Sutil involved in “brawl” in Chinese nightclub

F1 Fanatic round-up

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In the round-up: Sutil involved in a brawl in Shanghai.

Links

Top F1 links from the past 24 hours:

Lewis Hamilton escorted from Chinese nightclub brawl (The Times, subscription required)

Lewis Hamilton had to be escorted from a nightclub after a brawl involving Adrian Sutil, the Force India driver, and a senior official of the Lotus Renault team. ”

Renault F1 2011 rare video (YouTube)

More footage showing the Renault’s side exhausts at work in the rain:

Texas Taxpayers Finance Formula One Auto Races as Schools Dismiss Teachers (Bloomberg)

“Comptroller Susan Combs has agreed to pay $25 million for races through 2022, a subsidy questioned by critics and lawmakers as the state cuts costs to close an estimated $15 billion two-year deficit.”

F1 diary: Turkish Grand Prix (Daily Telegraph)

“Sunday mornings still pass in a blur?? and it’s impossible not to be distracted by a volley of support races: GP2, in particular, is relentlessly entertaining. The cars are a handful of seconds shy of their grand prix counterparts but cost about 1/25th as much to run. F1 has made serious savings in recent years, but there must be scope for further reductions”

Renault seeks to expand engine supply (Autosport)

“The goal is to have more teams next year. We want to have four teams but we need to have the approval from the FIA, because the limit is only three.”

Virgin on Twitter

“We are running a straight-line aero test at Idiada this weekend. Adrian Quaife-Hobbs, one of the Marussia Manor GP3 drivers will be driving.”

Via the F1 Fanatic live Twitter app

We must keep going down this road (Ferrari)

“On Sunday morning in Istanbul there was a serious accident in the GP2 race, which involved our driver, Davide Rigon. I’m very sorry for him as he will have to stop racing for a while. We hope that he recovers soon – and I say that also for selfish reasons because he was doing precious work for us in the simulator.”

Turkish Delight – LRGP surprises Adrian Newey (Renault)

Jean Alesi: “I was watching the post race coverage on RAI (Italian TV and F1 host broadcaster), they had an exclusive interview with Red Bull Racing’s Chief Technical Officer Adrian Newey and they asked him what had surprised him most this season and he said Lotus Renault GP and the clever exhaust system. Newey is widely regarded to be at the top of his game and to have him say this about the R31 is just fantastic!”

United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety launched to save five million lives (McLaren)

“Prime Minister David Cameron joins Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button in calling for urgent action as road deaths set to become a bigger killer than HIV/AIDs.”

Follow F1 news as it breaks using the F1 Fanatic live Twitter app.

Comment of the day

Ben N is a frustrated Michael Schumacher fan:

I have my fingers crossed for him literally every qualifying, every race and even practice sessions. I feature him in my predictions for various competitions more through hope than real judgement and I am completely devastated to see such a true legend fall from grace so publicly and, dare I say it, in a slightly humiliating way.

He has done nothing in that Mercedes car that, say, Heidfeld or Glock couldn’t have done and at times he has looked desperate. His moves against Barrichello in Hungary and Massa in Canada last year and now this on Petrov show that he does not know when to give up. Obviously his moves on Hill and Villeneuve were similarly unsporting, but also understandable. I think Michael needs to realise the difference between fighting tooth and nail for a drivers’ championship and fighting tooth and nail for 12th or 13th place in a mid-season Grand Prix.

This may seem harsh but I assure you I am a huge fan of his – it just pains me to see him so far down the order. I hope he can pick up the pace and salvage some of his comeback with a podium or even a top three grid position!
Ben N

From the forum

Looking ahead to the Le Mans 24 Hours.

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But in case you ever should do, Gurmit has designed a marvellous cartoon illustration for the 404 page.

Here it is. Look out for another example of Gurmit’s work on the site soon and find more of his F1 cartoons here.

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Happy birthday to Steven!

On this day in F1

Ayrton Senna won the Monaco Grand Prix for McLaren 20 years ago today.

It was his fourth consecutive win at the start of the 1991 season. Despite his dominant start to the year, Nigel Mansell reeled him in during the middle part of the season to set up a closely-fought battle for the championship.

A worthwhile reminder for anyone who thinks Sebastian Vettel has already got this year’s title won.

