January 2000

31 January 2000 Jordan launched their car for 2000, the EJ10, today in London. The car retains the bright yellow livery of the past years and is powered by the Mugen-Honda V10 engine. The car name EJ10 consists of Eddie Jordan's initials and the number of years the team has been in F1. Photographs of the car are available from the Teams pages.

28 January 2000 Ferrari is signing a deal with the French Met office that will provide the team with detailed weather information for each race.

27 January 2000 Minardi will present their 2000 contender on 16 February in Bilbao.

25 January 2000 Jackie Stewart (60) has resigned from the position of Chairman and Chief Executive of Jaguar Racing to spend more time with his family. He will still be present at test sessions and will follow the team to most of the GPs. His place will be taken by Ford Motor Company Vice President Neil Ressler.

25 January 2000 New team Jaguar have presented their 2000 contender. Photographs of the car are available from the Teams pages.

25 January 2000 Williams BMW have presented their new chassis, the FW22. Photographs of the car are available from the Teams pages.

24 January 2000 Ferrari announced that their 2000 contender will be presented on 7 February.

24 January 2000 British American Racing presented the BAR Honda 002, their 2000 contender, today at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Center in London. Drivers Jacques Villeneuve and Ricardo Zonta unveiled the car and new test driver Darren Manning was formally introduced along with development driver Patrick Lemarie. Photographs of the car are available from the Teams pages.

24 January 2000 Williams has chosen 20-year-old Briton Jenson Button as replacement for Alex Zanardi.

24 January 2000 Today Williams will present their new car in Barcelona, while BAR will present the 2000 contender in London.

23 January 2000 Williams BMW have announced a major sponsorship deal with computer company Compaq. The deal represent Williams' move away from tobacco sponsorship.

23 January 2000 Williams have officially announced that Alessandro Zanardi will not race for them in 2000. The Italian blames the split on a conflict of ideas. He said that he decided not to stay with a team that would keep him only to respect a contract and that they have reached a satisfactory agreement on the money due to him by Williams. Zanardi has received offers to race in F1 and Indy next year, but has rejected them all.

20 January 2000 Jos "the boss" Verstappen is coming back to F1. He will drive for Arrows allongside Pedro Martinez De La Rosa.

19 January 2000 A Williams spokeswoman denied that Jansen Button has already signed a one-year deal with them. She then repeated that Zanardi still is under contract at Williams.

18 January 2000 McLaren have agreed a sponsorship deal with Deutsche Telekom MobilNet GmbH, who operate a communications network in Europe.

17 January 2000 The new Benetton B200 was presented today at the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in Barcelona. Rocco Benetton commented that the Benetton team had reached the goals they wanted in 99. F1 is cyclical, he continued, and they will do their best to make sure that the low phase they currently are at is as short as possible. Photographs of the car are available from the Teams pages.

16 January 2000 The World Council has agreed on changes to F1 regulations in the annual meeting held at the Hotel de Paris in Montecarlo. Winter tests will not be allowed from the end of the season until 31 December. The maximum speed in the pits has been lowered from 80 km/h to 60 km/h for test sessions and from 120 km/h to 80 km/h for warm ups and races, with the exception of Montecarlo where the maximum speed will be 60 km/h in all cases. Engines will have to have 10 cylinders until 31 December 2007, when the current Concord Agreement will expire. Ideas to improve safety and encourage overtaking to make GPs more exciting will be discussed in the next few days.

14 January 2000 McLaren will launch the 2000 car on 3 February in Jerez.

14 January 2000 Ferrari will launch their car for the new season between 7 and 10 February, according to Jean Todt. He also said that Mika salo will do some testing for Ferrari alongside Badoer.

14 January 2000 Minardi will use a Fondmetal engine in 2000, after Ford's decision to suupply only the Jaguar team. Fondmetal have bought the rights to last year's Ford Cosworth V10 engine, which they will carry on developing. Minardi have also confirmed Marc Gené as one of their drivers.

13 January 2000 Ferrari have delayed the launch of their 2000 car, the F320, over a date clash with the launch of Jaguar and BAR. Spokeperson Claudio Berro said they also need to complete some wind tunnel tests. The launch is expected to happen in late January or early February.

12 January 2000 M. Schumacher has been skiing in Madonna di Campiglio (Italian Dolomites) showing that he no longer has any problems with his leg. His manager Willi Weber said that the German is in good physical condition.

12 January 2000 Prost officially confirmed that they will launch the 2000 car on the 1st of February in Barcelona.

12 January 2000 Nicola Foulston has resigned from the post of Chief Executive of Brands Hatch Leisure, after making the deal that might bring the British GP to Brands Hatch. Her place has been taken by Rob Bain.

