Permission to contest rallies is crucial at this stage of Robert Kubica’s formula one career, his manager has confirmed.

Following the contractual restrictions during his time with BMW-Sauber, the Pole has enjoyed contesting a range of formative rallies since switching to Renault in 2010.

His latest outing in his Renault Clio is this weekend’s Rallye du Var in France.

“Kimi (Raikkonen) is Kimi,” said Kubica’s manager Daniele Morelli, according to Turun Sanomat newspaper, “but maybe it has been easier for Robert to learn with the smaller car.

“Robert is only 25 and he has at least 7 or 8 years more time to drive at the top in F1. What is certain is that if Robert does rallying (full-time) one day, he wants to do it properly,” he added.

The key to his preparation, said Morelli, is permission within Kubica’s F1 contract to take part in rallies.

“With BMW it was impossible. Williams will let you do rallies, but McLaren, Red Bull, Ferrari or Mercedes wouldn’t allow it,” he revealed.

Said Kubica: “I hope to be around in F1 for quite a few years yet. But when that stops I’d like to indulge my passion for rallying — just for fun, in the same spirit that I approach it now.”

Kimi Raikkonen’s plans for 2011 are still not secure, but the Finn appears unlikely to be returning to formula one any time soon.

The 2007 world champion looks set to either stay with Red Bull-sponsored Citroen next year or switch to another world rally championship team, despite earlier speculation suggesting he might go back to F1.

“Of course you always want to decide your next plans sooner rather than later, but sometimes it’s just not possible,” Raikkonen’s manager Steve Robertson told Turun Sanomat newspaper.

“I hope we will know what direction we are going by the end of November,” he added.

Robertson said the 31-year-old driver is likely to stay in rallying for now.

“We have not talked with anyone in F1,” he insisted. “Kimi hasn’t closed the door on it; you never say never in case the right offer comes along.”

He said Raikkonen, who cleared the way at Ferrari last year for the arrival of sponsor Santander and Fernando Alonso, would have done well this year at the wheel of the F10.

“I think he would have done pretty much the same as Fernando did,” said Robertson. “Fernando drove a great season and I don’t want to take anything away from him.

“I don’t want to be misunderstood, but I think Kimi would have done a good job in that car,” he insisted.

Nico Hulkenberg’s manager has confirmed talks about a 2011 race seat with Force India.

With the 23-year-old German ousted by Williams, and Renault now set to re-sign Vitaly Petrov for 2011, reports had named Silverstone based Force India as Hulkenberg’s best chance to stay on the grid next season.

Sport1.de quotes his manager Willi Weber as saying: “There are still options, but not too many.”

Referring to Force India, he admitted: “There are currently some talks.”

Weber ruled out compiling enough sponsorship for Hulkenberg to buy a cockpit elsewhere. “If you bring money to a F1 team, then that’s what you do for the rest of your life.”

He also said he would be “happy” if Mercedes expressed interest in signing up Hulkenberg as reserve driver.

But the German marque’s Norbert Haug said: “It is a disadvantage for your career if you spend a year sitting in a simulator rather than collecting practical experience.”

Weber admitted: “That would be a plan B, with the assurance of sitting in the car in 2012.”

Jean-Eric Vergne has a future in formula one, Red Bull’s driver development chief Dr Helmut Marko insists.

The spotlight at present is on Daniel Ricciardo, the young Australian who is at the pinnacle of Red Bull’s junior driver programme and tipped to enter F1 next year with Toro Rosso.

But Frenchman Verge, 20, is also high in the Red Bull programme and tipped to replace Ricciardo as the F1 reserve driver in 2011.

He comfortably won this year’s British F3 championship, and finished eighth in the Renault World Series despite only replacing the ousted Brendon Hartley in July.

Marko told France’s Auto Hebdo that the success of new world champion Sebastian Vettel “justifies all of our efforts” to develop young drivers for F1.

“What we want now is another driver into F1 who can win,” the Austrian added. “Jean-Eric might be the one!” said Marko, referring to Vergne who recently tested the Toro Rosso in Abu Dhabi.

“He has a completely different character to Seb, but that’s ok so long as his performance is there,” he added.

Porsche’s new boss has played down speculation the marque might soon enter formula one.

In October, Matthias Mueller sparked the rumours by saying Volkswagen brands including Audi and Porsche would have a “round-table” to contemplate a F1 foray.

Porsche’s research and development boss Wolfgang Durheimer then said Porsche “can afford” to enter formula one “with its own team”.

But in a new interview with Germany’s Westfalen Blatt newspaper, chief executive Mueller is now playing down that possibility.

“Formula one is a drivers’ world championship, with the focus on the sponsors and the manufacturers only secondary,” he said.

“For us, this is a clear drawback.

“The second drawback for such a long-term investment is the unclear rules for the future.

“But if the VW Group was interested, then Porsche would surely be the brand that would work best for this,” added Mueller.

After forays in the 50s and 60s, German marque Porsche supplied engines to McLaren in the 80s. Its most recent F1 project was the failed collaboration in 1991 with Arrows.

Heikki Kovalainen has given the strongest sign yet that he is staying at Lotus for 2011.

