Formula One News — June 2007

Canadian GP - Thursday Press Conference

Being a Formula 1 team principal is a busy life and so it is no real surprise to hear that there are reports in the Italian press that Renault F1 boss Flavio Briatore is currently in dispute with magistrates in Milan who want to have a chat with him about David Mills, the English lawyer who is accused of having accepted a bribe of $600,000 from former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

There have been a few headlines today regarding a possible French Grand Prix at Versailles. It is a nice idea. Disneyland pulls in 12.4m visitors a year, the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre both claim 6m and the Pompidou Centre (5m) but Versailles requires transportation from the city and so the annual number of visitors is only three million. However there are a large number of reasons why a race is unlikely to happen.

The Swiss have a complicated form of government and so reports that motor racing can now go ahead in the country are a little premature. It is true that the Nationalrat, the Lower House of the Swiss Parliament, has voted in favour of a revised version of the Swiss Road Traffic Act to allow for circuit racing, but there is still a long way to go before we see any races.

The French Grand Prix may be in trouble but that does not mean that efforts to promote this year's race will be any less energetic than in previous years. After last year's Pink Floyd concert, this year the FFSA has decided to host a Grand Prix de France rugby party, to celebrate the fact that this year France will be hosting the Rugby World Cup.

Giancarlo Fisichella and his business manager Enrico Zanarini have launched the Fisichella Motor Sport Academy, a racing school that will be part of a bigger Fisichella Motor Sport Technopole at the Vallelunga racing circuit near Rome.

For many years in the early years of the sport, Switzerland was the home of one of the major Grands Prix of the year, at the exciting Bremgarten circuit, on the outskirts of Berne. But in 1955, in the wake of the Le Mans disaster, in which around 100 people were killed when a car flew into the crowd, the Swiss decided to ban motor racing competitions.

Champ Car had been planning to visit China this year - but problems with the promoter meant that the event had to be rescheduled from May 20 to October 28. Or at least that was what was wanted.

Bill France Jr, the man who took over NASCAR from his father Bill Sr and expanded it into the vast business it is today, has died at the age of 74.

There was a busy weekend of racing around the world. At Milwaukee the Indy Racing League teams gathered just a week after Indianapolis and Tony Kanaan gave Andretti Green Racing another victory, heading home his team mate Dario Franchitti with Chip Ganassi's Dan Wheldon third.

Bernie Ecclestone has finally come out and said it: he wants the British government to pay for the British Grand Prix. The race could be dropped from the F1 calendar in 2010 if money cannot be found to rebuild Silverstone and to pay the fees demanded by the Formula One group.

Honda has begun the technical restructuring of its Formula 1 team with the news that John Owen, a senior aerodynamicist at BMW Sauber has been appointed as the Brackley team's new head of aerodynamics. There are very few details at the moment but we understand that there will be further recruitments announced in the next few days.

There has been much talk in the last couple of days suggesting that Luca di Montezemolo may be a candidate for the role of Prime Minister in Italy. The Ferrari and FIAT boss has denied any plan to do that, saying that he has no intention to ever go into politics.