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Sebastien Buemi has received a five-place grid penalty for the Hungarian GP after a collision with Nick Heidfeld.

Ironically the German had been awarded a drive through penalty for an earlier collision with Paul Di Resta, but the Buemi crash put him out of the race before he could take it.

“He blocked the left hand side, as he is allowed to do, but when I went to his right hand side he just moved over on me, said Heidfeld. “ He must have known I was there. I had a lot more speed than him and was on my way to pass. He just didn’t give me any room and pushed me on to the grass and after that there was nothing I could do. It was an accident which couldn’t be avoided. It’s never nice being up in the air in one of these cars and it could have been dangerous.”

Although he didn’t stay in the race long enough to take it, Heidfeld’s drive through will not be converted into a grid penalty for Hungary.

Marussia Virgin has just announced that Timo Glock has signed a long-term deal with the team.

It will take the German into the turbo era in 2014, although it’s believed that the final season is an option – a logical move given that the team has no firm engine deal for the new era.

Glock has made no secret of his frustration with the lack of progress this season, but says that the recent changes – including the deal with McLaren – have led him to have faith in the team’s future.

Nevertheless it’s perhaps surprising that he has committed even before the end of July, given that other opportunities might have opened up elsewhere.

“The past 18 months of racing have been quite tough, although this was always to be expected,” said Glock. “As a driver I knew I would have to go back a few steps in order to move forward. Now we have tasted the difficult times together I can’t wait to be with the team when we start to enjoy the good times. And I know they are coming.

“I’ve seen tremendous belief from Marussia and hard work and commitment across the whole team. With the additional steps we have taken – the technical partnership with McLaren and bringing the whole team together – I believe we can achieve our goals together.

“This year we’ve demonstrated that we know how to build a reliable car, and with the resources we now have we should be able to add to that a high-performing car. After that it’s all about gradual but significant steps forward.”

There is no news on Jerome D’Ambrosio, although the Belgian told his local media yesterday that he expects to stay. He is funded by the Genii Group, owners of Lotus Renault.

Sebastien Buemi has lost his 16th place qualifying time for a fuel irregularity, and will thus start at the back of the grid.

The team had the option of appealing but after Shell’s technicians ran their own test on STR’s behalf, the result proved to be the same as the FIA’s. The team has now issued the following statement:

During Friday’s FP1, Buemi’s car had a fuel pressure problem, which then got worse at the start of FP2 which is why he did not do a timed lap in that session. After FP2 the entire fuel system on his car was changed. When the fuel sample was taken from his car after qualifying, it did not match the one provided to the FIA prior to the start of the season. The team believes that some part of the new fuel system contained a chemical that contaminated the fuel and caused the non-conformity.

Jaime Alguersuari takes over 16th position and everyone else behind him will obviously move up a place.

Buemi will also now have the option to make major set-up changes and start from the pitlane, as he will have little to lose by so doing.

Jenson Button was at a loss to explain why he struggled to find grip in qualifying today, having been happy with his car in the morning.

The Brit couldn’t better seventh place, while team mate Lewis Hamilton stole the headlines by qualifying second.

“I couldn’t find any grip out there,” said Button. “I really struggled, actually. This morning the car felt good, but this afternoon I had too much front end on the way into the corners, so we took some front wing out, and it basically gave me understeer and didn’t help the rear of the car.

“Very strange that we can’t find the grip out there, so to be down in seventh is very surprising, and also to be something like 1.1s behind Lewis. Something’s not quite right.

“We need to do something, because the pace isn’t there. The frustrating thing is it was this morning, the car felt good. I don’t know where it’s gone.”

The only good news for Jenson is that rain is on its way.

Fernando Alonso says he’s happy with fourth place on the grid in Germany, despite having at one stage looked like a threat to Red Bull.

Alonso insists that he’s the same margin behind the blue cars as he expected to be, the only surprise being that Lewis Hamilton has also got in front of him.

“I think it was OK for us,” said the Spaniard. “We said yesterday we were between two and four tenths behind Red Bull, and we are between two and four-tenths behind Red Bull. Hamilton did very well today. Yesterday maybe they were testing some new parts or whatever, and they were not so good in the times at the end, but they were very competitive, and today they showed it.

“No surprises, I think. To be fourth is a very good position for us, and in the race tomorrow maybe with the rain, anything can happen, so we will attack for sure.

“We’re still improving the car, the new parts we brought here are also very positive, the car feels better and better every time. It’s not that our competitors are looking at the TV in the 15 days between the two races, everyone is improving. We know McLaren brought here a big aero package, Red Bull as well, it’s a competition also outside the races which team is quicker in developing the car as well.”

Alonso says that a wet race will be all about survival.

