Round up: Ralf receives fine

The Malaysian GP winner was returning home from the German Motor Show in a hired BMW 7-Series when he was involved in the shunt. In wet conditions the Williams driver ran into the back of another car, causing a chain reaction involving three more cars.

Estimates placed the extent of the damage at 20,000 US dollars, and one women passenger was slightly injured following the impact.


Jaguar is looking to long-term partner Hewlett Packard in a bid to turn its troublesome R3 into a competitive F1 car. Following the decision to stick with the new car rather than embarrassingly reverting to last year's R2, Jaguar is looking for wholesale improvements.

To this end it will start employing HP's Computational Fluid Dynamics software (which models complex airflow) to help aerodynamic developments while its own wind tunnel is calibrated.


So far, this season has gone much better than expected for Toyota and F1 returnee Mika Salo. A point at the first race in Australia was followed by a top 10 starting position at Sepang. However, despite the car's strong performance, the Finn isn't relishing the prospect of racing at Interlagos this weekend as it's one of his least favourite tracks.

"The surface is, without a doubt, the worst that we race on all year," he moaned. "The organisers claim that it is caused by subsidence, as a result of the track being built on marshland. Well, whatever the reason, it is quite tough on the drivers and can cause car failures as well.

"But, having said that, I think we can expect a relatively good result in Brazil because Interlagos will suit the TF102 very well. It's a horsepower circuit, and our engine is good, and you don't have to run maximum downforce, which is an area where we still need to make progress."

Salo's best result at the track came back in 1996 when his was fifth for Tyrrell. He failed to start his last Brazilian GP in 2000 after his Sauber team suffered a number of rear wing failures in practice and qualifying.