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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113 comments on “Sutil involved in “brawl” in Chinese nightclub”

  1. Are you being serious?! The title of The Times article is “Lewis Hamilton escorted from Chinese nightclub brawl”, yet you publicise Sutil’s involvement in the your round up title?! That’s just bad journalism.

    1. surely, just by reading the full quote, you can see that Lewis Hamilton leaving the nightclub has nothing to do with Sutil being involved in a brawl.

      Now, I haven’t read the article, but i’m judging that by what it says on this round up.

      I see no bad journalism here – just a lack of reading the quotation properly

    2. It’s official then…

      That’s disapointing, Lewis and Adrian are meant to be good mates.

      1. Oh, so Lewis wasn’t actually involved in the ‘rammy’ then.

        1. No, I have read the full Times article.

          Here are some quotes:

          Lewis Hamilton had to be escorted from a nightclub after a brawl involving Adrian Sutil, the Force India driver, and a senior official of the Lotus Renault team.

          It is understood the fight broke out in the MINT nightclub in Shanghai last month as Hamilton celebrated his first victory of the season at the Chinese Grand Prix. Eyewitnesses say they saw Lux fleeing a private VIP room containing Formula One revellers with blood streaming from his neck. Seconds later, Hamilton was escorted from the room by nightclub security guards. McLaren confirmed that Hamilton was not involved and calmly went on to play golf the day after the incident.

          One witness who saw the incident said last night: “Lewis had no idea what was happening. Adrian and Eric were arguing in German and the next thing it was happening. Lewis did not even see it because it went off so quickly, but he thought it was better to get out of the way and he was quite upset when he was told what had happened.”

          http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/sport/formulaone/article3015651.ece

          1. Thanks to both for the articles, it was sad but interesting.

        2. No I get the feeling that it was Sutil and Lux having a bit of a scuffle and Lewis rightly getting out of there before it could become a big scene.

          1. Yeah, this just shows a British newspaper puts a Hamilton in the headline when the real action was about Sutil and Mr. Lux (but without any further information from either of them to support the story).

            Sensible to get other VIP guest out of there ASAP when a brawl goes bad.

          2. Exactly. If it was Hamilton who was involved in the scuffle it would have caused a media circus, so his people did the right thing by getting him out of there as soon as it kicked off.

      2. Who is to say it was those two who had a disagreement? Perhaps it was Lewis and Adrian who brawled against the Renault engineer?

        Whatever the case, a bad bit of press for F1. F1 drivers are athletes who I’ve always seen as highly professional. Dont often here much about this sort of stuff coming from F1 – Normally football and rugby.

        1. There was no Renault engineer involved – it was the Chief Executive of Genii Capital.

          1. Those Genii people remind me of thugs anyway, so I’m hardly surprised.
            Don’t understand why the Times had to tie Hamilton into it though.

    3. No it’s not, Sutil is an F1 driver aswell so therefore it deserves publicity, the fact that the article in question is titled about Hamilton’s exit and not the brawl is bad journalism.

      1. The title from the Times is about Hamilton because people in the UK won’t really know of Sutil.

        1. What a bunch of nonsense. Thats not the reason, its just poor form on the medias behalf.

          The logical way around that would be “F1 driver involved in brawl in Chinese nightclub”

          1. THe words/phrases ‘Hamilton’ and ‘Formula 1’ are synonomous in the British media. They may as well mean the same thing.

          2. TommyB89 is perfectly right, the newspaper is trying to get people to read it. That means they are only ever going to try and mix Lewis and controversy.

        2. There are those in the UK who probably never even heard of Hamilton because F1 isn’t their thing.
          The article heading is a fraud because, if it had claimed Hamilton had to leave a night club after a brawl broke out, readers would simply assume, Hamilton was avoiding a bad situation.
          But when they use the word escorted, it has the connotation of being involved in the brawl, and either being thrown out, or was escorted out by security.

          Whichever way you look at it, it is associating a public figure with something he isn’t remotely involved in, and is tantamount to a smear campaign.

          1. I mean the Times Article heading, is a fruad, and not the F1fanatic heading, which actually got it right.

        3. As Hamilton apparently isn’t involved, and as British apparently don’t know Sutil, they could have not reported the fact at all.

          1. And then be bashed for “husing it up” by people who read it elsewhere :-( its not fair.

      2. It depends which way you look at it, the media want attention to it so they mention Lewis’s name in it.

    4. Michael Griffin
      12th May 2011, 0:30

      Christian, the bad journalism is on the part of The Times, not Keith.

