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joesaward'sbusinessofmotorsportN E W S , T R E N D S , I D E A S A N D E C O N O M I C A N A LYS I S F RO M T H E M OTO R S P O RT WO R L D

Issue 11.08

February 21 2011A moral dilemma for Formula 1CVC to investigate Gribkowsky AffairLotus Renault GP signs HeidfeldBell becomes Mercedes technical directorLotus v Lotus gets nasty

Shanghai re-signsThe future of Danica PatrickNASCAR and Walmart do a dealDe Tomaso lives on

A moral dilemma for Formula 1It has been a tumultuous week for the Kingdom of Bahrain - and has created a serious problem for the world of Formula 1, which finds itself grappling with a moral dilemma - a rare thing. The opening round of the World Championship is due to take place in Bahrain on March 13, three weeks from now, but in seven days Bahrain has been transformed into a hotbed of revolution, a situation which has alarmed the entire world, because of the country's strategic importance. To a large extent this has been caused by the heavy-handed reaction to protest by the government, which is headed by Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa (65), who has been Prime Minister since 1971. He is the longest-serving unelected prime minister in the world. He is the uncle of King Hamad (51), who has been in power since the death of his father in 1999. Originally an Emir, the English-educated Hamad amended the constitution in 2002 and turned the emirate into a constitutional monarchy, thus declaring himself to be a king.The government is dominated by members of the Al Khalifa family. After he took power there were reforms which revived a national assembly, although this had little real power.

The King (seen right, with Prince Guillaume of Luxembourg at last year's Bahrain event) is a Formula 1 fan and began visiting Grands Prix in the 1990s, originally as a guest of Jackie Stewart's Stewart Grand Prix. This led to the plan to use Formula 1 to promote a new image for the country, which was at the time dependent on limited oil revenues and wanted to diversify and modernise, aiming to become a centre for business - particularly banking – in the Gulf region. It wanted also to build a tourist industry and become a hub for the automotive world. The Grand Prix was a key element in this plan. The Bahrain International Circuit (BIC) was built in 2002 and the first race was in 2004. The country's investment company Mumtalakat bought a share of the McLaren team, plus a shareholding in Nicolas Todt's ART GP2 team, while Sheikh Abdulla bin Isa Al Khalifa, the head of the Bahrain Motor Federation was recently appointed the President of the CIK-FIA karting federation - and is a member of the World Motor Sport Council. The Grand Prix has been a great success, running alongside the country's "Business Friendly Bahrain" advertising campaign.

"I think that the Grand Prix makes Bahrainis proud of their country, and our productive, educated and dedicated national workforce undoubtedly helps make Bahrain an attractive place for international businesses to invest in," said Sheikh Mohammed bin Isa Al-Khalifa, the chief executive of the Bahrain Economic Development Board. "As a region, the Gulf was very inward-looking in the 1990s, but the F1 event has helped Bahrain become more focussed on looking outwards, alongside other political and economic reforms that are being undertaken and actively seek international investment. This will mean that the profile-raising benefits of the F1 Grand Prix will continue to pay dividends for the Kingdom’s economic growth for many years to come."

This was all well and good, but the country had a problem as the family and the ruling class of Bahrain were Sunni Muslims, while 70 percent of the population follows Shia Islam, and there was no doubt that they felt that they were not given the same opportunities as the Sunnis. There have long been problems as a result with occasional riots in the poorer sections of Manama

