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Veteran defender Jarno Trulli could be the key to the name dispute

Group Lotus and Team Lotus have agreed to drop their court actions and resolve their legal dispute in a five-a-side football match in Kuala Lumpur next Wednesday.

Sources say that the idea was suggested to Tony Fernandes by Her Majesty the Queen when the Malaysian entrepreneur received his CBE at Buckingham Palace yesterday. Fernandes, a life long fan of West Ham United, immediately agreed.

The Air Asia boss contacted Group Lotus CEO Dany Bahar through his lawyers and, against expectations, a deal was concluded by last night. Proton is said to be relieved that the potentially damaging court action is over.

The match is to be played at 8pm in the Malaysian National Stadium in Bukit Jalil – where the Queen herself opened the 1998 Commonwealth Games – and will see driver squads from each team in action, both sides having the option to field substitutes.

Lotus Renault has Vitaly Petrov, Nick Heidfeld, Bruno Senna, Romain Grosjean, Fairuz Fauzy, Ho-Pin Tung, Jan Charouz and recently announced F1 demo driver Nicolas Prost, while Team Lotus will field charity football veteran Jarno Trulli, Heikki Kovalainen, Karun Chandhok, Davide Velsecchi, Luiz Razia and Ricardo Teixeira.

Lotus Cars has requested permission to add IRL contender Takuma Sato after Ferrari refused to let Lotus ART GP2 driver Jules Bianchi participate.

The Queen reportedly told Fernandes yesterday that she was disappointed that the Lotus name has been dragged through the mud in recent times.

Although Her Majesty is not noted as a keen follower of motor sport she is known to be a fan of the Lotus marque thanks to her children. Princess Anne used to own a Europa before replacing it with a Reliant Scimitar, and while better known as an Aston Martin man Prince Charles briefly owned an Esprit in the 1970s. His mother is believed to have occasionally borrowed it for evening drives around London, and is rumoured to once been stopped for speeding on Park Lane.

It’s thought that Bahar agreed on the basis that he can regain a Royal Warrant for the company, and is hoping that either Prince William or Prince Harry will take delivery of an Evora.

Prince Charles takes delivery of his Lotus Esprit in 1979

Princess Diana was another fan of the Norfolk marque

Sergio Perez's Sauber awaits its fate after scrutineering on Sunday

Sauber’s decision not to proceed with its appeal against the exclusion of Sergio Perez and Kamui Kobayashi in Australia was inevitable, given that the team admitted that it had made a mistake with the dimensions of the upper wing flap.

Submitting notice to appeal on Sunday night at a Grand Prix is standard procedure after any exclusion, and it gives a team a little time to consider all its options.

The rule that was broken is a new one, introduced as part of the effort to ban blown rear wings by ensuring that no one could have a hollow section with a slot in it.

It’s checked by the FIA with an aluminium template with a 100mm radius. The test was carried out for the first time on the cars that finished the race, which means that Mercedes and Williams – both of whose cars retired – have not yet been officially checked.

In the end Sauber accepted that there was nothing it could do. The intention of the rule was satisfied, but the ‘no performance gain’ argument alas is no excuse, and no reason for a lesser penalty than exclusion.

It seems that the team simply made a mistake in the factory, which was extremely painful for technical director James Key, who has done such a great job of guiding the team after it was downsized following the departure of BMW.

“It did not bring us any performance advantage, but the fact is that it was a deviation from the regulations,” said Key in Tuesday’s team statement. “We take note of the stewards’ decision. We have since found that there was an error in the checking process for the relevant dimension on this component. We have already put measures in place to ensure that nothing of this kind occurs again in the future.”

What has confused a lot of people is that the offence wasn’t found earlier in the weekend. The reason for that is simple – the FIA never does all the checks that the rules require, because with 24 cars, it would be impossible. And in any case a ‘legal’ car on Thursday could be in a different spec by the end of the weekend.

“People expect these things to be found, but the fact is teams can change anything on the car after Thursday without us having to be involved,” an FIA source told me. “That’s why we don’t check cars on Thursday for compliance with the regulations, we only check for safety.

“Anything regarding performance is never checked. Teams can come and do their own checks. That’s simply because the specification of the cars can change at any time until the start of qualifying. Even then there are hundreds of things to check and you can’t check all things on all cars, so you do things at random.”

