Former Formula 1 driver and Indy 500 winner Juan Pablo Montoya is third in points in NASCAR's 'Chase' for the championship. This is just Montoya's third season in the Sprint Cup Series.
Seven-time champion Michael Schumacher has called off his temporary return to F1 because he is not fully recovered from a motorcycle racing accident earlier this year.
PARIS (AFP) — Honda on Friday announced its shock withdrawal from Formula One raising fresh fears over the future of the multi-million dollar sport struggling to keep afloat in the current economic downturn.
Honda Motor president Takeo Fukui made the announcement at an emotional press conference in Tokyo, apologising to fans, staff, drivers and F1 authorities.
"This is a complete withdrawal. The future is a blank sheet," he said. "Five years from now, I think history will show we made the right decision."
The decision shocked the sport which had already seen backmarkers, and fellow Japanese team, Super Aguri go the wall earlier this year.
It also sparked new calls for the glamour sport to slash its mind-boggling budgets while the remaining Japanese team, Toyota, hurried out a statement pledging their future to the championship.
"This difficult decision has been made in light of the quickly deteriorating operating environment facing the global auto industry, brought on by the subprime problem in the United States," Fukui added.
Honda Racing CEO Nick Fry , however, said he was hopeful that new owners would be found in time for the team to be on the grid for the start of next season in Australia on March 29.
Formula One: Honda exit casts cloud over F1 future....
By JOHN F. BURNS
LONDON — A High Court judge ruled on Thursday that a British tabloid newspaper breached the privacy of Max Mosley, the overseer of grand prix motor racing, when it published a story in March claiming he had participated in a sadomasochistic “orgy” with a Nazi theme.
The judge, Sir David Eady, sitting without a jury, awarded Mr. Mosley damages equivalent to about $120,000 as well as legal costs in his suit against The News of the World. His legal fees have been estimated at more than $1.7-million. But the judge did not award the “punitive damages” sought by Mr. Mosley, which could have run into millions of dollars, saying that this was not appropriate in a privacy case.
The judge upheld the central argument made by Mr. Mosley and his lawyers in court and in the battle to save his job as president of the Paris-based Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, or F.I.A. that there had been no Nazi theme to the five-hour sex session in a Chelsea flat that was secretly filmed by the newspaper, and no issue of public interest in its decision to splash the story on its front page and to run video footage of the session on its Web site.
Mosley Wins Suit Against Tabloid....
The Associated Press
SILVERSTONE, England: Lewis Hamilton said the racing conditions were so bad at the rainsoaked British Grand Prix he couldn't see through his visor.
Thankfully for the winner of the Formula One race, he was so far ahead his rivals couldn't see him at all.
The McLaren driver who wasted a 12-point drivers championship lead with only two races to go in his rookie season last year restored faith in his ability to win it this time with a nearly flawless race Sunday in conditions that had his rivals slithering around the Silverstone circuit.
Hamilton wins in awful conditions at British GP....
PARIS, June 3 (UPI) -- Max Mosley, the scandal-plagued president of the world auto sports governing body FIA, will keep the job after winning a vote of confidence in Paris Tuesday.
Mosley, 68, comfortably survived the vote by member automobile racing clubs, held at Federation Internationale de l'Automobile headquarters in Paris, with the vote going 103 in favor of keeping Mosely and 55 against, The Sun newspaper reported.
Mosely had blasted reports in the British tabloid News of the World linking him to Nazi-themed sex acts with prostitutes, decrying it as an invasion of his privacy and launching a libel suit seeking to clear his name.
FULL ARTICLE....
