Sponsor issues reportedly led to Narain Karthikeyan losing his seat at HRT.
The Indian driver’s main backers, Tata and Base batteries, are still showing at the Spanish team’s website. Hispania has been contacted for comment.

At Silverstone, HRT regular Vitantonio Liuzzi will for the first time share the garage with Australian rookie Daniel Ricciardo, as part of a new driver deal with Red Bull Racing.

Karthikeyan is officially still on the books as an official driver, amid rumours he might return for the inaugural Indian grand prix in October.

His sponsors Speed, Tata and Base are still showing on his official website, although the Italian magazine Italiaracing claims “economic difficulties” meant Karthikeyan lost his seat.

“When he learned of the economic difficulties of Narain Karthikeyan, Helmut Marko did not think for a second and reached the agreement with Hispania for the debut of his young protege (Ricciardo),” read the report.

Karthikeyan was not available a few days ago, and his management has once again been contacted for comment.

Force India reportedly considered dropping KERS at Silverstone this weekend as the blown exhaust clampdown takes its full effect.
Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport said the Silverstone based team was concerned that the handling effect of the off-throttle blowing ban would be further exacerbated by KERS, the system that reuses power collected under braking.

“It will upset the brake balance so that the benefits of KERS are reduced,” admitted team manager Otmar Szafnauer.

But Force India ultimately decided to keep KERS on the car following last-minute simulator tests.

“In the braking zone, we will definitely have less downforce on the rear, making the car unstable. But we will get used to it, hopefully quickly,” said Adrian Sutil.

And the German driver said braking is not much of a worry at Silverstone anyway.

“There are only three hard braking areas,” continued Sutil. “We have tested it in the simulator and it was fine, we will run as normal with KERS.”

McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh, who acknowledged the “problem” of KERS alongside the clampdown, confirmed that the British team’s car will also be using its energy recovery system as per usual at Silverstone.

But Auto Motor und Sport said Red Bull might ultimately decide to do without its system.

Williams abandoned a straightline aerodynamic test this week due to bad weather. The British team’s Finnish test driver Valtteri Bottas and the FW33 were ready to roll at the Kemble airfield when the British skies opened, according to Turun Sanomat newspaper. “With direct tests so limited, we don’t want to waste our days in the rain,” said Bottas, 21. “As soon as you put a wheel on the track, you have one test date less. So I didn’t drive,” he explained. “I went there (to Kemble) and I came back.”

Nigel Mansell thinks the debut this weekend of the full FIA clampdown on off-throttle engine exhaust blowing will be “intriguing”.

“It is going to be very intriguing to see who is affected the most, and who can move ahead on the grid,” the 1991 and 1992 Silverstone winner, who will be the driver steward this weekend, said.

Many of Red Bull’s rivals are hoping the dominant RB7 is the car most affected by the clampdown.

“I hope not, although our car was designed to be more effective with the blown diffusers,” team boss Christian Horner told AS newspaper this week. “We trust in our solutions.”

The car’s designer Adrian Newey is openly worried.

“Mercedes, McLaren and Ferrari copied our solution,” he told O Estado de S.Paulo.

“It’s impossible to predict what will happen at Silverstone, but it may well be that they lose less than us because they had to adapt their cars to it while our car was conceived entirely for it (the blown exhaust),” added Newey.

Another hope among the pitlane’s non-Red Bull contingent is for bad weather at Silverstone.

“Realistically, Sebastian Vettel would need to do a really crazy job to lose the title,” admits Ferrari’s Felipe Massa, “but we can’t give up and this situation changes nothing in our approach.”

Agreed Vettel’s teammate Mark Webber: “For someone to outscore him by 80 points will be a phenomenal effort so you have got to keep boxing and hang in there.”

There will only be a single ‘DRS’ overtaking zone at Silverstone this weekend.
In Canada and again at Valencia two weeks ago, there were two overtaking zones but only a single detection point — a system that arguably worked too well in Canada, and not well enough on the streets of the Spanish port city.

For Silverstone, the FIA has reverted to the formula of the first six races of 2011, with a single detection zone at the new Village corner (turn 3) and eligible drivers able to trigger the rear wing after turn 4.

This weekend is the F1 debut of Silverstone’s new Wing pit and paddock complex, but the only real changes for the drivers is the pitlane and the location of the new Turn 1.

“The (pit) entry is shorter than staying on the circuit, so we will have to ensure that drivers don’t use these changes to the pits to their advantage,” said race director Charlie Whiting.

On the stewards’ panel this weekend is 1992 world champion Nigel Mansell.

“As for the (pit) exit,” continued Whiting, “this is now quite a steep uphill into an extremely fast corner, so it’s certainly going to be different. It’s going to be quite significant in terms of strategy as there’s not too much cost in changing tyres.”

