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Michael Schumacher will start the Singapore GP from ninth place, having made Q3 for the first time since Silverstone, and only the ninth time in 15 attempts this year.

He’ll start two places behind team mate Nico Rosberg, who again had the edge on him in qualifying.

“Is it that long?,” said Michael when told about his drought. “Anyway it’s good, and even more being on the right side of the grid is very important here, as I understand from last year. We have a good statistic for the first lap, so I hope to keep it up, and come home with some important and valuable points for the constructors. It is probably true, once the start is done, it will be difficult. But the first corners are going to be the crucial ones, to make up your positions.”

Schumacher said he was happy with the way his car has performed this weekend.

“It’s been going OK. We started off in P1 and P3 initially quite good, and then as the session developed we sort of changed bits and pieces, tried to improve the car, but it didn’t seem to come much forward. Finally for qualifying we put everything together and got a reasonable package out of it.

“Even in qualifying we were still experimenting a bit around, which paid out partly. Overall we could have been seventh, it probably would have been the maximum, what Nico was doing, he optimised his situation quite well, and did a good job. It’s up to us to come close to him.

“I had very good long runs yesterday. It’s been going all year long that Nico in a one lap situation sneaks off a couple of tenths from me, and then when it comes to race pace, I actually look stronger than him, and yesterday that was the case. I look forward to tomorrow.”

Michael says he likes the night time aspect of Singapore: “It’s very special and exceptional, considering the time schedule as well that we have live in. It’s pretty unusual.”

Title contender Jenson Button will start the Singapore GP from fourth place on the grid, right behind McLaren team mate Lewis Hamilton. Button said he didn’t get qualifying quite right, especially on the first part of his crucial lap.

“Qualy 3 I found very tough,” he explained. “My first run in qualy 3 I pushed very hard out of the box, because I was the first car out, and I wanted to make sure that we get two runs in for both cars.

“In the first sector I pushed quite hard and damaged the rear tyres quite a bit. I struggled then and the second lap I thought I’d take it easier on the out lap, and on the first sector a tiny bit easier.

“But I didn’t have any tyre temperature when I got the first sector, so I struggled with that. The second and third sectors were very good, and I set the quickest time in the middle sector. Not too bad, fourth, and a lot closer to the Red Bulls. Ferrari looks quick as well. Reasonably happy, much better than my qualifying here last year.”

Button hopes he can repeat Monza, where he made up a crucial at the start, but says it won’t be easy with team mate Lewis Hamilton up ahead.

“The start is the key. To get a good start is very important. My biggest issue is that I’ve got the same car as mine just in front, and he’ll get just as good a start as me. I won’t be able to overtake him off the start, but you never know into Turn One.

“But Vettel has been making a lot of poor starts lately. I’m not saying that it’s his fault, but the pace of the Red Bulls off the line hasn’t been good. That’s a positive for us, and we’ll see what happens.

“I’m reasonably happy with today, and I think we can have a good race tomorrow. Our pace was good yesterday.”

Button said it was good to have the title contenders at the front: “There are a few people I’d rather be in front of right now! You see that none of us have really made any big mistakes or anything in qualifying and it’s all going smoothly at the moment, and we’ll just see what happens tomorrow in the race.”

Adrian Sutil has been fined $10,000 by the Singapore stewards for attempting to drive his damaged car back to the pits.

The German broke his front suspension when he bounced over the notorious Turn 10 chicane in Friday’s second session. The front left wheel folded over the nose, but he decided to carry on and try to get back to the pits. He had done a large chunk of the lap before the team advised him to pull off, and he went down an escape road.

The FIA reported that Sutil “did not leave the track as soon as it was safe to do so, and this was potentially dangerous to spectators, marshals and other drivers.”

The FIA has clamped down on drivers continuing with damaged cars, especially if wheels are involved. Incidents last year involving Sebastian Vettel (after the clash with Kubica in Australia) and Fernando Alonso (a loose wheel in Hungary) attracted the attention of the stewards.  Drivers are now obliged to stop as soon as it is safe to do so, according to Article 30.14

The Felipe Massa accident in Hungary last year also put a focus on the repercussions of debris falling off cars.

