Big Names In Paddock Say America Is Vital To Sport’s Growth

NURBURG, Germany — The car manufacturers involved in Formula One want the United States Grand Prix to return to the schedule as soon as possible.
“I think they (Indianapolis) put a lot of effort into looking after us, and it would be nice not only for it to continue but to add another grand prix in the United States,” Honda’s Nick Fry told Reuters. “So, as far as we are concerned, the sooner we can get back to the United States the better. Our optimum would be one on the East Coast and one in the middle.”
BMW Motorsports director Dr. Mario Theissen called the loss of the USGP “a setback.”
“The U.S. is our number-one market, so it is important for us to be represented in the U.S. with F-1,” he told NSSN. “I hope that we have a U.S. Grand Prix in the future, if not next year, then in 2009.”

• There’s only one F-1 race in Germany this year, but it’s called the European GP instead of the German GP.
The organizers of the Hockenheim circuit, who have the rights to the German GP title, couldn’t come to an agreement with the Nurburgring organizers to use the name.

• Honda has confirmed that Rubens Barrichello will be back with the team for a third season and Jenson Button for a sixth year in 2008.
“We have not had the performance to be competitive this year,” Button said, “but I am confident that our recent difficulties are now behind us and that next year looks promising.”

• The usually longhaired Jarno Trulli sported a new short haircut at the Nurburgring.

• Lewis Hamilton escaped injury when his right-front tire blew when he was traveling at about 160 miles per hour into turn eight during qualifying. The McLaren bounced over the gravel traps and speared into a tire wall. Hamilton climbed out and then collapsed on the ground.
A faulty air gun failed to properly tighten the right-front wheel nut (Fernando Alonso’s car had the same problem), and as the nut worked loose the wheel began to wobble, and this, in turn, caused a piece of the suspension or brakes to pierce the wheel rim and cause an instant deflation of the tire.
After examining Hamilton on Saturday night and again on Sunday morning, doctors cleared him to race.

• Felipe Massa wore black bands on his arm and helmet as a sign of mourning for the nearly 200 victims of Brazil’s worst aviation accident.

• Gil de Ferran has quit as sporting director of Honda. While the team says it was by mutual agreement, the Indy 500 winner and double CART champion had become disillusioned because he wasn’t able to do the job, which was to be a conduit to the drivers, he’d been hired for.
“My decision to leave has not been an easy one,” he said. “I simply feel that I came to this team to fulfill a particular role and it has not materialized as I had hoped.”

• This is the 80th anniversary of Rudolf Caracciola winning the first car race at the Nurburgring. He won the Eifelrennen on June 19, 1927 driving a Mercedes-Benz S. Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton briefly drove the same car on a section of the old track prior to this year’s GP.

• Riding his 500cc Sunbeam motorcycle, Graham Walker, father of the celebrated F-1 TV commentator Murray Walker, won the first race of any kind at the Nurburgring. The event was held the day before the car race.

• Recently, the French GP organizers asked to be taken off the 2008 calendar, and Bernie Ecclestone said that F-1 would never go back to the unloved rural Magny-Cours circuit. But a statement from the French motorsport federation, the FFSA, says it hopes to stage a race next year. France has a contract to 2011.

• Toro Rosso is not for sale. “I didn’t offer anybody to sell something and nobody asked me,” Gerhard Berger said. “It’s speculation, and it’s been going on since the beginning of the season, so just let them go on.”

• Nick Heidfeld and his partner, Patricia, became parents for the second time when son Joda was born July 21. Nick flew back to Switzerland after qualifying on Saturday for a visit and returned race-day morning.

• Timo Glock won Saturday's GP2 race. Javier Villa won Sunday's event.

• Police in Woking, England, recently pulled over a young man driving a Mercedes-Benz for a routine check. It was Hamilton.