The Malaysian team is yet to confirm its driver lineup for next year, but it is expected that Finn Kovalainen and fellow grand prix winner Jarno Trulli are staying put.

Kovalainen told Finland’s Turun Sanomat that he is expecting the new outfit to take a major step forward in 2011: “That’s why I chose this team,” said the former Renault and McLaren driver.

“It was a risk at the time to go with an entirely new team, but I’m happy with the choice that I made and what we achieved this season,” added the 29-year-old.

Lotus Racing, likely to field an entirely new name for 2011, will be powered by a Renault engine fitted to a Red Bull gearbox next season.

“Expectations are high,” admitted Kovalainen. “It would be a disappointment if we did not make a step forward.”

The team’s technical boss Mike Gascoyne confirmed that Lotus is happy with Kovalainen.

“We always had confidence in Heikki and he delivered for us what we expected from him,” he said.

“He performed well and he’s also a nice guy, making it very enjoyable for the team to work with him,” added Gascoyne.

Kimi Raikkonen and his managers have sold their stakes in the British F3 team Raikkonen Robertson Racing.

The Woking based team will be renamed Double R Racing after Anthony Hieatt took over from the 2007 world champion and his managers Steve and David Robertson, according to reports.

“The Robertson family and Kimi have been very supportive throughout but it is time for all of us to take a different direction,” said Hieatt.

Raikkonen pulled out of formula one at the end of 2009 to compete full-time in the World Rally Championship.

Bernie Ecclestone is nursing minor injuries after muggers attacked the F1 chief executive and his girlfriend Fabiana Flosi outside his London home.

The Sun reports that the 80-year-old was rushed to hospital with a head injury after the four attackers punched and kicked him as they stole watches and jewellery at 10.30pm on Wednesday.

Photographs of the F1 chief executive returning to work on Thursday morning showed a red mark on his right hand.

A senior police source said: “There can be little doubt this was a targeted robbery because of who Mr Ecclestone is.

“The muggers were callous and showed little regard for the victims. They need to be caught.”

Earlier this month in Brazil, Ecclestone brushed off an attempted armed mugging or kidnapping involving F1′s reigning world champion Jenson Button.

“They look for victims, they look for anyone who looks like a soft touch and not too bright,” said the Briton in Sao Paulo.

“People who look a bit soft and simple, they will always have a go at.”

F1′s globalisation has made it harder for drivers from the sport’s traditional markets to find places on the grid.

That is the claim of Austrian Christian Klien, who raced a few times with the struggling new team HRT in 2010 and is hoping for a full season next year.

But with pay-drivers now wielding more power than in the recent past, Klien admitted the task is tough.

“Nico Hulkenberg’s case shows that there are no guarantees,” he is quoted by Vorarlberg Online.

“He had a great debut year with a pole position in Brazil, and he’s out,” said Klien.

“In my own case, I have some options,” he revealed.

“The most obvious one of course is HRT, who are on the verge of establishing themselves as a serious competitor, even if there are some setbacks from time to time.

“In February there was not much of a team and I would not have believed I would contest three grands prix this year. And there’s still some time until March (2011),” added Klien.

He thinks part of his difficulty in establishing a strong full-time return to F1 is geographic.

“It is pretty hard when you are from central Europe,” said Klien, 27.

“F1 has internationalised very quickly and previously as a Briton, an Italian, a Frenchman, you had a good chance,” said the Austrian.

“Today there are more cockpits from before, but the driver market is being fed from many more countries; Russia, India, the southeast Asian region, and now probably Korea and China.

“And if you’re the eighth German, then it is very difficult. Look at France and Italy — 20 years ago there were ten of each. And today?”

The other problem is the economic climate, and the power wielded by drivers who carry substantial commercial backing.

“Even a big name like Kimi Raikkonen in the world rally championship is relying on sponsors to get his cockpit,” said Klien.

“And in F1 the teams are under enormous cost pressure,” he added.

Timo Glock has admitted there is a tiny chance he will not return to the cockpit of a Virgin car in 2011.

When the German joined Toyota in 2008, he said he wanted to be challenging for the world championship in three years.

Instead, the Japanese carmaker pulled out of F1 and Glock rescued his career by switching to Virgin, a new British team that finished its debut season in last place.

It was rumoured that Glock, 28, eyed Vitaly Petrov’s 2011 seat at Renault, but the Russian rookie looks set to renew his deal, while Glock already has a contract for next year with Virgin.

Therefore, staying at Virgin in 2011 “is 99.9 per cent certain”, he confirmed to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper.

But Glock said he hasn’t given up on dreaming of race wins and titles.

“If you have the opportunity to go to Red Bull or McLaren, then you’d have to go for it. From a sporting perspective you are open to new possibilities.

“It is definitely still my goal to go for the world championship,” he added.

Glock insisted that even though it has come early in his countryman’s young career, he is happy for new world champion Sebastian Vettel.

“You cannot begrudge him,” said the German. “He has done a great job this year, maybe one or two errors. But it’s the same for everyone.”

In contrast, Glock recorded zero points, 9 DNFs and a best finish of just 14th.

