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Well travelled F1 designer Jorg Zander was spotted with the HRT team at Monza, and the German is believed to have agreed to join the Spanish-owned outfit.

Zander has a busy CV after a series of moves between different teams. After gaining experience in Toyota road cars he first came into the sport working for Keke Rosberg’s DTM team, and he then joined the Toyota Le Mans project, before moving into F1 with the Japanese company.

He then switched to BAR in 2002. He became chief designer at Williams in late 2005, only to leave early the following year to join BMW Sauber in a similar role.

His stay with the Swiss team was again a short one, and he soon returned to the renamed Honda team in the role of deputy technical director, staying until the middle of the Brawn GP season in 2009. More recently has been working on the Audi LMP1 project, and thus he lives close to HRT’s German base.

Zander has previously worked with HRT engineering chief Jacky Eeckelaert.

As announced in July Sergio Perez will drive a two-year-old car at Fiorano this week as part of his involvement with the team’s young driver scheme.

Such running falls outside the testing agreement, and the Mexican will also have two days on the team’s simulator.

He’s widely regarded as a potential replacement for Felipe Massa in 2013, at which point he will have had two years of experience at Sauber. Intriguingly Stefano Domenicali gave Perez a big endorsement at Monza yesterday.

“As you know Sergio is part of our Driver Academy, and I think he is doing a great season,” said Domenicali. “It’s part of the training programme that we give the drivers who are part of the academy. It’s something that is related to his improvement, to his technical skill, to give him some laps with our cars and knowing better that situation.

“I think Sergio has a good chance of having a great career. He has started with a good, humble approach, and I saw him growing very much.”

Jules Bianchi will also drive the F60 on Thursday.

Lewis Hamilton was in a downbeat mood after finishing fourth in Monza, and carefully avoided making any negative comments about Michael Schumacher after the race.

Asked repeatedly by various international TV broadcasters about the battle, Hamilton was keen to avoid the subject, leading to awkward silences that don’t really come across in print.

A selection of the responses that he did give is as follows:

“It doesn’t make any difference. We had a good race and got some good points for the team.

“It was OK. I got past eventually, and I was able to finish ahead. He was faster on the straight even with my DRS.

“It was interesting being behind him, it was a real challenge to get past, but I think I did eventually, didn’t I, or at the pit stops? One of the two. But he was incredibly fast on the straights.”

It’s clear that on this occasion Lewis decided to avoid any controversy and keep his thoughts about the former World Champion’s driving private. While given his sometimes turbulent relationship with the media you might not blame him, he probably didn’t do himself too many favours with his approach today.

Speaking in more general terms about the race, he said: “It’s not a great result to be honest, I started second, and I fell back two places. I’m definitely not happy, but that’s motor racing. I’m happy that I finished and I got some points for the team, so that’s a good step.”

Regarding the safety car restart – which is where Schumacher got ahead – Hamilton admitted he’d made a mistake.

“Michael was on the outside of me, so I was looking at him in my mirrors, and then before I knew it, the guys had gone. I missed an opportunity to slipstream Sebastian, they caught me napping. But once I finally got past, I was able to chase down. I had fun chasing Fernando.”

While saying that he “highly doubted” that Vettel could lose the championship, Lewis said he still wanted to win races this year.

“I’m looking forward to the next couple of races when we go away overseas. It’s going to be exciting. We still have six races left. We’ll continue to push, and I hope that we’re able to at least get a couple more wins for the team.”

Fernando Alonso has acknowledged that the 2011 World Championship battle is over, despite the Ferrari driver still being mathematically in the hunt.

Alonso is now 112 points behind Sebastian Vettel, who needs a 125 point margin over his rivals to secure the title in Singapore with five races to run. Alonso says the job is now to hang on to his second place and go for race wins.

“Yeah, six races to go so obviously the championship is impossible,” said the Spaniard. “Not mathematically but we are no longer in contention, so we try to enjoy every race, we try to go for individual victories, also fighting for second place in the championship. It’s always better to finish second than fifth. I think I’m second today after Mark’s retirement, so I will try to get second place as I did last year.

“Of the races remaining I think Singapore is probably the best one for our car characteristics. In Monaco we were fine, we were second. The car was maybe not very competitive in that part of the year so now that the car is a little bit better, on a street circuit we should maybe perform well. I love the Singapore circuit so the next race will probably be it.”

Once again Ferrari struggled in the final stint on the prime tyre, as Alonso lost a place to Jenson Button and was nearly caught by Lewis Hamilton. However, he played down the issue.

“I think we cannot make a big thing about the medium tyre or our performance with different types of tyres. It’s just something that we need to improve and we need to be competitive with all types of tyres in all conditions. That’s not a particular problem but we were less competitive than Red Bull and McLaren.

“If we made a good start and found ourselves first, leading the race, that was not our real position, so sooner or later, with one tyre, with another tyre, on lap 15 or lap 45, they should overtake us, as they did and that’s the reality. It’s not a problem with one tyre or one pit stop or whatever.”

Team Lotus has announced that Jarno Trulli will stay on for another season in 2012.

Tony Fernandes had already suggested that the Italian would be retained after he was willing to step down for Karun Chandhok at the German GP.

Fernandes said: “We are all delighted that we have been able to reach an agreement to keep Jarno on board for at least one more year with our team. He has shown in qualifying in Monza just how much pace he has and how he can wring every last drop of performance out of his car and since day one with us he has brought a level of professionalism, insight and raw speed to our team that has helped accelerate our development on and off track.”

