Adam Cooper F1

Bernie Ecclestone is to face bribery charges, the Munich state prosecutor has confirmed.

The charges relate to the now infamous $44m payment Ecclestone made in 2005 to former banker Gerhard Gribkowksy, who is currently serving an 8 1/2 year jail sentence. Gribkowsky, who was chief risk officer at BayernLB, was found guilty of tax evasion and bribery.

Bernie’s view has always been that he was a victim of a ‘shake down’ and had made the payment to stop Gribkowsky triggering a time consuming UK tax investigation.

A statement from the prosecutor noted that “under current planning, the main trial should start in late April,” but few further details have emerged.

Meanwhile in a statement reported by Reuters, Ecclestone’s German legal team said: “The decision to go to trial is normal and in no way is it a finding in the issue at hand. This is something that is up to the trial itself. The alleged bribery never took place. The accusations that are based on Gribkowsky’s testimony are incorrect and based on the facts offer no coherent picture.”

Ferrari will launch its 2014 car on the afternoon of Saturday January 25th, the day after McLaren unveils its new machine online.

Ferrari has taken the unusual step of asking the public to name the car, with an online poll to choose between five different options. The names reflect either the year of 2014, or the 1.6-litre V6 engine configuration.

The choices are F14 T, F14 Maranello, F14 Scuderia, F166 Turbo and F616. F166 Turbo had the early lead against strong competition from F14 T, which as has been pointed out, looks a bit like ‘FIAT’…

If you would like to vote, have a look here: http://2014f1car.ferrari.com/en/#countdown

Mansour Ojjeh has relinquished his role as a director of the McLaren Group. He has been replaced by his younger brother Aziz, his partner in the TAG organisation.

Ojjeh had a double lung transplant late last year after battling IPF lung disease, and thus it’s perhaps no surprise that he is cutting back on his business commitments.

A McLaren spokesman said: “Mansour Ojjeh is enjoying a period of rest and recuperation following his recent operation. For the time being, therefore, Mansour’s brother, Aziz Ojjeh, has agreed, with Mansour’s full support, to join the McLaren board on a temporary basis until such time as Mansour is fully recovered. Mansour, the Ojjeh family and TAG Holdings have a passionate love for McLaren, for motor racing and for cars in general, and Mansour intends to return to the McLaren board as soon as possible.”

Incidentally on Sunday Mansour’s close friend Michael Douglas wished him well while making an acceptance speech at the Golden Globes, having won the award for best actor in a TV drama.

John Button, the father of Jenson and formerly a top rallycross driver in his own right, has passed away after a suspected heart attack at his home in France. He had celebrated his 70th birthday in Hungary last year.

A wonderful, outgoing character, it goes without saying that he was Jenson’s number one supporter throughout the latter’s career. John took Jenson through the karting ranks and then attended all but one of his F1 starts, only missing out through illness. He had hundreds of friends up and down the paddock, and not just at McLaren or Jenson’s previous teams.

A familiar face since Jenson’s debut in 2000, his colourful personality sometimes disguised the fact that he was an extremely perceptive observer of the F1 world. His advice and counsel was clearly very useful to his son over the years, and helped to keep Jenson’s feet on the ground.

The astonishingly close father/son relationship was a shining example for people in any walk of life, never mind racing, where ambitious dads don’t always take the right approach.

Few in F1 knew about John’s rallycross exploits, notably with a VW Beetle, and later a Golf. He was one of the leading British drivers of the seventies, regularly featuring on BBC Grandstand, and he even earned a slot on the cover of Autosport.

A great human being and a total one-off, he will be sadly missed. This writer offers his sincere condolences to Jenson, his sisters and the rest of the Button family.

Williams has given details of the changes to its engineering management, and has rather handily given a job description for the key players, who will work under chief technical officer Pat Symonds.

As previously noted here on November 29, former McLaren and Force India man Jakob Andreasen has joined as Head of Engineering Operations. The team says his job is to “focus will be on better integrating trackside operations with the continued design and development of the Williams-Mercedes FW36 at the factory.”

Meanwhile Craig Wilson has returned to Williams from a spell at Mercedes to take up the job oof Head of Vehicle Dynamics, in order to “strengthen the engineering team in applying vehicle modelling and analysis to help bring further improvements to on-track performance.”

Lotus man Rod Nelson has joined as Chief Test & Support Engineer “to head up the team’s testing programme including leading the group at the factory that provide support and analysis from Grove over all race events.”

Finally Max Nightingale is promoted to Head of Vehicle Science “to ensure a focus on performance within the new structure which will improve the connection between race operations and on-going development work.”

Pat Symonds said: “Williams is determined to make strong improvements in our competitiveness over the coming seasons and these new appointments continue our aggressive approach in recruiting some of the sport’s best talent.

“We are also committed to allowing our existing talent to grow and showcase their skills in senior leadership roles. Our engineering team for the coming season is looking strong and I’m excited about what we can achieve moving forwards.”

Niki Lauda made it to Hollywood when he joined Rush star Chris Hemsworth to introduce a clip of the film at the Golden Globes last night.

Lauda caused a stir by wearing his new sponsor’s baseball cap at the glitzy black tie event, but he then raised a laugh by using it to demonstrate the impact 1976 had on him (see video above).

In the end Rush lost out to 12 Years a Slave in Best Motion Picture (Drama) category, while Daniel Bruhl also missed on the Best Supporting Actor prize. Both the film and Bruhl are in contention at the BAFTA Awards next month, and meanwhile the Academy Award nominations are eagerly awaited.