11 January 2000 The Williams car due to test in Jerez at the weekend is stuck in Central France in the lorry drivers blockade. A Williams spokeswoman said that they were hoping the car would reach them on Wednesday, but now they will have to wait and see what happens.

10 January 2000 Reuters Group Plc today announced that they have signed a three-year sponsorship deal with Williams, but revealed no financial details.

10 January 2000 Williams-BMW, who launched their 2000 blue-white livery today, will test Brazilian F3000 driver Bruno Junqueira, as well as Briton Jenson Button. The chances that Zanardi will drive for Williams next year are decreasing. Williams is expected to launch the 2000 car (ony the new livery was presented today), the FW22, at the end of the month in Barcelona and announce the driver line-up and a new principal sponsor then.

10 January 2000 Williams-BMW will present its 2000 car today, but will not announce the drivers. Only Ralf Schumacher, Patrick Head and the management will be present.

10 January 2000 On Friday Jenson Button, 19 year old Formula 3 driver, will test at Jerez for Williams, possibly with a view to replace Alessandro Zanardi. Button has created a good impresion in tests with McLaren and Prost and is in talks with several F1 teams.

8 January 2000 Gerhard Berger has warned against expecting too much in the first year of the Williams-BMW partnership.

8 January 2000 Toranosuke Takagi has announced that next year he will compete in the Japanese Formula Nippon Championship. His place at Arrows might be taken by 1999 Formula Nippon Champion Tom Coronel or by Jos Verstappen.

7 January 2000 Jarno Trulli has been settling down in the Jordan team and hopes to be able to win his first GP in 2000. He has also encountered his first problem: he has been having trouble with his car seat despite being shorter than Frentzen, who has found a comfortable position in the cockpit.

7 January 2000 Jaguar carried out tests at Silverstone yesterday with Luciano Burti, but did not release the information about the number of laps and the times. The team announced they will only go to Barcelona on Sunday.

6 January 2000 Yesterday new team Jaguar (ex Stewart) tried out the car for the first time in Silverstone. The car ran for 10 laps and was painted a non-metallic green. The final livery is expected to be British Racing Green. From Saturday Jaguar will be in Montmeló with Irvine and Herbert.

6 January 2000 Williams-BMW are in trouble for their new livery colours, white and light blue, according to German paper Bild. Because of the new colours some of the sponsors (Beck and Compaq) have allegedly withdrawn from the deal. The same thing had already happened with the German Post Office, that moved its sponsorship to Jordan after they learned that they would not be able to have their logo painted in yellow on the car. Bild says that Frank Williams has written to BMW explaining the situation and asking for more money to cover the holes left by the departing sponsors. Gerhard Berger has denied that the problem actually exists, saying that it is normal not to have concluded all the sponsorship deals this early before the start of the season.

6 January 2000 Barrichello said that the operation he underwent before Christmas succesfully eliminated the calcification between his sixth and seventh right ribs, ridding him of the dicomfort he has had to endure for years.

5 January 2000 The Jacques Villeneuve website (http://www.jacques.villeneuve.com/main_eng.htm) has published an email they received from Barbara Pollock denying that Jacques Villeneuve and Dannii Minogue have got married.

4 January 2000 Frentzen is very optimist for the 2000 season and said in an interview with German sport magazine Kicker that Jordan will be very close to Ferrari and McLaren, though exactly how close will only become apparent during the course of the season.

3 January 2000 M. Schumacher, who celebrated his 31st birthday today, will have in 2000 his most difficult F1 season so far, according to Bild am Sonntag. The arm-wrestling with Ferrari in 1999 has left its mark and most of the issues have not been resolved yet. For the first time M. Schumacher will be under pressure to peform because, unlike Irvine, Barrichello has not got a clause in his contract saying that he must help his team mate. The two Ferrari drivers will also be given the same equipment and the same access to resources. The Bild am Sonntag points out that Ferrari have proved that they have built a winning car and it is now down to the driver to use the car to win, without claiming mechanical problems as excuse for failure. The paper concludes its hard article by saying that M. Schumacher's image is compromised in Italy after his end of season party with McLaren-Mercedes and that the driver has lost fans in Germany too. The competition will also be heavier, with Frentzen on Jordan and Irvine on Jaguar as well as Hakkinen and Coulthard on McLaren. Also, M. Schumacher's physical conditions after his Silverstone accident are still a worry.

Last updated on by Federica Massagrande