Trulli added: “I am very pleased that we have been able to confirm today that my contract with Team Lotus has been extended into 2012. The challenge I first accepted when I joined the team is becoming more exciting every day, and I am very proud that I can keep helping the team take steps forward for at least another year.”

An upbeat Fernando Alonso is hopeful of a podium tomorrow after qualifying fourth for Ferrari’s home race.

Alonso was pleasantly surprised by the outcome of qualifying, given that he is still not entirely happy with the car. Last year he won in Italy after a tussle with Jenson Button.

“We didn’t find the right balance or the right speed all weekend,” said Alonso. “Yesterday we struggled a little bit with the balance of the car and the top speed, today we’re still lacking a little bit of braking stability, a little bit of top speed on the straights. We were never happy with the balance, and that’s the negative point of the weekend so far, because we’re not totally confident with the car.

“But the positive thing is the result. I think fourth opens you a big possibility for tomorrow. At the start you’re in a very good position, and you will be fighting in the first places for the first couple of laps. So it opens for us a little bit of a possibility of a podium for tomorrow, which regarding how the weekend went so far, is very good news.”

McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh insists that Jenson Button will indeed stay next year, ending any doubts about the Briton’s future with the team.

McLaren has an option on Button for next year, but has yet to take it up. Sources say that money is not the key sticking point – in any case his 2012 salary would have been specified in his original contract – and the discussion is about the length of a potentially extended deal, as well as details such as the level of PR commitments.

The McLaren drivers do far more work away from the track than their Ferrari or Red Bull colleagues, and Jenson believes that it can be distracting.

“I can guarantee you that he will be with us next year,” Whitmarsh told the BBC today. “We both want to work together for a long period of time. It’s a non-issue.

“The nature of a contract is not something we are going to talk about publicly. I don’t think there’s any rush to go to a single year contract.

“Jenson’s done some of the most spectacular drives in the history of Formula 1 this year. And I think he’s capable of even more.”

Sebastian Vettel was fastest in the afternoon session at Monza today but unusually he was only second overall, as Lewis Hamilton did a quicker lap in the morning.

Nevertheless Vettel and Red Bull have looked good all day, and any fears the team had of being overshadowed on the fastest track on the schedule appear to have been allayed.

“It was an interesting day,” said the German. “Obviously it’s a track that usually doesn’t suit us, but today I was pretty happy with the car. McLaren looks very quick in particular, and it’s difficult to judge on Friday, it’s always a bit of a mess with traffic, so it’s hard to judge the raw lap time you see at the end of a day on a piece of paper. But the car felt good and we had no problems. We can be quite satisfied.”

Asked about his good times on older tyres over a long run, Vettel said: “I don’t know, maybe we had more fuel on board. The car felt good all day, and then it doesn’t matter how much fuel you have.”

McLaren had a visibly bigger rear wing than most rivals today, and Vettel admitted that his team would discuss whether it is a better route..

“We’ll see. Obviously we saw that everyone is more or less in the same ballpark except McLaren. We’ll have to take a deeper look, and see how quick they really are, and then make our decision.”

The Indian GP could be under threat because of a dispute between the F1 teams and the country’s tax authorities.

The Indian government is claiming what it believes to be its share of the annual incomes of the 12 teams, and directors of teams could apparently be held personally responsible for ensuring that the requested taxes are paid.

Driver earnings are also involved in the saga, and while they face issues in a number of countries, the teams as such are not usually involved in tax situations.

“It’s a serious issue and it needs to be resolved,” FOTA’s Martin Whitmarsh told this blog today. “And the teams need to receive the appropriate reassurance to be able to go to India.

“There is a significant worry and concern among the teams, and it needs to be resolved. I am sure it will be, but if it weren’t to be resolved then it would threaten the race, wouldn’t it?

“It’s an issue of withholding tax. It’s not an unfamiliar one. There are tax treaties between countries and it’s an extraordinarily complex matter. All of the financial directors within FOTA are working together and are very concerned about it. We’ve employed Ernst and Young as consultants to help find a solution, and hopefully we will.”

Red Bull has extended its deal with Renault into the turbo era by agreeing a deal to use the French engines for a further five seasons.

There will be two more years with the V8 before the new engines come on stream in 2014. It also leaves the door open for RBR to extend its sponsorship arrangement with Infiniti.

Intriguingly the deal covers far more than just an engine and KERS supply as Renault appears to be forging the sort of technical relationship it previously enjoyed with the team now known as LRGP.

In a statement Renault said: “Within the new agreement, a technical joint venture will be set up, in which Red Bull Technology an Renault Sport F1 will collaborate to develop innovative technical solutions for the V6-based power unit that will be introduced from 2014. Red Bull Technology and Renault Sport F1 will contribute their respective know-how, experience and specialist personnel to the project to achieve a competitive and reliable power train to be used by Red Bull Racing and other customer teams.”

Renault Sport F1 boss Bernard Rey noted: “We are delighted that the Red Bull Racing-Renault partnership has been extended for a further five years, which will take us to a decade of collaboration. Red Bull Racing and Renault share the views that stability is a fundamental condition to perform at the top levels of competition. As well as being a unique opportunity to showcase the performance of the Renault engines at the highest possible level, it is also is a fantastic arena to develop the technology and expertise within the Renault-Nissan Alliance.”

Christian Horner added: “We’re obviously thrilled to announce this significantly enhanced agreement with the Renault-Nissan Alliance, who we have enjoyed a close working relationship with since 2007. Renault Sport F1 has always been very straightforward to work with, which has been a contributing factor to the on-going success of the Red Bull Racing-Renault partnership.”