Juan Pablo Montoya has once again taken a shot at Formula One, criticising the look of the 2012 cars. Montoya raced in F1 between 2001 and 2006, taking 7 wins for Williams and McLaren. In the middle of the 2006 season, Montoya quit McLaren with immediate effect to head across to NASCAR. The 36-year-old Columbian was asked by Switzerland's Motorsport Aktuell whether he regretted walking away from Formula One. "Not for a second," he said, "Of course I have some fond memories of Formula One, but I […]

The Italian press has pointed the finger at Vitaly Petrov's "rubles" as Jarno Trulli races out of Formula One. With Vitantonio Liuzzi replaced at HRT by Narain Karthikeyan, and veteran Trulli ousted at Caterham by Petrov, F1 history enters a new phase as Italy no longer has a single driver on the grid. "If you look," said former grand prix winner Riccardo Patrese to La Stampa, "the drivers coming in now are from central America and the East." The unsponsored Trulli, 37, said he still […]

Reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel has flagged his friend Kimi Raikkonen as a potential challenger to his throne in 2012. After becoming friends prior to Raikkonen's rallying switch two years ago, German Vettel has stayed in contact with the Finn, occasionally meeting in their domiciled Switzerland to play badminton. They did not manage to catch up at the Jerez test last week, but Red Bull's Vettel admitted the pace of Raikkonen's new Lotus caught his eye. "If it's as good as it seemed at Jerez, […]

Sebastian Vettel has signed up a new trainer. Last month, it emerged that the reigning back-to-back world champion was parting with Tommi Parmakoski, who is returning to Finland to coach a women's hockey team. German Vettel, the Red Bull driver, worked with Parmakoski since 2009. The Sport Bild magazine said the 24-year-old has replaced him for 2012 with another Finn, 28-year-old Heikki Huovinen. The German report said Huovinen - recommended to Vettel by Parmakoski - has a masters in sports science and has worked at […]

Adrian Sutil, and possibly Lewis Hamilton, will be heading to court later this month over a nightclub incident that occurred last April. German Sutil, who has lost his Force India drive and is reportedly now out of the running for the Williams seat, is accused of cutting Lotus team executive Eric Lux with a broken glass at a post-event party in China. The 29-year-old, who celebrated a birthday this week, will defend the Munich court's charge of grievous bodily harm, with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung […]

Fernando Alonso and his wife Raquel del Rosario have announced they are splitting. The Spaniard married del Rosario - lead singer for the Spanish rock band El Sueno de Morfeo - in 2006. Earlier this year, 30-year-old Alonso - who now drives for Ferrari - moved from Switzerland to return to his native Asturias. "We are separating from marriage, but never as friends", a joint statement issued by the couple said. "We ask that the media respects our personal lives which, as you know, we […]

There may be changes afoot behind the scenes at Force India, according to a veteran F1 newspaper correspondent. Roger Benoit, who has written for Switzerland's Blick for decades, has this week reported new "speculation" about the Silverstone based team. "Is (team boss and owner) Dr Vijay Mallya in real financial trouble?" he wrote. "Will the new co-owner, the Sahara Group, soon take over the whole team?" Benoit's report follows news the bank accounts of Mallya's debt-ridden airline Kingfisher have been frozen due to tax payment […]

The eyes of the formula one world remain on Abu Dhabi this week, as a big field of so-called 'young drivers' conduct three days of testing. But, as ever at the pinnacle of motor racing, nothing is ever exactly as it seems. "I think it is not so much a 'young driver' test," said Peter Sauber, who returned to Switzerland after Sunday's race rather than opting to remain with his team in the Arab emirate. He might be referring to the fact that, at the […]

Sebastian Vettel has dealt a blow to his thousands of fans on social media sites Twitter and Facebook. The reigning world champion told Germany's Bild newspaper: "It's not me. I am not on Facebook or Twitter. "I prefer to have personal contact with the fans, for example in the autograph signings." The report said there are more than a dozen apparently 'official' Facebook and Twitter profiles for the 24-year-old Red Bull driver, the most with almost 600,000 fans. Bild added that Vettel is bidding to […]

World champion Sebastian Vettel had a high-altitude scare when returning to his home in Switzerland from Singapore earlier this week. Media reports say the Singapore Airbus A380 carrying the Red Bull driver, as well as other F1 personalities including Peter Sauber, encountered a problem just before landing in Zurich. The pilots diverted to Frankfurt, and Bild newspaper said it was a failure of the aircraft's instrument landing system (ILS). Passengers recalled that as the plane descended for landing, the pilots suddenly pulled back up at […]

Christian Klien managed a joke on Thursday as he denied he is now a million miles from the world of formula one. "8,000 kilometres," said the former Red Bull driver, speaking to the APA news agency from his home in Switzerland and referring to the approximate distance to Singapore. A year ago, the Austrian had returned to F1 with the struggling Spanish team HRT, where he out-qualified Bruno Senna two out of three times. "That's some validation," he insisted. "Two thirds of the time I […]

Red Bull insists the champagne is not yet on ice, but the team's owner has already decided what present he will be giving Sebastian Vettel for winning the 2011 world championship. "The same as last year," Dietrich Mateschitz said in an interview this week with the German news agency DPA. "His championship-winning car." In 2010, when German Vettel became F1's youngest ever title winner, Mateschitz delivered the Adrian Newey-inked RB6 to his home in Switzerland. Red Bull's team management are coy over the 24-year-old's chances […]