Mark Webber is delighted that Red Bull Racing had silenced the sceptics who thought that the RB6 would be handicapped by the stricter ‘flexible wing’ tests introduced by the FIA.

Singapore is the first race where teams are running high downforce levels with the new rules in place. Rivals had suggested the loss of form in Spa and Monza suggested that the new tests had had an impact.

“We’re struggling with the new rules!,” he joked. “We knew nothing would change in that sense. We weren’t coming here expecting to be slower than we were in Budapest. Obviously other people have their own ideas how they’ve go to improve their car, and we keep trying to improve our car.

“McLaren could be on pole tomorrow, so let’s see how it goes. We know where we are, we know where we’re going, we know we have clever guys doing the right thing at the right time. Our car’s never failed a test ever this year. The tests keep changing, and anyway we keep doing our best.”

Webber said he still has more to come.

“We’ve got a lot of information to go through tonight,” said the Aussie. “Obviously the cars are very different compared to when we were here last year, so it’s not too bad.

“I wasn’t mega happy with my short run performance. I wasn’t cruising, but Friday there are no points, as we know, so build up for tomorrow.”

Like other drivers, Webber is not a big fan of the revised chicane: “We knew it was going to be worse than last time, because the kerbs are bigger. They don’t want us to play with them, but sometimes when you hit them you need a Toyota Hilux to get through there…”

Christian Klien will make his F1 race comeback this weekend as he stands in for Sakon Yamamoto at HRT.

The team reported this afternoon that the Japanese driver has food poisoning, although given the chopping and changing at the team this year there is inevitably speculation that there could be some commercial reasons behind the change.

Colin Kolles said: “It looks as if Sakon Yamamoto has a food poisoning, and he doesn’t feel well. Because of this, Christian Klien will be driving the car this Friday and the rest of the Singapore Grand Prix. I hope Sakon gets well soon and is able to drive at his home Grand Prix in Japan.”

Evidently Dr Kolles has already determined that Sakon won’t be well enough to take over driving chores on Saturday.

Klien drove on Friday morning in both Barcelona and Valencia. so he does at least know the car. Since his last race with Red Bull in 2006 he has had spells as test driver with both Honda and BMW Sauber.

The man in the yellow hat! David Hunt and the Team Lotus gang

Tony Fernandes confirmed today that his team will be running as Team Lotus in 2011, as exclusively predicted here back on July 12.

He has concluded a deal to buy the name from David Hunt, who has owned it since the end of 1994, when he bought what was left of the original F1 team at the end of what turned out to be its final season. Hunt, who joined Fernandes for the announcement, will remain involved in the team, mainly in a sponsor hunting role.

“Nothing else changes,” said Fernandes. “We’ll still be based in Hingham, we’ll still have Mike Gascoyne, and we’ll still be green and yellow. We’re just changing the name and bringing back all the history.”

The Lotus F1 team will no longer have any connection with Group Lotus, having had a licence to use the name this season. That deal has now ended. Meanwhile as reported previously Group Lotus going racing in GP2 and GP3 next season in conjunction with the ART team. However, Fernandes denies that the apparent clash will cause problems.

“There’s no confusion. If Group Lotus decided to sponsor the ART racing team, that’s fine, and that carries on. We don’t actually understand the logic behind that, but that is their call.”

Fernandes doesn’t expect an ART/Lotus F1 effort: “I think it would be a very odd situation and will destroy a lot of goodwill. It was always very clear, Group Lotus is a car company, and Team Lotus has always been a racing team, racing in Indy and many other series, including Le Mans. I wouldn’t think that would happen.

“English law is very clear. Trade mark is an extra source of protection, but good will and passing off is very clear in English law. If someone tried to pass off [as Team Lotus] as a Formula One racing team or even in GP2 or Indy, we will obviously challenge that.”

Fernandes didn’t want to be drawn on the Renault deal.

