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The FIA has today formally confirmed that the three chassis name changes discussed in Geneva on Thursday have been approved.

In addition it has confirmed that Team Lotus will now be known as Caterham F1 Team, and Marussia Virgin Racing will be Marussia F1 Team – indicating that Virgin has been dropped not just from the chassis name, but from that of the team. Sources say Virgin will remain as a sponsor.

All teams still have time to adjust those names in the 2012 entry list to reflect sponsors etc.

A short statement said: “The FIA, on the basis of the support expressed by its F1 commission chaired by Bernie Ecclestone, which had a meeting in Geneva on November 3, has agreed the following team name changes as from 2012:”

Robert Wickens is to drive for Marussia Virgin Racing in FP1 at the Abu Dhabi GP.

The team says that the Canadian, who will stand in for Jerome D’Ambrosio, has been given the drive as a reward for winning the Renault 3.5 series. He has already driven the car in a straightline test at Vairano.

Wickens said: “This year just keeps getting better and better and I can’t thank Marussia enough for their continued support. The Vairano test was a good grounding for me, but the opportunity to kick things up a gear in a Free Practice session is obviously the next big step in my career and I hope my feedback will have a positive benefit on the team’s performance there.”

Announcing the news, John Booth said: “Robert has had a fantastic season in Formula Renault 3.5 and was the deserving victor of a hard-fought Championship. One of the founding principles of our Young Driver Programme was that we would reward success with important seat time to aid the progression of our rising stars through the ranks.

“Abu Dhabi is a track at which Jérôme has good experience as he ran there in the same Friday morning practice session a year ago and then in the Young Driver Test the following week. The Yas Marina Circuit therefore presents a better opportunity to provide this reward to Robert as there will be less impact on our engineering programme.

“We are also finalising our line-up for this year’s Young Driver Test in Abu Dhabi and will announce this next week, but there again we look forward to putting the next generation of talent through their paces in what will be a tough test of their potential to progress to the highest level of motorsport.”

GP2 drivers Stefano Coletti and Kevin Ceccon will take part in the Abu Dhabi Young Driver test for Scuderia Toro Rosso.

Both drivers will also compete in the GP2 race supporting the Grand Prix, before getting a day and a half each in the F1 car.

Monaco-born Coletti won two GP2 races this year but didn’t finish the season after a crash in Spa, although he was fastest on the final day of the recent Barcelona test.

Italian Ceccon, who only turned 18 in September, will be one of the youngest drivers ever to take part in a official F1 test session.

Team boss Franz Tost said: “Scuderia Toro Rosso is well used to training young drivers and we are pleased to add Coletti and Ceccon to the list of students who have been through the Scuderia Toro Rosso school.

“Neither of them is part of the Red Bull Young Driver Programme, which is down to the fact that those drivers currently on the programme are still too young and inexperienced to deal with a Formula 1 car.”

The three chassis name changes proposed to the F1 Commission in Geneva today have all been approved, according to a source connected to one of the teams involved.

That means Team Lotus and Lotus Renault GP have finally resolved their dispute.

From 2012 the former’s car will be known as a Caterham, and the latter – still officially a Renault this year – will be a Lotus.

Meanwhile Virgin’s constructor name will be formally changed to  that of its key investor, Marussia.

The F1 Commission decisions still have to be formally ratified by the World Motor Sport Council, which meets next month.

There had been opposition to the Caterham name usurping that of Lotus.

Speaking to this blog recently, Tony Fernandes said: “Lotus is staying in F1 isn’t it? And how different is it from Sauber, or HRT, or even Virgin? What if I called it Air Asia? Caterham has racing pedigree, it races.

“What the brand is now and what the brand is in 10 years time are completely different things. What was Air Asia 10 years ago? Now it’s a huge brand. My forte is building brands, and we’ve done a very good job with Team Lotus. For a team that’s 10^th I think we’ve done pretty well in terms of getting the coverage.”

HRT has extended its Williams gearbox deal into 2012, and the new F112 will also use KERS technology supplied by the British team.

Intriguingly HRT chose the day of the Geneva F1 Commission meeting – where co-operation between the teams is on the agenda – to announce the news.

Colin Kolles has been adamant that his arrangement with Williams is faithful to the rules and says that is not the case for other teams. The team said today that “the deal with Williams F1 strictly follows the terms agreed in the Concorde Agreement and both teams will compete independently in the Formula 1 Constructors’ Championship.”

Explaining the extended arrangement, Kolles said: “We have grown as a team with Williams F1’s support and we are pleased to continue counting on them in the future, given their trajectory, prestige and renowned experience in Formula 1.

