There is also talk that the Enstone team has landed a major sponsorship deal. One source has suggested that this might be from the Unilever consumer goods company, which has a wide-ranging portfolio of products in the food, beverage, personal care and cleaning sectors, including such brand names as Ben & Jerry, Dove, Flora, Hellman’s, Knorr, Lipton, Lux, Omo, Surf, Rexona, Sure and many others. It is not clear whether any of these are a good fit with F1, although a hair care product might work with Kimi Raikkonen. Unilever is the world’s third-largest consumer goods company after Procter & Gamble and Nestlé, but none of them has had a big presence in the sport. It will be interesting to see if the stories are true.

The team has just announcDe a management reshuffle with Luxembourg-born Patrick Louis moving from his role as Chief Operating Officer to CEO, with Switzerland’s Thomas Mayer being appointed COO.

“Thomas comes to us with over 15 years’ professional experience,” says team boss Gerard Lopez. “He has an in-depth knowledge of running large operations incorporating production, logistics and organisational structuring. Our efforts are concerted behind our objective to be a contender once more for the 2015-16 championships, to continue the proud heritage of the 1994-95 and 2005-6 world championship titles achieved by Enstone.”

Elsewhere there have been whispers that Sauber is short on its 2012 budget and is hoping that its Mexican backers – basically the Slim Family – will be able to come up with more cash for the future.

Meanwhile in Spain, the word is that HRT has lost its head of production Simon Shinkins and that former HRT technical director Jacky Eeckelaert is also leaving as his contract finishes at the end of January.

On the subject of the Spanish team, a story has appeared in the German publication Kolner Express which claims to explain the strange behaviour of the HRT team in recent months. The newspaper says that it is all to do with the Catholic organisation known as Opus Dei. The story claims that Banco Popular took over the team after the Carabante Family failed to pay its debts and passed the team on Thesan Capital, a bunch of young bankers. The goal was to make some money by selling the team to Mexican Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world, who is currently providing funding for Sauber (see above). The middle man in this process is supposed to be Alejandro Agag, the son-in-law of former Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, who is well-connected in F1 circles. The story says that one of the founders of Banco Popular, Luis Valls-Taberner was also an early member of Opus Dei, having joined the organisation in 1945 when he met its founder, a priest called Jose Maria Escriva de Balaguer. Luis Perez Sala is Valls-Taberner’s grandson.

It all sounds wonderfully unlikely and mysterious and I am not even going to comment on the story as lots of Spaniards will get upset and start being rude. As I said before, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Kolles’s Kodewa has just been named as Lotus’s team in the LMP2 championship, running a Lotus-engined Lola coupe.
The car will run in the Lotus black and gold livery, although the design has been done by Daniel Simon, who liveried the HRT last year.

“This is a very exciting step for us, we made no secret of our intention to tackle LMP2 this year but it had to be done in the right way and we’re very happy with the set up with our partners,” said Group Lotus Director of Motorsport Claudio Berro. “More than anything else, we’re looking forward to our return to Le Mans in this capacity after our success with the Evora last year. The engine development is going well but there’s a lot to do over the coming weeks to ensure that the car is prepared for the intensive testing that we must undertake to ensure we’re ready to complete.”

Further details regarding drivers will be confirmed shortly.

It remains to be seen what Sutil can now do to revive his F1 career. He finished ninth in the World Championship last year, but has lost his Force India driver in 2012 to Nico Hulkenberg.

Check it out at http://f1mole.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/the-mole-goes-out-to-lunch/

“Sexy Softer Faster & Ready To Get Wet” was the headline, and the article began as follows: “Got your rubbers? Last week Pirelli slipped the silky black sheets off a new looking and sexy line up of rubber. Is rubber sexy now? Was it ever? If you love F1 and motor racing in general, the promise of better racing in 2012 should have you hot under the collar! So what has Pirelli given us that have most enthusiast licking their top lip and biting their bottom?”

Fabulous stuff… although the concept of Ferrari fans biting their own bottoms has had me laughing for the last hour…

The big news of the day was that former Force India driver Adrian Sutil appeared in court in Munich to answer charges about a nightclub brawl in Shanghai, which ended up with Lotus Renault GP executive Eric Lux having a glass stuck into his neck. This is not really an F1 story, but has had an effect on Sutil’s sporting career and so is worthy of mention. Sutil says it was an accident, which is a tough claim to believe. However a video will (apparently) reveal the level of aggression involved and from that conclusions can be drawn. Sutil told the court that he had tried to apologise and settle matters with Lux after the event but the Luxembourg-based individual had not accepted them and wanted to damage Sutil’s career. This is not really relevant to whether or not Sutil did what he is accused of doing. The question that is interesting in this unsavoury business is what it was that Lux said or did that provoked such a reaction, assuming that the court concludes it was not an accident. Whatever the outcome it is not going to be easy for Sutil to rebuild his F1 career. While one might conclude that it is really not fair for a driver to lose his employment after such a stellar year in 2011, one must also add that if one has been insulted (or whatever) it is better to ignore such behaviour if one is a public figure. At worst, Sutul might have punched Lux on the nose, but doing more than that (even by accident) is just not very intelligent.