      The “brawl” involved Sutil, not Hamilton, yet because Hamilton happened to be in the same club, he gets preference in the headline.

    5. Sutil was involved in the brawl, Hamilton was escorted from it.

      Perfectly valid journalism on Keith’s part. The actual protagonist of the story gets the headline on F1 Fanatic. In the Times, it’s the non-involved more famous driver who gets the headline.

      That’s because the Times is all about sensationalism, and for F1 Fanatic?

      “Just the facts, maam, just the facts.”

      1. nice quote… from Dragnet, although Joe Friday actually never said that, it was Bruce Willis in Die Hard that made it famous by saying “just the fax maam, just the fax” when using the fax machine in the airport.

        1. Joe Friday did say “All we want are the facts, ma’am”.

          The expression was famous before the Bruce Willis take on it, which was of course funny because everyone knew the expression already.

    6. Sutil says it was an accident. Here’s an article that doesn’t need registration: http://www.pitpass.com/43573-Rumours-swirl-around-Sutil-nightclub-brawl

      1. Yes, he accidentally rammed glass into Eric Lux’s neck giving him 20 stitches.

        I call that aggravated assault, assault with a deadly weapon, or attempted murder,
        but he can call it an accident if he likes.

        1. That is bad from Sutil if the story is true that he is involved in the incident.

        2. Accidents can happen, if you’re waving your hands around with a glass etc. But im also reading it was a champagne bottle. Extremely poor form from Sutil if this is true

        3. Agreed. Not exactly the way you expect a concert pianist…I mean a top line F1 driver, to behave is it.

          1. This is probably just the final straw for Sutils career. I would be really surprised if any top team would want him.

            Maybe if he continuously beats DiResta from now on, he can stay at FI.

            In this sport you have to be able to control your emotions, and your muscles. So even if it’s an accident (which I have trouble understanding. Exactly how you can injure somebody so badly that he still wears bandages three weeks later, in a nightclub with a glass, by accident?), even if it’s an accident, it is of the same ‘quality’ as opening up your DRS too early (Australia) or some of his other crashes. He is too uncontrolled.

            If I were a teamboss (if only!), I would never consider him anymore.

        4. What happened to going toe-to-toe with a few fisticuffs to sort out the problem? Cut lip, black eye, sat on your bum and you have lost the argument.

          Glassing is a cowardly act, like kicking someone once they are down on the ground. I have lost any respect I had for Sutil.

          Sounds like Hamilton’s minders did like the Secret Service guys do with the US president in movies – when they hear a car backfire, assume its a gun, and get the hell out of there first then ask questions later. After what happened to Button in Brazil last year, can’t blame them for taking the safety first option.

          Bad journalism by the paper, good work by the minders

          1. I have lost any respect I had for Sutil.

          2. I think we are over reacting, things happen, even if they are not very good, we need to give him a break.

        5. It sounds like maybe he got too drunk, and possibly clumsily aggressive when asked to calm down; the glass might even have broken unintentionally. Still sounds like bad publicity for him regardless.

          1. Especially with him driving very much an Alcohol advert car! Watch your drinking Adrian.

      2. And another link from a Shanghai social website… Worth keeping an eye on as the club it has happened in is very popular with those who read these sites and the comments sections usually get a lot of hits…

        http://shanghaiist.com/2011/05/12/f1_driver_adrian_sutil_in_bar_fight.php

    7. No, the bad journalism is the Times headline – the actual incident involved Sutil and Eric Lux, but Hamilton’s bodyguards got him out of there as soon as trouble hit. Linking Hamilton to this in such a way is journalism at its worst, and it seems readers have fallen for it.

    8. As far as I’m concerned (and as other people have pointed out) the most interesting element of the story is that an F1 driver was involved in a brawl.

      I’m not going to pretend that I would never play up the most interesting aspect of an article in a headline to encourage people to read it (we had a discussion about this elsewhere recently). And a story about Lewis Hamilton is always going to attract more clicks than a story about Adrian Sutil.

      But in this case I don’t find the Hamilton angle very compelling and had I gone with it I expect I would have received a lot of justified criticism in the comments. Not something that “Times” writers have to worry about, as they hardly get any comments even on a story like this. (Having said that, I checked the story again and, sure enough, it has just two comments and one of them is complaining about the Hamilton angle.)