“This agreement strengthens the development of the 2012 car that is currently taking place at our technical office in Munich. At HRT we are working on thoroughly improving the performance of our cars and our target is still to finish in the top ten in 2012. This deal brings us one step closer to that objective.”

Jean-Eric Vergne is to drive the Red Bull RB7 in the Abu Dhabi Young Driver test from Nov 15-17.

The Frenchman will in effect be doing the job that Daniel Ricciardo did at the same event last year. He drove for Toro Rosso in FP1 at Suzuka last month.

“I know the track already and have had some track time in a Formula One car this year, which will hel,” said Vergne. “I’m extremely happy that Red Bull Racing has given me this opportunity, it will be a massive experience for me and to be driving the best Formula One car is something quite amazing.

“I will make the best out of the three days, it will be an important three days and I’m looking forward to it.”

Mark Webber lost his third place in Delhi due to dropping off the pace as stints went on, ultimately leaving him exposed to a successful strategy response from Fernando Alonso and Ferrari.

Webber made an early first stop and was also the first driver to make a second stop and go to the hard tyre. By staying out an extra two laps on his old softs, Fernando Alonso was able to jump the Aussie.

He then managed to stay in front, despite Ferrari’s history of struggling for pace on Pirelli’s harder compounds towards the end of races.

“I lost the podium in the middle of the race, really,” said Webber. “Pretty much the general story this year, we just don’t have the pace at the end of the stints. So you run out of tyres, and then you lose strategy basically, so you’ve got to pit earlier.

“It makes life a lot harder for you. Not quick enough at the end. Reasonable pace at the start of the stints, but as the stints go on obviously I drop back into the clutches of the other guys. We were struggling a little with the balance at the end of the stints.

“That’s the way it was, I could have got Fernando at the end, but the Maccas and Ferraris were pretty strong in that first sector – Jenson got me on the first lap on the back straight. I was quick against them on the first few laps, but after, as soon as you fight, you chew the tyres up.

“In the end it was good to finish, but it would have been nice to get on the podium.”

Webber made an interesting observation about his attempt to re-pass Button on the fourth lap.

“I probably could have gone down the inside of Turn 4, but it was still very dusty. I thought I’d have a bit of a poke round the outside, but he fixed me up on the outside, which is fair enough, as I fixed him up in Korea. That’s the way it goes.”

He added that he an extra challenge when chasing Fernando Alonso in the closing laps: “Traffic was bad, Fernando got the DRS every lap from the backmarkers.”

Not surprisingly when he met the media after the Indian GP Felipe Massa insisted that he didn’t know why he was given a drive thru penalty following the contact with Lewis Hamilton.

Massa said that he was the innocent party in the incident, which was the sixth time this year that the two drivers have been involved in a controversy.

“My view is that I braked later than him,” said Massa. “I was in front, I was on the grippy area as well and then I started to turn. And I didn’t see him on the left. So he was behind. And he touched my rear wheel. So, to be honest I don’t understand why I have the penalty. It’s really not understandable.

Asked if there was now feud between the two drivers, Massa said: “Maybe for him. Because in all the incidents, he touched my car. So, I didn’t do anything wrong. When I saw that he put the car on my side, what can I do? It was very dirty, in his place, so I braked on the clean side, on the grippy side, I braked later than him and I start to turn, and he is behind me.

“To be honest, if it’s Lewis or not Lewis, whatever the driver is there, I would do the same. Because I am on the good grippy side.”

When it was suggested that TV images showed him looking in his mirrors, Massa said: “I knew he was on my side. But when I braked, this is the important place, not when you are on the straight. When I braked, he was not on my side. So I turned, because I braked later than him, you know.

“I cannot understand why I am supposed to back off and let him by, no? I braked later. He was on the dirty side, and then I turned, and he touched me from behind. He did not touch on my side, or wheel-to-wheel. If it was wheel-to-wheel, I would not try to close the door.”

Christian Horner has paid tribute to Adrian Newey after Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull scored yet another victory in the Indian GP.

Horner also reiterated that the team wants to see out the season with wins in Abu Dhabi and Brazil.

“He’s had a remarkable year,” said Horner of Newey. “I think this is probably the most successful period of his career so far. His family are here this weekend, that’s why I thought it was appropriate to send him up on the podium.

“We’ve broken two records this weekend, the amount of pole positions in a year – 16 in 17 races – and Sebastian has led more laps than any other drover since Mr N Mansell in an Adrian Newey car back in 1992. Adrian hasn’t changed that much, but Nigel has!

