February 2002

28 February 2002 A masked man has allegedly shot at a security guard at the Melbourne race track in the ngith between Wednesday and Thursday. In a press staement, the police says that the accident took place near the medical center around 3.00am. The security officer disturbed a man attempting to enter a reserved area, who the ran off and shot at the security officer, missing her. Nobody was hurt and the intruder got away.

28 February 2002 M. Schumacher has stated that he does not intend to leave Ferrari until he retires. The current World Champion has a contract with the Italian team until 2004, but he is looking into renewing it. He believes that the current Ferrari team is the best a racing driver could hope for.

27 February 2002 The Arrows 2002 livery has been unveiled in Melbourne. The new livery is almost completely orange, reflecting Arrows' main sponsors, Orange and Red Bull.

27 February 2002 A new penalty has been introduced for the 2002 season, the "drive through". The drive throuh will be the minimum penalty and will involve a penalised driver driving through the pit lane, repsecting the speed limit. Until now there was only one race penalty, the 10-seconds stop-go. The new penalty will be in force from the Australian GP.

27 February 2002 The large car manufacturers (BMW, Mercedes, Fiat, Renault and Ford) are ready to discuss the purchase of Formula 1 broadcast rights with the Kirch Group. Juergen Hubbert of Mercedes said that the car manufacturers are intersted in buying all or part of Kirch's share in SLec. According to Hubbert, the car manufacturers have already started working towards setting up an alternative series in 2008, but they are prepared to reconsider if they get an interesting offer. The Kirch Group, which is having financial problems, owns 58% of Slec currently valued at half what Kirch originally paid for it one year ago (1.6 billion euros).

27 February 2002 Eddie Jordan revealed that F3000 Chmapion Justin Wilson did not get a test drive with the team because he is tall. The Briton is almost 2 metres tall and he is too big for modern Formula 1 cars. Japanese Takuma Sato, who is considerably shorter, landed the drive instead. According to Eddie jordan, drivers need to be jockey sized to fit in modern F1 cars. He also said that the FIA should look at the problem because great talents are currently excluded from entering in F1 due to their size.

26 February 2002 During a conference on Italian brands organised by Deutsche Bank, Luca Cordero di Montezemolo said that it is possible that Ferrari will be floated on the Exchange in the future. The decision to do so lies with the shareholders.

26 February 2002 In an interview with the Sun tabloid John Walton, former sporting director of the Prost team, has accused Alain Prost of sealing the team's fate by rejecting two rescue bids. According to Walton the problem was that Alain Prost wanted to be in total control all the time, while the people making the rescue bid wanted him to step down. After the liquidation of the Prost team Walton got a new job as Minardi's manager and sporting director.

26 February 2002 Montoya said that Ferrari took the wrong decision when the team chose to start the 2002 seaosn with the 2001 car. The Columbian said that the decision might work in Williams' favour.

25 February 2002 Less than a week before the start of the 2002 F1 season Jordan are unhappy with their new Honda engine. Eddie Jordan has admitted to the BBC that he thinks that the RA002E engine is not powerful enough, while Honda chief Takeo Fukui said that the new engine is not reliable enough ay high rpm. The comments come as a blow to the BAR team, that uses the same engine as Jordan.

22 February 2002 Jordan have presented their 2002 contender, the EJ12, in Brussles. The new title team sponsor is delivery firm DHL, that takes over from Benson and Hedges. The team's new name is DHL Jordan Honda.

22 February 2002 Jos Verstappen has had a seat fitting at Sauber, fuelling rumours that he might work for the team as a test driver in 2002.

22 February 2002 Minardi have launched the 2002 chassis, the PS02, at Kuala Lumpur airport. The two official drivers for the season due to start next week are Alex Yoong and Max Webber.

21 February 2002 The German car manufacturers do not intend to become SLEC shareholders, according Jurgen Hubbert of Mercedes, part of the DaimlerChrysler group. Hubbert said that none of the German car manufacturers has had any contact with either the Kirch group or Bernie Ecclestone with regards to buying off their share of SLEC. Recently the papers had suggested that the German car manufacturers and Fiat had been interested in buying off a majority of SLEC.

