Lotus did not consider employing team orders in order to boost Kimi Raikkonen’s chances of winning the Bahrain grand prix.

The 2007 world champion ultimately finished second and even had a stab at overtaking winner Sebastian Vettel.

And he might have had an ever better chance at challenging the Red Bull had his Lotus team chiefs ordered teammate Romain Grosjean aside at a crucial moment.

“Yeah,” confirmed Finn Raikkonen, “but there are no team orders and we know the rules.

“I tried to get past as quickly as I can but it’s not easy with two similar cars.

“It’s always easy to say afterwards ‘if we had done that’ but in the end we were not fast enough to win and we have to take the second,” he added.

Despite team orders being effectively legal in F1, team boss Eric Boullier confirmed that Lotus does not follow that policy.

“We don’t want to play team orders, so we let them race normally and what happened, happened,” he is quoted by the Mirror.

The most important thing, according to Spanish commentator and former veteran F1 engineer Joan Villadelprat, is that the former Renault team still knows how to win.

“Maybe they don’t have the best car on the grid, because McLaren and Red Bull and Mercedes are probably better, but Lotus have made a car capable of competing with the best in the right circumstances,” he wrote in El Pais newspaper.

Marussia intends to keep Charles Pic, the team’s new French rookie, for more than a single season.
When known as Virgin, the team ousted Timo Glock’s 2010 and 2011 teammates – Lucas di Grassi and Jerome d’Ambrosio respectively – after a single season each.

The latest in the pay-driver hotseat is GP2 driver Pic, 21.

“I think there is some long term potential for him,” said team chief executive Andy Webb.

“I’m looking really to see if he can go forward for more than one year,” he told the Daily Mail.

With its 2012 car not yet ready, Marussia is the only team sitting out this week’s Jerez test.

Although also without new single seaters launched yet, Mercedes and HRT are running this week with their 2011 cars.

“I think it is a setback,” admitted team boss John Booth.

“We’ve taken on a huge challenge following the exit of Nick Wirth and to build a new car from scratch is demanding, but we are certainly up for that challenge.

“We have decided that it is the best thing for us to reach Barcelona initially with the 2011 car, and then for the second Barcelona test with the 2012 car. That’s the plan.”

Confirmation of Jarno Trulli’s extended stay at Lotus next year is due before the forthcoming Korean grand prix.

That is the claim of the Finnish newspaper Turun Sanomat, insisting that the Italian’s current teammate Heikki Kovalainen has already penned a new deal for 2011.

It was reported from Suzuka that Trulli, 36, was bullish about the future, even though it had been expected that Lotus’ 2011 lineup would have been confirmed by now.

Turun Sanomat said Finn Kovalainen – who is currently staying in Kuala Lumpur at team chief executive Riad Asmat’s house – signed his new deal on the Sunday morning of the Italian grand prix last month, but that Trulli’s salary talks were ongoing.

The report added that Trulli still hasn’t signed a contract, but that news on the driver front is sure to be announced before Korea.

Lotus has been making many announcements recently, including the termination of its Cosworth contract, an altered name for 2011 and the Red Bull technical deal.

Confirmation of the Renault engine deal is still pending.

Lotus joked about the situation after qualifying was rained off at Suzuka last Saturday, revealing that the team “has nothing to announce for the first time in several weeks”.

Timo Glock has acknowledged that Virgin finishing tenth in this year’s constructors’ world championship is very unlikely.

None of F1′s new teams have come close to scoring a point so far this season.

But Heikki Kovalainen’s 13th place finish in Australia in late March means Lotus is currently tenth, ahead of fellow non-scorers Lotus and HRT.

Apart from special new team bonuses promised by Bernie Ecclestone, the sport’s commercial prize-money pool is shared between only the top ten teams, based on their ranking in the constructors’ championship.

It means the new teams this year are battling for literally millions in additional and crucial funding.

“It is an innovative structure, and if you do well on the track then you get very well rewarded,” Virgin’s team chief executive Graeme Lowdon admitted earlier this year.

So confident was main sponsor Sir Richard Branson at the start of 2010, he agreed with Tony Fernandes – boss of the rival Lotus team – that the loser should spend a fully-uniformed day as a stewardess on the other’s airline.

“I think Tony will be fetching as a Virgin stewardess,” billionaire Branson said last weekend.

“I think he is making an outfit for me as well,” he confirmed.