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and in the surrounding towns. While the F1 world was aware of all of this, it was not seen as a major problem. However the recent unrest in the Arab world, sparked off by the uprising in Tunisia, which ousted President Ben Ali, and led to the departure 10 days ago of Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak gave the Shia population the confidence to hold a number of protest marches, calling for more democracy. They were careful to make the point that they did not seek a change of government. However the response to this was violence from the security forces (which are made up of many non-Bahraini Sunnis) and a number of killings early in the week led to calls for the government to change. The protesters moved into the Pearl Roundabout, a large intersection on the edge of Manama, and settled in, maintaining their peaceful approach. The security forces then invaded the area in the middle of the night, killing more people and enraging the population still further. This led to the cancellation of the planned GP2 Asia race at BIC, on the grounds of force majeure, as the circuit medical staff were required at hospitals dealing with casualties in Manama. Although the government made soothing noises, the violent approach continued and there was increasing international condemnation of their actions with a number of governments banning companies from exporting arms to Bahrain. On Friday King Hamad asked his son the Crown Prince, Sheikh Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa (41), to try to solve the problem. Prince Salman (seen right with Abdulla bin Isa Al Khalifa, the head of the Bahrain Motor Federation) has appealed for calm, but unless there are reforms it is likely that the violence will continue - particularly if the attacks on protesters continue. This is a good sign and gives the younger generation the opportunity to solve the problem created by the older members of the clan. In the course of the week the protesters, led by an organisation called the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, said that they would use the Grand Prix to publicise their cause if the government continued to use violence against them.

"For sure F1 is not going to be peaceful this time," a spokesman said. "They’ll be lots of journalists, a lot of people looking and the government will react in a stupid manner. And that will be bloody - but will be more publicised."

With the opposition suspending its involvement in the National Assembly in protest, the future of the event depends largely on whether or not the Crown Prince can succeed where his father and great-uncle have failed. If the violence continues or if the security clampdown succeeds in stopping the people taking to the streets, then no-one in F1 will be safe travelling to Bahrain as the race will become the focus for protesters. The government would then have to try to stop that happening and there would be more bloodshed. This would not be good publicity for F1.

With time running out it may be best for Formula 1 to decide to give Bahrain time to sort out its problems and cancel the Grand Prix and kick off the new season in Melbourne. The risks of sending all the cars and team personnel into Bahrain is such that there are, in any case, likely to be insurance problems and fears that the F1 equipment might not get out of Bahrain and thus other races would be affected.

CVC to investigate Gribkowsky Affair CVC Capital Partners and the board of Delta Topco, the primary owner and holding company of the Formula One group, have asked accounting company Ernst & Young and the law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer to look into what happened during the purchase of the motor racing entity in 2006. German banker Gerhard Gribkowsky is currently under arrest in Germany following the discovery of $50 million in an account belonging to an Austrian trust fund controlled by him. He has been unable to explain where the money came from and Bavarian state prosecutors believe that this was some kind of a bribe paid to him during the F1 negotiations. At the time Gribkowsky was the Chief Risk Officer of the state bank BayernLB, and thus a public employee and should not have been taking commissions on its dealings. At the same time, under German law, the person paying a bribe is also guilty of a crime and so the investigation has been centred for some time on the question of where the

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money came from. It is claimed that this was paid by Bernie Ecclestone. He has denied that. When Gribkowsky was arrested CVC issued a statement saying that it had "no knowledge of, nor any involvement in, any payment to Mr Gribkowsky or anyone connected with him in relation to CVC’s acquisition of Formula One". Now it seems CVC wants to know more about what happened, either to help it defend itself against any possible charges - or to find out the truth. It is difficult to know which.

According to the latest filings, the shareholders of Delta Topco Ltd (Jersey) are as follows: five CVC funds collectively own 63.3 percent of the business; LBI Group Inc (a Lehman Brothers company) owns 15.3 percent; Bambino Holdings (an Ecclestone Family company) owns 8.5 percent; Bernie Ecclestone owns 5.3 percent; JP Morgan Whitefriars Inc owns 3 percent; Churchill Capital Ltd owns 0.7 percent and the rest is owned by employees or directors, these being Patrick McNally owns 1 percent; Duncan Llowarch and Sacha Woodward Hill (each 0.8 percent), Judith Griggs (0.5 percent) and Peter Brabeck-Letmathe and Sir Martin Sorrell (0.25 percent each).

The membership of the board of Delta Topco Ltd is unclear but it seems to include CVC’s Donald Mackenzie and Hardy McLain, Brabeck-Letmathe, Sorrell, Peter Sherratt (a representative of Lehman) and Stephen Mullens (Bambino Holdings).