“Tomorrow there’s a forecast of rain, and if that’s true, I think the race is very open. You never know what can happen in a wet race. Tyre temperature will be an issue, because already we have problems with dry tyres, and if it’s wet, with 11C ambient temperature, I don’t know how we will put some heat in the tyres.

“It’s the same for everybody. It’s a race to survive tomorrow, if it’s wet. We need to finish that race, and I’m sure it will be a podium.”

Lewis Hamilton admits that McLaren is off the one-lap pace of the frontrunners at the Nurburgring, but the Briton is still hopeful of a good race – although he may have to do a rain dance.

Hamilton was fifth in the morning session and seventh in the afternoon, when his best time was a second off pacesetter Mark Webber.

“It’s been a productive day for us, I think we went through all the running plans that we had,” said Hamilton. “I think our race pace is perhaps closer than we had in the last race, which is a good thing, I think we seem to be maybe two or three tenths off at least the Ferraris, and then over a single lap they’ve definitely got about a second on us.

“We’re still pushing as hard as we can, the car’s feeling quite good, it’s just we can’t go any faster through the corners just through the car sliding. So we’re just going to refine the set-up, see if we can find some more downforce.”

Hamilton says the team is better off than at Silverstone: “The engine mode that we had in Barcelona and for example in Valencia works a lot better than what we had in Silverstone, just on that long run just there compared to the others it seemed two or three tenths, which is much, much better than the last race.

“We’re down on downforce, that’s the only thing that stops me and Jenson from doing the same laps as them, we just carry the same speed through the corners. Nonetheless we have made improvements this weekend, we’ve had some small updates which have been good. We need to just keep on going in that direction.

“The race is a completely different thing. Obviously the Ferraris and the Red Bulls are still massively quick, so we expect to probably be just behind them. Anything can happen in the race – who knows if it’s going to rain?

“We definitely can’t challenge for pole, but then having said that, we don’t know what fuel level everyone is on. So we might be pleasantly surprised tomorrow to find that we are heavier than others, and that again brings us closer. But historically, that’s not the case.”

Bernie Ecclestone has admitted that he paid £27m, or $44m, to former bank executive Gerhard Gribkowsky.

However he denies that it was a bribe, as has been suggested, but rather was a response to an apparent threat from the German to cause problems for Ecclestone with Britain’s Inland Revenue.

Gribkowsky, who worked for Bayern LB, has now been charged by the German authorities with breach of trust, tax evasion and receiving payments from Ecclestone. Bernie says he has given his story to prosecutors and was told by them not to comment, which is why he has not admitted to the payment publicly until now.

Ecclestone told the Daily Telegraph that Gribkowsky had indicated that he would make life difficult for Ecclestone in relation to the family trust, Bambino Holdings. Ecclestone says that he “never had anything to do with the trust in any shape or form, he threatened that he was going to say that I was running it.”

Ecclestone says setting up the trust had been a complex matter: “The Revenue obviously had to check everything. It took five years going through that. I didn’t deal with it. The trust had to show it was correct. The taxation people in England at the time were in the middle of settling everything with the trust and the last thing you need is for them to start thinking something different. He was shaking me down and I didn’t want to take a risk. Nothing was wrong with the trust. Nothing at all.

“He never said to me if you don’t give me this I will say that. He left me with the fact that could he do it or not.”

Ecclestone says his lawyers recommended that he should pay up: “They said ‘I tell you what would happen, the Revenue would assess you and you would have to defend it, because you could defend it, and you would be three years in court and it would cost you a fortune. Better pay’.”

He says that it was Gribkowsky who wanted to paid via Mauritius and the British Virgin Islands because “he wanted to be paid so it didn’t look like it came from me and didn’t look like it had come from England.”

Fernando Alonso says that he and Ferrari have not given up on 2011, and will take things race by race instead of worrying too much about the title battle.

The Spaniard’s Silverstone win was the team’s first of the year, but he is still well behind in the table.

“Definitely there are difficulties to fight for this championship, with the points’ loss that we have now,” said Alonso in Germany today. “But we will not give up, we will try to win races, to wait for some mistakes from Red Bull. And we’ll see when the key point of the championship arrives if we are behind still too much or not. We’ll see.

“I think we are doing a good championship, we will try to keep doing the same. We have I think 52 points more than last year in the same nine races, so therefore we are improving our results and trying to do our best, but Red Bull was very, very dominant in the first part of the championship. Nothing we can do now, just work hard, and keep enjoying every Sunday. We’ll see at the end how far we are.”

Alonso reiterated that he’s in a position to take risks: “We will take race by race, risking every weekend. If I was leading the championship I would take more care, because you just need to finish races. Now I’m 90 points behind so every qualifying I will take risks on the lap to be as far forward as possible. Every start we risk, if one time if we have a bad start or a contact in the first corner, there is nothing to lose in our case. Strategy, for sure the same thing.”