“In the winter we lost too much time because some basic things did not work,” he said, “but you can’t expect it all to fall into place right away for a new team with a blank sheet of paper.”

Vitaly Petrov has revealed that fans of Ferrari and Fernando Alonso littered his official Facebook page with insults and abuse.

“Many people cursed me, saying I had blocked Alonso,” admitted the Russian driver.

Renault’s Petrov played a pivotal role in the outcome of the 2010 world championship when points leader Alonso could not pass him during the Abu Dhabi finale earlier this month.

After the race, Alonso waved angrily at the 26-year-old rookie, and he now tells Germany’s Bild newspaper that many of the Spaniard’s supporters were similarly abusive.

But he insisted: “It’s nonsense, I did nothing wrong. For 39 laps I was in front of him but no one told me on the radio that I was helping Sebastian be world champion.

“Even if he had (passed), he also had to pass Rosberg. I drove my own race and Ferrari made a tactical error,” added Petrov, who dismissed Alonso’s post-race gesticulations as “bad manners”.

Alonso’s failure to pass Petrov meant that Sebastian Vettel was able to close a big points margin to the Spaniard and secure the 2010 title.

“He deserves it,” Petrov said, referring to Vettel. “The newspapers said it was a miracle, but it was his hard work.”

Bild asked Petrov if the new world champion had congratulated him personally for his role in the title outcome.

“He doesn’t have my phone number,” answered the Russian. “But I saw that he wrote on his website to his fans that he was grateful to me.”

Staff changes as the result of Ferrari’s failed championship campaign in 2010 are on the horizon, according to Italian reports.

Autosprint magazine reports that it is “not a secret” that the man most directly in the spotlight is Australian Chris Dyer, Ferrari’s chief engineer and in charge of race strategies.

“We need an improved car and we must also ensure that mistakes that we made as drivers and as a team are not repeated in 2011,” Fernando Alonso is quoted as saying.

And the Italian daily La Repubblica asked Ferrari’s technical director Aldo Costa if “heads will roll” as a consequence of the failed strategy in Abu Dhabi.

“I’m not for the automatic ‘error-guilt-punishment’ (approach),” he answered.

“I prefer a more rational response, where we understand what happened and what went wrong, and then we act,” added Costa.

He also said it is wrong to point the finger at one individual.

“We must make sure that certain decisions are shared, with responsibility not resting on one set of shoulders.

“But, anyway, we didn’t lose the championship because of the strategy in Abu Dhabi, but because our car was not as fast as another,” added Costa.

He is confident that the F10′s 2011 successor will be faster.

“This year we did reduce the gap to Red Bull,” said Costa.

“What we have done is revolutionise our working methods and this meant a period of adjustment. And we paid for having a wind tunnel that was a bit dated.

“But now we have solved the problem and begun a new era,” he insisted.

Ferrari was the victim of “team games” during the recent 2010 championship decider in Abu Dhabi.

That is the claim of the Italian team’s technical director Aldo Costa, who suspects Red Bull’s two teams Red Bull Racing and Toro Rosso cooperated during the race to influence Ferrari’s race strategy for Fernando Alonso.

Ferrari has admitted it was wrong to pit Alonso early in Abu Dhabi to ‘cover’ Red Bull’s Mark Webber, who then sat behind Toro Rosso’s Jaime Alguersuari for a time before passing the young Spaniard.

Costa was asked by La Repubblica newspaper in Italy if Ferrari’s strategists took too much notice of the Red Bull-sponsored ‘overtaking’.

“We were crucified by team games; what we saw in Abu Dhabi was team games,” he said, perhaps suggesting that Ferrari was duped into thinking Alonso might also be able to make progress through the field.

“Anyway, we made some impulsive assessments and got it wrong,” admitted Costa.

Not surprisingly, Adrian Newey has a different view of the Webber-Alguersuari antics, believing that the Toro Rosso actually held up the Australian rather than let him pass.

“It is only because Mark got held up that they (Ferrari) were able to go for the cover, so actually Toro Rosso did us a real favour — rather unwittingly I suspect,” said the Red Bull technical chief.

BMW’s long-time motor racing and formula one boss Dr Mario Theissen is retiring.

The 58-year-old has held the post as BMW motorsport director for 12 years, preceding the German carmaker’s decision to enter F1 initially as an engine supplier to Williams in 2000.

Before that, he joined BMW as a development engineer in 1977.

Next year, he will hand on the baton to Jens Marquardt, a prominent manager at Cologne based Toyota Motorsport, formerly the Japanese marque’s formula one team.

43-year-old Marquardt will therefore lead BMW into the German touring car series DTM in 2012.

An official spokesperson has played down reports that organisers of the European grand prix at Valencia are trying to offload the race contract to an alternate host.

The Catalan newspaper El Periodico said Valencia’s regional president Francisco Camps has determined that, with two years left to run on a contract, the port city cannot afford the annual fee and organisation costs.

But Consell spokesperson Paula Sanchez de Leon insists that the Valencian government “has not initiated any change” in the policy about the F1 street race.

According to Europa Press, she said the event “will continue as before”.

“This is not an issue that has been dealt with in the Consell,” added Sanchez de Leon.