From Italy comes a story that Ferrari is waiting for Robert Kubica to return to health and will then test him. Alas, I fear that this is largely wishful thinking. Every credible source that I have in Poland is saying that Robert’s primary battle is to be able to lead a normal life in the future. If he is lucky he might be able to compete in some form of motorsport, but I have yet to hear anyone suggest that there is any serious hope that he will get back to F1 in the future. It is a question of mechanics more than anything else. If Robert’s nerves, sinews and muscles are all working as they should be working then nobody really doubts that he has the drive and willpower to make a comeback in F1. But if things are not perfect and, for example, there are problems with rotating an arm in a certain way, or with the sensitivity of a hand, then it is very unlikely that he will ever be able to get back to where he was. It would be terribly sad if this was the case, as Robert is a man who was standing on the verge of major stardom. We will see what transpires, but it is not wise to get one’s hopes up at the moment. It is a year since the accident and that gives you an indication of just how serious the injuries were.

Elsewhere McLaren is playing down rumours that it will use a PURE engine in 2014. This is not a surprise. PURE is out looking for customers and McLaren is the primary team that might be available. But to put two and two together and make 22 is possibly not wise. Yes, McLaren might be looking for a new engine partner. No, the company is not about to invest in its own engine project (that costs too much). The logical path is to find a new manufacturer to supply engines (and cash). Honda is out there somewhere. For McLaren the decision will be all about mentality. If the engine partner really wants to win and has the cash to do it, then it is the right partner to have…

The team may say that it is happy with Mercedes-Benz, but then it would say that. As Mercedes has its own team and this cannot go on forever being beaten by its customers, it is safe to assume that McLaren is on the market.

Elsewhere there is controversy (apparently) over Alain Prost’s victory in the Trophée Andros with Jacques Villenuve complaining that Prost was allowed to repair his car after an incident between them. Jacques thinks the race should have been allowed to continue. Prost (and the officials) felt that Alain had been shoved off and so stopped the race.

“The way the finals unfolded nearly ruined everything,” said Prost. “That merely mirrored the behaviour that some of our rivals have shown this season. Winning for Dacia was important and we pulled it off.”

In recent days the weekly German business magazine WirtschaftsWoche has quoted the group’s motorsport chief Wolfgang Dürheimer saying that he is going to propose that the Volkswagen group enter Formula 1 in 2018. He did not give any further details, although there was speculation that the plan would probably be to become an engine supplier first and then, perhaps, take over a team. The speculation has yet to hit on the idea that Volkswagen owns the rights to the AutoUnion brand and that Mercedes-Benz and AutoUnion battling for success would be a replay of the famous era in the 1930s with their Silver Arrows. That could happen, but in the modern age of marketing it is more likely that a specific brand would be used, be that Audi, Volkswagen itself, Bugatti, Bentley, Lamborghini or Porsche. The thing that is interesting about Durheimer’s suggestion is that it is the first time that a leading VW figure has come up with a business case for F1. He did not even mention the value of the technology that might be developed creating one of the next generation F1 turbo engines, but rather concentrated his thinking on sales, arguing that based on the group’s sales targets in Americas, Asia and the Middle East, “we are not sufficiently represented in motorsport in these regions.” He went on to explain that F1 is really the only serious option when one is looking for global market penetration.

The Volkswagen group sold 8.2 million vehicles in 2011, it is likely to be named the second biggest car company by sales, after GM but ahead of Toyota later this year. Of these, 3.1 million cars were sold in western Europe, while 2.5 million were in Asia (of which China was responsible for about 2.26 million), but sales in India were only 110,000. Sales in Eastern Europe amounted to only 557,000, while the company sold 950,000 in Latin America, and a further 670,000 in the US and Canada. The remaining 325,000 were sold in other places, including the Middle East and Africa, although the Middle East accounted for only 11,000 Volkswagens.

Given that F1 is strong in Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, it is fair to say that Dürheimer is bang on in his assessment.

“I had no choice but to win today,” Prost said. “I had a good feeling with my car and the team’s hard work enabled us to perform strongly in qualifying. We couldn’t afford to put a foot wrong this weekend but we coped with everything very well.”

In the overall standings Prost beat Rivière by five points, while Jean-Philippe Dayraut (Mini Countryman) was just a point behind the Skoda driver. Olivier Panis was fourth overall. It is Prost’s third Trophée Andros title, following his successes with Toyota in 2007 and 2008.

