Formula One News — June 2004

Former F1 ace Johnny Herbert has put his Audi on pole position for the Le Mans 24 Hours. As expected the battle was between the various Audi R8s and the Herbert, Jamie Davies, Guy Smith car came out ahead of the second Audi UK entry which is shared by Allan McNish, Frank Biela and Pierre Kaffer.

There has been Japanese involvement in Formula 1 since Honda entered the sport in the mid 1960s but there is still to be a Japanese driver who wins a World Championship race. Back in the 1960s when Honda was running its own cars the team manager Yoshio Takamura did not even consider hiring a Japanese driver

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There was a time back in the 1980s when Honda seemed to be completely invincible in Formula 1. The FIA Formula 1 Constructors' World Championship was won by a Honda-powered team for six consecutive seasons between 1986 and 1991 and five times Honda drivers won the Drivers' title.

The top management of GM Europe is being changed with Carl-Peter Forster moving from his role as head of Adam Opel AG to become chief operating officer of GM Europe, which combines the operations of GM's European brands.

Luca di Montezemolo is going to be a busy man as he is to stay on as chairman of Ferrari in addition to running Italy's industrial federation Confindustria and being chairman of the entire Fiat group.

Rumours that Panasonic might be replaced as the title sponsoship of the Toyota F1 team have been rife for some time but although companies such as Microsoft and Sony have been mentioned as possible replacements,

Normand Legault, the promoter of the Canadian Grand Prix, was recognised at a ceremony in Montreal on Wednesday for having saved the Canadian Grand Prix.

Bruno Michel, the man who represents the owners of the new GP2 series, which in 2005 will take the place of the FIA International Formula 3000 series as the main support series for Formula 1, says that the championship will launch next year with 30 cars.

Former Grand Pix star Johnny Herbert set the fastest time in the first practice sessions for this year's Le Mans 24 Hours in his Audi UK R8 prototype. The Audis have dominated the timesheets as expected but Herbert's best lap was an impressive two seconds faster than the second quickest car.

DaimlerChrysler is reported to be considering developing and building a second vehicle in collaboration with McLaren and it is expected that this would be a more affordable alternative to the recently-launched Mercedes-Benz McLaren SLR.

Renault's weakness in F1 this year has been a lack of horsepower in comparison with some of the other teams but the engineers at Viry-Chatillon have been working away to improve not just the maximum power of the engine but also the power curve to make the engine easier to handle.

Enrique Scalabroni is not a man who gives up easily. The former Williams, Ferrari and Team Lotus engineer from Argentina spent two years trying to put together funding to enter F1 with a team led by Japanese racing entrepreneur Tetzu Ikuzawa.

This week Beijing is hosting the Auto China 2004 show, drawing attention to the country's increasingly-important role in the automotive world. Vehicles sales in China boomed by 34% last year to 4.4m, which makes it the world's third biggest market behind the US and Japan.

Former Jaguar Racing test driver Andre Lotterer won the third round of the Formula Nippon championship at Motegi last weekend in his PIAA Nakajima Racing entry and now leads the series, despite the fact that the weekend was dominated by Richard Lyons in his DoCoMo Dandelion car.

The Wilux Minardi Cosworth team is to send its fleet of two-seaters to South Africa go take part in a charity event called "The Altech South African F1x2 Grand Prix". The event will take place at Kyalami on August 9 and proceeds will go to charity.

Bobby Rahal drove in Formula 1 back in the 1970s and a few years ago tried his hand at team management with Jaguar Racing. Rahal's time in F1 was not a happy time and in the end he departed the team, the victim of the politcal infighting which plagued the team at the time.

Mika Hakkinen has told Finnish journalists that he is happy in his retirement and does not wish to change.

The city of Hyderabad in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh will not be hosting the Indian Grand Prix.

Nelson Piquet Jr has moved to the top of the British Formula 3 standings with two wins at Snetterton over the weekend. The Brazilian, son of 1981 and 1983 World Champion Nelson Piquet, was dominant in two of the three races that took place.

Ryan Hunter-Reay completely dominated the Champ Car race at Milwaukee on Saturday, leading from flag to flag and lapping everyone up to third place.

McLaren will not be debuting the revised MP4-19B until the French GP in a month.

The FIA President Max Mosley has written to all the member clubs of the federation, proposing a major restructuring. Mosley wants to divide up the work of the FIA President so that the World Motor Sport Council is chaired by the FIA Deputy President.

Jacques Villeneuve has told Montreal's La Presse newspaper that he has not received an offer to join BMW Williams. This is not news.