Formula One News — April 2009

Malaysian GP - Practice 1 Results

Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group is expected to be confirmed soon that will guarantee the team $30m next year. This will give Virgin the whole car to sell to other sponsors, if it chooses to do that.

Donington Park has had its circuit licence refused by the Motor Sports Association (MSA), because work to improve the circuit had reduced the run-off area where a new tunnel has been built.

Malaysian GP - Thursday Press Conference

Achilleas Kallakis, the entrepreneur and gambler who made much of a bid to buy the team that has become Brawn GP over the winter, is reported to be under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) over an alleged $80m property fraud.

The FIA Stewards have ruled that Lewis Hamilton and McLaren "acted in a manner prejudicial to the conduct of the event by providing evidence deliberately misleading to the Stewards" in Melbourne. They have been excluded from the results and the classification amended accordingly. Jarno Trulli has been reinstated in third place.

Lewis Hamilton's third place in Melbourne has been called into question by what the FIA describes as a "new element" having emerged in the days since the Australian GP.

The last week has seen more bad news for the automobile industry with March sales in the US down 37% compared to a year ago. The big loser was General Motors with a drop of 45% followed by Ford (41%), Toyota (39%), Chrysler and Nissan (38%), Honda (36%), Mercedes-Benz (25%), BMW (24%) and Audi (19%).

Toyota Motorsport has decided not to continue with its appeal against Jarno Trulli's penalty in Melbourne. The team says that it decided to announce the move "to preserve any right it may have to utilise the appeal procedure and to give it time to consider in appropriate detail all the facts relating to the incident".