“The chance to get track time during race weekends is an important step for me,” he said. “Being regularly in a current car is the best way to learn quickly and I hope it will put me in a strong position to one day move into a race seat. The next few months will be really exciting as I get to know the team, see how they work, and prepare for my time in the car.”

Bianchi will remain a member of the part Ferrari Driver Academy, along with Sergio Perez, Raffaele Marciello, Brandon Maisano and Lance Stroll. Davide Rigon has also recently extended his relationship with the team for all racing and promotional activities in 2012 and 2013.

Ferrari has no shortage of drivers if another is needed.

The situation at Force India is worrying in that it is a team with no visible means of support. It has been funded by Vijay Mallya’s various companies for the last few years, and has made significant losses, which have meant that he has been forced to seek assistance from elsewhere. Officially Subrata Roy Sahara is supposed to be bringing $100 million to the team in the next three years, in exchange for a percentage of the shares, but whether this is real money or virtual money (which is what Mallya seems to trade with) remains to be seen. Sahara and/or Mallya need money to pay bills in order for the team to have the freedom to do the job. This they have done very well in recent times, but the worry is that Mallya’s credit seems to have run out in his other businesses and no-one really understands what it is that Sahara does that earns him the kind of money that he seems willing to invest in Mallya’s businesses, despite them being anything but solid.

Late last year, the Toronto-based research group Veritas questioned Mallya’s accounting practices with Kingfisher Airlines, the way in which Mallya does business, the support he seems to be getting from the Indian government and concluded that “we do not believe that Kingfisher’s antics would have found any takers in a responsible credit market and that the airline would have been liquidated by now.” That may sound harsh, but one can see how that conclusion has been reached. It is impossible to say exactly how much money Kingfisher owes but there are secured loans of around $2.5 billion and perhaps the same kind of figure in unsecured loans, debts and tax arrears.

India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has warned Kingfisher that “a reasonable case exists for withdrawal of their airline operator permit (licence) as their financial stress is likely to impinge on safety”and issued a stern warning to the airline to take immediate action to resolve the lapses. The airline has been in trouble paying salaries, plane leases, fuel bills, interest on its debts, not to mention taxes and has been scaling back its operations rapidly, while the government (keen to avoid the embarrassment of a collapse) has been quietly helping out, changing the law to allow foreign carriers to buy up to 49 percent of the shares of its domestic operators. India is one of the world’s fastest growing markets in terms of passenger traffic, but the airlines lose money with every passenger. It is hoped that a large international company such as British Airways might use the opportunity (and its expertise) to get control of the business and then turn it around. This is all well and good, but is not going to mean money going into the F1 team. That will save Mallya’s face but is unlikely to feed his F1 habit.

I have touched on the question of Bahrain a few times and the signs are that this will once again become an issue for the F1 world as the opposition (no matter how small it may be) will be trying to use the planned Grand Prix in April as an opportunity to draw international attention to its complaints. The Bahrain government is working hard on its international PR and seems to be trying to win over hearts and minds amongst moderate Bahrainis with reforms, but what it cannot do is change what has happened in the past. The opposition is working hard to stir up trouble and the government has no choice but to react and this leads to renewed claims of government violence. The race is an obvious target for such activities, and was used for this purpose long before the current problems really began. It is naive to suggest that going ahead with the race will be possible without such a reaction. At the same time one can see the problem that the authorities have got themselves into. This week there are major problems being reported with the national airline Gulf Air, which has been hit by falling passenger numbers. It is scaling down its operations and hoping for government money to keep it afloat. One can feel a little sorry for the moderates in the government as they are trapped because of the radical actions taken last year. It may be that Bahrain cannot get rid of its extremists until there is a regime change, but even then there are no guarantees that the extremists will stop. They do not seem to be very interested in coming to the table to negotiate, despite claiming that all they want is peace. Be that as it may, this should not be Formula 1′s problem. F1 is a powerful marketing tool and a formidable money-making business, but it is only a game and the FIA has rules that should remove the sport from such troubles. The FIA Statutes state that the federation “shall refrain from manifesting racial, political or religious discrimination in the course of its activities and from taking any action in this respect”.

I do not want to see the Bahrain GP disappear from the F1 calendar, but at the same time the country is what it is and it must deal with its problems, and F1 should not be getting involved in trying to be part of a programme of national salvation. One can argue that there are abuses everywhere in the world and F1 still goes to these places, which is true, but it is not the point. In Bahrain the F1 race has been politicised, in most other places it has not. And where it is a political issue (such as in Melbourne) there are parliamentary debates rather than tear gas grenades versus Molotov cocktails.

The global economy remains troubled and increasingly that is filtering through F1′s buffer zones and beginning to have an effect on the sport’s money supply. Now, more than ever, the teams should be united and working towards a common goal, rather than quibbling over whether the team with the red hats should have more power than the guys in the grey hats.