The bottom line is it was a great shame for the team, who lost 10 priceless points, and for Perez, who did such a brilliant job. He has lost his place among those who have scored points on their debut, but in the ‘disqualified’ class he joins the likes of Martin Brundle, fifth on the road for Tyrrell in Brazil in 1984, and Robert Kubica, who like Perez was seventh in a Sauber in Hungary in 2006. Not a club that anyone would like to be part of…

The upper flap of the C30, captured here in practice

The FIA is set to extend the DRS overtaking zone in time for the Malaysian GP, after analysing the knowledge gained in Australia.

Melbourne was always going to be a tricky debut for the DRS, given the short nature of the pit straight. Nevertheless rather than stick with the 600m and see what happens at Sepang the FIA is likely to allow drivers longer at full throttle. No figure has been confirmed by my FIA source, but 700m appears to be the logical choice, although it’s possible that an interim number could be chosen.

Following the Barcelona tests the zone was initially finalised at 600m at full throttle for Melbourne, a distance that represents a ‘virtual’ zone measured back from the start of the braking area.

The actual zone in which the DRS can be operated starts a lot earlier and allows for acceleration up to full throttle. It was 867m in Australia.

In Sepang the DRS zone will be on the pit straight rather than the approach to the final corner, which the FIA believes is already a clear overtaking opportunity.

For the same reasons it is likely to be on the pit straight again in Shanghai, rather than the back straight, which had been mentioned as the likely spot.

Before the race in Australia the FIA’s Charlie Whiting gave an insight into how the original distance was arrived at: “With all the teams the sort of thing we were looking at was a 600m section of the straight in question. From the simulations we thought that would be enough.

“We didn’t want to do the whole straight, because depending on the length of the straight, it would vary the effect of the wing, and the last thing we want is to have an easy overtaking. We felt 600m was about the right time on full throttle, ie 600m before the braking point.

“We always indicated that this would be varied depending on the circuit and the speed at the beginning of the relevant sector. To that end we did more simulations after Barcelona, and then we came up with what we felt was appropriate for here, and last week we made a map that we sent to the teams.”

Whiting also confirmed that later in the season the FIA might add more than one DRS opportunity at some circuits.

“It’s something we’re certainly going to consider. But it’s quite a complex matter to get a detection point, notification point and activation point for one straight. We want to make sure that all the things are working first, and if that looks promising then there’s no reason that we couldn’t use it in other places.

“We are also looking towards a more GPS-based system, which could give us far more proximity detection opportunities without having to go from one loop to another one to another one. We’re looking at other ways of doing it. But we really ought to see how it goes first – we don’t want to run before we can walk.”

Mark Webber made it clear after the Australian GP that he was mystified as to why he was off the pace in qualifying and the race.

The Aussie ended up making three stops when Sebastian Vettel made two, and he finished up in fifth place some 38secs behind his team mate, who was obvious pacing himself in the later stages.

“It’s not the result I was after obviously,” said Webber. “I wasn’t quick at all today, and the same in qualy, so we need to understand the reasons why I could not hold the pace. There wasn’t much more I could do today, obviously lost the last position to Fernando at the pit stops.

“It was a tough race, to be honest. I was pushing as hard as I could, but I wasn’t getting much back. Similar to yesterday. I haven’t been on the pace all weekend, and we’ll look into why.

“Seb drove a good race, but it’s not really normal for me not to go with the rhythm at the front, I should be able to stay with these guys, and yesterday also I was struggling.

“I finished a long way behind today and had trouble with the tyres very soon in each stint. This was a difficult Grand Prix for me, we’ll learn a lot next week, go through everything, see where we can improve things.”

Asked if he thought there might be a problem with the car he said: “You’ve got to look at everything, [including] yourself, and obviously to finish that far behind is not really usual. Stay cool, first race, obviously disappointing not to get a much better result here. It was certainly possible, but in the end everyone deserved the result they got today, and that’s what they got.”

Lewis inspects the loose floor, just visible by the number '2'

Martin Whitmarsh remains confident that McLaren can continue to take the challenge to Red Bull this season, and that there is still more to come from the new package that was hurriedly introduced for Australia.

