Villeneuve to continue at BMW Sauber

FORMER world champion Jacques Villeneuve will continue racing for the Sauber team, taken over by BMW in June, next season.

The Canadian, who won the world title with Williams in 1997, joined the Swiss Sauber team on a two-year contract at the start of 2005 but his position was unclear after BMW bought out the team.

“We are in no doubt that Jacques will make the BMW Sauber F1 Team stronger,” said BMW Motorsport Director Mario Theissen on Thursday.

Villeneuve will line up alongside Nick Heidfeld for the BMW Sauber F1 Team in 2006.

“We took a close look at Jacques’ performance level at the end of last season. After a tough first half of the year - which showed that even a former World Champion cannot come back after a period away and be competitive from day one - he got closer and closer to his team-mate over the second half of the season.”

Villeneuve added: “Between 1999 and 2004 I experienced first-hand the difficulties and complexities involved in setting up a new team, but I’ve never been afraid of a challenge. Sauber was already a good team and now we also have the resources of BMW behind us. I will do everything I can to contribute to the success of the BMW Sauber F1 Team.”

Now living in Switzerland, Villeneuve will start work for the new team in the first testing session in Jerez on December 8.

Villeneuve was crowned Formula One World Champion faster than any other driver before or since after making his debut in the series. In 1996, his rookie year, the Canadian finished second in the overall standings behind his then Williams Renault team-mate Damon Hill. The following year, he fended off the challenge of Michael Schumacher to go one better and take the title for the same team.

He dropped off the Grand Prix grid at the end of 2003 when BAR-Honda replaced him with Takuma Sato but returned to the grid for the last three races of 2004 with Renault before signing with Sauber.

Meanwhile, Aguri Suzuki’s plans to get a Formula One team on the grid appear to have collapsed after his outfit failed to make it onto the official 2006 entry list.

The FIA published yesterday those teams that are eligible to compete next season and Super Aguri were a notable absentee.

Although there has been no official explanation for why Super Aguri are not there, it is understood that it may relate to the team’s failure to have lodged the mandatory $48 million (€40.9m) bond that all new teams must pay.

The news comes after the team have been working hard on trying to get a car onto the grid next season - having installed members of staff at the former Arrows factory in Leafield.

Only this week, Autosport magazine claimed that Aguri were planning to run old Arrows A23 chassis from 2002 for the first three fly-away races of the year before getting their own new car ready for the start of the European season.

Elsewhere, BAR’s new name has been confirmed as the Honda Racing F1 Team after the entry list was published yesterday.

Although the Honda-owned team have kept quiet about the name change, despite team boss Nick Fry accidentally leaking it during a presentation at a motorsport’s conference, the FIA entry list has revealed the alteration.

Beyond the BAR name change and the absence of the Super Aguri team, the entry list has also confirmed that Tiago Monteiro will race alongside Christijan Albers at the former Jordan team, re-named Midland F1 Racing for next year.