Formula One News — January 2002

Former Grand Prix driver Ukyo Katayama made it to the end of the gruelling Paris-Dakar Rally on Sunday, albeit nearly 55 hours behind the race winner.

Niki Lauda had a successful test outing in the F1 Jaguar R2C at Valencia today.

Although the State Coroner in Melbourne has already said the he does not see there being a problem with this year's Australian Grand Prix going ahead as planned.

Formula 1 team boss Eddie Jordan has vigorously denied stories that his team is facing financial difficulties. The stories began when the team failed to name Benson & Hedges as its title sponsor for 2002.

Toyota's lead driver Mika Salo has continued to tow the party line in a BBC interview that despite huge investment and a year's intensive testing the Japanese team shouldn't be expected to be at or even near race-winning pace in its first season.

BAR team principal David Richards has specifically rejected any contractually possibility of Jacques Villeneuve leaving the team in a swap deal with Renault driver Jenson Button.

Mark Webber is to join the Minardi team's testing next week in Valencia.

The BMW Williams team is to unveil its new FW24 on January 25 at Silverstone.

It has been expected for a long time but the interesting thing about the Orange Arrows announcement that Enrique Bernoldi is to stay for a second season with the Leafield team is that the press release completely failed to mention that Jos Verstappen has already been confirmed as a driver.

Johnny Herbert has said he is out to win the 2002 Indianapolis 500 and the Le Mans 24-hour classic in a bid to become the first man to bag this double in the same year since US racing legend A.J. Foyt did so in 1967.

The Ford Motor Company has announced that it is to close five of its factories in North America and lay-off 35,000 workers.

The current focus in Formula 1 circles is on who will end up driving the second KL Minardi Asiatech.

There were rumors at the Autosport International Show on Thursday that the boss of the Ford World Rally Championship operation Martin Whitaker is to leave the team to return to Formula 1

The sheer scale of the Toyota F1 effort has started to dawn on rival F1 teams amidst rumors circulating at this week's Barcelona test that the Japanese car giant had committed to a $1.45 billion budget.

The EJ11 Jordans of Giancarlo Fisichella and Takuma Sato topped the time charts during the last day of testing in Barcelona on Friday.

Renault has announced that Oliver Gavin will rejoin their testing team in 2002 to help in the development of the car's launch control and traction control systems.

Wolfgang Reitzle, the president of Ford's Premier Automotive Group, will join Niki Lauda at Valencia on Sunday where he will drive one of the Jaguar R2C development cars after the former triple World Champion has taken his turn at the wheel.

The Ford Motor Company is to announce today that it is to reduce its global production capacity by one million units.

As France waits for news as to whether or not Prost Grand Prix is going to be saved, there is speculation that as part of the deal the team will run a young French driver in the second car.

Enrique Bernoldi will drive for Arrows in 2002 the team announced Friday.

The start of a new season is always a time when there is a great deal of media interest in the sport.

Gerhard Schroeder has been Chancellor of Germany since the elections in September 1998 but this year the Social Democrat leader is to be challenged for power by Dr. Edmund Stoiber, the Christian Socialist who is the Minister-President of Bavaria.

Maria Bellanca, who used to work as a press officer in Formula 1, has been named a director of Octagon Motorsports.

Tomas Enge, who raced for the Prost team at the end of last season, has given up his plans to try to find a ride in Formula 1 this season.