Jerome d’Ambrosio has described securing his formula one debut for 2011 as the ultimate birthday and Christmas present.

Although described in Virgin’s press release as 25, the Belgian rookie is actually still 24 until two days after Christmas.

The new British team announced on Tuesday that he is replacing Brazilian Lucas di Grassi for the 2011 season.

“It’s a nice Christmas gift but also a birthday present — I was born on December 27,” he told Belgian television RTBF.

“This has come after many weeks of waiting, and everything finally came together just recently.

“I didn’t sleep last night because I was so excited,” confirmed d’Ambrosio, Renault’s 2010 F1 reserve who finished the season as Virgin’s Friday driver.

“I only heard the news last night and it was hugely emotional. Doing a grand prix season is a dream come true, but now is the time to start working,” he added.

Ron Dennis has admitted that McLaren’s current boss is better than he was at managing “world champions” driving for the Woking based team.

Dennis, still executive chairman and a significant shareholder of the British company but no longer the F1 team principal, was asked by F1i magazine about McLaren’s current driver lineup of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button.

“Managing the co-habitation of two world champions is often a challenge,” he said. “I have tried it a few times. Martin is perhaps showing himself to be better than me at that role.”

Martin Whitmarsh, Dennis’ long-time deputy, took over the role of team principal at the beginning of 2009, and he is now tipped to also retain the FOTA chairmanship in 2011.

Under Dennis’ stewardship in 2007, Hamilton clashed memorably with Fernando Alonso, whose fractious relationship with his boss lasted only one difficult season.

20 years before that, the pairing of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost is remembered as one of the bitterest in F1 history.

Tony Fernandes’ F1 outfit is pushing ahead with the Team Lotus moniker, despite lingering expectations he might drop the name before the start of the 2011 season.

The Malaysian, whose official license for his team’s 2010 identity Lotus Racing was terminated because Group Lotus wanted to enter F1 separately, has said several times recently that he favours a “pragmatic” solution to the dispute.

But the latest news is that green and gold ‘Team Lotus’ signage, including the famous CABC logo, has been erected outside the outfit’s Hingham (UK) factory.

The signage also features at the team’s new official website, which is located at teamlotus.co.uk because teamlotus.com is controlled by Group Lotus.

“The migration to (the) Team Lotus brand has started,” Fernandes wrote on Twitter. “It’s a shame. I liked Lotus Racing and always thought Team Lotus should be returned to (the) Chapman family.

“But that’s the deck of hand (cards) we got handed,” he added.

Renault F1′s new website, located at lotusrenaultgp.com, will be launched on January 31.

Vitaly Petrov is staying at Renault for two more years, the newly-rebranded Enstone based team announced on Wednesday.

Now calling itself Lotus Renault GP, the team said in a statement that 2010 Russian rookie Petrov is retaining his seat alongside Robert Kubica not only for 2011 but also 2012.

“Last season, he showed on several occasions that he clearly has the potential to deliver,” said team owner Gerard Lopez, who also confirmed that Renault is “looking forward to building on (its) special relationship” with Russia.

Said Petrov, 26: “In many ways, 2010 was about learning. 2011 will be about performing.”

F1 cars will feature 1980-style ‘tea tray’ front wings in 2013, the BBC reported on Tuesday.

With KERS and adjustable rear wings to feature on the grid next season, and radical 4-cylinder turbo engines to debut in 2013, the report said the new front wings are the next significant change for formula one in two years.

To replace the big and wide front wings of today, the 2013 cars will reportedly generate the bulk of their downforce underneath the car, with the formula drawn up by veteran engineers Patrick Head and Rory Byrne.

The teams will receive the draft 2013 regulations – which will also see the cars wearing much smaller rear wings – this week before they are discussed in detail by the Technical Working Group in January.

“(In 2013) We are only going to have roughly 65 per cent of the amount of fuel and a (limited) fuel (flow) rate — that was a given,” Head, engineering boss and co-owner at Williams, confirmed.

“We were just told ‘That’s what it will be, you’ve got to come up with a car spec that is not going to be more than five seconds a lap slower than a current F1 car’.

“So some circuit simulation was done by Rory at Ferrari and when we’d come up with some numbers in terms of drag and downforce it was then to try to come up with a geometry of a car that could try to achieve that,” he added.

Jerome d’Ambrosio will make his F1 debut in 2011 alongside Timo Glock, the Virgin team announced on Tuesday.

We reported earlier this month that the 24-year-old Belgian d’Ambrosio was on the verge of securing the second race cockpit, which in 2010 was occupied by fellow rookie Lucas di Grassi.

D’Ambrosio, reportedly bringing $5m to the new British team and managed by the Eric Boullier-led Gravity group, completed this season as Virgin’s Friday driver and was recently only awaiting the approval of team partner Marussia for the 2011 ride.

“He has secured this seat absolutely on merit and I think coupled with Timo we have the perfect blend of youth, experience, speed and potential and we can’t wait to see what they can achieve together next season,” said team boss John Booth.

