First of all, welcome!
We actually talked about this before here (I had to look it up to confirm it was actually
in 2007). I don’t see any significant changes since then. While the original MicroProse developer studio (which made the games way back when) may not exist anymore, ownership of intellectual property will most likely have been acquired by Infrogrames // Atari with which MicroProse was merged in 2001.
“Abandonware†is not any legal kind of status. The presence of any particular game being available for download here and there does not say anything in terms of whether copying and sharing it for free is allowed. There could be some assumption that whichever company may be the rightful owner of the IP may not be aware of those particular sites and/or may not intervene, however, unless a site like that would have express permission from whoever may own the rights, sharing cannot be considered legal.
Above individual companies, there also is a trade association for the video game industry, called the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). That, also, may act on behalf of companies which are a member of that. There is, also, the possibility that Formula One Management (FOM) as continuing license holder in terms of the sport may be able to object.
My assessment of the situation continues to be that redistributing the game in any way should be considered off-limits.
After all, there still are possibilities to get legitimate copies of the game via trusted mainstream online auction places...