Lotus Renault GP signs Heidfeld The Lotus Renault GP team signed Nick Heidfeld to take over the driving duties from the injured Robert Kubica. The German F1 veteran will race alongside Vitaly Petrov. Largely overshadowed throughout his career by fellow countryman Michael Schumacher, Heidfeld has competed in 172 races in the course of 11 seasons and has finished second on no fewer than eight different occasions. Many of his team-mates have gone on to better things, including Kimi Raikkonen, Felipe Massa, Mark Webber and Kubica, but he has never been able to break into the big time. The Renault drive could be his final opportunity to win a race - if the car is good enough.

The team says that the 33-year-old was chosen because of his experience.

The announcement means that Tonio Liuzzi's only chance of a race drive in 2011 is with the HRT team, although he might opt to do a testing deal with another team if that was to lead to a race drive in 2012. Having said that he trusted Force India and gave the team two seasons of testing on the understanding that he would race in 2010 and 2011, only to end up being screwed by the team as Paul di Resta arrived with a free KERS system from Mercedes-Benz, which meant a saving of $6 million.

Liuzzi tested for the Spanish team over the weekend in Barcelona. He does not have money needed to secure the seat for the whole season, even if Vijay Mallya pays his financial settlement in a timely manner, which is by no mean guaranteed. The team has been having trouble finding someone with the budget it needs but has Narain Karthikeyan's Tata sponsorship, plus $10 million in TV rights money. This will get the team through a number of races, although a lot of this cash will have been used up manufacturing the new F111 chassis, which is due to appear soon. This means that funding will be needed by the middle of the year at the very latest. The team owners - the Carabante Family - has shown no great ability at finding money and the idea of hiring businessman Juan Villalonga has yet to produce any obvious results. It is anticipated that if the Carabantes cannot raise money for the team they will eventually be forced to sell, or to try to survive longer by turning debts into equity. Colin Kolles is believed to have some people who are interested in buying the team but needs to convince the Carabantes to sell before the team can move forward. In the end the Spaniards will be forced to sell as a team with no money can only close down - and they will gain nothing from that. One man who may be looking to move up to F1 is fellow Spaniard Alejandro Agag, the boss of the Addax GP2 team, who has long been talking about a Grand Prix team.

The team has recently concluded a deal with French sports marketing firm Lagardere Unlimited in the hope of raising more money, but is currently well-funded thanks to drivers Giedo Van der Garde, who has sponsorship from Holland, where his father-in-law Marcel Boekhoorn is a well-known entrepreneur, and France's Charles Pic, who comes from one of the largest trucking companies in the country. It is worth noting also that former Virgin F1 driver Lucas di Grassi is a minority shareholder in the new Addax GP3 team. He drove for Agag in GP2 with some success back in 2008.

A European MP at the age of 28, he left politics after two years and decided to concentrate on business, running a consulting firm, called Addax Capital. He has also had dealings with Flavio Briatore over the Spanish TV rights to F1 races and was involved with Briatore and Bernie Ecclestone with the QPR soccer club.

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Bell becomes Mercedes technical director Ulsterman Bob Bell (52) has been appointed the new Technical Director of Mercedes GP Petronas. He will start his new job on April 1, when his six months of "gardening leave" finishes. Bell was previously employed at Renault F1, but departed in October.

Bell was inspired to become an engineer by the US space programme when he was growing up in the 1960s and won a place to study aeronautical engineering, at Queen's University of Belfast, where he completed a doctorate before being recruited by John Barnard at McLaren in 1982. He stayed with the team for 14 years, working on the famous McLaren-TAG team with Niki Lauda and Alain Prost and then moved into research and development and in 1995 was asked by Ron Dennis to head the McLaren Land Speed Record project, which designed a car called MAVerick, which was aiming to set a new record of 1,000 mph. The timing was bad, however, and no funding could be found for the project and in 1996 Bell decided to move on, joining Benetton and working with Nick Wirth. After a couple of years he was asked by Mike Gascoyne to join Jordan, an odd situation as he had given Mike his first F1 job back in the McLaren era. Gascoyne and Bell set Jordan on an upward path but then Renault head-hunted the pair and Bob returned to his old team, now rebadged as a French operation. He replaced Gascoyne as Technical Director when Mike went to Toyota and later became acting team principal after Flavio Briatore was dumped after the Singapore Scandal.

