Contrary to some team bosses earlier remarks, ‘Delhi belly’ is a concern for formula one teams as they head to India next week.
‘Delhi belly’ is a colloquial term for the sort of sickness often picked up by travellers to India as they sample local foods and drink the tap water.

But McLaren and FOTA boss Martin Whitmarsh warned the media not to “overstate” the risks of racing and eating in Delhi.

“I don’t think we should single out India as a particular challenge in that regard,” he insisted.

Fellow boss Christian Horner added that Red Bull has had a crew running a show car in India recently and there was only “one incident of an upset tummy”.

“No, we’re not taking any additional precautions,” he revealed.

But that’s not the case with some of the other teams. A spokesperson for Swiss team Sauber said stomach bugs “could seriously compromise the team’s performance if team personnel fall ill”.

“This is why so many precautions are being taken,” the spokesperson is quoted by the Indian Express.

Added a Toro Rosso spokesperson: “It is a fact that Europeans often pick up stomach bugs when in India”.

And a Mercedes spokesperson said its catering team had been deployed to India ahead of time to “source local produce in a new destination”.

Formula one needs to accept the steady move away from its traditional European homeland.
That is the claim of Spanish test driver Pedro de la Rosa, whose employer McLaren is based in the UK close to seven other formula one teams.

The other four teams are based elsewhere in Europe but, next year for example, no fewer than 12 of the 20 scheduled races will take place on other continents.

De la Rosa wrote in his latest formulasantander.com column that F1 is moving with the times of the world.

“We all know that the grands prix are usually contested in those countries which can permit it, and nowadays, the majority of countries which can permit it are now in the Near East or on the same continent, Asia,” he said.

The next traditional host in danger of losing its F1 races is Germany.

“I find it hard to imagine a season of formula one without Germany,” the Nurburgring’s Karl-Josef Schmidt is quoted by the DPA news agency this week. “I think it’s the same for Mr Ecclestone.”

Schmidt is trying to negotiate a lower race fee for the circuit’s next scheduled race in 2013.

But de la Rosa said F1′s traditionalists need to accept the future has arrived.

“I understand that it is very hard for all those who, like me, grew up watching F1 races at the Nurburgring, at Brands Hatch, Estoril or at the Paul Ricard circuit,” he said.

“But it is as obvious to recognise that the investment of Asian countries is supplanting and even replacing the tradition of European countries.”

Hot on the heels of ‘crashgate’, a new scandal involving Nelson Piquet and his son is set to emerge.

The Brazilian news weekly Veja reports that the racing driver pair are accused of tax evasion and money laundering.

The report said triple world champion Piquet, and his 25-year-old son who is known as Nelsinho Piquet, allegedly laundered income by directing it through the automobile federation of the Brazilian state of Ceara.

Tax was also allegedly evaded by filtering money between 2004 and 2008 into the foreign accounts of son Piquet Jr, who contested 28 F1 races before admitting he crashed his Renault on purpose during the 2008 Singapore grand prix.

Former Williams and Benetton driver Piquet, 58, is reported to have confirmed the amount in question is just short of EUR 3 million.

The report said the matter is being investigated by the Brazilian federal police.

FIA official Charlie Whiting has inspected the reconstructed A1-Ring and approved it for events up to formula one standard.

That is the news of the Austrian newspaper Kleine Zeitung, reporting that the former venue of the Austrian grand prix has been renamed ‘Red Bull Ring’.

The track in Zeltweg was demolished after its final F1 race in 2003 and was recently rebuilt by Dietrich Mateschitz’s energy drinks company.

It is set to be reopened in mid 2011 and is slated to host a range of motor racing categories including DTM, F3 and Formula 2.

“Red Bull’s world championships are the best advertisement for the race track in Spielberg,” said the Kleine Zeitung report.

A major hurdle for the Red Bull Ring, however, is the circuit’s noise quota, with an F1 race meaning few other events could be held to make the venue profitable.

South Korean companies are reportedly holding off before deciding whether to follow the east Asian country into formula one.

The brand new Yeongam circuit hosted its inaugural grand prix last weekend, but the only Korean brand involved as a sponsor was LG.

A range of companies told Korea’s JoongAng daily that they are waiting to gauge the impact of the first F1 race.

And South Korean mobile operator SKT, and the other major telcom KT, “largely expressed disinterest” in F1, the newspaper revealed.

“We have obviously decided not to sponsor the F1 races this year, but the situation might be different next year. It’s impossible to say at this point,” a spokesperson for KT said.

An SKT spokesperson added: “We had not heard of any plans regarding sponsorship (of F1) inside the company.”

And Diageo Korea, the Korean arm of McLaren’s whisky sponsor Johnnie Walker, said via a spokesperson: “We might consider sponsoring next year, depending on the success of this year’s Korean grand prix.”

