It’s not a good time to be Adrian Sutil, is it? Although clearly this was coming.

Last April, Sutil was present at a nightclub in China with several other drivers, celebrating Lewis Hamilton’s win at the Chinese Grand Prix. Eric Lux, part owner of the Lotus Renault team, was there. Whatever happened between the two allegedly led to Sutil assaulting (read: stabbing) Lux with a glass.

Sutil claims he was only trying to throw his drink at Lux or  pour it over his head. Lux required two dozen stitches on a cut to his neck. Supposedly the cut was extremely close to a key facial nerve.

Sutil is charged with causing grievous bodily harm. He faces up to a year in jail.

Several drivers could be called in to testify, namely Hamilton, who is good friends with Sutil. The trial is set to take place at the end of this month in Munich.

If it seems weird that Sutil is being charged in Germany with a crime committed in China, it is because under German criminal code, a German national can be charged for a crime committed abroad at home. Lux chose to press charges in Munich.

Sutil remains without a drive next season after Force India announced Nico Hulkenberg as Paul di Resta’s teammate.

Photo from Flickr user nic_r.

Lotus Renault really likes these inopportune announcement times for their drivers. If I wasn’t a night owl, I wouldn’t have this up till the late morning like with the Raikkonen announcement.

This means Vitaly Petrov decided not to stay with the team and both he and Bruno Senna will need to be looking for seats elsewhere.

Romain Grosjean was considering giving up trying to get into Formula 1 if he did not get a seat for 2012. He had just recently tested for the BMW DTM team.

The signing also confirms another year of sponsorship with Total, so you can easily figure out that there is some driver sponsorship money involved.

Here is the official announcement from Renault, where Grosjean, an important guy at Total, team principal Eric Boullier, and team chief money supplier Gerard Lopez all compliment each other on this wonderful news.

“To be racing alongside a former world champion and someone who is hungry and returning to Formula 1 will be a great experience, and I’m sure will help raise my level of performance too,” says Grosjean. By hungry you mean for ice cream, right?

The team look to be starting anew after a rather disasterous finish to their season.

Romain Grosjean drove for the team in 7 races previously in 2009 after Nelson Piquet Jr. admitted to crashing on purpose during the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix. He was this year’s GP2 champion.

Photo from Flickr user jimmymac333.

Kimi at the 2009 Singapore Grand Prix

Kimi Raikkonen has signed a two year deal with Lotus (Lotus Renault this past season).

He was originally linked with a seat with Williams, but that fell through. It is thought he wanted shares of the team, and Williams did not take too kindly to that.

Raikkonen was world champion in 2007, which means there will be SIX world champions on the grid out of 24 drivers next year.

He left F1 after the 2o09 season to drive in the World Rally Championship. He also did a couple NASCAR races this past year.

On the signing, Kimi said, ”It was an easy choice to return with Lotus Renault GP as I have been impressed by the scope of the team’s ambition. Now I’m looking forward to playing an important role in pushing the team to the very front of the grid.”

The team has yet to confirm if Vitaly Petrov is the other driver for next season, but of course it’s likely that Raikkonen is replacing Bruno Senna at the team.

I am very confused as to how I feel.

Photo from Flickr user Aural Asia.

Kubica at the 2010 Canadian Grand Prix

Robert Kubica will not be ready to start the 2012 season with Lotus Renault, it was announced today. Kubica informed the team, who released a statement.

The team remains fully behind the Polish driver, who suffered extensive injuries in a rally crash in February. Kubica hit a barrier at a high speed and was trapped in the car for over an hour before he was extricated. He had suffered a partial amputation of his forearm, several fractures on his right arm and leg, and lost a significant amount of blood. His first surgery took over seven hours, and he has had many subsequent surgeries.

Recovery is going well: Kubica has full function of his leg and can move his arm and elbow easily, but he is not 100% just yet.

Lotus Renault is already in talks with Kubica’s management to get him signed for the 2013 season. For 2012, they will be ready to put him in a simulator and a test car when he’s is good to go.

The team can also move forward now with making its lineup for 2012 in the meantime. It is rumored that Romain Grosjean will replace Bruno Senna.

Vitaly Petrov remains under contract despite his emotional outburst against the team after the last race, as he should be. Team principal Eric Boullier said the matter is settled, and Petrov is only human.

Photo from Flickr user Gregory Moine.

The F1 Commission today approved the name changes for the long standing battle over the name Lotus. The team currently using Team Lotus will now officially be Caterham next year, and the team currently using Lotus Renault GP will officially be Lotus. Additionally, Virgin Racing will change their name to Marussia.

So remember: that’s two car brands that aren’t actually involved and nobody wants to be a virgin anymore. As Sebastian Vettel so eloquently put it, “there are not many virgins in F1…sorry.”

The changes will need to be approved by the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council but that’s basically a given at this point.

The F1 commission also ratified the 2012 calendar.