His role at Mercedes will be to head the technical operations of the chassis group in Brackley, working the existing design team, led by chief designer John Owen, the team’s head of aerodynamics Loïc Bigois, chief engineer Russell Cooley and the head of vehicle engineering and dynamics Craig Wilson . The team has been strengthening the design team of late with the recruitment of Japanese engineer Toshi Iguchi, who has more than 20 years of experience in racing with Dome, Panoz, Reynard, McLaren and Toyota F1. He joined the team as a senior suspension designer in November.

Bell's appointment will allow Ross Brawn greater freedom to oversee the full programme between the team’s chassis group in Brackley and the engine group at Mercedes-Benz HighPerformance Engines in Brixworth.

Lotus versus Lotus gets nasty Team Lotus is refusing to back down in its dispute with Proton and Group Lotus over the right use the Lotus name in Formula 1, despite the car companies having convinced the Chapman Family and Malaysian former Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad to publicly support them. PartnersTony Fernandes, Kamaruddin Meranun and SM Nasarudin refuse to be bullied and say that things have become so bad that Proton is now telling lies and contradicting itself in press releases.

Last week Proton put out a statement saying that Fernandes had unreasonably rejected a settlement offer and claimed that Fernandes and Co could have gone on using the Lotus Racing name if they had corrected the "flagrant and persistent breaches", which caused the license to be revoked in September last year.

Fernandes fired back that Proton's claims included “a number of factual errors that are at best misleading and at worst straight lies”. He also pointed out that it was clear that Renault F1 had been working on a black and gold livery in August - weeks before the Lotus Racing licence was terminated, and in direct contravention to the terms of the agreement. Fernandes added that the license termination was "unlawful" and claimed that Proton and Group Lotus were continuing an ongoing harassment of Team

Lotus in the public arena.

"We have put out own money into Team Lotus and have taken on all the risk ourselves," The team said. "Our counterparts at Proton are using Malaysian tax payers’ money to take a massive corporate gamble on the future of Group Lotus."

They added that the plans put forward by Group Lotus's chief executive Dany Bahar (left) risk bankrupting not just Group Lotus, but also Proton as well, because the scale of the depth will be such that the interest payments will be equal to profit made by Proton in the last financial year.

Fernandes and Kamarudin are pushing ahead with their plans and in recent days have registered two new UK companies called Team Lotus Merchandising Ltd and Team Lotus Enterprises Ltd. They are not saying

what these companies will be doing, but the names speak for themselves. They are convinced that they will win the legal action at the end of March - and that Group Lotus will soon collapse as it is not generating enough money. None of the major politicians in Malaysia dares to support Team Lotus, as Dr Mahathir is still highly

influential and is supporting Proton, which was one of his ideas in the 1980s.A defeat for Group Lotus would seriously weaken Mahathir's position - which may be what some politicians would like to see happen.

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Shanghai re-signs The Shanghai city government says that it has finally concluded a deal to hold the Chinese Grand Prix from 2012-2017. The Chinese authorities say that they have negotiated the rights fee downwards and will now reduce the ticket prices in the hope that this will bring in more people. It is likely in this circumstances that the promoter will have agreed to give the Formula One company a share in the ticket revenues to make up for the lost fees. This means that there is an element of risk involved in getting the money, but the sport may be better off in the end as more fans will emerge in the longer term. A similar idea is being used in Montreal. There is still some work that needs to be done with the circuit in order for it to clearance from the FIA, because of some problems with the track caused by bumps created by subsidence.

The Chinese nonetheless recognise the value of the Grand Prix, arguing that it is "a calling card for Shanghai".

The idea of a race in the city dates back 10 years, to when Beijing was awarded the Olympic Games for 2008. Shanghai did not want to be left behind and in 2002 organised a government-funded joint-venture company to construct the circuit. A seven-year contract was signed to cover races from 2004 to 2011. The city is reckoned to have spent $380 million on construction alone, and has made losses of around $30 million a year, in addition to paying fees amounting to $171 million for the original seven-year deal. The problem has been that the cost of the tickets was equal to the average monthly wage in the city.