      1. according to french newspaper, sutil and hamilton arrived together in the club. Lux was already there. sutil seemed to have had an incorrect attitude. Lux told him to calm down which the german driver didn’t like. he struck lux to the throat with a glass of champagne. Hamilton was escorted away, sutil apparently left immediately to take a flight to europe and escape from the chinese authorities.
        20 stitches for Lux.
        and i guess some troubles for sutil…

        1. Sounds like a great reason to pull him and put in the HULK.

          Except that didnt happen of course, but now that the story is out…? Its a shame it took a month to surface in the western media.

  2. Love the picture!

    For a second I thought the Coalition had struck a compromise and put two neutral parties, Jenson and Lewis in charge! It’s not like they know any less about running the country…

    Sadly that Austin article was entirely predictable.

    I don’t understand why 25 people in Austin could not put up $1 million each if they thought this was a good opportunity instead of the state making a $25 million commitment
    Senator Dan Patrick

    Well, why don’t you find 25 millionaires who think education is important to even it up then? I don’t mean to be facetious (well, I do a little), but it’s such a narrow-minded way of looking at things. As the article says, that $25million would pay for less than 1% of the teachers being fired. I’m not saying F1 is more important than education, but they’re two completely different parts of the budget. What’s more the race will bring in jobs, tourism and other revenue. I don’t know why I’m focusing on this one thing, but…argh! ;)

    I wonder if Sutil will now have to be babysat by Hamilton to make sure he’s a good boy…

    1. My thoughts exactly (talking about the Austin matter).

    2. Well, why don’t you find 25 millionaires who think education is important to even it up then? I don’t mean to be facetious (well, I do a little)

      If I had a spare 1 million dollars to spend I wouldn’t give it to the F1 circus, It’d feel unethical, I’d give it to a children’s charity, or maybe a puppy orphanage.

      Cos you know, who doesn’t like puppies?, or perhaps i’d give it to scientist so they could figure out what makes puppies so lovable, then we could harvest the happy of dog infants.

      I wonder if Sutil will now have to be babysat by Hamilton to make sure he’s a good boy…

      He gets into fights on track and off the track, at least he’s consistent.

      What with slamming into Ferrari’s and Red bulls over the years and now actually having a punch up with the Number 2 of a team I see Sutil’s career opportunities diminishing faster than my San Miguel on holiday.

      1. Actually if I had that money to spare, I would probably invest it in education of some sort.

        Seems there is a lot wrong with education virtually everywhere, but it certainly will not make a difference weather 25 million extra is spended.
        It needs a complete rething of what to actually teach and how to motivate both teachers and students as well as their parents, companies and governments to do that. But that is a different subject altogether I suppose.

        1. i think you’re right. I work for a charity in Tanzania and i’m the only person around here who knows what F1 is, let alone follows it.
          If i had $1 million, then unfortunately motor racing, no matter how special to me, would be the last of my concerns. I could singlehandedly change the face of education in northern Tanzania with that kind of money. I’ certainly be running a computer centre with newer computers and be providing super fast satellite link internet at the very least.

          1. Well I guess, it might be worth using some sport with technical aspects to get everyone interested.
            Maybe getting the F1 at schools into it as well etc, would be wonderfull, but I have no clue of how to manage that. And for Tanzania I guess it would rather be targetted at something more down to earth and readily available.
            Computer acces sounds good, did you see that nice USB stick-PC idea?

      2. Cos you know, who doesn’t like puppies?

        kittens?

    3. Actually F1 can probalby benefit education by having more people wanting to get in there. And the facility certainly is involved with local university to support education.

      Not to mention, that the money will be earned back by VAT from visitors spending.

      1. Grant Gordon
        12th May 2011, 8:46

        This argument would be far more compelling if other governments hosting races weren’t considering dropping their support for F1 after years of substantial financial loss.

        Icthyes: Suggesting that education should be privately funded and could just as easily be funded as a sport that is made up of some of the richest people in the world shows a) a complete disregard for the importance of education and b) a total dissonance from reality. Nevermind the absurd claim that the money comes from other parts of the budget so ‘that’s just hunky-dory’, the fact of the matter is that if you’re spending money on one thing, you’re not spending it on another.

