Formula One Features — August 2000

Despite all the speculation in the run-up to Wednesday's meeting of F1 Constructors at the Hilton Hotel next to Heathrow airport's Terminal Four, Max Mosley has successfully fronted down disjointed attempts by various team owners to dislodge him from his post as FIA President.

The very mention of Belgium does, it has to be said, make me chuckle. Nothing to do with Euro sausages or institutionalized tedium. Oh no, it's the bewilderment that swept through thousands of FC Bruges fans when the visiting Chelsea rose to their feet to chant: "Are you French or are you Dutch? Arrrrr-eee you French or arrr-eee you Dutch? Who are ya? Who are ya? Who are ya?"

West Cigarettes are the major sponsor of the McLaren Formula 1 team. The West brand is owned by the German tobacco company Reemtsma, which is based in Hamburg.

When Michael Schumacher climbed the steps of the rostrum after being roundly beaten into second place by Mika Hakkinen's McLaren in Sunday's Belgian grand prix, for the first time the Ferrari driver wore the expression of a man who knew that the game was up.

Team Astromega scored the perfect result at Spa with a 1-2 finish for Fernando Alonso and Marc Goossens. The cars were in a class of their own but both drivers did a good job, Alonso in particular impressing the Formula 1 teams with a mature drive to a crushing victory. The 19-year-old Spaniard may end up in F1 next year as a result.

The history of the Compaq Computer Corporation dates back to 1981 when three Texas Instruments employees Rod Canion, Bill Murto and Jim Harris sat in a Houston restaurant and sketched out the design of a personal computer on a table napkin. They established a corporation with backing from famed computer venture capitalist Ben Rosen (who funded the start-ups of firms such including Apple, Intel, Lotus, Silicon Graphics and Electronic Arts). Compaq produced its first computer in July 1982 and its Portable PC was an immediate success and in 1983 the company turned over $111m. The introduction of a Compaq desktop and increased sales of the laptop trebled that figure in 1984 when Compaq began operating in Europe under another former TI employee Eckhard Pfeiffer.

One minute he is the archetypal British sportsman: the square-jawed, relatively clean-living gentleman, Mr. Nice Guy. The hard trier who never quite gets it together, never quite gets close enough to win the cigar, let alone to light it. But the next, he'll suddenly drag out the sort of performance that won him last year's Belgian Grand Prix at Spa Francorchamps, one of the most demanding venues in the calendar and the one said to sort the Haves from the Have Nots. In the 1999 race at the daunting circuit in the Hautes Fagnes region, Coulthard beat his much-vaunted team-mate Mika Hakkinen so fair and square that the normally placid Finn got himself into a fair old snit about it.

Alberto Bombassei established the Brembo company in the town of Paladina, near Bergamo in northern Italy, in 1961.

With the US Grand Prix at Indianapolis a little over a month away, there is a huge sense of anticipation surrounding the return of the F1 world championship to the country it last vacated a decade ago after two unremarkable races through the streets of Phoenix, Arizona.

The prime factors that differentiate the performance of one make of Formula 1 car from another in the current era of a single tire supplier are the engine and the aerodynamics. After the engine, it is the aerodynamics that commands the bulk of the R&D budget, with the team's wind tunnel being a major capital expenditure.

I'm really curious to know what Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley honestly think about Colin Sullivan's new Premier 1 Grand Prix operation. To start with, this novel marketing concept to merge top-line European soccer promotions with a new motor racing category has been developing for the past 18 months behind the scenes.

General Electric may only be a small sponsor on the rear wing of the Ferrari but it is a vast conglomerate which builds everything from aircraft engines to light bulbs, nuclear power plants to railway locomotives not to mention advanced plastics and medical equipment. It owns a huge financial services company and the NBC television network. The Fairfield, Connecticut-based company supplies Ferrari with technological information from its research into advanced plastics and ceramics.