Even if Singapore decides against extending its current F1 race contract, the Asian city-state will host at least four more grands prix.

Last month it emerged that the government was yet to decide whether to extend its current race contract beyond 2012.

Senior minister of state S. Iswaran said the government wants to “make sure the economic benefits are justifiable going forward”.

But even though Singapore’s contract expires in 2012, Formula One Administration has a five-year option to extend the deal, according to Singapore news network Channel NewsAsia and the Straits Times broadsheet.

The reports said that even if the government decides against a new contract, it will have to serve notice and host the sport until at least 2014.

Trade and Industry minister Lim Hng Kiang said in parliament on Monday that the government’s decision about F1 “will be based on an assessment of the costs and benefits to the economy over the long term”.

He said the outcome of the review might not be known for a year.

Hungaroring steward Derek Warwick has revealed he wanted to disqualify Michael Schumacher during Sunday’s race.

Ultimately, the seven time world champion was handed a post-race ten-position grid penalty for the next event in Belgium, after pushing his former Ferrari teammate Rubens Barrichello towards the pitwall in a 290kph overtaking duel.

But former grand prix driver Warwick told BBC radio’s Five Live Breakfast that showing the seven time world champion a black flag “would have shown a better example to our young drivers”.

“By the time we got the video evidence we ran out of time and we had to do it retrospectively,” added the veteran of 162 F1 races mainly in the 80s.

Schumacher apologised for the incident on his website on Monday, but Warwick admitted it was “disappointing” how the 41-year-old German “handled” his interview with the stewards after the race.

“You could disqualify him from the next grand prix, or two grands prix,” said the 55-year-old.

“But we felt a ten place penalty is a big penalty to carry for Spa.  Hopefully he will learn from that and remember that the new stewards will not tolerate that driving,” added Warwick.

David Coulthard wrote in his latest Telegraph column that he thinks Schumacher used to get away with his famous “arrogance” because he was a winner.

“Now that he is being regularly shown up by his younger teammate, such lapses of character will not wash,” said the Scot.

“Until he made his apology, the calls for him to quit immediately were shrill,” added the Scot.  “I wonder whether his mea culpa will make any difference.”

Jun.18 (GMM) Luca di Montezemolo has continued his sustained attack on formula one’s new teams.

The Ferrari president thinks the grid should be filled by the bigger teams fielding three cars, rather than by opening the doors to newcomers including Lotus, Virgin and HRT.

Next year, another small team is likely to make its debut.

Spain’s El Mundo newspaper this week claims that the budget of the new Spanish outfit HRT is ten times smaller than Ferrari’s.

“In modern F1 races cars with GP2 levels of performance shouldn’t be allowed to participate — they are supposed to race on Sunday mornings,” Montezemolo is quoted by Italy’s La Gazzetta dello Sport.

Montezemolo argues that Fernando Alonso’s push for Montreal victory was ruined by the lapping of backmarkers, an apparent reference to his delays behind Jarno Trulli’s Lotus and the HRT of Karun Chandhok.

But while it is true that, earlier this year, the small teams were vastly off the pace, all of the six cars were faster by multiple seconds than the entire GP2 field in Turkey recently.

And in Canada last weekend, Heikki Kovalainen’s Lotus qualified just two tenths behind the Ferrari-powered Sauber of Kamui Kobayashi, while Virgin and HRT runners were also easily within 107 per cent of the pole time.

The new teams’ laptime deficit in Canada was between 3 and 4 seconds, compared with Giancarlo Fisichella’s 2.2 second qualifying deficit in a Ferrari-powered Force India at the same circuit two years ago.

A report at Italiaracing said: “It should be noted that the only complaints this season about the smaller teams have come from Ferrari.”

Jun.15 (GMM)  After the problems seen at Montreal’s most recent F1 races, the surface of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve did not break up during the running of the 2010 edition.

Before Canada fell off the calendar last year, the track’s crumbling asphalt came in for scathing criticism.

Ahead of the race’s return last weekend, the troublesome sections were resurfaced with Shell Bitumen, whose same product is in use at other grand prix tracks.

“I’ve said that part of the problem was the (grooved) tyre,” new race promoter Francois Dumontier is quoted by the Montreal Gazette.

Before last weekend’s race, the last time slicks were fitted to F1 cars in Montreal was 1997.

“An engineer explained to me that in every corner, the (grooved) tread was pushing the asphalt.  We put down a new surface last year, but I think the improvement is a combination of that and the slick tyre,” explained Dumontier.

“After the first practice session, I sent somebody out to look at our repairs.  It was a relief.”

However, throughout the race weekend, drivers complained about the low grip of the surface and the way Bridgestone’s tyres were uncharacteristically graining and degrading.

Dumontier replied: “I think drivers need to adapt to every track.

“At Barcelona, for example, which is used for testing, they know exactly where to put their tyres.  Our circuit is used just twice a year to race.”