        You’ve scoffed at the amount, saying it’s only a tiny percentage of what it would cost to keep the teacher’s that are likely to be fired, and it is, but you’ve lost all sense of perspective. That amount would pay for 500 teachers for a year, just let that sink in a moment, 500 teaches for a year. Given, say, 30 students per class and each teacher only teaching one class, that’s 15000 students who would get a better education. 15000 students. Is it worth it so that a few rich Texans can rub shoulders with some F1 celebrities in the paddock?

        F1 certainly can’t be blamed for the current problems Texas faces with regards to education. There are plenty of things wrong with the state of Texas education, not all or even most important are financial, but F1 fans should be aware and not dismiss issues like this so callously.

        1. Grant, not saying USD 25 million could not be used to great effect in education, but your argument does not stick.

          I know that payment of teachers is not generally very good at all. But surely its not about getting more kids into schools in the USA?
          Rather the problem is the quality of what they get out of that. Part of the problem is pay (being to low to feed the family) but I would argue the bigger problem is motivation of everyone involved and methods used are a far tougher problem to solve.

          What Hellmund is doing in Austin could be used very effectively to get young kids motivated to be enthusiastic about learning things. Something every teacher will revell at for sure.

          1. Grant Gordon
            12th May 2011, 9:28

            Poor phrasing on my part, I didn’t mean to imply that those children would otherwise not be in school, but rather the quality of their education would suffer due to over crowding. I think you’ll find that most any teacher that you speak to will bemoan trying to teach classes of large numbers and will tell you that with smaller classes they’d be able to offer a much higher quality of education.

            As you point out, and as I stated in my initial post, there are many many problems facing the education sector today which need to be addressed. In terms of my response to your comment, I was only really addressing the point you made about the money being earned back. The bulk of my post was directed at those that simply dismissed the issue and the senator’s concerns as little more than just wanting to spoil our fun.

        2. Icthyes: Suggesting that education should be privately funded and could just as easily be funded as a sport that is made up of some of the richest people in the world

          Which isn’t what I said at all. I just knew I’d get a reply like this.

          1. Grant Gordon
            12th May 2011, 9:40

            My apologies, you’re absolutely correct, the way I phrased it is setting up a bit of a strawman. I certainly didn’t get the impression that you were at all advocating that education be privately funded and unfortunately that is the way it comes across in my initial post. I actually rewrote that section several times as I stumbled over my words to convey what I meant. I do feel though that the second part of that sentence is still valid.

            Well, why don’t you find 25 millionaires who think education is important to even it up then?

            The above quote is interpreted by me as putting both F1 and education on an equal footing when it comes to funding since you’re using it as a direct counter to people saying that $25 million needed for the F1 race to go ahead could be raised by funds provided from the private sector.

            Again, my main issue was that it came across as you dismissing it as nothing more than pointless complaining on the senator’s part.

          2. Sorry for giving that impression. I shouldn’t write flippant statements if I don’t want them answered as if they were serious!

          3. Grant Gordon
            12th May 2011, 10:27

            Looks like we’re running out of thread depth. I tend to assume people are being serious since there are a lot of people out there who very clearly are. A variant of Poe’s Law perhaps?

        3. Okay, you deserve a proper answer.

          The Senator’s criticism is a classic case of highlighting an insignificant part of the budget as a populist way of getting votes by making it look like he cares about the cuts to the things that matter to people. If he was really that passionate he would concentrate on the cuts themselves instead of an amount of money for something that is puny in comparison, because he knows even if that money was saved it would make an insignificant dent on the problem.

          As anyone knows from living in the country for the past 14 years, pumping more money into education is not the be-all. Research has even questioned the accepted truth that smaller class sizes are better for education. And the amount of times I’ve heard my American friends say that they learned nothing in school, it’s almost like money down the drain compared to a jobs creator. The US and UK should be focusing more on targeted spending instead of simple numbers, but then I guess politicians are always going to appeal to the things their electorate thinks look better – which is exactly what the Senator is doing.

          1. Grant Gordon
            12th May 2011, 10:17

            Thanks for the response, I certainly have a little more insight into your position. I’m certainly not naive enough to think that the senator doesn’t have political motivations or that there are not a plethora of other, far bigger problems. However, I’ve never liked the argument of “Why are you focusing on this, there’s a bigger issue over there”, to me it is just a way of avoiding the substance of an argument. It also smacks of defeatism, “it’s only going to make a small impact so why even bother”.