It annoys some, but Sebastian Vettel has vowed to keep showing the back of his index finger when he wins F1 poles and races.

The gesture is much loved by the German media, but interpreted as irritating and even arrogant by some other figures and paddock pundits.

“It was never my intention to make it a trademark,” British newspapers quoted the German as saying ahead of this weekend’s Silverstone race.

Vettel, 23, said he pointed his finger as a natural reaction of jubilance when he won his first grand prix in a Toro Rosso in 2008.

“I was so happy because we were always like 17th, 15th, 10th, or maybe seventh on a good day,” said the reigning world champion and current runaway title leader.

“There is no deeper meaning. I do it after qualifying but (that’s) not to say I will be first in the race.

“It’s funny, I hear some people like it, some people get offended. Unfortunately there will always be some people offended by what you do, but that’s how it is,” added Vettel.

McLaren’s Jenson Button, meanwhile, has vowed to perform a sequence of illegal ‘doughnuts’ on Sunday if he wins his home British grand prix for the first time.

“We aren’t allowed to pick up flags any more, and it would be nice to do that, and if I win I would be doing doughnuts even if they aren’t allowed either; I wouldn’t care about that by that point,” said the 2009 world champion.

The other major race at Montreal’s Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is in danger of being scrapped.

In addition to hosting the grand prix, Montreal is the only Canadian stop on the NASCAR schedule.

But AP reports that the Quebec government turned down a request for $1 million in support to offset the event’s expected $1.6m loss.

“Efforts were made,” Montreal mayor Gerald Tremblay said. “It’s unfortunate, but maybe there will be other events in the future.”

Promoter Francois Dumontier is quoted by CTV Montreal: “We were shocked when we learned about it (the decision).”

Team boss Martin Whitmarsh concedes Lewis Hamilton’s visit to the Red Bull motor home in Canada was a “misjudgement” but urged the McLaren driver to move on.
The visit, dismissed as a mere social visit by both sides, fuelled the speculation about a possible switch to Red Bull for the 2008 world champion.

“It was a misjudgement by Lewis because it gave ammunition,” Whitmarsh told the Daily Mail. “I feel sorry for Lewis because I know he is a little bit more sensitive than me on these subjects.

“I went to see Christian (Horner too) and I don’t think I am going to join Red Bull next year!”

26-year-old Hamilton’s sensitivity was evident this week when he reacted to Niki Lauda’s latest criticism, and to the advice of former champions Nigel Mansell and Jacques Villeneuve about the wisdom of staying at McLaren.

“What Niki Lauda thinks about me, I really couldn’t give a toss about it,” said the Briton.

And as for Mansell and Villeneuve, Hamilton added: “I find it kind of funny and am not sure anyone really cares what some people think. If you have an opinion, just keep it to yourself.”

Christian Horner will keep a “very close eye” on Daniel Ricciardo this weekend, but a seat at Red Bull’s premier team in the very near future is unlikely.
With Mark Webber’s contract expiring and Lewis Hamilton now ruled out for 2012, attention has turned to Australian Ricciardo, the cream of Red Bull’s junior programme who at Silverstone is making his F1 race debut with HRT.

“It will be interesting to see how he now progresses,” Red Bull Racing team boss Horner is quoted by Sky Sports.

It had been believed that Ricciardo, 22, would make his debut mid this season at secondary team Toro Rosso, but Jaime Alguersuari and Sebastien Buemi have for now kept their drives.

Horner however suggested that a full time Toro Rosso seat for Ricciardo is the logical next step, rather than a rapid rise to the energy drink company’s premier team.

“Daniel has no experience of grand prix racing, he has an awful lot to learn, and HRT and Toro Rosso are the best environment for him to do that, as Sebastian (Vettel) did with Toro Rosso in 2007 and 2008,” he said.

“He needs to develop, it would be wrong to rush him through. He now has to prove himself in formula one after proving himself in the lower categories.

“But we’ll certainly be keeping a very close eye on him,” added Horner.

F1 is reportedly set to sign a major deal with Indian information technology company Mahindra Satyam.
Business Standard said the $50 to $100 million deal, ahead of India’s inaugural formula one race in October, is in the final stages of negotiation.

“We are in the final stages of signing the contract. It is a global and a very visible deal,” confirmed Satyam’s sports head Dilbagh Gill from Boston.

Just days ago, Force India deputy team boss Bob Fernley said formula one should be targeting a race in Africa.
“It’s the only major continent that we’re not working on and I’d like to see us go back there,” he said.

According to reports from South Africa on Wednesday, Bernie Ecclestone is indeed close to finalising a contract for organisers of an event in Cape Town to sign.

