DECEMBER 22, 2004

Albers to sign for Minardi?

It is anticipated that Minardi will announce tomorrow that it has signed a deal for 2005 with Dutchman Christijan Albers. Albers has been racing in the DTM in recent years but has been trying to get back to single-seaters for some time and has tested for various F1 teams. We hear that Albers will be backed by Dutch media tycoon John de Mol, owner of Dutch commercial broadcasters Radio 10 Gold and Noordzee FM, who is launching his own TV channel next year. De Mol has secured the rights to various soccer events by outbidding the national broadcaster RTL Nederland and we believe the sponsorship of Albers will be linked to the new TV station. De Mol is hugely wealthy having old out his shares in TV company Endemol last year. He and Joop van den Ende built a vast TV empire with reality TV show hits like Big Brother and Fear Factor. We expect there to be an announcement tomorrow in Amsterdam.