A race seat with Virgin could be the next step for Canadian Robert Wickens.

Driving in Virgin and title sponsor Marussia’s colours this season, the 22-year-old wrapped up the Renault World Series championship in Spain last weekend while F1 raced at Suzuka.

“We look forward to celebrating with him this weekend in Korea,” announced Virgin’s F1 team boss John Booth.

A few months ago, Wickens was announced as the F1 team’s new reserve driver.

And while the formula one world was in Japan last weekend, the Belgian newspaper De Morgen reported that Wickens is in the running for a 2012 seat because he has “more (sponsorship) money” to offer than Jerome d’Ambrosio.

Wickens told the Toronto newspaper Globe and Mail: “F1 has always been the goal in my whole career and now I am the closest I have ever been.

“Definitely, I will switch now to trying to secure a seat for next year.

“At the end of the day, if I could get corporate Canada’s support it would be a dream come true.”

GP2 frontrunner Giedo van der Garde’s manager has revealed talks about the 2012 season with three formula one teams.

Last weekend at Spa-Francorchamps, where the Dutchman emerged in second place behind the new GP2 champion Romain Grosjean, 26-year-old van der Garde was linked with the 2012 Williams seat currently occupied by Rubens Barrichello.

Media reports said he has “the most” sponsorship money to offer a potential F1 employer.

“That (F1) is the goal, yes,” NUsport quotes van der Garde as saying. “My management is in talks with three teams, so there are possibilities. There is no plan B.

“So there are some free places but it (F1) is a strange world.”

Van der Garde’s case is indeed unique, with his manager Jan Paul ten Hoopen doubling as the commercial director of the F1 sponsor McGregor, a Dutch fashion house.

And van der Garde’s father-in-law is billionaire Marcel Boekhoorn.

The Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reports that Boekhoorn may be interested in buying into the Renault team, and van der Garde has also been linked with Virgin.

“The real conversations (with teams) don’t take place until October, or at least after the Italian grand prix,” said manager ten Hoopen.

To many in F1 circles, Bertrand Gachot is arguably best known for vacating his Jordan seat in 1991 for a then unknown youngster by the name of Michael Schumacher.
Just before Schumacher’s meteoric F1 debut 20 years ago, Gachot was jailed in England for spraying a taxi driver with CS gas some eight months earlier.

“The taxi thing happened in December (1990),” Gachot, who now manages his energy drink company Hype, told the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag.

“Eight months later, in August 1991, I was summoned to court. The lawyers told me it’s a small thing.”

It was the week before the Spa-Francorchamps race, but the judge refused to release the French-Belgian driver even on a multi-million pound bond.

“I was a danger to the English population,” he marvelled. “Eight months later!

“I was sentenced to two years in prison and I had to serve two months. And because the gas was considered a weapon, they put me in a cell with a murderer.”

It was, however, good news for Eddie Jordan, who had already collected from Gachot’s sponsors in 1991 and was now receiving $160,000 from Mercedes for the one-off Schumacher debut.

Gachot doesn’t directly accuse Jordan of pushing the CS gas case to court in order to collect more sponsorship money.

“I don’t want to put that name in my mouth. I don’t mean Michael, who is a great guy, a great racer. My bad luck was his good fortune. His career might have been very different if I had not gone to prison.”

Karun Chandhok thinks he will get more time at the wheel of the Team Lotus car after replacing Jarno Trulli at the Nurburgring.
It is rumoured the Indian driver’s outing in Germany, with Trulli returning to his car this weekend in Hungary, is part of the deal struck to take his sponsorship money to the Tony Fernandes-led team as third driver.

“I believe I’ll get some more chances because Tony seems quite happy with the job I did, the engineers seem happy with the job I did,” Chandhok, who struggled on Sunday and finished last, told Reuters.

The 27-year-old is also strongly supported by his father Vicky, a leading Indian motor racing official, as well as F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone, who will be pushing for Chandhok to reappear on the inaugural Indian grand prix grid in October.

The trio, as well as Fernandes, were spotted in conversation on the Nurburgring grid.

Chandhok revealed on Monday that they had “basically told me to go away and leave it to Tony and my dad and him (Ecclestone). I think his (Ecclestone’s) last words were, ‘Get on with your job and leave us to it’.”

Jun.16 (GMM)  Williams is reportedly set to retain an unchanged driver lineup for the 2011 season.

Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport reports that while rookie Nico Hulkenberg is regarded as a long-term investment for the British team, Williams is also happy with the performance of the Brazilian veteran Rubens Barrichello.

“Without Rubens, we would be nowhere,” team co-owner and principal Sir Frank Williams is quoted as saying.

The lineups at top teams Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Red Bull will also stay the same for 2011, while Robert Kubica looks likely to stay at Renault.

Rookie Vitaly Petrov has done enough in 2010 to also keep his seat, but Auto Motor und Sport says his sponsorship money must continue to flow.

“I’m afraid,” said Mercedes reserve driver Nick Heidfeld, “that the top ten seats (for 2011) are gone already.”

Meanwhile, if Force India has a vacancy, it will almost certainly go to the promising reserve driver Paul di Resta, and Toro Rosso would select from Red Bull’s young driver pool, such as the Australian Daniel Ricciardo.

Both of Sauber’s race seats might be up for grabs for 2011, but if that is the case, the market’s leading pay drivers – like the Mexican GP2 driver Sergio Perez – are regarded to be at the head of the queue.