20 February 2002 Leo Kirch said that he is prepapred to open up to new shareholders, in a bid to save the Kirch Group. He did not comment on the Financial Times article saying that he has put all his shares up for sale.

20 February 2002 Michelin's new asymmetrical grooved tyres are already a hot topic of dicussion, even before it has been decided whether they will be used in the Australian GP or not. The new tyre design has not been approved by FIA yet. The tyres have four grooves of the same width, as per regulation, but the sides of the grooves are not symmetrical, with the outside side at a higher angle than the other. This design allows the tyre to become compressed under stress, obtaining a wider surface of contact with the ground. The advantage of this design is that tyres perform better and last longer. Michelin claims that the tyres conform to the regulations, but Mosley says that the tyres must look the same regardless of where they are look at from. The risk is that all the teams with Michelin tyres could be disqualified after the race if they use the tyres during the Australian GP.

20 February 2002 Express parcel delivery service DHL has signed a three-year sponsorship deal with Jordan, rumoured to be worth 21 million pounds a year. DHL is owned by Deutsche Post, which already is a sponsor of Jordan. The full name of the team, that will unveil their 2002 contender on Friday in Brussels, will be DHL Jordan Honda. Jordan have also announced a three-year s[ponsorship deal with business communications company Damovo.

20 February 2002 Max Mosley said that Ayrton Senna should have been stripped of the 1990 Drivers Championship title because the Brazilian had taken out Prost at the first corner in the Japanese GP, sealing the championship. Senna had later admitted that the move had been pre-meditated because he had expected Prost to try and do the same thing to him. Mosley also said that the reason Senna was not stripped of the title was that he had had the victory taken away the season before, after having won the race.

20 February 2002 Australian firm HealthyCo, which specialises in the production of health food, will be a sponsor of Minardi in 2002. The food company intends to move onto the international market and has opened sale outlets in New York, London, Aja and Singapore.

20 February 2002 Frank Williams said that he really likes Jenson Button and that the young Briton could land a drving seat at Williams BMW in 2003 if he performs better than any of the two current Williams drivers (R. Schumacher and Montoya) this season. Williams has an option on Button, on Brazilian Antonio Pizzonia and on the two current drivers for 2003.

20 February 2002 Leo Kirch has put his majority share in SLEC up for sale, according to the Financial Times.

19 February 2002 DuPont is the new sponsor of Jaguar. Last week Nicki Lauda announced that the team had signed a sponsorship deal with computer firm EDS.

19 February 2002 A consortium of German banks could become the knight in white armour for the debt-stricken Kirch Group. Kirch owns 75% of SLEC, that controls the Formula 1 commercial rights, but currently has debts estimated between 5.5 and 8 billion pounds. A consortium formed by German banks HVB, Bayerische Landesbank, Commerzbank and Dresdner bank is currently putting together a package aimed at saving the ailing Kirch group. The consortium has made a 675 million pounds offer for a 40% stake in the Axel Springer publishing house, part of Kirch. The deal would allow Kirch to pay off some of the most pressing debt and avoid being taken over, at least in the short term. The Kirch Group would then still have to come up with the money to pay off the rest of the debt.

18 February 2002 Max mosley has urged Formula 1 teams to give 23-year-old Justin Wilson a chance. Wilson is the current F3000 Chmpion, having beaten the like of Tomas Enge and Mark Webber, who are both in F1 this season.

15 February 2002 The rumour that Bernie Ecclestone might be on the verge of buying back the majority share of SLEC from the Kirch Group has been dismissed by Max Mosley.

15 February 2002 Ferrari will start the new season with last year's car, the F2001. This season's contender, the F2002, needs some more work done on the reliability side before it is used for racing. Jean Todt said that the new car is fast, but there is not enough time left before the Australian GP to be completely sure of its reliability.

15 February 2002 According to his manager Huub Rothengatter, Jos Verstappen is taking legal action against the Arrows team, that recently terminated his contract and replaced him with Heinz-Harald Frentzen. Verstappen had signed a driving deal with Arrows back in June 2001. Rothengatter said that Verstappen's contract had no get-out clauses and that the contract was regularly signed and registered at contracts recognition bureau in Geneva.

