German bank and former F1 shareholder BayernLB contemplated dismissing Bernie Ecclestone six years ago, it emerged during Gerhard Gribkowsky’s corruption trial this week.
The trial, with Briton Ecclestone set to appear as a witness next month, surrounds the F1 chief executive’s suspect payment of millions to Gribkowsky, who was then in charge of BayernLB’s F1 share.

An employee testified on Wednesday that Ecclestone heard during bank meetings several times in 2005 that F1 “could do without him”, the Reuters news agency reports.

Ecclestone, turning 81 on Friday, told the German newspaper Die Welt this week that formula one would survive without him.

“It would,” he said, “but things would be very different if I’m not there.

“I have a very great and strong support from many people, with a lot of mutual trust.

“If the leadership was to change, nothing would be affected seriously but it would be more complicated and difficult because that trust might not be there any more.

“People would probably want to read the contracts ten times more than if I was there,” added Ecclestone.

Adrian Sutil insists he has not been ousted by Force India.
Reports are growing strength that the German, who has been with the Silverstone based team since its Spyker days, will be replaced in the race seat next year by Nico Hulkenberg.

Boss Vijay Mallya, however, will not be making the 2012 driver announcement until mid December.

“Vijay has told me that there has been no decision yet and that the (Hulkenberg) news is not right.

“I have no reason to disbelieve him as he has always been open and honest with me,” Sutil told Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.

The magazine, however, is convinced that Sutil’s “marriage to his long-time employer seems over”, with new team co-owner Sahara meaning Force India is “no longer dependent on Sutil’s sponsors”.

His only alternative for 2012 appears to be Williams, with Sutil’s manager Manfred Zimmermann reportedly ruling out a switch to Lotus, Virgin or HRT.

Renault has a vacancy for next year, but Sutil remains locked in a legal dispute with that team’s co-owner Eric Lux.

For its driver choice, Williams is in a position of luxury, with Sutil but also Rubens Barrichello and apparently Kimi Raikkonen all keen on the seat alongside Pastor Maldonado.

Auto Motor und Sport said 2007 world champion Raikkonen has tired of rallying, has some sponsorship in tow and is “training hard” for his F1 comeback.

“A quick decision by Williams, as hoped for by Sutil, is not likely,” said the German report.

Paul di Resta’s formula one career almost got off to a flying start a few years ago.
Actually, the 25-year-old Scot is only a rookie in 2011, and hoping to be given the green light to stay with Force India next season.

His career however seemed on a fast track at the end of 2006, when he beat his teammate Sebastian Vettel to the coveted F3 Euroseries title.

It was then that di Resta caught the attention of former Toro Rosso co-owner Gerhard Berger.

“Franz Tost and I considered signing him years ago,” the Austrian great revealed to Sportmagazin. “He has great potential.”

That is not Berger’s only regret from his days with Toro Rosso — another is signing the multiple Champ Car champion Sebastien Bourdais.

“I was wrong about him,” said the former Ferrari and McLaren driver. “He came from America where he had won everything, but formula one was just too fast for him.

“The late braking was too much for him,” added Berger.

Gerhard Berger has criticised the latest high-profile appointments by Mercedes’ formula one team.

With Renault’s former chief Bob Bell already on board, the Brackley based team announced last Friday that Geoff Willis and Aldo Costa will start their new roles in November and December respectively.

Willis was leading HRT’s technical team until very recently, while Italian Costa was ousted by Ferrari earlier this season.

Former F1 winner, joint BMW motor sport director and Toro Rosso co-owner Berger questioned the appointments, which are the latest in a recruitment push by the works Mercedes team.

“It looks to me as though Mercedes are shooting with a shotgun in the hope of landing a hit,” the Austrian told Auto Bild Motorsport.

Italy’s Autosprint magazine, meanwhile, wondered if it is “credible that, to strengthen his technical staff, Ross Brawn turns to someone considered a loser by Ferrari?

“Frankly, it’s not,” the report concluded.

Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull could be set to reign over a new era of dominance in formula one.
That is the view of former grand prix winner and paddock personality Gerhard Berger, a countryman and close friend of Red Bull mogul Dietrich Mateschitz.

He is also the former team co-owner at German Vettel’s first team Toro Rosso.

“If he keeps it up like this and Adrian Newey keeps on building such brilliant cars, then it pushes slowly into dimensions that have only been seen with Schumacher and Ferrari,” Berger told Die Welt newspaper.

But another Austrian, triple world champion Niki Lauda, is not so sure Schumacher’s seven world titles will be troubled. “What happened with Michael will probably remain out of reach for Sebastian,” he insisted.

Lauda referred to Schumacher’s era of success that featured a Ferrari budget approaching EUR 400 million a season, unrestricted testing and a works-style relationship with tyre supplier Bridgestone.

“For them it was the perfect system,” he said.

According to Pirelli’s Paul Hembery, however, it is the little things making the difference for Vettel, who he said was the only F1 racer in 2011 to make a surprise visit to the new tyre supplier’s factory.