            Do I think that the problems can be solved just by throwing money at them? Of course not. And if I thought bringing the F1 circus to Texas would be an economic boon and be the job creator that you elude to, then I would certainly be more supportive, but judging by the fact that other countries who host Formula 1 races are posting significant losses year after year, I’m not sure that would be the case. It appears to me that there are a lot of areas that this money can be used, given the deficit Texas currently suffers, government funding is at a premium, and funding something like F1 should be low on the totem pole.

            There’s an interesting discussion here and whatever the motivations of the person bringing it up, I think it’s worth exploring.

          2. Yes, you are right to worry because of other countries making losses. I just happen to be optimistic for Texas because it won’t just be a race in the desert with some palm trees. Austin is building up a small reputation over here already.

          3. Grant Gordon
            12th May 2011, 10:34

            Well I certainly do hope it is a success and the money turns out to be well spent and benefits the texan population.

            Getting back to our scheduled F1 discussions, I also hope that the track is interesting in terms of design and layout. From what I understand, there is a fair amount of space to play with, rather than having to design the track around existing features, so hopefully they’ll make the most of it. And certainly it would be good for the sport if they can get a successful and popular race in the US.

    4. If Formula 1 wants to start off on the right foot in America, why don’t they pass the hat and donate $25 million a year to a Texas education fund? There are plenty of millionaires (and billionaires) in the paddock. It would generate a ton of positive PR for the sport.

      Okay, you can stop laughing now.

  3. I hope I get a 404!
    That cartoon looks like the fan designed HRT in your websites colours!

    1. It’s probably too.

      1. Meant to say probably faster too… Sorry, long night in the library. This is a form of procrastination :)

  4. I knew as soon as i saw Hamilton mentioned in that, people were gonna go mad. Oh well, he was at the club, wasn’t involved in the brawl. So what I want to know is what’s going on between FI and Renault..

    1. Bit sad for him that his victory celebration ended up being cut short in a very troublesome way!

  5. Sound like it was not much of a brawl. I bet we will never know what really happened. Sounds like it is getting pushed under the rug quickly.

    1. Sutil supposedly ended up cutting Eric Lux (Genii Capital CEO), requiring him to take 20 stitches.

      Sounds like a bigger dustup to me.

    2. Oh, we most certainly will know what happened, because I have a picture of the incident:
      http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/5281/13198sutil.png

      Sorry for jesting if I actually got your hopes up.

  6. I wish we could have those old F1 cars back!

    1. I’m pretty sure you can by DVD’s of the old races. Why not watch those again and again?

    1. I did something like that too! :P

    2. Love it. Great idea Keith and thank you Gurmit

      1. Nice one :-)

    3. Great work Gurmit!

  7. Gurmit good job with all the cartoon you have done on F1.Keep it up.

  8. Love the error 404 pic :D! superb.

    Also, amaizing video there, with the Renault!

    1. Haha yeah the pic is awesome, shame I never see it haha.

  9. The title from the Times is about Hamilton because people in the UK won’t really know of Sutil.

    Yeah, other than LH, JB and PDiR we have zero clue of anyone else. I always thought F1 races where just a three horse race every fortnight. Please don’t belittle us. Thank you.

    1. it’s the same here in Australia. F1 only gets a mention if Webber’s involved. So frustrating

    2. I don’t think he meant to belittle you. I don’t think this article title is aimed at you, I think it is aimed at the general sports fan who may have no idea who all the other drivers are.

      1. In Canada, we’d call him Joe Sixpack. He’s heard of that F1 thing and he’s heard of “That Homilton guy” and maybe something like “Fernando Vettel”.

        The times article is designed to pull in those who feed on tabloid nonsense. It’s just a pitty it’s such a popular form of media.

  10. Renault’s exhaust clip is very interesting. I love rain.

  11. Congrats Gurmit, very nice.

  12. Does anyone expect anything other than shoddy journalism from a News Corp paper? Here in Australia, the News LTD papers are completely focused on Mark Webber.

    1. If anything the Melb Herald Sun is completely focused on AFL Football. Which is why I always visit this great site for F1 articles

      1. Urgh, AFL. I won’t even start.

      2. The Herald Sun actually has a lot more F1 than other News LTD papers. The Courier Mail frequently has NRL on both the front and the back. Any mention of Webber or F1 is simply there to fill up surplus column-inches.

