Nico Hulkenberg insists he is happy in formula one without his famous manager Willi Weber.

After a year on the reserve bench, the German returned to the grid in 2012 with Force India, but no longer represented by Weber, the famous former manager of the Schumacher brothers.

“There were a few reasons why I separated with Willi Weber,” Hulkenberg told spox.com.

“Now I’m doing it without some new management,” he explained. “I have assistants, because of course I can’t do everything by myself.

“It’s going quite well at the moment.”

Hulkenberg, 24, is not the only F1 driver without a manager, as Kimi Raikkonen now handles his own career.

“I have (also) taken Sebastian Vettel and Nico Rosberg as role models,” admitted Hulkenberg.

Dr Helmut Marko has admitted Red Bull has work to do in order to return to the front in formula one.

Having dominated F1′s recent history, the energy drink owned team is now behind McLaren in the constructors’ standings after two races in 2012, while its highest placed driver is Mark Webber in fourth.

Austrian Marko, the motor racing advisor to Red Bull mogul Dietrich Mateschitz, insisted that Adrian Newey and his technical team have built a good car for 2012.

“But it doesn’t help,” he told Salzburg television channel Servus TV, “if we are the fastest only in certain conditions, rather than consistently.

“To tell you the truth, at the moment it’s almost as though the car decides when it is the fastest, and when it is not,” Marko said during the ‘Sport und Talk aus dem Hangar-7′ programme.

The outspoken manager also vigorously defended Sebastian Vettel in the wake of the Narain Karthikeyan affair, after Red Bull’s world champion lost his temper with the HRT driver following a clash in Malaysia.

Marko firmly pointed the finger at F1′s backmarkers.

“We have told our team manager to talk to both Marussia and Hispania about getting their drivers to simply pay more attention,” he said.

“They are driving in another league, they’re six or eight seconds slower, and so they need to watch out more than they do.

“They are 12 points Vettel lost that could be crucial in the world championship,” added Marko.

He also fended off the claim that Vettel’s behaviour in Malaysia, featuring the display of middle fingers and calling Karthikeyan an “idiot”, was not worthy of a role model.

“You’ve just been in a race, you’ve seen the chance of possibly a third place go away — you’re naturally upset because he’s a human as well.

“I think we can understand an emotional reaction,” added Marko.

A road-crash victim’s foundation is calling for Lewis Hamilton to be banned from Swiss roads.

In the wake of the 2008 world champion’s so-called ‘hoon’ hire-car driving incident in March, his girlfriend told a celebrity magazine this month that the pair remain wild at the wheel.

“He’s like, ‘Babe, you’re driving with your knees!” singer Nicole Scherzinger told Maxim magazine.

“I’m doing my makeup, changing the radio …”

The Pussycat Doll also joked that the pair would be banned if it emerged how fast they had driven in Switzerland, where Hamilton rents an apartment.

In response, the safety group RoadCross revealed it has asked the local attorney general to revoke Hamilton’s Swiss driving license, also because the McLaren driver crashed after running a stop sign last year.

A spokesman said: “Public figures should be conscious that they are role models and adopt exemplary driving behaviour.”

Swiss politician Pius Segmuller told Blick newspaper that he supports the campaign.

“I think they (Hamilton and Scherzinger) show an absolute lack of character.  With these statements, he is a bad role model for all the young people who idolise him.”

(GMM)

Jun.9 (GMM)  F1 drivers could be penalised by the FIA if they behave badly on the roads, Jean Todt has suggested.

Lewis Hamilton was arrested after caught ‘hoon’ driving in Melbourne earlier this year and later charged and summoned to court.

But when asked about the incident in Turkey two weeks ago, the McLaren driver said the local authorities were “loving the publicity”.

Victorian traffic commissioner Ken Lay was unimpressed with Hamilton’s “flippant” reaction.  “The bottom line is people die on our roads because of hoon behaviour and he has set a really bad example,” he said.

Also apparently unimpressed is FIA president Todt, who was rumoured to be considering commissioning a protocols list informing drivers about respecting the unique rules and practices of each GP host nation they visit.

It has additionally been rumoured that drivers could face FIA penalties if convicted of committing traffic offenses.

“I have actually asked this question,” Todt admitted to the French newspaper Le Parisien.

“There is an incompatibility between the status of a role model champion, and a possible infringement on the road.  We are therefore trying to see whether to do something, and how.”