Iol.co.za quotes him as saying the street race could be held within two years, with a deal “weeks away from signing”.

“I’m hoping we can make a decision as soon as our lawyers have a good look at them … within the next couple of weeks,” said the F1 chief executive.

“It’ll be good to be back in South Africa. We were very happy when it was here in the past.”

The last South African grand prix, at the Kyalami circuit, was won by Alain Prost in 1993.

Pitting Lewis Hamilton against Sebastian Vettel at Red Bull would risk the harmony of the team.
That was the message of Christian Horner on Tuesday as the team principal finally dealt a knock-out blow to speculation linking McLaren’s Hamilton with a 2012 switch.

It emerged this week that Hamilton, 26, handed over to Horner a business card of his new manager Simon Fuller in Montreal and will be free to sign a Red Bull contract if he is not crowned 2011 champion.

But Horner, indicating Mark Webber is very likely to be offered a new contract, has told British reporters ahead of Silverstone this weekend that he has “severe reservations” about signing Hamilton.

“A Hamilton-Vettel combination, on paper, would look very attractive. But what we have to look at is the dynamics of a partnership and it’s difficult to see how two sportsmen at the absolute top of their game could work in harmony under one roof,” he said.

“History demonstrates, whether you look at Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna or Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet, that it doesn’t tend to work. Lewis is one of the top three in the world but we are very happy with the combination we have.

“Lewis must be very frustrated this year. But it be would be difficult to envisage a driver of Sebastian’s calibre and one of Lewis’s under the same roof,” added Horner.

The comments might be regarded as insulting to both Hamilton’s current teammate Jenson Button and also Australian Webber, with the implication that Horner does not regard them as truly top drivers.

There also might be a deeper relevance ahead of the 2012 talks with Webber about his role at Red Bull.

“We are not looking for anybody else. I don’t believe Mark is looking to go anywhere else,” said Horner. “When the time is right we will sit down and have what is hopefully a very straightforward conversation.

“We are very happy with the job Mark is doing.”

Webber, who is 35 in August, told the Telegraph: “We are talking but there is no real urgency from either side.”

Confirmation of a new deal for Kamui Kobayashi is likely “soon”, according to Swiss newspaper Blick.
The report said the Japanese, whose exciting racing style has earned him many fans since he debuted for Toyota at the end of 2009, is an attractive prospect for “a lot of teams” but will almost certainly stay at Sauber.

“As long as I drive for Sauber, I give everything for this team, because without Peter Sauber I would not be in formula one now,” the 24-year-old said.

Kobayashi was also quoted as admitting to looking forward to Silverstone this weekend, after three consecutive races on street circuits.

“Monaco, Montreal and Valencia, that was a bit too much,” he said. “Finally we are back to proper tracks with super-fast corners.”

Javier Villa has refused to deny speculation linking him with a race seat at HRT.

With the team’s new owner Thesan Capital vowing to strengthen Hispania’s credentials as a truly Spanish outfit, former GP2 driver Villa was immediately linked with becoming HRT’s first Spanish racer.

Sports daily AS reports that the “first contact” between the team and World Touring Car driver Villa, 23, took place this week in Madrid.

The newspaper said “both parties” denied it is true.

But Villa commented: “I’d love to be the first Spanish driver with Hispania. F1 is F1 and it’s obvious every driver wants to go there.

“I want to see how the project is consolidated, but I am sure it will be serious and strong.”

At the same time, the rumours were played down on Villa’s World Touring Car series Twitter account: “With regards to the news published today, I must say we are very happy with our current program with the WTCC BMW.

“Obviously I’d love to be the first Spanish driver at Hispania, but it’s too soon to say what could happen.”

Jenson Button is hoping bad weather will help him end his podium drought at Silverstone this weekend.
The 2009 world champion has not only never won his home British grand prix, he has not even stood on the podium after any of his eleven previous races at the famous Northamptonshire venue.

31-year-old Button and his McLaren teammate Lewis Hamilton left Valencia two weeks ago downbeat on their chances of matching the Red Bulls on the circuit’s high speed curves.

But a weekend weather forecast predicting likely rain has brightened his spirits.

“If you look at the pace in Valencia you’d say we were nowhere near close enough to the Red Bulls,” said Button.

“Our car seems to work well in the wet so if it rains it’s not so good for fans sitting out there but for us, in terms of our pace and a result, wet weather could be good.”

Red Bull’s rivals also have their fingers crossed that Adrian Newey is right, as the dominant RB7′s designer on Tuesday admitted the blown exhaust clampdown will affect the car “quite heavily”.

“Our car was designed around the exhaust,” the Briton is quoted by the BBC.

“So it might be that it’s going to be more of a hit for us, but it’s very difficult to forecast,” added Newey.