But according to lead driver Timo Glock, he thinks it unlikely the Virgin team will be able to dislodge Lotus from the coveted tenth position by recording a twelfth place finish in one of the remaining races.

“It will be very difficult,” he told Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.

“Maybe if there’s a crazy wet race or something like that.  Otherwise I don’t see any chance,” he added.

Stewardess or not, Branson said he remains committed to formula one for now, and sounded bullish about 2011.

“Our staff are looking for new sponsors for next season, so there will be less room (on the car) for Virgin,” the Briton is quoted by France’s Auto Hebdo.

Group Lotus terminated the naming license for Malaysian millionaire Tony Fernandes’ formula one team because of a dispute about t-shirts, team chief executive Riad Asmat has revealed.

On the face of it, the Proton-owned British carmaker has simply had a change of heart, deciding now to ramp up its involvement in motor sport and regretful that its brand is already separately deployed in formula one.

It emerged last week that Group Lotus has decided to enter feeder categories GP2 and GP3 with ART, and it has now been announced that the carmaker is continuing its Indycar foray in 2011 whilst designing a prototype sports car for the LMP2 category.

Group Lotus also said it is upgrading its test track in Norfolk which will be eligible for “F1 testing”.

“It’s important for people to realise just how committed we are to doing our heritage justice,” said director of motor sport Claudio Berro.

At the same time, Lotus has withdrawn its naming license to the current F1 team Lotus Racing, and has vowed to fight the team’s intention to deploy the alternative ‘Team Lotus’ name in 2011 and beyond.

Group Lotus owner Proton is also withdrawing its on-car sponsorship of Fernandes’ team.

“Unfortunately we never reached the point where we discussed extending that one year deal,” said the team’s chief executive Asmat.

He revealed that the naming license has been terminated due to “some very trivial points”, including “t-shirt design approvals of all things”.

Asmat said there will need to be talks with Group Lotus about the real reasons for the termination because “we thoroughly reject” the marque’s right to have done so.

“Initially there was good cooperation but then issues cropped up after that and it came to a point where they said we were detrimental to their brand and infringed their rights,” he told MediaCorp.

“One of these was about producing t-shirts, which we were told did not follow correct procedures and they terminated our agreement about two weeks ago,” said Asmat.

He indicated that continuing to be called Lotus is crucial for the team, which explains the decision to take the matter to London’s High Court.

“There are livelihoods at stake and we had to take this course of action in the courts,” he said.

Not even at the press conference the technology currently makes what Michael Schumacher will. On the podium before the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend in Budapest, the world champion several times unsuccessfully pressed the button labeled, to be heard. But only as a Mercedes sports chief Norbert Haug intervened game was Schumacher’s lead free.

“If Norbert touches, works for you too,” Schumacher said, adding with a grin: “Maybe he should touch it my car, it would also work again.” His humor is not the seven-time world champion has lost also. In the 41-year-old experienced so far the most frustrating phase of his already so disappointing first year after the sensational comeback.
Of all the home race at Hockenheim on Sunday he had been lapped. Actually, a humiliation, especially since the Kerpener then even the “best result” spoke. The young team-mate Nico Rosberg drives more successful than he. And the race in Budapest for Schumacher can not be more than one test run under competition conditions.

“In that situation there is only one directive: to work more hard,” says Schumacher and assured: “We did not get nervous. We just have to attempt to understand the car better. We must remain calm, view all the details exactly and everything closely . Analyze Why Schumacher, at least outwardly so calm remains is obvious. This season he has accepted as a learning year. The title of 2010 he had checked weeks ago, but the 2011 quite briskly re-issued as a target.
Results, times and points this season are now secondary. That Schumacher forages possessed as of old values and data. Even now he is working on the project “World Cup title in 2011,” it comes to knowledge for the construction of the new car. A strategy to his team chief Ross Brawn as early as 2009, the year before to the end at the World Cup crown struggling competitors by surprise.

For the Formula 1 scene Schumacher is either way a gain. The TV ratings rise, ‘RTL recorded’ on average over a million viewers more than last year. And the ticket to many places. In Budapest, currently at almost ten percent compared to 2009. “We have to thank to Michael Schumacher,” said Vice President Tamas Frank Hungaroring.

The audience favorite in honor they even have an audience rank in “Michael Schumacher stands renamed. “A great idea,” says Schumacher. He has visited “his” stand still, “but I will pass this weekend so more times.”