15 February 2002 Due to the debt problems of the Kirch Group, Leo Kirch is allegedly thinking about selling his 58% share of SLEC. Kirch bought the share of SLEC last year for 1.6 million Euros though a bank loan. According to the German press, Bernie Ecclestone has stepped forwards to buy back the control over SLEC (he already owns 25% of it) for 800 million Euros, half of what he had sold it for.

14 February 2002 Alain Weill, the boss of Radio Monte Carlo Info, has annunced that he has signed a deal with the Kirch Group to broadcast the 2002 Formula 1 season in France. Weill said that they paid a lots less than they had to pay for the rights to broadcast the Footbal World Cup, but did not specify the amount.

14 February 2002 Arrows have announced that the new car, the A23, will be presented in Melbourne on the 27th of February.

14 February 2002 Tom Walkinshaw said that he decided to replace Verstappen with Frentzen because he has a proven record of being able to win GPs. Walkinshaw said that they wanted the German driver because they felt that they have a good car and want to make the most of it. They want Frentzen to be totally motivated, so they will make sure that he suffers no distractions this year.

13 February 2002 Jean Alesi will work as test driver for McLaren-Mercedes, starting after the Australian GP. Norbert Haug, McLaren's sport director, has confirmed the news, saying that Alesi has the perfect experience to help the team develop and set up a Formula 1 single seater.

12 February 2002 M. Schumacher has been showing off the new Ferrari F2002 by shattering the fiorano lap record for the second time in two days. The current World Champion clocked a 58.378s lap, breaking the record he had set on Sunday. M. Schumacher said that the car is a vast improvement on last year's F2001. Barrichello has not yet tried the new car.

11 February 2002 According to the Financial Times, the Kirch Group is expected to announce later this week the sale of its 40% share of SLEC to publishing house Axel Springer for one billion Euros. The Wall Street Journal, on the other hand, speculates that the Kirch Group will sell only a proportion of its share of Formula 1 broadcast rights.

11 February 2002 Mosley would like to bring Formula 1 GPs to India, China and the Middle East. He believes that Formula 1 will not be a truly global sport until it achieves a presence in the eastern countries. Currently a new Formula 1 circuit is being built near Moscow, while Turkey and Bahrain have both expressed an interest in hosting a GP. As all teams oppose extending the Championship beyond the current 17 races, one or more European daters would have to be dropped to make room in the calendar for new GPs.

11 February 2002 Former Formula 1 driver Jean Alesi has visited McLaren’s factory in Woking for a seat fitting, leading to speculation that he could be in line for a test for the team.

10 February 2002 A new proposal from FIA president Max Mosley would see the right of appeal removed from teams. Mosley wants the power of appeal shifted from the team to the Race Director in order to stop routine appeals from teams every time they are handed a penalty. Teams would stil retain the right to appeal at the FIA International Court of Appeal. Another proposal from Mosley would see the stewards staying on at the circuit after the end of a GP. This rule is intended to prevent situations like last years's US GP, when Jordan was found to have committed a technical infringement but got away with it because the stewards had left the circuit early.

10 February 2002 Dutch technology firm Trust has ended its sponsorship deal with Arrows, following Jos Verstappen's replacement with H.-H. Frentzen. Trust's CEO described Arows' move as a "slap in the face". Trust will continue being Verstappen personal sponsor.

9 February 2002 Craig Pollock, the former boss and founding member of BAR, has allegedly expressed an interest in buying the Prost team's assets for as little as half a million pounds. Pollock would enter the Prost team in the 2002 F1 Championship using last year's AP04 chassis and Ferrari engines, then sell the team at the end of the season as a going concern. The deadline for the sale is the start of next week, if no deal is done by then the assets will be auctioned by the French courts. Pollock, who has gone back to being Jaques Villeneuve's personal manager, is looking at a way back into Formula 1.

8 February 2002 David Coulthard escaped unhurt after his new McLaren MP4-17 rolled uinto the gravel due to a deflated rear tyre during closed doors testing in Barcelona. The car was only slightly damaged. Earlier the Scot had said that the new McLaren was "a significant step forward", but he is still worried about the Mercedes engine.

