MAGNY-COURS, France — Toyota crew members wore black armbands and the Toyota cars had black bands on them as the team paid its respects to retired Toyota racing boss Ove Andersson, who lost his life in an accident during a historic rally in South Africa.
“Without Ove I’m not sure whether Toyota would be competing in F-1 now,” Jarno Trulli said. “He helped build up the factory from scratch back in the rally times to what it is now — a real F-1 facility with the potential to produce world championship-winning cars. He loved motorsport and it was his passion to see Toyota succeed, so I hope we can achieve something fitting this weekend.”
Trulli, who finished third Sunday, dedicated his podium finish to Andersson.

• Honda plans to give Danica Patrick an F-1 test before the end of the year.

• Ticket sales were up 12 percent this year thanks in part to the fans now having a French driver — Sebastien Bourdais — to cheer for. Members of Bourdais’s fan club filled an entire section of the grandstands opposite the Toro Rosso pit.
Bourdais did not put any extra effort into his home race. “It is a normal weekend and you need to treat it as such and give your best as usual,” he said. “You can’t really change your approach because it is your home Grand Prix; otherwise, it means you are leaving something on the table everywhere else.”

• The FIA World Motor Sport Council was due to meet June 25 where it was expected to discuss the explosive issue of redistributing F-1’s commercial income so that the teams would get a considerable increase in the percentage they receive. This obviously won’t please F-1’s commercial rights holders Bernie Ecclestone and the CVC company, thus setting off a new fight with Max Mosley.

• Other than watching cows graze, there is not much to do in the Magny-Cours area. Red Bull came to the rescue by throwing a party  at its Energy Station in the paddock Saturday night.

• Lewis Hamilton denied reports  he paid 200,000 pounds [$395,000] for the personalized license plate LEW15 in England.
“Absolutely no interest,” he said. “That sounds about the worst number plate I’ve ever heard of. I’m not stupid enough to spend a couple of hundred grand on a number plate.”
Plates are issued sequentially in England where, unlike some countries, you cannot specify the personalized plate you want for a modest fee. Therefore, people are willing to pay a lot for a license plate that just happens to match what they are looking for.

• Bridgestone PR man Andy Stobart cycled the 480 miles from England to Magny-Cours. The trip took five days including a 24-hour stopover in Le Mans to watch the race there.

• McLaren launched a new book called “McLaren: The Cars 1964-2008,” which, in 304 pages, chronicles in exhaustive detail every McLaren ever built from Bruce McLaren’s M1A Can-Am car through to the 2008 F-1 car. It can be purchased at www.mclarenshop.com and www.coteriepress.com.

• Sebastien Bourdais’s home GP debut got off to an expensive start when he earned a 2,400 euro [$3,750] speeding fine on the first day of practice. Officials fined Kimi Raikkonen 5,000 euros [$7,814] for arriving late to Friday’s drivers’s meeting.

• Will the British Grand Prix move to Donington? It’s highly unlikely, but Bernie Ecclestone was spreading the story no doubt to rev up Silverstone to improve its facilities.

• Mercedes scored its first Grand Prix victory in July 1908 when Christian Lautenschlager won the French race. Victor Hemery finished second in a Benz. One hundred years later, Heikki Kovalainen drove Hemery’s Benz with Lewis Hamilton as a passenger in the drivers’s parade prior to the 2008 French Grand Prix. Daimler-Mercedes merged with Benz in 1926.

• Heikki Kovalainen’s qualifying didn’t go happily. First, he got a 2,800 [$4,376] euro pit-lane speeding fine, and then officials dropped him from fifth to 10th on the grid for driving too slowly on an out lap and hindering Mark Webber’s quick lap.

• Singapore hotels charging outlandish rates for the Grand Prix week resulted in very low booking rates, according to the New Straits Times, which says most hotels have plenty of unsold rooms.

• Lewis Hamilton continues to brush off his accident in Canada where he hit Kimi Raikkonen after failing to see the red light at pit exit.
“I would be more affected if I was out on the track and I was driving, in the lead, doing a perfect race and then I made a huge mistake and crashed into the wall,” he said. “I was more sorry and more concerned for Kimi because he was having a good race.”