whose Sauber seat was taken by Diniz, joined Rubens Barrichello at Stewart. The two drivers who had filled Stewart's second seat in 1998 were both absent from the Formula One grid in 1999: Jan Magnussen moved to the American Le Mans Series, while Jos Verstappen became the test driver for the aborted Honda F1 project. Minardi also fielded a completely new driver pairing: Ferrari test driver Luca Badoer, who had been absent from the grid since the collapse of Forti midway through the 1996 season, drove alongside the third rookie driver, Marc Gené, who was the reigning Open Fortuna by Nissan champion. A wrist injury to Badoer meant that Prost test driver Stéphane Sarrazin made his F1 debut at the Brazilian Grand Prix, which would end up being the Frenchman's only ever race in the series. Shinji Nakano, who drove for Minardi in 1998, tested occasionally for Jordan in 1999, while his teammate, Esteban Tuero, who was also surplus to requirements at the Italian team, left Formula One to join the Argentinian TC 2000 Championship. Calendar The 1999 FIA Formula One World Championship comprised the following 16 races. Calendar changes and proposed races The Malaysian Grand Prix was added to the calendar, held at a newly built circuit in Sepang. There were proposals for a Chinese Grand Prix to be held at the Zhuhai International Circuit. The race was included on the provisional calendar, with 21 March as its date, released on 15 October 1998. The race was removed from the calendar on 20 December 1998, due to unspecified problems. The race was proposed to be moved to the autumn but this did not occur. The Chinese Grand Prix ultimately joined the calendar in 2004, with the event held at the Shanghai International Circuit. The Argentine Grand Prix was added to the calendar on 20 December 1998 as a replacement for the cancelled Chinese Grand Prix, to be held at the Autódromo Juan y Oscar Gálvez as the second round of the season on 28 March, but was cancelled as well because of disagreements between the organizer and the commercial rights holder. This resulted in a five-week gap between the year's opening two races. The race at the Nurburgring was held under the European Grand Prix title once more having been held under the Luxembourg Grand Prix title in the 1997 and 1998 season Report The first round of the