The future of Danica Patrick It is a rare thing when an entire championship is unhealthily dependent on one individual's popularity, but it is very clear that in the United States the presence of Danica Patrick in the IndyCar Series is of great importance. The IndyCar management is trying to broaden the appeal of the series, encouraging teams to make it more appealing to the US market and looking for new ideas, new machinery and new venues to break out of the rut in which it has been since the latter days of the Indy Racing League. But the fact remains that in the short term at least Danica Patrick is key figure in the marketing of the series and the IndyCar management is very keen not to lose her to NASCAR, which would love to have a woman driver capable of competing with the Jimmie Johnsons, Tony Stewarts and so on.

This is important this year as Danica's contract with Andretti Autosport is up for renegotiation. She has been with the team since 2007 and in that time has won only one race, finishing second in three and third in a further three (including the Indianapolis 500), but the success that was expected of her back in 2005 when she led the 500 as a rookie has slipped by and at 28 years of age, she is now no longer a rising star. She is already competing in the NASCAR Nationwide Series, and owns part of the team, which may be an indication as to where her future may be heading. There is little doubt that she will be able to make a great deal more money if she races competitively in the NASCAR Sprint Cup, but her ambition remains to become the first woman to win the Indianapolis 500, and to achieve that she need to be in the IndyCar Series full time. Given her selling power and the lack of success of the Andretti team, she may be considering a deal with one of the bigger teams: Penske or Target Chip Ganassi Racing. This would open the way for a deal to race in both IndyCar and NASCAR, as both organisations have teams running in the two championships - and sponsorship would not be a problem as Patrick seems able to find money when others cannot.

Patrick says that there is nothing to report. She has to decide on what she wants to do and then what is possible.

"I have a lot of time to think about it and figure it out," she said.

This year she will compete in all the IndyCar Series races plus 12 NASCAR Nationwide events. Last year she made her first 13 starts in the Nationwide Series with the results gradually improving from running around 30th in the early races, to 20th towards the mid year and at the end of the season she scored her best result - 19th.

Penske has three cars in IndyCar for veteran Helio Castroneves, Ryan Briscoe and Will Power, with two in the Sprint Cup, driven by Brad Keselowski and Kurt Busch, but he has no money (at the moment) for Sam Hornish. He also has development driver Parker Kligerman racing trucks. Ganassi has two two-car teams in IndyCar with Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti, plus Graham Rahal and Charlie Kimball. In NASCAR he runs Juan-Pablo Montoya and Jamie McMurray. The team also owns car #8 but has not had the budget to run in the last two seasons.

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NASCAR and Walmart do a deal NASCAR has finally managed to work out a new deal for its branded merchandise to be sold to the public through Walmart, the world's largest public corporation by revenue, with annual sales of $258 billion in 2009, and 8,500 stores in 15 countries. The deal will include special savings on race tickets for select races. The programme, which will be branded as "Race Time" is NASCAR's largest ever retail promotion and will launch this week in 1,500 Walmart stores. The range of products available in the stores will include T-shirts, flags, food and beverages, with more merchandise available on the walmart.com website.

The ticket packages will include four race tickets, four hot dogs, four drinks and a race programme, which will retail for just $99, which is about the actual value of the package. Walmart will also be creating NASCAR fan events at stores located near race tracks in order to drive more business. These will include car displays, racing simulators and special appearances.

"We know our customers are NASCAR fans, and we continue to look for ways to provide unforgettable family experiences as well as greater value in every aspect of their lives," said Stephen Quinn, chief marketing officer, Walmart US. "We’re very pleased to introduce this programme to our customers and help them save money while fully experiencing the excitement of NASCAR. "

NASCAR merchandise is now being sold by a company called NASCAR Team Properties, an association currently consisting of NASCAR and 11 of its teams and around 30 top drivers.

