Ross Brawn should be firing on all cylinders as he returns to the pitwall in Monaco this weekend.

Mercedes’ team principal sat out the recent Spanish grand prix due to illness, but a scarcity of extra information triggered speculation.

One rumour was that he is seriously ill, whilst another was that his absence may in fact be due to his German employer’s high-stakes spat with Bernie Ecclestone.

The latter theory gained traction since Barcelona, with acting team boss Nick Fry taking a much higher than usual profile, including naming Paul di Resta as a possible 2013 successor for Michael Schumacher.

Explaining his absence, Brawn told Bild newspaper: “On the Tuesday before Barcelona I felt unwell so I went to the doctor and then stayed a night in hospital for some tests.

“When I got home, I decided on the advice of doctors to give myself a weekend off, to be sure that I am fit for Monaco,” the Briton said.

Partly because of Brawn’s deputy Fry’s recent comments, and also due to his paltry points tally and his crash with Bruno Senna, rumours about Schumacher’s future have intensified since Spain.

“A lot has been said and written,” acknowledged Brawn, “but we should not forget that we – the team – have let him down in three of the fives races, not delivering the job we should have.

“We must do better,” Brawn, who worked closely with Schumacher during the seven time world champion’s ultra successful Ferrari era, added.

“We saw Michael’s real quality again in the first race, so it’s for that reason that I believe we will see him on the podium this year.”

As for a possible contract extension for the 43-year-old, Brawn insisted: “When the time comes, we will sit down together and talk about the future.

“I’m sure it will become clear very quickly in what direction we will go.”

Force India might skip Friday’s second practice session in Bahrain.

Two of the Silverstone based team’s staff members returned to the UK earlier this week after a Molotov cocktail incident.

The BBC is reporting rumours that other members are the team are now refusing to travel from the circuit back to their hotels after dark.

That would mean Paul di Resta and Nico Hulkenberg will not be able to practice in the second 90 minute session scheduled for 2pm local.

The BBC said the rumour ties in with Force India’s drivers unusually running soft tyres in the initial practice session on Friday.

And F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone called the team’s deputy principal Bob Fernley off the pitwall during the initial practice session for talks.

Force India said it “wouldn’t want to comment”.

Monisha Kaltenborn will become F1′s first ever female team boss.

That is the revelation of Peter Sauber, who at the age of 68 has hinted he might call it a day before his 70th birthday.

Indian Kaltenborn, 41, is already Hinwil based Sauber’s chief executive, while Peter Sauber remains the team principal.

“I have always said that I will not be sitting on the pitwall as a 70 year old,” Sauber told Der Sonntag newspaper.

“With certainty, my successor is Monisha Kaltenborn. That is for sure. When it (the handover) happens is still open.

“She will be the first female team boss in formula one history,” Sauber continued. “She’s been with us for 13 years, always with leading roles. I’m sure she will do the job very well.”

Sauber, in fact, has already departed the pitwall once before, when he sold his team to BMW and handed over to Mario Theissen.

Somewhat reluctantly, he returned in 2010, having rescued the Hinwil based employees in the wake of German carmaker’s sudden withdrawal.

“I could not jump into the breach a second time,” smiled Sauber, hinting that his retirement this time around would be final.

Even whilst suffering his first retirement of 2011, back to back world champion Sebastian Vettel could not resist working hard.

Whilst drivers normally retire to their quarters, the 24-year-old German mounted the Red Bull pitwall and remained there for the entire Abu Dhabi race.

He is quoted by Kurier newspaper as admitting he had “learned something” from the experience, and even taken an active role in the race strategy deployed for his teammate Mark Webber.

“At first I only wanted to stay for five laps,” he revealed.

Dr Helmut Marko was asked if Vettel might enjoy a post-racing future on the pitwall.

“That is still far away,” the team consultant smiled, “but what he had to contribute was very enlightening.”

In reality, the entire F1 paddock – Vettel included – is now eagerly awaiting the chequered flag in Brazil and then the 2012 season, when a world championship is once again at stake.

Vettel is quoted by AS newspaper as predicting a tough contest involving his teammate Webber, Fernando Alonso, the McLaren drivers and possibly a Mercedes.

He added: “Winning this year proved that 2010 was not just bad luck for the others and good luck for me.”

According to a loudening rumour on the microblogging website Twitter, McLaren is poised to announce a new member of its technical team.

The rumour goes that the new appointment is Sam Michael, Williams’ departing technical director.

The 40-year-old Australian said earlier this year he would “clearly be in formula one next year” but said he “can’t talk about” the details.

His last grand prix on the Williams pitwall, which he joined from Jordan in 2011, will be Korea next month.