Booth thanked the departing di Grassi, who last weekend won Felipe Massa’s annual charity kart event in Florianopolis and is now seeking a F1 role for 2011.

Virgin will launch its next car, the VR-02, prior to the first group test of the pre-season at the beginning of February.

Hot on the heels of renewed talk of a F1 ‘breakaway’ series, reports quote Ron Dennis as accusing Bernie Ecclestone of stealing the sport’s commercial rights from the teams.

The McLaren supremo’s comments appear in the new Ecclestone biography called ‘Bernie’.

“Bernie effectively stole formula one from us,” Dennis charged.

He is referring to the transfer of F1′s lucrative commercial rights from the team-led Formula One Constructors’ Association (FOCA) to Ecclestone’s company in the 90s.

“He used this commercial benefit to persuade the teams to accept a contract that eliminated them from the passing of rights as had previously existed,” Dennis said in the book.

McLaren – as well as Williams – contested the transaction, claiming that some of the profits of the rights’ subsequent sale belonged to them.

The British teams also sued the law firms that represented them for giving bad advice, but Ecclestone insists they simply regretted not making a wiser decision.

“It’s only when things started to look good and I invested the money and it started to work that they thought maybe they should have done it,” said the 80-year-old.

Fernando Alonso has tipped key technical rule changes for 2011 to contribute to more “spectacular” racing.

The Ferrari driver admitted that the return of energy-recovery KERS boost buttons next year, and the debut of moveable rear wings usable only by drivers who are closely chasing a rival, are “crucial” to the sport’s next season.

“Each year there are rule changes to encourage overtaking, but I think that the ones in 2011 are really significant,” he is quoted by the Spanish media at an event involving Santander boss Emilio Botin.

“I think that, finally, it will be much easier to overtake and hopefully the racing will be spectacular,” Spaniard Alonso added.

Asked what his personal goal for 2011 is, the 29-year-old admitted: “When you are at Ferrari, the world championship as a target is obligatory.

“We will have a better car than this year and the goal remains the same as always,” added Alonso.

“We know how difficult is our task because of the competitiveness of Red Bull, McLaren and Mercedes, so we need to work hard to find something they do not have.”

Finally, Alonso was asked by a young questioner if he will be drinking Red Bull over the winter period to build his energy for 2011.

“No … no,” he smiled.

Despite being ousted by two F1 driver development schemes in the space of a year, Mirko Bortolotti is not giving up on his dream.

The Italian began 2010 by being dropped by the Red Bull programme, and last week his new ties with the Ferrari Driver Academy were cut at the end of a disappointing GP3 campaign.

When still a teenager, Bortolotti had first caught attention by setting the fastest ever lap at Fiorano in the 2008 car, and was subsequently linked with a Toro Rosso race seat as well as the then injured Felipe Massa’s Ferrari cockpit.

His run of progress now dashed, he admitted: “The change of course of the Ferrari Driver Academy is for me a bit unexpected and I am disappointed.

“From the F1 test engineers I’ve only had good feedback and they’re always happy with my performance and my work,” Bortolotti, to turn 21 next month, told motorline.cc.

“To be honest, I’ve been thinking about making a career in touring or sports cars. I’m a racing driver, not a dreamer.

“On the other hand, I have had so much encouragement that I am still working on my goal and will not give up. And this encouragement, also from important people in formula one, motivates me a lot,” he added.

Pat Fry is the most obvious change to Ferrari’s personnel structure for 2011, Luca di Montezemolo reveals.

After starting work on McLaren’s 2011 car, Briton Fry switched to the famous Maranello based team mid-season to become deputy technical director.

There has been speculation since the race strategy blunder in Abu Dhabi that Ferrari would be making other major changes ahead of the marque’s next championship campaign.

But president Montezemolo told Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport: “We will not repeat the mistakes of the past.

“There will be a few job changes and adjustments but nothing dramatic, just the normal process of good people from the second row moving forward.

“With Pat Fry from McLaren, we have only brought in one man from the outside, and this happened long before Abu Dhabi,” added the Italian.

Montezemolo said Ferrari’s goal for 2011 is to end the habit of the past two seasons of kicking off a new campaign without possessing the best car.

“Even though we won the first race this year, we did not have the best car from the start, we won (in Bahrain) only because Red Bull had a problem.

“We improved significantly this year compared to 2009, but – as was the case the previous year as well – Red Bull had the best car,” he admitted.

“Next time we must have the best car from the first race.”

The Vietnamese government has played down the possibility of a formula one grand prix in the southeast Asian country.

It was reported last week that Hans Geist, linked in the past with F1 forays in Russia, Austria and Bahrain, has proposed a $150 million project to Vietnam’s ministry of planning and investment.

The proposal is for a formula one circuit to be built near Nha Trang Bay in central Khanh Hoa province in three years.

The Ministry of Planning and Investment subsequently confirmed that a working session with Geist took place.

But Dang Huy Dong, the deputy minister, stressed that the possibility of a grand prix should not be overstated.

