Grapevine: More News from the Paddock - European GP

Century Boy

Olivier Panis clocked up his 100th Grand Prix event at the Nurburgring this weekend and celebrated it in style in his British American Racing team's pits. Lucky strike gave him a cake and he did exactly what any Formula One driver does with cake - put it in his engineer's face!

"It's really good to participate for my 100th Grand Prix and to make a cake it's nice and good fun," said Panis. "Sometimes we need fun in Formula One and the guy next to me was my engineer."

Panis, who started his career in Brazil with Ligier back in 1994, is arguably now in his best ever Formula One drive at BAR, and he is regularly beating teammate Jacques Villeneuve after spending a year out of racing as McLaren's test driver. Now 34, he has one win to his name but is looking for more as BAR bid to make a push for the front in Panis' next century of races.

Old Man Of Speed

Being Formula One's longest serving driver you would have thought Jean Alesi would have known better than to speed in the wrong place by now. But he seems to still be getting used to the new pace of his much-improved Prost Acer and put his foot down when he should not have done in the pitlane. Alesi, now 37, was clocked at a whopping 84.5 km/h during the second practice session and was duly fined $6,250 (US Dollars) for breaking the rules - the biggest speeding fine of the season so far.

Play Time

Sony, who promote their new Playstation 2 games console through sponsorship of the Benetton Formula One team, chose the Nurburgring to officially launch a new Grand Prix game which they claim is the best ever. The team invited the media to test it out in the Benetton motorhome and the frustrated racing drivers were put to the test on the big screen.

Asiatech Manoeuvering

Once again rumours spread around the paddock about the Asiatech engine suppliers and the various negotiations. The company that re-badges the old Peugeot engine is believed to be on the way out of Arrows in favour of a move to Prost who are believed to be unable to afford their current Ferrari engine supply. That would leave Arrows out of an engine, and it has been suggested that Cosworth could decide to begin supplying two teams again and be drafted in to fill the gap.