In other bits of news, involving the team that will be known in the future as Lotus, Robert Kubica may not be ready to return to racing at the start of next year once again, leaving the door open to “phase” him back in. This entirely affects whether it’s Bruno Senna or Romain Grosjean in the driver’s seat for the time being. To me, it just makes sense to keep Senna and not force Grosjean into another partial season again.

Renault as an engine supplier would love to provide engines to a fifth team on the grid. No more than that, says Carlos Tavares. He is perfectly with four. But not six. And apparently not three. The Count is calling, ha ha ha!

And for the team to be known as Caterham in the future news, American driver Alexander Rossi will be testing for the team at the young drivers test in Abu Dhabi. The 20 year old American will also be driving in the GP2 all stars race for Caterham Team AirAsia.

Other drivers most recently announced for the test include Stefano Coletti for Toro Rosso, Jean-Eric Vergne for Red Bull Racing, Romain Grosjean and Kevin Korjus for Lotus Renault, Valterri Bottas and Mirko Bortolotti for Williams, Esteban Gutierrez and Fabio Leimer for Sauber, and Robert Wickens and Adrian Quaife-Hobbs for Virgin.

Drivers Championship? Check.

Constructors Championship? Double check.

Red Bull could just hit cruise control for the remaining three races of the season.

Christian Horner says that won’t be happening, as he aims to see Mark Webber finish in the points second to Sebastian Vettel. Mark is currently fourth, 13 points behind second place Jenson Button.

Honestly, this wouldn’t even have to be a goal if poor Webber had some better starts! He definitely redeemed himself this weekend by not losing any positions at the start. Horner hopes Webber could even win one of these final races.

On the technical side, Adrian Newey says there are possibilities for upgrades to the current Red Bull chassis…on one condition: these developments cannot give other teams any insight into the team’s 2012 development.

Newey says the focus is obviously on the future car, and the exhaust positioning regulation change is the worst kink they’ll have to work around.

In other news…

- Ferrari say they will not block the Lotus Renault to Lotus/Team Lotus to Caterham name change. They just ask that this name changing crap gets clarified in the future. Also, like everyone else in the world, they would like to see the FIA lay out some kind of framework for name changes that also prevents a team from being able to change their name every time the month changes.

- Team Lotus have yet to provide confirmation or even a “sorry, dude, maybe next time” to Karun Chandok regarding the Indian Grand Prix. Chandok hopes to be able to drive in the inaugural race in his home country, but Tony Fernandes has not let him know either way yet. Here’s hoping you kick out Jarno Trulli of that seat as usual, Karun, but for a whole weekend instead!

- Because I never really wrote a complete post-race story, I didn’t mention that Vitaly Petrov will be receiving a 10 grid spot penalty at the next race for his collision with Michael Schumacher. Additionally, HRT were fined for an unsafe release after Daniel Ricciardo’s pit stop.

Photo from Flickr user First Stop Tires

First and foremost, let’s look at who has to pay up for errors at Singapore!

Renault was fined 7,500 Euros for a communication failure under the safety car. The team told Bruno Senna that he was behind Sergio Perez. He was indeed behind Perez on track, but in actuality Senna was a lap down from the Sauber driver. When Senna went in for the overtake after the safety car, he collided with Perez.

Team Lotus was fined 10,000 Euros for the unsafe release of Heikki Kovalainen in the pit lane. Kovalainen nearly collided with race winner Sebastian Vettel.

Michael Schumacher received a slap on the wrist for his accident, which saw him go slightly airborne as he ran into the back of Sergio Perez’s car. Despite everyone running into poor Sergio, he finished the race and appeared NOT to lash out at anyone…unlike a certain Brazilian.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqJfg-vjEgA

Felipe Massa interrupted an interview Lewis Hamilton was doing by slapping and pulling on his rival’s arm while saying “well done, good job.” You can hear Lewis tell him “don’t touch me.” Massa now claims that he is “over it.” Note that his boss, team principal Stefano Domenicali, said in an interview that he believed the contact between Hamilton and Massa during the race was just a racing incident.

Next month’s Indian Grand Prix comes with a slightly ridiculous tax issues. There is some confusion on whether or not drivers will be taxed on their income, but it looks like India wants a seventy percent corporation tax on 1/19 on each team’s turnover. Organizers have claimed they would pay customs and taxes for the teams, but that has yet to be seen. The 70% tax is absolutely insane, though. I’m not entirely sure how it works, but let’s say it’s $19 million (seems way low), 1/19 is a million, and 70% is 700,000. That is just a bit ridiculous for these teams towards the back of the grid. There’s talk of boycotting the event, and I’d completely understand. India, that’s a bit greedy for an event you’ve yet to even hold.

Additionally, a couple weeks ago some press members and others related to the sport were having issues getting visas for visiting India. Journalists need journalist visas, and they cost more than the tourist visas, and for god’s sake, the director of communications for the FIA is unhappy. If things continue like this, this race is going to have the plug pulled on it faster than you can say Istanbul Park.

This article is in German but it is a collection of ugly Formula 1 cars in celebration that rule changes next year will bring us another wave of ugly cars. Hopefully this time around, the cars that are ugly due to their 1970s dates will not be back. There are some hideous things in here.