“To date, the only thing the investor has done is meet with relevant Vietnamese authorities to find out about the feasibility of the project,” he told the Thoi bao Kinh te Viet Nam newspaper.

“It is too early to say if such a project will really take place in Vietnam,” he added.

Along with Nicky Hayden in the last few days Ben Spies was the special guest of the Long Beach Motorcycle Show, a major American motorcycle shows. Present at the Yamaha booth where he received a welcome gift (a WR450F Supermoto made by former pilot, now a designer, Roland Sands), then the Superbike World Championship 2009 took part in a press conference where he expressed his positive for the 2011 season , his first official driver from Yamaha in MotoGP.

” Next year, I have no excuses: I have to win , “said Spies. “I have a season with assets of these bikes, tires, tracks, know the category and is the first time in the last 3 years that I have to change and start from scratch. I will run as a pilot officer and I have a whole business behind me, this I am very happy.

In the first test in Valencia I could touch the difference compared to 2010: is there a more methodical approach in development work, the bike is better in all aspects even though it is not very different from what I have driven this’ year.

For me the goal is to improve the results of last year, even if they are in a position to win, I have everything to succeed. The moment to remember the 2010? Surely Indianapolis, a great weekend to begin by the unexpected pole position . ”

The man to beat for next season? Jorge Lorenzo of course … ” And ‘the world champion and is now the strongest. There are 16-17 riders at the highest level, but he remains the benchmark, not only because it’s my new teammate. The relationship with him is good and I think we work well together, as had happened in the past (the reference is to Mat Mladin, ed) .

Hot on the heels of ‘crashgate’, a new scandal involving Nelson Piquet and his son is set to emerge.

The Brazilian news weekly Veja reports that the racing driver pair are accused of tax evasion and money laundering.

The report said triple world champion Piquet, and his 25-year-old son who is known as Nelsinho Piquet, allegedly laundered income by directing it through the automobile federation of the Brazilian state of Ceara.

Tax was also allegedly evaded by filtering money between 2004 and 2008 into the foreign accounts of son Piquet Jr, who contested 28 F1 races before admitting he crashed his Renault on purpose during the 2008 Singapore grand prix.

Former Williams and Benetton driver Piquet, 58, is reported to have confirmed the amount in question is just short of EUR 3 million.

The report said the matter is being investigated by the Brazilian federal police.

Luca di Montezemolo thinks formula one could survive without its famous name.

The sport’s chief executive Bernie Ecclestone dismissed as “complete nonsense” the Ferrari president’s latest threat of a team-led series breakaway.

But Montezemolo, who in 2009 led the revolt against departed FIA president Max Mosley’s budget cap plans, told international reporters last week that F1 is unlikely to proceed unchanged when the current Concorde Agreement expires in 2012.

“We need to think about what to do,” the Italian is quoted by Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport. “It can not go on as it is now.”

Referring to the possibility of a breakaway championship, Montezemolo said: “Do we need the name formula one? I believe we could go on with a different one.

“We could continue with (owners) CVC, but only with better financial conditions.

“Or the teams start their own company and we give Bernie the presidency and we think of new and modern methods for marketing. We would do it along the lines of the NBA.”

Montezemolo said he sees Ecclestone as central to F1′s new format because of his “passion” for “racing and not the stock market”.

Montezemolo does not hide his criticism of the sport’s current governing FIA. “It cannot be that we give up everything that made our sport for the sake of costs,” he said.

“F1 is about extreme innovation and technology.”

Specifically on the 1.6 litre four-cylinder engines to debut in 2013, he admitted: “I can’t get used to it. It’s not for a sport in which we once had 12 cylinder engines.

“Ferrari will not stand in the way, but we are saying very clearly that we are not happy about it.”

Renault sees the new engine formula for 2013 as a great opportunity, managing director Jean Francois Caubet has confirmed.

The French carmaker has withdrawn as a team owner of the Enstone based team that bears its name, but remains committed to supplying engines for at least the next three years.

That three-year period covers the transition from the current ‘frozen’ V8 engine formula to the new four-cylinder turbos that will debut in 2013.

“The engine for 2013 evens out the playing field,” said Caubet, addressing suggestions Renault’s current 2.4 litre unit is not up to speed with the leading Mercedes and Ferrari.

“The dossier of the FIA speaks for itself,” he added, according to motorsport-total.com. “There are technological innovations; the competition is completely open.

“There are precise rules for the costs, the materials, the number of engines per season and the speed (rev) limit. Technologically, we have great freedom,” said Caubet.

“Everyone starts with a blank sheet of paper. May the best win.”

With the new formula also designed to lure car manufacturers back to F1, Caubet admitted it is “too soon” for BMW to return, but indicated that Volkswagen is “hesitating”.

And he said there is a “third group” now eyeing F1.

“It is the Japanese,” confirmed Caubet. “I am surprised by their interest in the new engine, but of course the cost aspect may have changed the attitude.

“The Europeans are in front, the technologies are new — I suppose they cannot afford to not be here,” added Caubet, who indicated that Honda is seriously considering a return.