Competition This Week.

Seeing red

Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro is confident of retaining the world championship. That's the message from Maranello at the launch of the new F2001 in which Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello will try to defend the title, starting in Melbourne on March 4. Having secured Ferrari its first world championship in 21 years, Schumacher is just as fired up as he was 12 months ago. The three-time champion said: ``Winning the world championship with Ferrari is something special. You might think that we will lose motivation, but I can assure you it is still very great. We want to be No. 1 for many years.'' Test driver Luca Badoer attended the launch but he is out of action for at least a couple of weeks following a big crash at Barcelona on Jan. 21. Alfa Romeo's three-time Touring Car champion, Fabrizio Giovanardi, has been recruited to take over some testing duties. Nigel Stepney's promotion to the role of racing manager has been confirmed and Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemolo expressed confidence in keeping the key partnership of Jean Todt, Rory Byrne and Ross Brawn intact. All three have contracts scheduled for renewal in 2001. Chief designer Byrne would only say the new car has minor revisions to the front and rear suspension, to make it more ``tire-friendly.'' All 2001 F1 cars had to be designed around new rules, including a more stringent side intrusion test and revised frontal area. Byrne said these aspects had required extensive development to achieve good aerodynamics. Lauda to Jag?

Reports out of Europe have former F1 champ Niki Lauda being named CEO of the Premier Performance Group, a new subsidiary that will be responsible for Jaguar Racing and Cosworth Racing. Jaguar Racing chairman, Ford's Neil Ressler, is expected to announce his retirement. Lauda recently resigned from his own airline company, Lauda Air, and served as an advisor to the Ferrari F1 team until last year. Andretti or bust

Word on the street is that Michael Andretti will drive for the IRL's Panther Racing team in the 2001 Indy 500. There's one catch: Panther doesn't seem to know anything about a deal. Andretti was in Japan on business and could not be reached for comment at press time. But CART's winningest driver said two weeks ago at the U.S. media event in Fontana, California, that a one-off Indy program was ``unlikely'' for 2001 but ``highly likely'' for 2002 (AW, Jan. 29). Panther co-owner and general manager John Barnes said his team is talking with ``16 companies and several drivers'' regarding its second car for the upcoming race. He said the team hadn't talked to Andretti or his agent since late July, and it was focused on deals with Wally Dallenbach Jr., Billy Boat or Johnny Herbert. Closer than ever

CART testing times this off-season suggest the grid that lines up in Monterrey, Mexico, for the season opener March 11 will be more evenly matched than ever. In the five-team test at Homestead, Jimmy Vasser was quickest in his Patrick Racing Toyota-Reynard, managing best laps of 26.7 seconds, or about 203 mph around the 1.5-mile oval. His pace matched that of Adrian Fernandez and the new Fernandez Racing team the week before. Yet several drivers, including de Ferran before his crash and PacWest's Mauricio Gugelmin, were only a tenth of a second off Vasser's pace. Even rookies were up to speed. Chip Ganassi's new driver, Bruno Junqueira, and ...