De Tomaso lives on In the modern automotive world the brand is everything and, as can be seen from the current fight over Lotus, there is great value in the great names of yesteryear, even if there are many more car brand names than the market really needs. Despite this names such as Maserati, Aston Martin, Jaguar, MG, Bugatti and Maybach have been carefully nurtured, either by large companies looking for a niche market with a little je ne sais quoi, or by smaller companies chasing bigger sales figures.

The latest brand to pop up again is De Tomaso, which is launching a new range of road cars at the Salon de l'Auto in Geneva, Switzerland, which begins on March 3. The company has been revived by 80-year-old Italian Gian Mario Rossignolo, who started out as a marketing consultant in Fiat's commercial vehicles division and became head of the division in 1967. He went on to become the head of corporate planning and a member of the executive board of the company before becoming head of the component division and ultimately chief executive of Lancia in 1977. Two years later he was lured away to work for Sweden's Wallenberg company as the head of their Italian operations, which included SKF Industries, Zanussi and Ericsson. He was also head of Telecom Italia for 18 months in the late 1990s.

Rossignolo acquired the De Tomaso brand and trademarks from the company liquidators in November 2009 and has leased the Pininfarina factory at Grugliasco, with the plan being to employ a new method of construction called Univis to build a range of three De Tomaso models, the first of which will be launched at the forthcoming Geneva Motor Show.

The original De Tomaso was set up in Modena in 1959 by Argentine exile Alejandro DeTomaso in order to prepare racing cars for him to use. It was funded by his wife, the grand-daughter of a duPont director who went on to become a key General Motors executive. The first De Tomaso racing car was a Formula 2 car in 1960 and in the course of the 1960s the fim built chassis for various kind of racing, including an F1 car in 1962. This was not a success. In 1965 the company began building road cars and enjoyed much success with the Mangusta and the Pantera (the latter being engineered by Giampaolo Dallara). In 1969 the company returned to racing with a Dallara-designed F2 car, which was raced by Jonathan Williams, Jacky Ickx and Piers Courage. Frank Williams then asked De Tomaso to build him F1 cars for the 1970 season and the relationship began in promising fashion when Courage finished third in the International Trophy. At the Dutch GP in June, however, he crashed and was killed.

The team struggled on to the end of the year before disappearing. De Tomaso returned to road cars and acquired Maserati and Innocenti in 1975 and De Tomaso racing cars reappeared in sports car racing in the same era. In the end he sold both Innocenti and Maserati to Fiat but went on building his own cars until he suffered a stroke in 1993 and handed over the business to his son Santiago. The firm went out of business in 2003.

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WHISPER WHISPER WHISPER g Formula One Licensing has lost a landmark legal action at the General Court of the European Union in Luxembourg, with a ruling that means that it cannot prevent the registration of a EU trade mark containing the words F1 LIVE. The lawsuit dates back to 2004 when Racing-Live SAS filed an application with the EU trade mark office to register its logo. Formula One Licensing opposed that application but in October 2008 the opposition was rejected. The trade mark office ruled that the public perceived the combination of the letter ‘F’ and the numeral ‘1’ as the generic designation of a category of racing car and, by extension, of races involving such cars. The Formula One group appealed to the General Court to have the decision annulled. The court has, however, decided that the original decision was correct. Formula One can appeal to the Court of Justice.

g Ferrari president Luca di Montzemolo is being encouraged by the Italian Comitato Olimpico Nazionale Italiano to become the head of the company organising Rome’s bid for the Olympic Games in 2020. Montezemolo is currently non-commital as he is waiting to see whether or not Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi can survive various scandals. If Berlusconi falls, it is believed that Montzemolo may emerge at the head of a new centre-right coalition, as despite his lack of political experience he is one of the most popular men in the country and Italian politics is dominated by personalities, rather than by parties.

g Robert Kubica has successfully undergone a third operation, this being to rebuild his elbow and he has now been moved out of the Intensive Care Unit at the Santa Corona de Pietra Ligure hospital, near Genoa. It is expected that he will remain in the hospital for another 10 days before beginning a rehabilitation programme. Kubica has been in the ICU for two weeks and in that time has undergone three major operations: a seven hour operation on his hand and forearm immediately after the accident, and a further nine-hour operation to fix leg and shoulder injuries and a final eight hour operation on his elbow. France's Professor Gérard Saillant, the head of the FIA Medical Commission, has visited the Pole in recent days.

