HELICOPTER ACCIDENT
Further details have now emerged about the helicopter accident on Saturday evening at Magny-Cours. An Alouette helicopter, based in Paris, took off from the circuit at around 7.15pm.
RACE RESULTS
French GP - Race Results
THREE KILLED IN HELICOPTER ACCIDENT
A helicopter carrying five people from Magny-Cours to a hotel near Charite-sur-Loire, to the north of Nevers, crashed late last night, killing three of those onboard.