The worrying thing for everyone else is that Red Bull took off KERS for the race, and that represented a potential loss of 0.3s/0.4s per lap which in theory the team will regain for the next race. However Whitmarsh expects to be able to keep up.

“If we make as much progress in the next 10 days as in the last 10, it will be easy, won’t it!,” he joked. “Three tenths is not insignificant, but you can make those steps. You’ve got to keep pushing, if they don’t, we’ll attack, but I’m sure they’re going to keep pushing, they’re a strong team.

“In truth we’ve been in slightly tunnel vision for the last 10 days, because initially we did not believe we could get this upgrade here, we focussed on that. We’ll re-group tomorrow and we’ll take a view on what’s possible for Malaysia.”

Whitmarsh said that the team seemed to have an advantage on tyre wear, which could bode well for the future.

“We should have had two cars on the podium here. I think Lewis was not quite as quick as Sebastian, but I think until he had the floor damage he was not far from him. I think his tyre usage was slightly lighter than the Red Bulls and Ferraris, and I think by comparison most of the quick cars, with the exception of Perez, and how that happened, I don’t know!

“So that’s encouraging, I think that will become more critical for instance in Sepang, which is going to be heavier on tyres. So if people here were having to three stop and we were comfortably able to two-stop, maybe that will be an advantage. It depends how it falls.

“And we know that what we did here was a fairly improvised set of modifications, we can certainly improve on those, certainly by the time we get to Malaysia. Sebastian is doing a fantastic job, and so’s Adrian [Newey], so we’re going to have to work hard. But that’s what we’re here for. I think it’s a prospect now of a great championship.

“Ferrari did look off the pace and so did Mercedes, but they’re two great teams and they’ve got the knowledge and the capability. We saw how Ferrari did a great recovery last year. I think this is one race, I think it was a reasonably encouraging start, certainly by comparison to winter testing! And we’ll now see what we can do for the rest of the season.”

He admitted it wasn’t clear whether Lewis Hamilton’s floor damage was the cause of or was caused by his trip across the grass at Turn One.

“In fairness to him I think it may have happened just before he went off. I didn’t see how aggressive Lewis had been on the kerbs, but you’ve got to say a car should be robust enough to have an excursion without damaging the floor.

“Whether an excursion was caused or created by it, you have excursions, there are kerbs on Grands Prix. By the same token both cars did a race distance and that’s actually the first time we’ve achieved a race distance with this car! I don’t think we should be too hard on ourselves about it.”

The biggest frustration for the team was the drive through penalty that cost Button a potential third place.

“He had the pace, and he would have been on the podium. That’s frustrating, that’s annoying, but these things happen in motor racing. I think we’ve got to take the positives out of it. Both drivers did a fantastic job. They’ve had a frustrating winter, the team’s had a difficult winter.

“The team’s done a great job to get here with an ad hoc upgrade package that performed, the drivers have kept spirit in the team and commitment themselves, they’ve done a fantastic job here in all the practice sessions and showed good form, and they raced well. Sometimes these things work for you, sometimes they don’t.”

Christian Horner has praised both the Red Bull team and Sebastian Vettel for their brilliant start to the season in Australia, which saw the World Champion take a dominant victory.

The team had opted to run without KERS, but any concerns about the start were forgotten when Vettel stayed safely ahead and the totally controlled the race.

“As a team you learn, you learn from the victories, you learn from the mistakes,” said Horner. “As a group we are still very young, we’re still progressing, and we are still moving forward. I feel that we are better equipped than last year to deal with the championship, and the undoubted pressures that will come.

“I don’t think we can expect another 18 races like we saw today. You know that Ferrari will come back strong, you know McLaren won’t sit still, they made a big step coming here this weekend. We’ve got some good stuff in the pipeline, and the way the team is working is fantastic.

“We came here confident that we had had a good winter, that we had done our homework and our preparation, and we felt that we arrived here in better shape than any previous season but in terms of our competitiveness. We thought we were close to Ferrari, but just ahead or just behind, we weren’t really sure. So yesterday was quite a surprise to ourselves, the pace difference, particularly as we had elected on Friday not to run the KERS system.”

He remains confident that RBR can deal with the McLaren challenge: “They’ve made massive steps, they are a great team and they always have a strong development during a season. We outdeveloped them last year, we did it the year before, and we will be determined to try and do it again this year.”

