Woking, Great Britain, Wednesday 15th February 2006: Team McLaren Mercedes and Direxiv are pleased to announce the establishment of the “Direxiv Dynamic Wellbeing Programme”. This programme will see Team McLaren Mercedes operating in close co-operation with Direxiv, to create a dedicated team of highly qualified and well resourced individuals with the sole objective of improving and optimising the fitness, health, wellbeing and diet of not only all of the Team McLaren Mercedes Formula One team and drivers but also of the participants in the Direxiv Driver Programme.

The “Direxiv Dynamic Wellbeing Programme” is headed by Aki Hintsa, the Chief Physician of the Finnish Olympic Committee. Aki has already worked with Team McLaren Mercedes for more than a year on a part-time basis and after the 2006 Winter Olympics Aki will leave the Finnish Olympic Committee and join McLaren. He will be supported by a team of four employees, two of whom will be based at the McLaren Technology Centre, staffing McLaren??(tm)s Fitness and Wellbeing Centre. The other two are Kimi Raikkonen and Juan Pablo Montoya’s personal trainers Mark Arnall and Gerry Convey who will continue to form an integral part of the team.

Direxiv??(tm)s involvement with Team McLaren Mercedes has not only resulted in the establishment of the “Direxiv Dynamic Wellbeing Programme” but also sees the Direxiv identity appear on the team’s Formula One racing cars and on members of the Team operating the Programme at the races. In addition, the Direxiv logo will also, via agreement with McLaren, appear on the race car of Lewis Hamilton in his 2006 GP2 car run by the championship winning ART team.

McLaren and Direxiv will also explore opportunities to work together in synergistic sections of technology linked to their areas of respective expertise. This will be channelled through McLaren Group company ‘McLaren Applied Technologies’.

Commenting on the announcement Misato Haga, CEO of Direxiv said: “Direxiv??(tm)s motorsport objective is twofold: to support the drivers in our programme to compete at the highest level of motorsport and to provide a platform to promote the Direxiv products and services internationally. I am delighted to have entered into this agreement with McLaren whose renowned expertise and professionalism will help us get closer to achieving our goals.”

Martin Whitmarsh, McLaren Group CEO “I am delighted to formally welcome Misato Haga and the Direxiv brand to the Team McLaren Mercedes family. Misato has been a friend of the Team for some time and it is wonderful that we have found a way to work together in a manner that the Direxiv brand and Team McLaren Mercedes can both benefit. I have a longstanding belief in the role that pro-active health, fitness and dietary measures can play in the performance of drivers, team members and other individuals and the establishment of the “Direxiv Dynamic Wellbeing Programme” will take this to the next step. I am also particularly pleased that we have been able to extend the benefit of the facilities to our younger drivers such as Lewis Hamilton, as well as making facilities available more generally to staff at the McLaren Technology Centre

The Belgian National Sporting Authority, the RACB, has written to notify the FIA of the withdrawal of the 2006 Belgian Grand Prix from the FIA Formula One World Championship.

The withdrawal has been made in order to allow the completion of extensive improvement work to facilities at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit.

The FIA hopes that the event will be included once again in the Formula One World Championship calendar from 2007 onwards.

Toyota TF105

Woking, Great Britain, Friday 10th February 2006: The Team McLaren Mercedes Formula One team has revealed a unique new car livery which will adorn the team’s cars in the future.

The new livery has an innovative surface coating, which achieves a high level of reflectivity. The technology used was perfected by McLaren during the past six months and is completely new to Formula One.

“A lot of research and months of work have gone into creating this unique chrome finish,” explained McLaren Marketing Managing Director Ekrem Sami. “We are always looking at innovative ways to allow our sponsor partners to differentiate their brands from the competition through their partnership with the team and this unique livery is designed to be extremely photogenic. Team McLaren Mercedes had the highest audited ‘Share of TV Voice’ in 2005 – and we hope that this new identity will contribute to us retaining that status.”

“When we created our previous livery in the mid nineties we established what we believed then was an innovative and groundbreaking new identity for McLaren Mercedes,” continued Sami. “What we have launched today is as revolutionary and we hope it will be the foundation of the team’s livery for many years to come.”

The team can look back on a lot of success during the nine years of the former livery. At the very first race after its introduction in Melbourne in 1997 the team won and since then it has taken nearly 30 per cent of all Grands Prix victories.

The team took the opportunity to show the new livery to McLaren Group and Mercedes-Benz High Performance Engines employees this evening. Two of the Groups better known personalities, drivers Kimi Raikkonen and Juan Pablo Montoya, were both impressed with their cars’ ‘new clothes’.

“I have only seen illustrations of the new livery until now but they do it no justice,” said Kimi. “It looks fantastic and should create a bit of a stir when we drive it on tracks around the world. If we can make the car as fast as it looks then we will be in good shape.”

“Wow,” said Juan Pablo. “What a beautiful looking car. I have obviously been testing the MP4- 21 quite a bit already but seeing the car like this is something else.”

The FIA has noted Michelin??(tm)s announcement of its withdrawal from Formula One at the end of 2006.

Everyone in Formula One will be most grateful to Michelin for the efforts they have made and for their courtesy in giving the necessary full year??(tm)s notice.

The competing teams have repeatedly and unanimously requested the FIA to impose a single tyre supplier in Formula One. This has been agreed for 2008, but Michelin??(tm)s announcement makes it probable for 2007. The teams will certainly be glad of this.

A single tyre supplier will undoubtedly make Formula One fairer, safer and less expensive for the teams but, above all, it will avoid a repetition of the problem which arose at the 2005 US Grand Prix.

FIA Press Release