November 24 1995
All of the information in this section was obtained from a bloke down the pub, which means that while we believe all the following information to be true, we couldn't swear that it is.
What we will say however, is that usually, "there's no smoke without fire".....
Mika making steady progress.
Villeneuve Quickest at Estoril.
Verstappen to Join Arrows
McLaren at Jerez
FIA entry deadline met by all.
Wiliams launch FW18
Benetton Still Troubled
Tyrrell 024 Looking Good
No News From Forti
Delayed Release For Arrows
Ferrari Released Today
Mika Hakkinen is making good progress as he recovers from his horrific accident at Adelaide. Mika is said to be sleeping normally and is now able to take gentle exercise. He has also started walking again. Syd Watkins has said that he will be assessed after three months to check his progress. Doctors are said to be extremely pleased with MikaÕs progress but stress that he still has a long way to go to make a full recovery.
Villeneuve Quickest at Estoril.
The winter testing programme has started at Estoril. Williams, Benetton and Ferrari will all be using the trackToday (Thursday 23 Nov) Villeneuve posted a time of 1:22.80 which was .44 quicker than current world champion Michael Schumacher who went round in 1:23.24. This is good news for Williams as it shows that their new driver is settling into his car quite well. Schumacher's time can be taken quite lightly as he too is in a strange car, however the Ferrari is undergoing more changes than the Williams as it moves from V12 to V10 power.Damon Hill is not driving at Estoril and so we have no real measurement of how well either Villeneuve or Schumacher are doing in their respective cars.The new Benetton duo of Alesi and Berger are due at Estoril too.
Arrows, who are hoping to test their new FA16 chassis at Estoril in three weeks time, look to have signed Jos Verstappen as one of their drivers. The second team driver will not be nominated until after Christmas.
While everyone seems to be off to Portugal, McLaren have decided to go to Spain!!. David Coulthard is expected to start testing at Jerez in the first week of December. David is likely to be joined by a couple of younger drivers to aid the testing, though no names have been mentioned yet.
FIA entry deadline met by all.
It has been confirmed that all of the teams present last year, will be racing again in 96. It is not clear if the DAMS team had entered by last Wednesdays FIA deadline.
Jan Lammers and Eric Comas have both tested the prototype DAMS car at Le Mans and a further test is scheduled for early December, probably around the 4th.