Regarding Vettel’s faultless performance, Horner said: “I think his drive today was a very, very controlled drive, and I think that he showed huge maturity in the way that he controlled his pace, in the way that he dictated from the front with the communication he gave to the engineers. And he has now won three races in a row, bookended the 2010 and 2011 seasons, and obviously his confidence is very, very high.

“There were no tears today, but he said to me during the winter, because he’s got an obsession about the trophies, there’s apparently a kangaroo on the trophy here that he really liked the look of. He was determined to come here and take that trophy home, which is exactly what he has done.”

The team’s biggest concern was the performance of Mark Webber, who came away with a humble fifth place. Webber was fast on Friday, but then lost performance on Saturday and Sunday. Horner said there was no obvious problem with the car.

“We could not see it on an inspection last night. We found some front wing damage that had affected him, but to what amount, it was difficult to quantify. And obviously until we get the car back [from parc ferme], we need to see. Usually they have been pretty closely matched, and that has been the biggest that we have seen between the two of them that I can certainly think of.

“So we need to get the car back, look at the data, and understand if anything is damaged, how it has affected the car, and make sure that they’re both back to business as usual in Malaysia.”

Mark stopped right after the flag because he had used more fuel than expected: “With Mark we stopped the car just as a precaution. Because he pushed very hard we were marginal on fuel. We just wanted to make sure we had enough fuel in the car for the FIA to take their sample.”

Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali admits that the team underperformed in Australia and will have to hit back in Malaysia.

Fernando Alonso recovered to fourth place after being pushed down to ninth when he ran wide at the start, while Felipe Massa salvaged seventh after the two Saubers were excluded. However Alonso’s fifth place in qualifying was a disappointment.

“What we need to understand why this weekend we didn’t get the performance we were expecting from ourselves,” said Domenicali. “Without looking at the others, this is the main thing that we need to analyse at home and make sure that in Malaysia we come back. For sure this weekend was not the one that we wanted, in terms of performance.

“Today in the race I have to say with regard to Fernando, starting in ninth position after the first lap, he was in a very difficult situation. He did a fantastic race. For sure if he would have had let’s say a clean start – not because of him but because he was unfortunately outside – and there was traffic on the inside, the race would have been for sure totally different.”

Domenicali said he was happy with the way the Ferrari KERS performed.

“It’s a matter of balance. On our car KERS worked quite well. At the beginning for example Jenson was behind Felipe and was always attacking him, we were able to match that Jenson was using the rear wing with the KERS. That is something that for us was very useful. In terms of balance, in terms of what the others are doing with that, I cannot answer, to be honest.”

Regarding the DRS, he added: “We were expecting that the rear wing effect was not really obvious, because the length [of the straight] is not so much. Then you have to consider what I said before, that you have to use the KERS in a certain condition to protect.

“We need to wait and see. Then we need to understand better the situation on our side, of the tyre usage, because that will affect the future strategy, the future management of the race, that’s for sure.”

Both Saubers have now been excluded from the race results for a technical infringement involving bodywork.

That means the result is now Massa 7th, Buemi 8th, Sutil 9th, di Resta 10th.

The issue is the upper rear wing element. The rules say ‘the local concave radius of curvature may not be smaller than 100mm,’ and both cars breached that.

The rules concerned is new for this year. The test is conducted with a template and would not have come to light until after the race because not all FIA tests are conducted routinely every weekend.

Technical director James Key took a sample of the rear wing to race control but didn’t want to comment when he returned to the paddock.

Update: Sauber has lodged a ‘statement of intention to appeal,’ so the matter is not over yet.

As of 2130 local time the Australian GP stewards are still busy with two issues that could affect the results of the race.

Force India has asked the FIA to look into a passing move by Sebastien Buemi on Adrian Sutil, during which the Swiss driver went off the circuit. He finished 10th, a place ahead of Sutil.

Meanwhile a technical issue has arisen with Sauber. Technical director James Key has been to race control and did not look too happy when he returned to the paddock, and declined to comment. It’s not clear whether it involves one or both cars, which finished the race in seventh and eighth.

The fact that all the cars are still in parc ferme is a tell tale sign that the matter is still being debated.