“We obviously have something, but today we want to focus on the name. There are lots of things we want to tell you guys, but we want to do it step by step. There are still four races. We obviously have a deal on the table for an engine, and once the time is ready to announce it, we’ll announce it. We’ve obviously made an announcement that we’ll cease our arrangement with Cosworth.”

My original story is here: https://adamcooperf1.com/2010/07/12/fernandes-acquires-team-lotus-name/

A battle for the rights to use the name Lotus in various forms of motor sport appears to be kicking off. 

On the one side there is Group Lotus, helmed by former Red Bull and Ferrari marketing man Dany Bahar, and on the other there is Tony Fernandes, who acquired the rights to use the Lotus Racing name in F1 and has been negotiating for some months to get the Team Lotus identity from David Hunt, who has owned it with two investors since the end of 1994.

It’s been clear for some time that there have been tensions between Group Lotus and Lotus Racing. Since the F1 project started the former has expanded its interest in motor sport, firstly with Takuma Sato’s IRL entry, and latterly with its plan to build a millionaire’s ‘track day car’ using F1 technology.

Things have moved on again in the last couple of days. Firstly the GP2 organisers revealed that they had given a 2011 entry to an ‘Air Asia’ team, which logic suggested would be a Lotus junior project. However today Group Lotus announced that it has linked up with ART and will brand the latter’s GP2 and GP3 teams as Lotus. There is already a Fernandes-approved Lotus team in the Renault 3.5 series, run by Fairuz Fauzy.

The connections between Group Lotus and ART, co-owned by Nicolas Todt, are obvious. Aside from Bahar – brought to Ferrari by Jean Todt – the other two key people there are Serbian Miodrag Kotur and Canadian Gianni Rosato. Kotur was for many years Todt Sr’s right hand man at Maranello in a team co-ordinator role, while former Montreal hotel employee Rosato was Ferrari’s ‘Mr Fixit,’ often spotted performing a sort of bodyguard role for Michael Schumacher.

There is clearly a battle underway for the rights to use the Lotus and/or Team Lotus name in motor sport, and Malaysian politics must be playing a part, since Group Lotus is of course owned by Proton and Fernandes is one of the country’s highest profile businessmen.  While there is no firm evidence that Group Lotus now wants to get involved in F1 it’s no secret where the ambitions of Todt Jr and ART lie.

Some reports suggest that a Group Lotus/ART/Toyota Cologne relationship is being discussed. Clearly what none of those parties have is an entry for 2011. Last year Max Mosley personally ensured that Fernandes got his ultra late entry for this season, and one assumes it would take similar intervention from the current FIA President to ensure a repeat for 2011 – if that really is the plan, given the tricky timescale. I wonder if anyone involved has his phone number…

This blog reported on July 12, just after the British GP, that Fernandes had pretty much completed his deal with Hunt. Intriguingly UK government documents from the Intellectual Property Office show that Group Lotus applied on July 15 to use the name Team Lotus in connection with a raft of activities, some of them way beyond motor sport, but mostly connected with the sort of souvenirs and memorabilia that you might associate with an F1 team. 

On August 2 Hunt’s business, Team Lotus Ventures, also applied to use the name Team Lotus for similar activities.

The details can be found here:

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/ohim?ohimnum=E9251497

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/ohim?ohimnum=E9289737

Mexican teenager Esteban Gutierrez has been confirmed as Sauber test and reserve driver for 2011, inevitably increasingly speculation that his main backer Telmex will join forces with the Swiss team.

Gutierrez, who only turned 19 in August,  had a chance to test a BMW Sauber last December as a prize for winning the Formula BMW Europe title. He has been affiliated with the team this year in an informal junior role.  He will get his first mileage in his new job at the Abu Dhabi young driver tests after the season finale.

Gutierrez won the GP3 title this year with the ART team. He told this blog at Monza that he was in no hurry to get an F1 race seat as “I want to arrive prepared.”

Peter Sauber said: “Esteban is extremely mature for his age, and it has been a great pleasure to have him with us a great deal of the time this year as an affiliated driver. The team was rooting for him during his intelligent fighting performances in the GP3 Series. We are confident he will continue to develop strongly. With his modest manner and keen desire to learn, he has also made himself very popular among the team.”
 
