At the end of a two-day trial in Munich, the 29-year-old was found guilty of assaulting the co-owner of the Lotus F1 team, Eric Lux, in a Shanghai nightclub last April following the Chinese Grand Prix and given an 18-month suspended sentence and a fine of £166,139.

But on Wednesday Sutil’s manager, Manfred Zimmermann, confirmed that his client was lodging an appeal against the decision. “We are convinced that this judgment is not appropriate,” Zimmermann was quoted as saying by the SID news agency.

“There are many things that went against us.”

The news agency reports that the public prosecutors in the case are also pushing for a harsher sentence to be handed down to Sutil, and that the appeal hearing is likely to go before a higher regional court.

An appeal hearing could see Lewis Hamilton be called to give evidence in front of the court as a witness, the McLaren driver having been with Sutil in the Shanghai nightclub when the offence occurred. He was excused from appearing at the original hearing as the dates clashed with commitments with his team.

Hamilton’s non-appearance at the hearing did not sit well with Sutil who took to the German press to describe his long-time friend as “a coward”, adding that he also didn’t receive any messages of support from the Briton prior to the case.

Having been dropped by Force India in December in favour of countryman Nico Hulkenberg for 2012 – a decision the team has since insisted had nothing to do with Sutil’s court case – Sutil’s F1 career is currently in limbo with all other seats taken on the grid and the fall-out from his case also likely to count against him.

The Tony Fernandes-owned team says the 26-year-old, who last year finished fifth in the GP2 Series, will make his debut for the squad in the forthcoming pre-season tests and then, like his predecessors in the role Fairuz Fauzy and Karun Chandhok, will “take part in a number” of Friday morning practice sessions during the course of the season.

Fernandes believes the former Formula Renault 3.5 Series champion is a “very exciting prospect” and his signing represents a significant coup for Caterham.

“We are delighted to welcome Giedo into the family as reserve driver. He is a very exciting prospect that we have been monitoring since the early days of our team, and we are all looking forward to seeing how he can help us develop throughout the season as we take our next steps towards the established midfield teams ahead,” the Malaysian team boss said.

“His performances in GP2, particularly in 2011, mark Giedo out as one of motorsport’s brightest prospects, and securing him as Reserve Driver is a real coup for our team. I am sure he will flourish on and off track, and we wish him all the best as he takes the next step into Formula 1 with us.”

Whenever van der Garde competes in a practice session for the first time, he will become the first Dutch driver to feature in a grand prix weekend since Christijan Albers last raced for Spyker in 2007.

Van der Garde feels he is joining a team on the up and is proud to be able to put the Netherlands – whose colourful fans famously provided a loyal following for ex-Benetton and Arrows racer Jos Verstappen in the 1990s and early 2000s – back on the F1 map.

“I’m very happy to become a part of the Caterham F1 Team family today and I’m very excited about the next step in my career within Formula 1. The team is fresh, with some fantastic people here. Tony Fernandes is extremely ambitious and he has brought in a lot of very good people in to help grow this team for future success. I’m looking forward to learning and moving forward with the team, in and out of the car” he said.

“It’s great for Holland that we again have a Dutch driver who is connected to Formula 1. Being the only Dutch driver now is very good for the sport in Holland, as the interest was perhaps on the decline since the Verstappen years, however I hope to generate the same excitement for my country and really bring Formula 1 to them.

“I feel that the team as a whole is very ambitious. They appear to be very positive people and I think they are building up, growing and developing very quickly. I think this year they will be strong contenders! We’ll see after the test but I really have a feeling that it’s a big family here and they are pushing very hard to move up the grid.”

Van der Garde last drove an F1 car when he appeared for Renault at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya in November 2008, the majority of his testing experiences having come the previous year when he appeared for both Super Aguri and Spyker,

It was his switch between the then two back-of-the-grid rivals that provoked controversy at the time as Super Aguri claimed it had already signed the Dutchman to a test and reserve role itself.