Marussia has finally confirmed that Max Chilton will remain with the team this year, after the Briton was named on FIA entry list on Friday.

Team sources confirmed to this blog before the end of the season that Chilton would be staying, and the only surprise is how long the official word has taken to come through. Indeed the John Booth quote in the press release sounds like it’s been on file for a while.

It’s the first time that Marussia starts the season without at least one rookie in its line-up.

“Continuity is important for the team but also for me as a driver,” said Chilton. “You learn such a lot in your debut season, but the second year is when you can really pull all of those new experiences together and show your true potential. That has always been the case for me in the junior categories and I’ll be aiming for a similar step in my second year of F1 competition. I would like to thank the Marussia F1 Team for their continued faith and support. They are a great bunch of people who are extremely hard-working and ambitious and I can’t wait to embark on our 2014 season challenge together.”

Team principal Booth added: “In view of next year’s regulation changes, continuity is key, so it is highly beneficial to our technical team that we retain the same driver line-up moving forward. Max had an impressive debut season last year and, of course, achieved a new rookie record for finishing all 19 races.

“He can be justifiably proud of the progress he made through the course of 2013. With our race driver line-up complete we can now focus all of our attentions on our 2014 car and moving the Marussia F1 Team to the next level. After our success in achieving 10th place in the Constructors’ Championship, we have set our sights on a bigger and better 2014 campaign.”

The FIA has issued a 2014 World Championship entry list, giving us a first proper look at the numbers chosen by the drivers.

The list also confirms Max Chilton at Marussia, although the team has yet to make a formal announcement. No names are listed as yet for Caterham.

Sebastian Vettel has chosen 5, but has opted to use 1 as reigning World Champion, while perhaps the most unusual choice is that of 13 by Pastor Maldonado. The lowest numbers still available are 2, 4, 9, 10 and 12.

For clarity The drivers are listed below in number order – on the official entry they are still in team order.

1 Sebastian VETTEL (RBR)
3 Daniel RICCIARDO (RBR)
(5 – Reserved by Vettel)
6 Nico ROSBERG (Mercedes)
7 Kimi RAIKKONEN (Ferrari)
8 Romain GROSJEAN (Lotus)
11 Sergio PEREZ (Force India)
13 Pastor MALDONADO (Lotus)
14 Fernando ALONSO (Ferrari)
17 Jules BIANCHI (Marussia)
19 Felipe MASSA (Williams)
20 Kevin MAGNUSSEN (McLaren)
21 Esteban GUTIERREZ (Sauber)
22 Jenson BUTTON (McLaren)
25 Jean Eric VERGNE (STR)
26 Daniil KVYAT (STR)
27 Nico HULKENBERG (Force India)
44 Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)
77 Valtteri BOTTAS (Williams)
99 Adrian SUTIL (Sauber)
TBA Max CHILTON (Marussia)

French authorities held a press conference in Albertville this morning in order to give more details of their investigation into Michael Schumacher’s accident.

Although relatively little emerged, prosecutor Patrick Quincy did clarify a few points.

Quincy said: “Every winter season we have about 50 accidents of this nature, and we always use the same methods and we give the same attention to detail to everything we do.”

He confirmed that a video from Schumacher’s GoPro helmet camera has played a big part in the investigation. He said it was “perfectly clear,” and had been used to help with reconstructing the accident. Michael was 8m off the piste when he struck a rock.

Quincy said: “He followed the red piste and he went off piste. He is evidently an extremely good skier, but one of his skis hit a rock that was sticking out of the piste, and it caused him to fall and he hit his head on a rock. The rock that he hit is eight metres from the piste. His position after he fell was nine metres from the piste.

“We examined the film that was realised from his helmet. This film is perfectly clear and gives us a lot of information, and it confirms all the information that we already had. We used this film to do a reconstruction of the accident.”

Quincy added that the video lasted two minutes and that there was no sign of Michael stopping to help anyone who had fallen over. It was said earlier this week that Michael had assisted the daughter of a friend, and had crashed just after restarting.

There has been no sign of a phone video reportedly taken by a bystander and showing the accident in the background, and Quincy said he doubted that it existed.

It was also confirmed that Michael’s skis were in “perfect condition,” and had not contributed to the accident, but had been damaged by contact with the rock.

It was said that Michael’s exact speed was not yet clear, but he had slowed when he began to turn. Speed was not regarded as an important factor.

Quincy stressed that the marking of the piste was a significant part of the investigation, and added that it was too early to say whether there was an fault on the part of the resort. He would not comment on whether Schumacher had been careless when he went off-piste.

However, asked about the possibility of legal proceedings, he said he “cannot see that at the moment.”

Rush has received four British Academy Film Awards nominations, including one for Outstanding British Film.

Only six other films have received a higher number of nominations this year.

Already nominated for a Golden Globe, Daniel Bruhl has once again been named in the Best Supporting Actor category. The other nominations are for Editing (Ron Howard’s long time team of Dan Hanley and Mike Hill), and Sound.

The British film category is a tough one, as it includes Gravity, Mandela: Long Walk to Fredom, Philomena, Saving Mr Banks and The Selfish Giant. The nomination is a good reminder that despite all the talk about ‘Hollywood goes F1’ Rush was a British production, albeit with an American director and some German technical input.

Bruhl’s opposition includes Matt Damon (Behind the Candelabra), Bradley Cooper (American Hustle), Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave) and Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips).

The ceremony takes place in London on February 16.