“The team is very hungry, we want to finish the season on a high. It’s been a wonderful year for the team so far in 2011. Effectively these are non-championship races, all three of them we’d dearly love to win at. We’ve won the next two for the last two years, and we’ve love to do a hat trick both in Abu Dhabi and Brazil. You never lose sight of the fact that the opposition isn’t very far away.”

Horner said he enjoyed the Indian GP event.

“I think it’s been brilliant, I think the reaction that we’ve had from the Indian public and the fans, and the way that they’ve been so excited about F1 and truly privileged to have a race here, I think hats off to Jaypee for building the facility, to Bernie for putting the event on, for Vijay Mallya as well, who’s had a hand in this.

“The track’s a real challenge. It’s a great circuit, I think next year’s event will be even bigger now that people have understood a bit more of what F1 is. It’s a really interesting place to come to. Just the drive to the circuit you feel like you’re in a Grand Prix! It makes F1 a true World Championship coming to countries and markets like this.

“There wasn’t a great deal of overtaking at all today, the DRS didn’t seem particularly powerful either. Again it’s all a learning curve. I’m sure that will be looked at and tweaked for next year.”

One way or another Felipe Massa has been in the news this weekend, for after topping the times in Delhi on Friday he had a spectacular off in qualifying after breaking his front supension on a kerb.

But the most intriguing aspect of his weekend has been the ‘flutter’ effect seen on his front wing, which has been sending up spectacular showers of sparks as it touches the ground at the end of the straight.

Ferrari has admitted that it is using these last races for experimentation, and has brought three examples of its latest front wing to this race. The team is known to be pushing the boundaries of flexing technology, within the limits of the FIA’s load tests, of course.

However the wing used by Massa yesterday and for the start of FP3 today surprised even the team with its unusual behaviour, and the team even took it back to the FIA load tests to check it out.

Intriguingly part way through FP3 it was replaced with another outwardly identical wing, but which – at least on TV evidence – did not flutter in quite such a spectacular manner.

Massa used that to set his qualifying time, but then destroyed it in his accident.

Under parc ferme rules teams can replace damaged parts with ‘similar’ ones, with FIA permission. So if Felipe went back to an older spec wing, he would have to start from the pitlane.

The alternative is to go back to the ‘flutter’ wing. This begs two questions. Having abandoned it this morning, is the team really comfortable about sending Felipe into the race with it? Certainly rival teams have suggested that at some stage, given its erratic behaviour, it might suffer a fatigue failure.

Massa concedes that Ferrari has had the same thought: “For sure it’s quite aggressive, but we are on it, we are analysing everything. If we decide to use it, it’s because it’s safe. There’s not much to say.”

The second question is given that the two wings Massa used today behaved differently, are they actually as identical as they look? If their structure (ie carbon lay-up etc) is different – and that’s not impossible given the experimentation – then it could be argued that the flutter wing is a different spec from the one with which he set his qualifying time. And once again Massa would therefore have to start from the pitlane. Certainly one rival team principal told me that he suspected that could be the case…

A Ferrari spokesman told me tonight that all three new wings (including Alonso’s) were identical, and insisted that given that we hadn’t seen every lap of both Ferraris on TV, it was wrong to suggest that one wing was different from the others.

It will be interesting to see how things develop on Sunday morning. FIA sources say as yet there is not an issue, but often it takes an enquiry from a rival to set the ball rolling…

Meanwhile, as far as the crash is concerned, Massa had been running noticeably wide at that point, and on his hot lap caught his right front wheel behind a kerb. The unusual forces involved – in effect the wheel was being pulled away from the car – broke the suspension. He thus didn’t complete his second run.

“I am disappointed,” said Massa when asked by this blog about his session. “We had a big chance to start both cars in the top four. It was not possible because of this crash. I’m sure I would have improved on this lap, and the position was supposed to be much better than it is now, and I lost one set of soft tyres as well, when I crashed, so we need to see how it’s going to be tomorrow, the strategy.”

Felipe felt that the kerb he hit was too high, although the FIA looked at it later and decreed that it met the usual standards.

“It’s a high speed corner, you have a very low kerb, and then you have this high ‘sausage’ kerb. I think when you have a high speed like that, the car has a lot of downforce, a lot of power to the ground. When you hit some concrete, some sausage like that, you can have a failure in the suspension.

“It’s exactly what happened with me. I didn’t take the kerb so strongly, I took a little bit of kerb, and my suspension didn’t survive. It can be a problem for the race. I think in a high speed like that it’s better to do a real kerb, a bit higher and normal kerbs. That’s the only thing that I think should change for the future.”