Meanwhile Gutierrez says he learned from being close to the team this year: “That way I learnt a great deal about the professionalism and practical procedures in the Formula One team. Plus, in early September I had an opportunity to attend the team’s fitness camp with the two team drivers. Formula One is my ambition, and I’m really grateful to Peter Sauber for his confidence in me and my ability.”

Renault F1 tester Jerome d’Ambrosio has joined Virgin Racing and will drive on the Friday mornings of the next four Grands Prix. He’ll thus be the first Belgian to drive on a race weekend since Bas Leinders was a Minardi Friday driver in 2004. In addition he will take part in the young driver tests immediately after the Abu Dhabi GP.

Lucas di Grassi will have to sit out the sessions of the upcoming events, which will be particularly hard on the rookie, who has to learn the tracks. Co-incidentally in 2004 Di Grassi and D’Ambrosio were colleagues on the Renault Driver Development scheme, along with Heikki Kovalainen and others, although D’Ambrosio was dropped at the end of the year.

 The news shows the increasing influence of Gravity Sports Management, which is part of the Genii Group, which owns Renault F1. It must also cause some frustration for Andy Soucek, who walked away from the team when no Friday driving chances emerged, so clearly this deal must be worthwhile for Virgin. The team says that it is evaluating him and has pointed out that while it has a contract with Timo Glock for 2011, it only has an option arrangement with di Grassi.

D’Ambrosio is in his fourth year in GP2, and is currently with the Renault-affiliated DAMS team.

D’Ambrosio said: “My ultimate goal has always been to race in Formula 1 and I am delighted to get a step closer. I wish to thank Virgin Racing and Gravity Sport Management for their confidence. I won’t disappoint them. This drive is a fantastic opportunity and I am looking forward to helping the team in every way I can, as well as gaining experience on four of the most demanding tracks of the F1 calendar. Looking at the 2011 season, this will be very useful. Also, I will be very proud to wear the Belgian colours on my helmet during these official practice sessions, as it means a lot to me.”

CEO of Virgin Racing  Graeme Lowdon added: “We are very pleased to welcome Jerome to Virgin Racing and we look forward to providing him with the opportunity to drive the VR-01 during the first free practice session of the next four race weekends. He will also take part in our young driver test in Abu Dhabi at the end of the season. We have a contract with Timo Glock for another two years and an option on the services of Lucas di Grassi for next year.

“Both drivers have done an outstanding job for us in our debut season. We are always looking to progress new racing talent and the team out of which Virgin Racing was born has a long history of this. Jerome is a real racer and very deserving of this opportunity. We are looking forward to evaluating his performance with effect from next weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix. With both Jerome and Luis supporting the Team, we have two drivers with enormous future potential.”

Heidfeld had his last Pirelli test at Jerez this week

Pirelli has confirmed that Nick Heidfeld will leave his test role with the Italian company to take up his new job with Sauber.

He will be replaced by Romain Grosjean for the next test in Monza, although it’s not been confirmed who will continue the testing work after that, although inevitably Pedro de la Rosa – who brings current Bridgestone experience – had been mentioned. It remains to be seen whether Pirelli’s future customers, ie the teams, feel that Grosjean is the right man for such an important role.

Heidfeld finished his last Pirelli test at Jerez today, and his Sauber contract starts from tomorrow. Even it had been contractually possibly for him to do both jobs, the travelling involved in the upcoming five flyaways would have made it impossible.

Pirelli’s Motorsport Director Paul Hembery said: “We’d like to thank Nick for his very valuable contribution to our tyre development programme and we wish him all the best for the future. In order to avoid favouring any individual team, we have jointly decided to release Nick from his contract and now we have chosen Romain to test for us in Monza.

“He’s packed a lot of experience into a short space of time, including all our GP3 tyre development, so I’m sure he’ll be able to give us some very useful feedback. The tests here at Jerez have gone extremely well and we completed all the work that we planned over the two days. Now we move onto Monza, where our task will be to finalise the construction before we focus further on compounds.”