8 February 2002 Frentzen, who joned the Arrows team yesterday instead of Verstappen, has suffered two high-speed wing failures during testing. In both cases the car went into a spin but suffered little damage. The fastest lap was clocked by Montoya, who was almost a second faster than everybody else.

The Friday test times from Valencia:

1 MONTOYA Williams BMW 1m12.410s 2 DE LA ROSA Jaguar 1m13.229s 3 PIZZONIA Williams BMW 1m13.377s 4 SCHUMACHER Williams BMW 1m13.484s 5 FRENTZEN Arrows Cosworth 1m13.491s 6 VILLENEUVE BAR Honda 1m13.577s 7 PANIS BAR Honda 1m13.744s 8 DAVIDSON BAR Honda 1m14.177s 9 YOONG Minardi Asiatech 1m15.353s 10 WEBBER Minardi Asiatech 1m15.908s

8 February 2002 Max Mosley has proposed a new plan to reduce the cost of Formula 1 and avoid having teams going bankrupt like the Prost team did. According to the proposal, teams will only be allowed to use one engine per car. Currently teams are allowed to use as many engines as they want, with teams often having different engines set at different power for qualifying and racing. With only one engine, if a driver suffers a failure and the engine needs to be changed, the driver will automatically be relegated to the back of the grid. Mosley said that when the leader of a championship has had to start from the back of the grid the race has been better and more interesting. With only one engine such a thing would happen more often. Mosley also said that though he knows that some teams are having financial problems, he does not believe that any will go out of business in 2002. He also added that the FIA has received enquiries from various parties interested in taking Prost's slot on the grid next season. Mosley then warned that it might still be possible for Prost to start the 2002 season, if the team gets bought soon enough. One implication of the proposal is that qualifying engines are effectively banned. Also, a whole Champoionship could be decided by an engine failure during practice.

8 February 2002 A coroner’s inquest into the death of marshal Graham Beveridge at the 2001 Australian Grand Prix has concluded that the accident was avoidable. Beveridge died after being hit by a wheel that went through a gap in the fence behind which he was standing. The wheel had become detached after a collision between Jacques Villeneuve and Ralf Schumacher. Coroner Graeme Johnstone said that the race organisers should have gone to greater lengths to protect trackside workers, but confirmed that the 2002 Austalian GP will go ahead as scheduled. Johnstone, however, did not criticise the race organisers and said that they had been proactive in trying to improve safety.

8 February 2002 In an interview with French magazine AutoHebdo Alain Prost has replied to the accusation moved to him to have been the sole cause of the collapse of his team. First Prost attcked Peugeot, saying that one of his mistakes had been to be too nice to Peugeot and not to find the force of character to say "no" to them. The alliance between the Prost team and Peugeot was not successful and ended in public recriminations for the lack of results in 2000, when the Prost team failed to bring home a single point. Prost was also upset at the behaviour of the sponsors, in particular Yahoo, who broke out of the 100 million US dollars three-year sponsorship deal after the crash of the Hi-Tech market. The former team boss also discarded Pedro Diniz's offer to buy the team, saying that the driver was more interested in leading a playboy lifestyle than being a team boss. Prost also accused Diniz of being immature and unable to make his own decisions. The Frenchman reserved his most bitter words for former designer Alan Jenkins, who left the team just before the 2000 Monaco GP after his relationship with the team deteriorated. Prost said that when the two of them were working together at McLaren Jenkins was a nice, open person, but he turned into a closed and anti-French person when he joined the Prost team. He destroyed the relationship with the suppliers and the internal team armony. Prost described the hiring of Jenkins as a "catastrophe" that he ended as quickly as he possibly could.

7 February 2002 Giancarlo Fisichella has suffered a bad crash during testing in Valencia. The Italian hit the barrier between bends two and three, in the same place where he had left the track already two weeks ago. Fisichella came out of the car by himself and was taken to the medical center for a check up. He was found to be unhurt. Jordan spokeperson Helen Temple said that they are not sure why the accident happened and that the evidence is being looked at. Fisichella is expected to resume testing in the afternoon. Sato also damaged his new chassis after he went off and damaged the right side of the car on the same corner as Fisichella.

