Before the start of the season, Stoddart threatened to support the ban on traction control. Later he withdrew this threat. Before the Australian Grand Prix Stoddart threatened to withdraw his cars. There were new regulation in place for 2005. He claimed that Minardi could not afford to modify their cars. Once again Stoddart ended up withdrawing his threat. Several times, Stoddart called for the resignation of Max Mosley, the FIA's President.
One of Minardi's most famous performances came at the Australian Grand Prix. It was Australian driver Mark Webber's first Formula One race. At his and Stoddart's home grand prix, Webber brought the car home in fifth place finish. He scored two World Championship points, a rare occurrence for Minardi.
Minardi was represented in by two rookies, Italian Gianmaria "Gimmi" Bruni and Hungarian Zsolt Baumgartner. During the year, they celebrated their 20th season in F1. Baumgartner scored Minardi's first point in more than two years at the United States Grand Prix. Only eight cars finished the USGP, and Baumgartner finished 8th. Baumgartner was also the first Hungarian to score a point in a World Championship F1 race.
In , Minardi's drivers were Christijan Albers and Patrick Friesacher. They scored a total of 7 points, the most since the season. All of the points came from the debacle of the United States Grand Prix. They finished fifth and sixth. Only six cars started the race. None of the cars running Michelins started the race because of tyre problems. After Friesacher sponsors stopped paying him before the German Grand Prix, he was replaced by the Jordan test driver, Robert Doornbos. This created the first ever all-Dutch driver line-up in Formula One history.
Paul Stoddart stated that he would sell Minardi if he could find the right buyer. Stoddart said he had 41 offers to buy the team. His conditions for a sale was the ability of a buyer to move the team forward and leave the team based in Faenza. The drinks manufacturer Red Bull already owned one Formula One team, Red Bull Racing. They decided to set up a second team. They would promote American drivers through its young driver program, the Red Bull Driver Search.
On 10 September 2005 Red Bull announced it would take control of Minardi in November and run it as their "rookie team" from .
Minardi fans worldwide immediately started an online petition to save the Minardi team name and the team's 20-year heritage. The petition was not successful and the team was renamed Scuderia Toro Rosso for the 2006 season. The team's funding from Red Bull was increased. They started using the Red Bull chassis and Ferrari engines. Their results improved, and Toro Rosso scored their first win at the Italian Grand Prix.
Giancarlo Minardi and Paul Stoddart have both made use of the Minardi name in new motorsport ventures.
On 1 January 2006, Giancarlo Minardi re-acquired some rights to use the Minardi name in racing. He announced that he was licensing the Minardi name to an existing team GP Racing in the junior Euro Formula 3000 series, to be entitled 'Minardi Team by GP Racing'. The team raced with moderate success, scoring a podium in each leg of the Spa round in June 2006. For 2007, Minardi Team by GP Racing combined forces with GP2 team Piquet Sports, to form Minardi Piquet Sports. For 2008 the team is known simply as Piquet Sports.
In 2006, Paul Stoddart declared his intention to enter a new team called 'European Minardi F1 Team Ltd' into Formula One beginning in 2008. His application was unsuccessful, with the 12th place on the grid being awarded to Prodrive. Prodrive was unsuccessful in launching their F1 team. Stoddart turned his attentions to the U.S. based Champ Car series. On 18 December 2006, it was confirmed that he had purchased a controlling interest in the CTE Racing-HVM Champ Car team. The team would be renamed Minardi Team USA. In 2007, the team had some success. Robert Doornbos won two times and had several podium finishes. He finished third in the series, and won Rookie of the Year honors. The Champ Car series folded before the 2008 season. Stoddart's team entering the IndyCar Series under the HVM name.
Stoddart retains the right to use the Minardi name for a British-registered company.
Samuel Reshevsky
Samuel Reshevsky (Szmul Rzeszewski, near Łódź, 26 November 1911 – New York, 4 April 1992) was a Polish-American chess Grandmaster.
Sammy was a famous chess prodigy, and later a leading American chess Grandmaster. He was a contender for the World Chess Championship from about 1935 to the mid-1960s. He came equal third in the World Chess Championship 1948 tournament, and equal second in the 1953 Candidates Tournament. He was also an eight-time winner of the U.S. Chess Championship.
He was the greatest American player in the long period between Pillsbury (d.1906) and Fischer. Sammy was an Orthodox Jew, and did not play on the Jewish Sabbath: his tournament games were re-arranged. He was a regular top board for the USA at Chess Olympiads. He played in eight Olympiads, helping the U.S. team to win the gold in 1937.
Sammy was tremendously strong in matches, and the Soviets made sure he never got the chance to play Botvinnik in a match. He played eleven of the first twelve world champions, and drew a match against Fischer at the age of 49. His one weakness as a player was his time trouble. He used up so much of his time in the early stages of a game that he was often short of time at the end. This probably cost him the Candidates tournament in 1953.
Reshevsky was not a full-time chess player. He was a qualified accountant.
London Bridge
London Bridge is a bridge over the River Thames. It is in central London, and connects the City of London with Southwark. It is between Cannon Street Railway Bridge and Tower Bridge.
On the south side of the bridge are Southwark Cathedral and London Bridge station. On the north side are the Monument to the Great Fire of London and Monument tube station.
It was previously the only bridge over the Thames downstream from Kingston until Putney Bridge opened in 1729. The current bridge opened on 17th March 1973 and is the latest in a succession of bridges to occupy the spot and claim the name.
The bridge carries part of the A3 road, which is maintained by the Greater London Authority; the bridge itself is owned and maintained by a charity overseen by the City of London Corporation.
The name London Bridge is often mistakenly applied to Tower Bridge, which is the next bridge downstream.
A bridge has existed at or near the present site over the period from the Roman occupation of the area, nearly 2,000 years ago. The first bridge across the Thames in the London area, probably a military pontoon bridge, was built of wood by the Romans on the present site around 50 AD.
Around 59 AD, a piled bridge was constructed, and the local Britons built a small trading settlement next to it—the town of Londinium. The settlement and the bridge were destroyed in a revolt led by Queen Boudicca in 60 AD. The victory was short-lived, and soon afterwards the Romans defeated the rebels and set about building a new walled town. Some of the 2nd-century Roman wall has survived to this day. The new town and bridge were built around the position of the present bridge, providing access to the south-coast ports via Stane Street (the A3 route) and Watling Street (the A2).
The southern gatehouse, the Stone Gateway, became the scene of one of London's most notorious sights: a display of the severed heads of traitors, stuck on pikes and dipped in tar to preserve them. The head of William Wallace was the first to appear on the gate, in 1305, starting a tradition that was to continue for another 355 years. Other famous heads on pikes included those of Jack Cade in 1450, Thomas More in 1535, Bishop John Fisher in the same year, and Thomas Cromwell in 1540. In 1598 a German visitor to London counted over 30 heads on the bridge:
The practice was finally stopped in 1660.