Hembery told Spain’s Marca newspaper that the visit was in the dead of the Christmas period.

“He wanted to know what was going on, to see the labs, meet the staff, think about the sporting side and strategies, compounds, everything.

“I can’t say what advantage that gives you but if that’s what you do with each aspect of the car then you can understand the results,” he said.

Niki Lauda has signed a replacement for his departed cap sponsor.
The great triple world champion ended his deal recently with the embattled Money Service Group.

But on Friday he was showing off his new red cap emblazoned with the logo of the Abu Dhabi investment company – and Mercedes GP co-owner – Aabar.

“We are proud to team up with one of the living legends of the sport,” said Aabar board chairman Khadem Abdulla Al Qubaii.

German police visited the Force India team in the Nurburgring paddock on Saturday.

Bild am Sonntag and Express newspapers report that the visit was not connected to the criminal assault charges laid against the team’s German driver Adrian Sutil by Renault co-owner Eric Lux.

Rather, a German supplier is pressing the Vijay Mallya-led team for an unpaid EUR 50,000 bill.

“After a brief interrogation, the officers left the paddock,” said Bild.

Express cited team manager Otmar Szafnauer as reporting that the debt dates back to the pre-Force India days, when the Silverstone based team was known as Jordan, Midland or Spyker.

Another piece of intrigue on Saturday was Sebastien Buemi’s exclusion from the qualifying results when his Toro Rosso was found running illegal fuel.

However, the Red Bull junior team had not cheated. Rather, a chemical inside a new fuel system installed in his STR6 on Friday contaminated the car’s fuel.

Swiss Buemi must now start the race from the back. “What can I do if there is something wrong with the fuel?” he is quoted as frustratingly telling Blick newspaper.

Meanwhile, Renault F1 PR representative Andy Stobart was struck by a car whilst cycling in Germany prior to this weekend’s Nurburgring race.

Now walking wounded in the paddock, he is sporting cuts to his eyebrow, chin, cheeks and torso after being knocked unconscious and hospitalised.

Amid suggestions Renault is disappointed with Nick Heidfeld’s recent form, the name Roman Grosjean has returned to the F1 rumour mill.
The Swiss-born Frenchman had a poor start to his F1 career amid the ‘crashgate’ scandal with Renault in 2009, but is once again associated with the team under the management of Eric Boullier.

25-year-old Grosjean is currently leading the GP2 championship and was mentioned by Italy’s Autosprint in an article about Robert Kubica and Heidfeld.

The report said the spat between Renault co-owner Gerard Lopez and Kubica’s manager Daniele Morelli indicates not all is well in that relationship behind the scenes.

“One senses that the cooperation between driver and team is compromised,” said the sport.

At the same time, Boullier is reportedly not happy with the performance so far of Kubica’s 2011 stand-in, German Heidfeld.

All those are good signs for Grosjean’s F1 return.

“It’s my condition, my target,” he told motorsport-magazin.com.

Asked if it will happen with Renault, the Frenchman answered: “That’s too hard to say. Renault is well implanted in F1, and that’s good to be with them.”

Boss Vijay Mallya has admitted Adrian Sutil could lose his Force India race seat due to the Shanghai nightclub incident of last month.
The Force India team owner revealed to reporters in Monaco that German driver Sutil would be in breach of contract if Renault co-owner Eric Lux, injured in the neck with a broken glass, successfully prosecutes for criminal assault.

But Mallya insists that, as yet, Lux has not taken the matter beyond a press release.

“We have not heard of any formal complaint being registered in any country for any sort of misconduct by Adrian,” he said. “So it would be highly inappropriate for us to presume that he did something.”

Mallya admitted, however, that Force India will take “appropriate action” if a complaint about Sutil is formally filed.

“You know, contracts do not supercede misconduct so unless I’m convinced that there is misconduct the contract shall prevail,” he said.

“I don’t know what happened there (in China), none of my people know what happened so there’s a due process of law.

“If and when he’s charged, I will assess the situation,” he added.

Sutil’s manager Manfred Zimmermann confirmed in Monaco that they are yet to hear anything official from Lux, his lawyers or any authorities.

“The situation is unchanged,” Zimmermann, who last addressed the media in Spain a week ago, is quoted by DPA news agency.

“We are still awaiting a response from the other side. So far we have not heard anything.”

Rubens Barrichello will give Williams’ 2011 car its track debut at Valencia on 1 February, a spokeswoman for the Oxfordshire based team has confirmed.
She told Dutch website f1today.nl that although veteran Barrichello will be driving on the first day, the Brazilian’s new teammate Pastor Maldonado will take over half-way through the second day as the pair equally share all the pre-season testing.

The spokeswoman also said Williams has not decided whether the 1 February debut will coincide with a conventional “launch”.

“The FW33 will be in action at the first test in Valencia,” she said.

