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Kate in FHM

What a peach

Donington British GP in doubt over £67m debt

In a damaging report, auditors inspecting the accounts of Donnington Ventures Leisure Ltd (DVLL) say they remain unconvinced they will have sufficient financial power to stage the race in 17 months.

DVLL were set up 3 years ago by Simon Gillett and Lee Gill, who bought a 150-year lease for the track.  In July 2008 they won the rights to host the British GP from Silverstone.

But the project has faced a barrage of negativity with many in the sport openly skeptical of DVLL's ability to win planning permission to develop the track, raise the necessary capital, meet building deadlines and get around transport logistics.

DVLL's detractors were given further ammunition when Gill, was dismissed last autumn. It has since emerged that he is taking his former colleague to the High Court, claiming damages of £150k. Court papers claim he was dismissed without notice by chairman Nick Schwartz, who "verbally terminated" his contract with "immediate effect" on Sept 3 last year.

Planning permission was eventually granted last month prompting.  Nevertheless, DVLL's annual accounts just filed, revealing a loss of £12m last year and debts of £67m, are sure to rock the boat.  Gillett, their chief executive, is trying to raise funds to finance the £100m project. He has always maintained that he will reveal details in March.  He favours a debenture scheme whereby 6,000 or so corporate customers pay £5k each pa.  He has until this September to satisfy Ecclestone that plans are on course or risks losing his 10-year contract to stage the race.

Ryanair flies into a storm with 'sexist' charity calendar featuring scantily clad cabin crew

Knowing many of your readers are interested in flight and associated subjects this calendar caught my eye when looking for a Ryanair pic for my own blog

Low-cost airline Ryanair has flown into a storm after its latest charity calendar was branded sexist. A series of glossy photos feature scantily-clad female cabin crew who look more like page three pinups than plane staff. But despite raising money for homeless charity Dublin Simon Community, the calendar has already run into trouble.

Teddy Mayer

The older I get the more I realise I read the obits often and this item caught my attention - I thought your readers might be interested

Formative influence on McLaren's formula one world champions

Teddy Mayer, who has died aged 73, was one of the architects of the early success of the McLaren formula one team. He had a vital management role in its first two world championship titles, with Emerson Fittipaldi in 1974 and James Hunt two years later.

Mayer ran the team for 10 years after the death of the New Zealand-born racing car driver and designer Bruce McLaren in a testing accident at Goodwood in June 1970. Then came the point where the organisation's fading fortunes caused its main sponsor, Philip Morris, to insist that Mayer amalgamate the team with Ron Dennis's emergent Project 4 operation as a condition of retaining the lucrative backing. He finally left McLaren in 1982 after selling his shareholding to Dennis and the team's then technical director John Barnard.

Honda Racing

Lord Mandelson's £2.3bn bail-out of the car industry – ostensibly aimed at shoring up jobs in towns such as Swindon and Luton – could end up being deployed in the pit lanes of Monte Carlo after Honda's formula one team confirmed it was in talks to avail itself of taxpayer-funded loans.

Honda Racing became the UK's first and highest-profile casualty of the global collapse in spending on cars in December when its Japanese parent company announced it would withdraw funding.

Nick Fry, the team's chief executive, has since been seeking a buyer for the team, which has 700 employees at its Brackley base and an annual budget in the region of £200m.

Happy New Year

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Space shuttle touches down safely

Shuttle Endeavour lands at Edwards Air Force Base In California

The shuttle's landing site was switched from Florida to Edwards Air Force Base in California due to bad weather.

The mission had been extended by a day because NASA wanted the shuttle's crew to make repairs to a machine which makes drinking water from urine.

I saw this vid and thought of Ceri - I wonder why!