7 February 2002 According to the latest unofficial rumours Jos Verstappen, who was unceremoniously dumped by Arrows for Frentzen, could be heading towards new F1 team Toyota as a test driver.

7 February 2002 Orange Arrows have announced on their official website that Heinz Harald Frentzen and not Jos Verstappen will drive for the team alongside Enrique Bernoldi in 2002. Tom Walkinshaw said that Frentzen has the necessary experience to help the team move forward. The team also announced that Jos Verstappen, who had spent two years with the team, was released from his contract. Verstappen had signed a contract with the team as a driver halfway through last season and has published a short statement on his own official website saying that he has learned the news from the Orange Arrows website, but has received no communication from the team.

6 February 2002 Ferrari have launched their 2002 contender, the F2002, in Maranello. Following the tradition the two drivers, M. Schumacher and Barrichello, lifted the red cloth that covered the car. The F2002 is not just an evolution of last year's car, it differs considerably from the F2001 in the rear transmission and the aerodynamics. The rear part of the car sports two fins that cover the high exhaust outlets. The gearbox is completely new, it is built in titanium and has seven gears controlled by a sequential electro-hydraulic system. The new engine, the 051, has been redesigned to minimise weight and size.

6 February 2002 Ferrari has signed a sponsorship contract with AMD for 2002 and 2003. AMD is a world leader in computer microprocessors and will provide expertise to Ferrari for the IT side, particulalrly for the processing and analysis of technical data. The announcement was made before the presentation of this season's contender, the F2002, today at Maranello.

6 February 2002 According to the official website of Jos Verstappen, Heinz-harald Frentzen will take the Dutchman's place at Arrows. Halfway through last season Verstappen had signed a contract to join Arrows as a driver in 2002 but, according to the website, a reliable source has informed the driver that Frentzen will be presented as the number one driver for the team alongside Enrique Bernoldi at the car official unveiling in Valencia tomorrow.

5 February 2002 BMW motorsport boss Gerhard Berger is not happy with the 2002 Willaims contender, the FW24. Berger voiced his opinion after both R. Schumacher and Montoya tried the car in Barcelona and were disappointed with it. The Austrian said that the car failed to produce the expected speed in the Spanish tests and that even taking into account the required changes to the chassis, the team is not satisfied.

5 February 2002 Toshiro Kurusu is the new Executive Vice President of Toyota Motorsport GmbH, replacing Ichiro Kowada, who becomes the General Manager of the Motorsport Division.

5 February 2002 Luca di Montezemolo has warned Barrichello that, unless he improves his attitude, his place at Ferrari is at risk. Barrichello recently complained that he can not improve his record if he always has to defer to M. Schumacher.

4 February 2002 Steve Nichols, Jaguar technical director, has resigned his post after 13 months after the new R3 car showed some weaknesses in testing. Italian Guenther Steiner replaced him.

4 February 2002 The Arrows car for 2002, the A23, will debut tomorrow at the Santa Pod drag strip in Bedfordshire. Bernoldi will give the car the first shakedown, before the team goes to Spain for testing.

3 February 2002 The Jordan team announced that their contender for the 2002 season, the EJ12, will be officially unveiled in the week beginning February 18th. The EJ12 has already been seen in tests in Spain and the UK.

2 February 2002 The Minardi team has announced that they have signed a three-year deal with new IT partner Gruppo Brevi, that will provide the Formula 1 team with workstations, servers and desktop and laptop computers. The Brevi logo will appear on the nosecones of the PS02 from the 2002 season.

1 February 2002 Rumours of a break down in negotiations between H.-H. Frentzemn and Arrows down have been denied by the team. Frentzen and Verstappen are the only two drivers left looking for a drive in 2002. Arrows have already confirmed Enrique Bernoldi as one of their drivers.

1 February 2002 Both R. Schumacher and Montoya have reserved judgement on the Williams FW24 chassis, an evolution of last year's FW23. R. Schumacher said that the engine is fine but the chassis is not what he had hoped for, while Montoya said that it's getting better but that he hopes that a lot is still to come from it.

1 February 2002 Renault have signed 20-year-old Finn Heikki Kovalainen (Formula Renault) on a long term contract.

Last updated on by Federica Massagrande