g The FIA has created a new Working Group to try to find ways improve the design of Formula 1 circuits to improve overtaking. The group will include F1 race director Charlie Whiting, circuit designers Hermann Tilke and Clive Bowen, driver Michael Schumacher and the President of the FIA's Circuits Commission Roger Peart.

g Aaron’s, a major retailer in the United States, which specialises in lease-to-own deals with furniture, electronics, appliances and computers, in addition to more

traditional retail sales, which has been active in NASCAR, notably with Michael Waltrip Racing, has expanded its sports sponsorship

into NHRA drag racing, having teamed up with the elite Don Schumacher Racing. As part of the agreement, Aaron’s will be the primary sponsor of the Dodge Funny Car driven by Jack Beckman at 12 races and the major

associate sponsor for the remaining 10 as well as the primary sponsorship of Top Fuel racer Antron Brown for three events.

g Marussia Virgin Racing has announced a new sponsorship arrangement with Switzerland's SMC University, which is located in Lausanne, in order to create off-track activities for the institution's students such as work experience programmes within the Marussia Virgin Racing commercial department as well as business symposiums at the team’s headquarters. The drivers will carry SMC branding on their overalls.

g The Hendrick Motorsports NASCAR team has signed 15-year-old Chase Elliott to a driver development deal. Elliott is the son of 1988 NASCAR Cup Series champion Bill Elliott. The youngster is currently racing with his father's team but once he is 18 he will switch to Hendrick and will race at national level. For the moment he will be competing in regional events.

g Minnesota Democrat Betty McCollum tried to stop the Defense Department sponsorships in motorsport last week in the US House of Representatives, claiming that these are not achieving a sufficient number of new recruits for the various sifferent services. McCollum estimated that the Pentagon has spent more than $100 million on its own NASCAR teams. The amendment was defeated but she says she will continue the fight.

g Hulman & Company, which owns an array of assets in the food and beverage industries, in addition to being the parent company of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the IndyCar Series, has announced that it has appointed four new directors, including Tony George, the founder and former CEO of IndyCar. He had previously been on the board but resigned in June 2009 after he was ousted from his position in the motorsport companies, by other family members on the board. The board has also added three non-family members.

g The Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM) series will be broadcasting in high-definition format this season. The long time TV relationship continues with production company WIGE Media, which has been operating since 1979 when businessman Peter Geishecker and journalist Wilhelm Gerner established the company specifically for sport. The firm was floated in 2000.

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g Richard Petty Motorsport is already looking ahead to put plans in place for the 2012 season. The team's co-owner financier Andrew Murstein wants to expand the team's involvement to three cars next year but rather than looking to do a deal with one of the stars who will be available at the end of the year,

with a number of contracts up for renewal this year, notably Roush drivers Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle and Red Bull's Brian Vickers, Murstein wants to do something to shake up the NASCAR world and is looking for a star who is "new and different". Murstein has mentioned the name Danica Patrick

although he is also believed to be looking at rising star Johanna Long (left), the 18-year-old Florida driver who is racing this year in the NASCAR Truck Series. Murstein said that if he could find an up-and-coming

African-American driver he would be very keen to do a deal as he believes that NASCAR can move up to another level in terms of popularity if this happens.

g Brendon Hartley will return to competition this year, driving for the Gravity-Charouz Racing team in the Renault World Series. Gravity Management and Charouz Racing have teamed up to take over the Interwetten team and will field Jan Charouz. son of team boss Antonin, and Hartley. The cars will use the black and gold livery of the Renault F1 team. Hartley was formerly a Red Bull Racing test driver.

g Austin’s Travis County is considering a two percent hotel-motel tax to help it pay for road and drainage work that will be needed at the planned Formula 1 circuit. The

work is expected to cost around $6 million. A hotel tax is deemed to be a good idea as it will not affect the local population.

