F1 Grand Prix Corner

Panasonic Toyota Racing Chairman and Team Principal Tsutomu Tomita will become the new Chairman of Fuji Speedway, it was announced today.

As announced on 26 April, Tomita will stand down from his role at Toyota Motorsport at the end of June to be replaced by current Vice Chairman Tadashi Yamashina. Tomita, 63, will take over as Chairman of Fuji Speedway, which hosts the Japanese Grand Prix this year for the first time since 1977.
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Ferrari President Luca di Montezemolo has rejected media reports that said he was about to embark on a career in Italian politics.

The rumours were sparked late last week when the 59-year-old gave a speech - critical of the country’s political incumbency - that was interpreted as a precursor to a career switch.

Montezemolo said he wanted to see lower taxes and a more flexible market in Italy, with even Prime Minister Romano Prodi confessing that the speech ’spoke for itself’.
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Despite issuing team orders in Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix, McLaren team boss Ron Dennis insists that the Woking based squad is not favouring Fernando Alonso over Lewis Hamilton and that both their drivers are free to race each other for the 2007 world championship driver’s crown.

“We will never favour one driver over another; we never have. Lewis has an equal opportunity to win the world championship,” Dennis said on the BBC. “I have been monstrously criticised in the past for not favouring a driver and frittering away the opportunity of a world title. But we will never favour one driver over another, no matter who it is. We never have and we never will.”

However, that said, Dennis admitted that they were forced to tell their two drives to hold station in order to guarantee the best possible finish around the perilous streets of Monte Carlo. In doing so, they secured the best possible finish with Alonso first and Hamilton second.
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