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Mahmoud Cherif Bassiouni, a United Nations war crimes expert, thinks Bahrain is ready to host another F1 race again.

Last year, the Egyptian led the high-profile independent investigation that found the Bahrain authorities were heavy-handed in reaction to the civil unrest. But now, media outlets including London’s Telegraph newspaper have seen a letter Bassiouni wrote to grand prix circuit chief Zayed Alzayani, who is determined to host April’s Bahrain grand prix at Sakhir as scheduled.  Read more... (128 words, estimated 31 secs reading time)

Jarno Trulli has revealed he was offered a seat at Ferrari some years ago.

After fifteen consecutive seasons in F1, the 37-year-old Italian has lost his Caterham race seat to the well-backed Russian Vitaly Petrov. 2004 Monaco grand prix winner Trulli, 37, drove since 1997 for Minardi, Prost, Jordan, Renault and Caterham’s former guise Lotus.  Read more... (255 words, estimated 1:01 mins reading time)

Valtteri Bottas has given some insight into Williams’ decision to switch to Renault power for this year.

For the past two years, the famous British team has been independent UK marque Cosworth’s highest profile customer. But for 2012 the Grove based team has switched to Renault, the maker of world champion Red Bull’s engines, as well as fellow customers Lotus and Caterham.  Read more... (160 words, estimated 38 secs reading time)

Paddock insiders already have a name for Mercedes’ new front wing innovation – ‘W-duct’.

We have reported that the German marque has already tested the F-duct style concept at the front of its newly-launched W03 car. The Finnish broadcaster MTV3, describing the system as ‘W-duct’, has provided some detail as to how it works.  Read more... (186 words, estimated 45 secs reading time)

Mercedes is eyeing a new two-year contract extension for Michael Schumacher, according to the major German newspaper Bild.

The seven time world champion, having returned to F1 with the famous German marque in 2010, has not decided whether or not to continue his comeback beyond this season.  Read more... (118 words, estimated 28 secs reading time)

Lotus is grappling with a major problem less than one month before the start of the 2012 season.

The former Renault team has sensationally abandoned this week’s Barcelona test and returned to its Enstone headquarters, after an unspecified chassis fault was detected on the new E20 car on Tuesday.  Read more... (254 words, estimated 1:01 mins reading time)

Lotus’ impressive start to the 2012 season hit a speed-bump on Tuesday. While the former Renault team’s new E20 car set the pace at Jerez, Romain Grosjean had to retire early when the Barcelona test kicked off on Tuesday.

“I was very quickly aware that the car wasn’t responding as it should,” said the Frenchman.  Read more... (146 words, estimated 35 secs reading time)

Mercedes on Tuesday gave the strongest hint yet that Michael Schumacher is set to stay with the Brackley based team beyond 2012.  Read more... (270 words, estimated 1:05 mins reading time)

1980 world champion Alan Jones has backed Caterham’s decision to dump Jarno Trulli.

Despite having extended the Italian veteran’s contract for 2012, the former Lotus team decided at the last minute to sign the well-backed Russian Petrov. Caterham explained that Petrov brings “fresh impetus” to the team, whilst also admitting that the decision was made “with a realistic eye on the global economic market”.  Read more... (190 words, estimated 46 secs reading time)

Nico Rosberg’s father has questioned the decision by Mercedes to delay the launch of its 2012 car.

Nico Rosberg, the German-born son of 1982 world champion Keke, has publicly backed his team’s approach in not running the W03 in anger until now, a full group test after main rivals Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari got their new cars up and going.  Read more... (243 words, estimated 58 secs reading time)