g Fredy Barth has been confirmed as the sixth driver with the Sunred SEAT team the World Touring Car Championship. The team will run six cars but under three different banners: Lukoil-Sunred for Gabriele Tarquini and Russian newcomer Aleksei Dudukalo; Sunred Engineering for Tiago Monteiro, Michel Nykjaer and Pepe Oriola; and SEAT Swiss Racing by Sunred for Fredy Barth. The recruitment of Oriola and Dudukalo means that Tom Coronel and Jordi Gene have been left out of the line-up.

g The Scandinavian Touring Car Championship organizers have confirmed that they will be adopting the British New Generation Touring Car (NGTC) regulations in 2012. The new rules make the racing cheaper, encourage new teams to race different models of car and are much closer to the machinery used in the days when the BTCC was at its most popular.

g Triple Eight Engineering has confirmed its driver line-up for this year's British Touring Car Championship, with Tony Gilham stepping up from the Porsche Carrera Cup to join James Nash, who joined the team last year after a year with the factory Chevrolet team in 2009. The team, which has been competing since 1996 has won six BTCC Drivers's title with Vauxhall for Jason Plato (2001), Yvan Muller (2002 and 2004), James Thompson (2003) and Fabrizio Giovanardi (2007 and 2008). The team also runs a successful operation in the Australian V8 Supercar Series. The team is run by former Williams F1 team manager Ian Harrison with its sporting director being Les Jones, who worked with Harrison at Williams.

g Eurosport Events has announced a 48 percent increase in the number of viewers watching the Intercontinental Rally Challenge on television. The series was watched in 2010 by 79 million, which is up from 53 million in 2009. The IRC received 432 hours of coverage last year, a substantial hike in comparison to the 158 hours of coverage in 2009.

g Proton will be represented in the BTCC in 2011 with Welch Motorsport having announced plans to build a NGTC-spec Proton Gen-2, using a special TOCA-supplied generic NGTC engine. The car should be ready to begin competing in the mid-season and will be driven by Daniel Welch, the son of team boss John Welch, a former British rallycross champion. The team has been competing in the SEAT Leon Supercopa, but has run a number of different cars in other series as well in the course of the last eight years.

g Multiple WRC title winner Juha Kankkunen has set a new world speed record for driving on ice, having recorded 205.48 mph in a Bentley Continental Supersports on a 10-mile section of frozen Baltic Sea off the coast of Finland. In order for the record to be established Kankkunen had to do two runs, which were then averaged to establish the record.

g Conor Daly, the 2010 Star Mazda champion in the United States, will graduate to Firestone Indy Lights in 2011 having agree a deal with Sam Schmidt Motorsports to do a number of selected races, in addition to a programme of GP3 in Europe. Daly, the son of former F1 driver Derek Daly, will compete in five road course events. Last year he scored an impressive seven victories in 12 races in the Star Mazda Series.

g Wade Cunningham will compete in three IndyCar races this year with Sam Schmidt Motorsports. Cunningham has been trying to break into the series for years, after winning the Firestone Indy Lights Series in his debut year back in 2005, but has never found the budget to get a fulltime ride.

g The Proteam BMW team in the WTCC has signed up Moroccan Mehdi Bennani and Spanish former GP2 driver Javier Villa

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ConneCtIvIty

to race the new BMW 320TC in this year's series. Villa has spent four years in GP2 without much success. Bennani raced in the WTCC last year for the first time, doing a decent job in a private team. His involvement in the series is good for the race in Marrakech, where the local fans have someone to cheer.

g A survey of motorsport safety in the United States has revealed that in the 10 years since the death of Dale Earnhardt, no other drivers have been killed in the top level of NASCAR but 235 have died in accidents in other forms of racing, notably on small regional tracks. In the 10 years before Earnhardt's death 217 died. Much of the increase has come in drag racing which has seen 58 deaths since 2001, compared to 42 beforehand. Many of the deaths could have been avoided with the use of the HANS device but these are not widely used in local competitions. Sales of HANS devices have doubled in the past 10 years to about 6,000 per year in the United States.