Martin Brundle has a lovely article over at the BBC F1 news page. Obviously from the title, it relates more to the Schumacher incident, but also talks about Sebastian Vettel and I agree with Brundle so much. It seems so routine and robotic at this point for Vettel to keep on winning, but he is human, he is absolutely passionate about what he does, and it is not just simple for him to win.

Remember that amazing pass on Alonso? Well, turns out Vettel asked the stewards to look at Alonso’s blocking after the race. Nothing was done, same with Schumacher. The overall outlook it seems is that Schumacher was pretty aggressive.

I would assume though overall that because Hamilton finished ahead of Schumacher and Vettel finished ahead of Alonso, nothing was done. But I have a feeling it also means the stewards might not take too kindly to aggressive blocking in the next race.

Now onto other news!

It seems the battle for the Lotus name will be coming to an end. I know Will Buxton mentioned this back during the Belgian Grand Prix as a possibility, but it seems to be happening now. Team Lotus will drop their name, and the Lotus Renault team will be able to take it. Tony Fernandes, boss of Team Lotus, also owns a GP2 team named Caterham AirAsia. It’s possible that they will switch to using this name for the Formula 1 team also. The best part of having Lotus and Caterham in Formula 1 will be how very NOT British they are. (Okay so current Team Lotus is based in England, but that’s not the same as the real Team Lotus days.)

Team Lotus has a few other things going on: Italian driver Jarno Trulli is set for another whinetastic season with the team next year. How do I know it will be whinetastic? Well, that might have to do with a certain reserve driver named Karun Chandok. The Indian driver is backed to drive in his home grand prix, and Tony Fernandes has stated he would replace Trulli because Heikki Kovalainen is the number one driver for the team.

Ouch. Note that the one year contract story broke on Sunday, and the replacement at the Indian Grand Prix/assertion that he’s the number two driver is from today. Surprise!

Vitantonio Liuzzi received a five grid spot penalty for the chaos caused by his off at the start of yesterday’s race. He will be starting 29th at the Singapore Grand Prix. No, seriously, they should consider putting him back far enough that he can’t be “forced into the grass.”

Sebastian Vettel getting out of the car, photo from Infiniti Global

Well this hasn’t happened before…nope…definitely not 9 other times this season alone.

Sebastian Vettel took his 10th pole of the season, and second of his career at Monza this morning. This is the first time a Red Bull Racing car has been on pole at the Italian Grand Prix.

Let’s start off in Q1, which looked to be going as planned..until Pastor Maldonado lost it coming through Parabolica and took off his car’s nose. The damage wasn’t too bad, as the team was able to send him back out, and he made it into Q2.

Timo Glock also nearly lost it, but also avoided a crash, although being in a Virgin car, he wasn’t ever going to be making it into Q2.

The usual drivers were knocked out with the rotating seventh spot going to Jaime Alguersuari.

Q2 looked to be the same: goodbye to the midpack teams: Saubers, Force Indias, Williams, and the Buemi half of Toro Rosso. It was close though, Bruno Senna just barely made it into the tenth position. The difference between his time and Paul di Resta’s time? Six thousandths of a second.

Sadly, Lotus Renault held Bruno Senna in the pits for the entirety of the Q3 session, so he will be starting tenth tomorrow. The last 2 minutes of the session looked like they were going to be crazy. All the cars were somewhat bunched up on the track, which looked like it was going to make the last run across the finish line rather hectic.

Instead, McLaren brought their drivers into the pits, as already on top Sebastian Vettel improved his time. Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button will start second and third respectively, with Vettel’s teammate Mark Webber down in 5th (or 10th if he yet again has an awful start).

Ferrari, at their “home event,” did manage to do slightly better than hoped. Fernando Alonso will start fourth, Massa will start sixth.

Other bits before the entire grid for tomorrow:

- Vitaly Petrov will be using an all black helmet this weekend in remembrance of those who died in a plane crash in Russia on Wednesday.

- Lotus Renault used one of their curfew breaking days on Thursday night to get all the upgrades on their cars.

- The FIA has told the teams to stay within Pirelli’s camber recommendations (or I guess now that’s requirements) or there is a chance they could be disqualified from the race.

- Williams has been fined 5,000 euros for “breaching tire regulations.” Tires not meant for Friday practice were put on Rubens Barrichello’s car yesterday.

And now the grid below the cut!
» Continue reading “Sebastian Vettel On Pole for the Italian Grand Prix”

Nick Heidfeld and Lotus Renault have officially parted ways. The two parties held discussions this past week and were able to make a deal. There is no longer any need for legal action and the case will not go to court.

The team also confirmed that this means Bruno Senna will be Vitaly Petrov’s teammate for the remainder of the season, beyond next week’s Italian Grand Prix.

Romain Grosjean now becomes the team’s first reserve driver with Bruno in the big seat. He’ll be present at every race once the GP2 season is officially over next weekend, and has already run a straight line test for the team in order to become more familiar with the car.