Alonso said that the Silverstone win has given the team extra motivation.

“Obviously it was an important boost for the team because we had some difficult times in the first couple of races, and then we’ve been introducing new pieces on the car that some of them worked, some of them didn’t work. Now in the last four or five Grands Prix every part we put in the car is working fine, so this is definitely good news for us, not only for this year but also the future development for next year.

“Definitely I’m very, very confident now with the car, with the engineers. All the designers, all the aero people are very motivated now knowing that all the work they do day and night is producing good results in the car on Sunday.”

Karun Chandhok is to replace Jarno Trulli at Team Lotus for the German GP in what appears for the moment to be a one-off arrangement.

The team adds that it is negotiating with the Italian veteran for 2012.

Tony Fernandes said: “Ever since I first met Karun I have been impressed with his whole demeanour – he is talented, passionate, committed and he brings great energy to the whole team so I am delighted that we are giving him the chance to add even more value to us in the cockpit over a whole race weekend.

“I also want to take this chance to thank Jarno for helping make Karun’s opportunity this weekend possible. He has been extremely accommodating in stepping to the side for this race and our commitment to him is unwavering. I am delighted to confirm that we are in the process of negotiating an extension to his contract with us and we are all looking forward to unveiling the details of that very soon.

“He is a key member of our team and I hope that we can give him a car as soon as possible that allows him to utilise his considerable talent to the full. For this weekend he will be on hand to lend his huge experience and support to Karun and I am sure Jarno, Heikki and Karun will do me, the whole team and all our fans very proud indeed.”

Chandhok said: “Ever since I first joined the team I have been looking forward to this opportunity and I am determined to do my best to repay their faith in me and help the team progress, this season and for many years to come. I am approaching the weekend in a very realistic frame of mind.

“I will be doing my best to push and to make sure I learn as much as possible all weekend, take each session as it comes and work as closely as I can with the engineers and the whole team to do the best job I can. Whatever happens, I am very excited about lining up on the grid on Sunday and I know there will be millions of Indian fans, and Team Lotus fans around the world, who will be behind me and the whole team, so I will do the best I can to give them something to cheer for.

Meanwhile Trulli said: “I’m looking forward to working with Karun this weekend and doing whatever I can to help him get the most out of his opportunity in Germany. It’s great that the team is true to its word of helping develop young talent, particularly from parts of the word where it is even harder to break through into the top rung of motorsport, so I’ll be there to give him guidance and assistance, in and out of the car.”

Mike Gascoyne added: “I am delighted that we are able to give Karun a full weekend in the car. He has been a very good addition to our driver line-up and now we are giving him a chance to take the next step in fulfilling his potential. Jarno will be stepping aside for him for this race and we will use Karun’s feedback over the weekend as a comparison against Jarno’s and Heikki’s experiences this season with a number of aspects of the car, including the power steering system, to help us keep moving forward in 2011 and beyond.

“I am sure Karun will equip himself very well in this and in his performances in and out of the car all weekend. The whole team is looking forward to helping him get the most out of his time in the cockpit in Germany and it will be good to see him grab this chance and make the most of it.”

The Lotus Renault GP team – then still known as Renault F1 – made a £40m loss in 2010, its first year under the ownership of Genii.

The team’s accounts reveal that income fell dramatically last year by 49% from £162.0m to £82.1m, reflecting the lack of a title sponsor and the absence of a contribution from former owner Renault.

Operating costs were cut by from £148.7m to £122.1m, the team pointing out that “a significant part of this saving related to the change in the team’s driver line-up.”

In other words the team is telling us that the £26m difference reflected Fernando Alonso’s 2009 salary relative to that of Robert Kubica in 2010 (although the absence of Flavio Briatore-managed Nelson Piquet Jr may also have been a factor).

Operating losses in 2010 were £40.0m, or £34.2m after tax was taken onto account. In 2009 the team made a profit of £4.8m.

It’s well known that the team is committed to some large loans, and the accounts give some fascinating details.

Firstly, it still owes money to Renault: “The company has a loan with the Renault Group, the term of which has been extended to include repayments as follows: 2011 £6m, 2012, £6m, 2013, £8m.”

Secondly there is the arrangement with Lithuania’s AB Snoras Bank, whose logos have appeared on the car: “The company has a loan facility with AB Snoras Bank (£15m) maturing in December 2011. This loan is secured by first ranking security interest over the rights, title and interest in some of the company’s assets with an aggregate value of £24m.”

The team’s staffing levels actually rose from 497 to 514 in 2010, with an extra 12 people employed in adminstration.