  13. Steven, a Happy Birthday to you!

  14. Interesting follow up on the NewsCorp/Exor/Slim move to take over F1.

    I must say, I am curious to learn in time what their idea of how F1 would work and be promoted constitues of.

    1. Next to that, it makes fun reading how this NewsCorp affliated reporting crosses swords with Bernie cosy pitpass about weather a bid will/will not be made and should be excepted.

    2. Pitpass had an interesting article which posited that Newscorp is just doing it in an attempt to quietly drum up investment for a purchase of BskyB, and that exor would be involved in a runaround way to try and increase Ferrari’s stake in the upcoming Concorde.

      Not that I know anything about this, but it does seem that CVC have a pretty water-tight hold on things with a veto right over any minority shareholder selling their stake to an un-approved party (which news corp seem to be).

      Should be quite interesting to see how it all plays out.

      1. Hi, that was exactly what i was talking about for beating their own (or Bernies) drum.

        Certainly News Corp et all would buy the stakes from CVC and Bernie (i.e. the majority of voting rights and ownership) for all companies if they were to take over. That is what a take-over means.

        For now no offer has been made and therefore no sale is being conducted. And CVC did confirm it had heard of Murdochs intent of working on an offer in due time and consideration.

        In other words, this is the start of something that will certainly have to do with the Concorde agreement (without it there isn’t any worth to the whole franchise) and it looks as if Bernie is not liking it.

  15. Reminds me of 1991, when Bertrand Gachot sprayed CS gas at a taxi driver and lost his seat at Jordan.

    A seat which was filled by a certain M. Schumacher of course… I wonder if Hulkenberg will get a go in that Force India after all? ;)

    1. The most disturbing thing about he incident is that Sutil skipped town. He may have escaped the Chinese caribnieri by jumping on a plane real fast, but China is not the only jurisdiction where he might face trouble. Other legal authorities, say German ones or other EU countries, may want to look into the issue, espeically if Lux complains to them. It’s a really sad situation for a guy that otherwise seemed like a decent fellow.

      1. I believe Gachot also tried to leave the country, but Her Majesty’s PC Plod caught him at the airport :)

  16. It is interesting that the FIA who have talked about paying greater interest on the conduct of F1 drivers outside of the races, is trying very hard not to know about the incident.

    1. That’s because their concern is in the behaviour of drivers / teammembers / officials on the road.

      If Max Mosley had been drunk driving instead of playing in a basement he would have been ousted.

  17. A particularly good round-up today!

    That video of the R31 is fantastic. Brilliant insight.

    The comment about GP2 costing 1/25th – the teams aren’t in a development race given that it’s the same chassis across the field.

    That 404 image is brilliant!

    There are nowhere near enough bar fights in F1. I wouldn’t like to be clubbed with a wooden chair by say, Vitaly Petrov. He’s big.

    1. The comment about GP2 costing 1/25th – the teams aren’t in a development race given that it’s the same chassis across the field.

      And they want to bring back testing!

  18. It also looks like we will have to wait till after Monaco to hear what the judge thinks of the Lotus naming and licence case.

    1. I wonder what happens if Team Lotus wins? It won’t stop Group Lotus branding Renault because it’s legitimate sponsorship.

      1. Nothing I shouldn’t think; as you say, Lotus Cars will still be able to sponsor LRGP and we’ll continue to have two Lotus teams on the grid (albeit one with a chassis called Renault).

        They’re different companies. I think the argument is over the right to call the chassis a “Lotus”.

      2. Not too sure of that. If the rights were to use all reference of Lotus in connection with F1 originally they might not be allowed to do so without Fernandez previous consent.
        Not to mention that terminated licencing agreement for Lotus Racing would certainly have stated GL are not allowed to do something like sponsor another team.

        And it would mean GL has to refrain from using all references to team lotus success as their own including that JPS-esque livery on the Renault car (unless Fernandes lets them continue …)

        But lets wait for a desicion by the Judge, as its all just speculation.

  19. Mark Hitchcock
    12th May 2011, 15:50

    I’m surprised the injuries to Rigon were so serious. It was a big impact, but there have been bigger ones. Just unlucky I suppose.

  20. sw6569…It was terrible and typical of the shoddy so-called journalism, which can be expected to be applied to Lewis.

  21. Really sad there’s no excuse for cutting someone’s throat in a night club. Anyone who would doesn’t deserve to live free let alone drive grand prix cars. Easily the most disapointing thing i have ever heard an f1 driver do.

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