Michael was earlier linked with possible moves to Force India, Mercedes and Ferrari.

“Everything is open for the future,” he said in late July.

Gerhard Berger has scolded Mercedes for apparently imposing team orders during last weekend’s Belgian grand prix.

Shortly before Michael Schumacher passed his teammate Nico Rosberg at Spa-Francorchamps, the younger German was told by the pitwall to conserve fuel.

Former grand prix winner Berger told Servus TV that the position switch was conceived deliberately to give Schumacher a grandstand finish on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of his debut.

“It should have been a race and not a commercial shoot,” the Austrian groaned.

Team orders are legal in 2011 but Berger believes that “in the circumstances it is totally wrong for Mercedes to do such strategies”.

“They should be putting more thought into making a winning car,” he said.

Berger also commented on McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton, who was involved in two crashes last weekend at Spa.

“He is extremely aggressive and the best overtaker in the field, but at times he overdoes it.

“If he was sitting in the Red Bull, he would not have to take so many risks and so he would get into a lot less mischief,” he said.

Not everyone is impressed with Silverstone’s new pit and paddock complex.

For 2011, the famous Copse corner is no longer at the start of the lap, with the new ‘Wing’ buildings and pitlane making their grand prix debut this weekend.

“Silverstone has lost a bit of his character,” Michael Schumacher told Auto Motor und Sport.

Agreed Nick Heidfeld: “I liked it before and don’t understand why it had to change.”

The German report said the new media centre is “a windowless bunker”, and Brazilian journalist Livio Oricchio agreed: “As at Spa, we can’t see the circuit. It makes no sense.”

There is also a ten-metre stretch of grass between the garages and pitlane and the pitwall. “We could play golf on it,” laughed Rubens Barrichello.

David Coulthard also pointed out a “major oversight” in the design of the pitlane.

“The architects in their wisdom designed it lower than the pitwall so the fans in the grandstands may not be able to watch what is happening in the pits,” he wrote in his Telegraph column.

As for the new turn one, however, the drivers are mainly happy.

“Before, we had a flat out corner after the start and by Beckett’s the field was already pretty well sorted for the first braking,” said Lewis Hamilton.

“Now we start with two quick corners but enough space for two cars side by side, and the first braking is much closer to the start. So I expect some position-changing when we’re braking for turn 3.”

Peter Sauber has played down claims his Swiss formula one could follow Williams’ lead by floating shares on the stock market.
Williams, which like Sauber is a fully independent team, announced recently that a floatation is the “best way to secure” its future.

It is believed that 28 per cent of the team will be issued on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange later this month, with Sir Frank Williams to remain in charge as the majority shareholder.

Hinwil based Sauber has also been working to re-establish its footing for the future, after former owner BMW’s withdrawal and the failed sale to Qadbak.

Peter Sauber has admitted he does not want to still be on the pitwall when he turns 70 in a few years, but on Friday he seemed to rule out following Williams into the stock market.

“I honestly have to say that I don’t understand the reasons behind going public. That’s all I have to say,” he told F1′s official website.

It might be said that Sauber has ruled out selling shares to the public because new sponsor Telmex, headed by billionaire Carlos Slim, might be looking to take over the team.

But Peter Sauber insisted: “I don’t think so. It was never the plan that Carlos Slim would get directly involved with the team.

“And to be honest I feel pretty good knowing that 100 per cent of the team is with me again,” he added.

Ferrari’s high profile new recruit Neil Martin will not travel to grands prix in 2011.
The information emerged from the Madonna di Campiglio ski resort as team sponsor Marlboro’s annual ‘Wrooom’ media event jointly staged with Ducati started in earnest.

200 members of the specialist media are reporting from the scene in the Italian Dolomites this week, where the details of Ferrari’s revamped team structure for 2011 will be made clearer.

Martin, a 38-year-old Briton who was a chief strategist at Red Bull, is heading the team’s new operations research department, so is expected to stay at Maranello when the race team travels to races.

Australian Chris Dyer, whose new “redefined” role will also be clarified this week, has lost his job as head of race track engineering after calling the strategy that cost Fernando Alonso the 2010 drivers’ title.

Martin is to head the remote operations unit where a dozen engineers will work and analyse decisions away from the noise and stress of the pitlane and feed their conclusions to the pitwall, the news agency Sapa reported based on information from Italian media sources.

Vijay Mallya’s son has admitted he will venture into the world of formula one team management in the future.

23-year-old Sidhartha Mallya, with a business degree obtained in London, is already a company director of his billionaire father’s United Breweries, and he runs the Indian cricket team Royal Challengers.

But his 54-year-old father owns and heads the F1 team Force India, sparking speculation Sidhartha Mallya’s future is on the pitwall.