The team’s engineering boss and co-owner Patrick Head wrote in his new column for Motorsport magazine that the FW33 is “more adventurous” than Williams’ 2010 car.

“Rubens told the media that he thought the car looked radical, but I think it is just more adventurous than our 2010 car, and to move upwards in team order, it will need to be,” said the Briton.

Head admitted it is “unfortunate” Nico Hulkenberg was not retained for 2011 even though he thinks the young German “deserves a seat on merit”.

He insists that Venezuelan Maldonado, who in 2010 succeeded Hulkenberg as the new GP2 champion and “comes with some financial support”, also “deserves” the seat.

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.

The 2011 rules are still not set in stone, leaving Luca di Montezemolo calling for “total clarity” ahead of next season.

Next year, along with the return of KERS and the arrival of Pirelli as F1′s tyre supplier, drivers will be able to adjust their rear wing angle when close to a rival in order to boost their chances of overtaking.

But Williams’ co-owner and engineering boss Patrick Head warned recently that the latter innovation is “not set in stone”.

Ferrari president Montezemolo said at the team’s end-of-season event in Valencia: “I hope we start the season with total clarity as regards the regulations.

“I am not worried about it, but our experience of 2009 still grates,” he added, in a reference to the rule loophole that led to the development of so-called ‘double diffusers’ early last year.

Nico Hulkenberg gave his chances of retaining his race seat at Williams in 2011 a huge boost at slippery Interlagos on Saturday.

Not only did the German rookie sensationally capture his first pole position, two of his laps in Q3 were good enough for the top spot — with the final margin over the two Red Bulls incredibly more than a full second.

“Nico was better than all of us today,” said fellow front row sitter Sebastian Vettel, and Mark Webber agreed that Hulkenberg’s performance “made the rest of us look average”.

One explanation for the 23-year-old’s pace could be his engineer’s early decision to change from intermediate to slick tyres, but his teammate Rubens Barrichello made the call first and qualified just sixth.

And all the other leading contenders were all also using dry tyres at the end.

“He put the hammer down and did the job fantastically,” said team co-owner Patrick Head on BBC television, adding that Williams’ first pole since 2005 will give team “fresh impetus” to further improve.

And with pay-driver Pastor Maldonado knocking on the door for 2011, Hulkenberg told reporters after qualifying that he is now “confident we’ll have a positive end to that story”.

Juan Pablo Montoya secured Williams’ last grand prix win at Interlagos in 2004.

Championship leader Fernando Alonso qualified fifth, behind Hulkenberg, the two Red Bulls and McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton.

Mathematically, the Ferrari driver could secure his third championship on Sunday but the Spaniard insisted that is “not really on my mind”.

“You can get some strange results, but we are concentrating on increasing the gap and if we give away points, making sure it is not too many,” he said.

Gerhard Berger is quite sure Red Bull Racing will not impose teams orders in its final push for the 2010 drivers’ title.

After Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber retired from the recent Korean grand prix, Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso drove into a clear points lead.

The situation has sparked speculation that Red Bull must now throw its full weight behind Australian Webber, who has the higher points tally, with young German Vettel to take a reluctant subordinate role.

But Berger, former co-owner of the energy drink company’s second team Toro Rosso and a close friend of Dietrich Mateschitz, does not think Red Bull will take that approach.

“Some of the teams, like Williams or McLaren, operate as a business. In this way it makes sense for them to have a team strategy in order to maximise their championship position,” said the Austrian, referring to F1′s system of revenue distribution.

“But Red Bull has a very different approach, using formula one as a sporting platform to boost its product,” Berger told Austrian television Servus TV.

“And from the sporting approach, the best man wins,” he insisted.

Berger acknowledged the ‘grey area’ of team orders in formula one, such as Ferrari’s escape from the FIA hearing this year with a mere $100,000 fine but 7 additional points for Fernando Alonso.

“Forget grey areas, we’re thinking of morality,” he continued.

“If I know Dietrich Mateschitz, there is no question about the approach. And I think the fans will be grateful. It’s sport.

“It’s not sport however if all year you’re just making tactical moves,” insisted Berger.

2010 rookie Nico Hulkenberg’s race seat at Williams is in doubt for next season, according to Italian reports.

The Autosprint magazine claims the British independent team is set to lose four sponsors at once, including RBS and Philips.

At the same time, it is rumoured that German Hulkenberg’s famous manager Willi Weber is asking Sir Frank Williams for a pay-rise for his 23-year-old charge.

The first name mentioned as a potential new teammate for Rubens Barrichello is Pastor Maldonado, who is set to succeed Hulkenberg as the new GP2 champion.

25-year-old Venezuelan Maldonado, backed by state oil company PDVSA, had hoped to go to Sauber, who have instead signed the Telmex-sponsored Sergio Perez.

Williams’ third co-owner Toto Wolff said last weekend that he is not expecting a “lightening fast decision” about the team’s 2011 drivers.

“I feel quite comfortable about our (current) driver lineup,” he told Kleine Zeitung newspaper.