Formula One News — May 2001

GASTON MAZZACANE will not be returning to Minardi, team-boss Paul Stoddart has said.

YOUNG German Touring Car driver Timo Schneider will get an opportunity to realize his Formula One dream after being told he will test with Jordan at the end of the season.

MERCEDES-BENZ motorsport director Norbert Haug has predicted that Mika Hakkinen will be involved in the title shake-up at the end of the season, despite his failings so far this year.

JORDAN GRAND PRIX has opted to have three race engineers per car from the Spanish Grand Prix onwards as it attempts to turn its strong form into a position to challenge the front-runners.

WILLIAMS, Jaguar, Prost and Benetton ended a four-day test at Valencia as they took part in a simulated wet weather tire test at the Spanish circuit.

JAGUAR believes that its fortunes will be enhanced by the arrival of new chief race engineer, Mark Ellis, who comes to the team after a short spell at BAR but is best known for his work in the British Touring Car Championship.

TOMAS SCHECKTER, the son of 1979 world champion Jody Scheckter, has had his contract as Jaguar's F1 development driver terminated with immediate effect.

REIGNING world champion Michael Schumacher came to the wheel for Ferrari as the Italian team continued testing work at their Fiorano test track on Friday.

IT seems that people are impressed by more than just European Minardi's lavish new motor homes, formerly the property of the Sultan of Brunei, following the Spanish Grand Prix.

ROGER SILMAN, the managing director of the Arrows team, is to retire. He will be replaced by Kevin Lee.

THE announcement that Jaguar Racing has taken on Ford's former CART program manager Jay O'Connell gives a clear indication that the Milton Keynes-based racing team is being run by American transplant Bobby Rahal.

PHILIP MORRIS, the owner of Ferrari sponsor Marlboro, is to float its food business Kraft Foods Inc. for around $8.7bn.

THE planned Indian Grand Prix depends on the result of the West Bengal state elections on May 10.

ACCORDING to reports in Malaysia, Tan Sri Basir Ismail, the chairman of Malaysia Airports Holdings, is offering to buy the Sepang circuit from the airport company he controls.

JAGUAR has continued the strengthening of its backroom staff with the appointment of Ford's former CART program manager Jay O'Connell.

TOYOTA may be about to learn another lesson about the harsh realities of the contemporary Formula 1 business.

DAVID COULTHARD put his traction control failure in the Spanish Grand Prix behind him as he topped the times while testing the electronic aid on the third day of testing at the Valencia circuit on Thursday.

EM.TV announced earlier this week that it made losses in 2000 of $1.28bn, nearly twice its turnover.

A terse press release from Cologne has revealed that Toyota Motorsport's technical director Andre de Cortanze has left the program and Formula 1 insiders are already suggesting that the Japanese car company has begun to realize that it is facing some serious problems in the future.

THERE is an unspoken lexicon of F1-speak which seasoned insiders can read like a book.

FERRARI continued work on their electronics systems at Fiorano on Thursday as Rubens Barrichello and test-driver Luca Badoer put the team's cars through their paces.

OLIVIER PANIS topped the timesheets on the final day of testing at the Silverstone circuit on Thursday as the British American Racing driver was more than a tenth of a second quicker than Jordan's Jarno Trulli.

REPRESENTATIVES of member states of the World Health Organization gathered this week for a second round of talks about the planned international treaty to ban tobacco advertising.

SYLVESTER STALLONE's racing movie "Driven" took nearly twice as much money as its nearest rival at the US Box Office last weekend.