He told the Deccan Chronicle: “It’s easier to manage a cricket team than F1.  (Cricket series) IPL is a short season, but the F1 calendar is spread across nine months.

“To get the team in shape is a lot of hard work and energy.  Due to my commitments within the UB group, I am unable to dedicate 100 per cent to racing at present,” said Sidhartha Mallya.

“The transition into F1 will happen in the future,” he conceded, while indicating that motor racing is not his foremost passion.

Said Mallya: “After seeing the big-hitting and thrill-a-minute twenty20 (cricket) matches, watching a car go around the circuit for about 65 laps is hopelessly boring.”

As the last hours until the 2010 championship finale wind down, there is a threat of showers in Abu Dhabi.

Even though a huge sandy desert sits just outside the plush Yas Marina, there has been rare rain in the area in recent days, including a downpour that wet the track on Friday.

In mid afternoon on Sunday, with just over two hours to go until the evening race at 5pm, the official Meteo France radar screens on the pitwall are showing showers in the surrounding area.

But until now, it has been hot and dry, with partly cloudy skies and a hazy sky after high overnight winds.

Fernando Alonso on Saturday night qualified third for the Abu Dhabi grand prix, but on the pitwall Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo was pumping the air in celebration.

If the Spaniard can just hold position on Sunday, he will win the 2010 world championship.

“We are in a strong position,” he confirmed.

Mark Webber is the big loser of the floodlit qualifying session, only doing enough to qualify fifth and apparently heading for just third in the drivers’ championship.

He positively leapt from his RB6 in parc ferme, got weighed in a hurry and headed straight out for his television interviews, managing to avoid all of his rivals.

“I’m not rapt of course but the fat lady hasn’t sung yet,” said the downbeat Australian.

Despite Sebastian Vettel being on pole position, the session is bad news overall for Red Bull. If the German goes on to win, he will lose the championship by 5 points.

“We got pole but no one else read the script,” said the team on Twitter.

As it stands, Vettel will not be able to deploy a voluntary team strategy during the race, because a couple of McLarens will be in the way — not to mention Alonso.

“I need to do a better job tomorrow,” Webber acknowledged.

Peter Sauber has revealed he is still on track to return to retirement in the next few years.

The Swiss called off his retirement late last year when BMW pulled out of formula one, which risked the livelihoods of the staff at the Hinwil based team he had founded.

But, according to an interview with Le Matin newspaper, he is now rebuilding the team with an eye on returning to the golf course with his wife.

“I always said I didn’t want to be sitting on the pitwall with my headphones on at 70. I stand by what I said,” said the 67-year-old.

“But I’m going to stay at least until we are able to stabilise the team in a financial sense,” insisted Sauber.

That will involve choosing a new colour for the Ferrari-powered cars for 2011, given the arrival of the Mexican telcoms giant Telmex as sponsor.

“I knew we wouldn’t find a sponsor this year. And unfortunately BMW gave us a car that was painted completely white, which made things difficult.

“But don’t worry, next year we will have sponsors, without which it would not be viable,” he said.

Meanwhile, a new report in Italy’s La Gazzetta dello Sport claims Ross Brawn is set to take a more backseat role at Mercedes GP.

“It will happen, but not for next year,” the Briton insisted.

Peter Sauber has denounced members of the Ferrari and McLaren teams for displaying “unsporting” behaviour during Sunday’s Korean grand prix.

Hinwil based Sauber’s founder and boss said he was upset to see team members of the rival teams celebrating jubilantly when Red Bull’s Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel retired from the front of the inaugural Yeongam event.

In terms of the championship fight, it was indeed Ferrari and McLaren who benefitted most from Red Bull’s problems, but after he saw their celebrations on the pitwall monitors, Sauber said: “They were scenes that didn’t please me at all.

“Very unsporting,” the 67-year-old told Swiss daily Blick.

Meanwhile in Korea, Bernie Ecclestone helped veteran Blick correspondent Roger Benoit celebrate his 600th grand prix.

F1 indulged in a piece of rare nostalgia on Thursday by recreating a famous scene.

As the 1986 world championship fight came to a head in Adelaide, the four title protagonists – Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet – posed on the pitwall with Bernie Ecclestone for a media photograph.

Two and a half decades later, there are still five drivers in the running for the 2010 crown, so the ever-present F1 chief executive was back on the pitwall for the same sort of photograph.

This time, the scene of the photo – featuring Ecclestone and drivers Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, Mark Webber, Jenson Button and Sebastian Vettel – was the brand new Yeongam barrier.

“It was good to do the photo with all the guys,” championship leader Webber said afterwards, “going back all those years with some of our heroes obviously in those (1986) photos.”