The specialist pre-season training camp, in sunnier climes to the traditional northern European winter, has long been a staple of many teams’ preparations ahead of a new season, giving them the chance to put their drivers through some rigorous exercises as well as providing an opportunity for team building.

Ferrari have chosen the Canary island for their training camp in recent days, with race drivers Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa being joined in the activities by Academy drivers Jules Bianchi – who last week was confirmed as Force India’s reserve driver for 2012 – and Italian GP2 runner Davide Rigon.

The Maranello outfit say activities have included mountain biking, football, tennis and canoeing, along with more general work outs in the gym and on the beach.

But having enjoyed temperatures of 20+ degrees in Lanzarote, Alonso and Massa are set for something of a culture shock on their return to Italy ahead of Friday’s launch at Fiorano with the Maranello area currently suffering from freezing conditions with a high likelihood of snow for the forthcoming days.

Ferrari admit the forecast for poor weather could scupper plans to run the 2012 car for the first time at their test track for filming purposes before their transporters set off for the first test at Jerez in southern Spain.

The inaugural run could therefore be delayed until the opening day of testing next Tuesday, when Ferrari have confirmed Massa will get the honour of driving the car first in an official session.

But I’ll make an exception for Jenson Button’s 200th GP, about which we will hear a lot this weekend. It’s a lot of races and the narrative of his career, which started at Williams in 2000 is a real journey. From boy, to playboy, to frustrated racer, to world champion.

Britain’s highest ever points scorer in F1, eight more points will take him to Number 4 in the all time lists behind Schumacher, Alonso and the driver he admires most, Alain Prost – although the much higher points yields these days rather skew these statistics.

I’ve covered all of Button’s career, witnessed the arc, with its few ups and its many downs, leading to the extraordinary moment when he won his World Championship in 2009. Button got the job done, just the way he and his father John always intended.

I commentated on his first win here in Hungary in 2006; a moment many people thought might never come.

My mind goes back to my first proper encounter with him and John, at Macau in 1999. He was a 19 year old Formula 3 driver then, a few pimples on his face, fuzzy hair. He hadn’t won the British F3 championship and he didn’t win Macau either, but he seemed to have a lot of momentum and hype behind him.

John Button in customary pose (Darren Heath)

I’d just been working on a book with Michael Schumacher and had spent a fair bit of time with him and Ross Brawn, who was then the technical director of Ferrari. It had been a fascinating process, learning the inner workings of that relationship. Clearly the key to success was being in the right car and then being able to maintain consistency at a high level and never giving anything away to the opposition and I told Jenson that. Ross created the right environment for Schumacher to thrive and Schumacher kept it on the limit the whole time. He didn’t question Ross’ demands, he just did it.

I was reminded of that in 2009 when Brawn created the right environment for Button to shut out the opposition with a perfectly timed pole lap, make an aggressive pass at the start to set himself up for victory, to make things happen.

Today he is pretty consistent; not as fast by his own admission, as Lewis Hamilton in qualifying, but able to always be there or thereabouts and on his day to win spectacularly, as he did in Montreal this year.

Because the truth is that for most of his Formula 1 career Button was not able to make things happen. In fact quite the reverse; he made mistakes, chose the wrong career move, changed management like he changed his shirt. And that was a source of great frustration to him and to the man who has always believed in him the most, his father John.

But he got onto the right track and it came good for him and it’s an object lesson in determination.

There has always been a debate among fans about how good Button actually is and I suspect that this will never be fully agreed.

Ross Brawn admitted in 2009 to being surprised at how good a driver he was, not having really seen many signs of it as an opponent.

But the most eloquent advocate of Button’s skill as a driver is Gil de Ferran, who was sporting director of the Honda F1 team in 2005/6 I would often chat with him on the way back from Grands Prix and he was evangelical about Button’s gifts. I think this was partly because Gil was schooled in American racing where the teams are more open with information than in F1. He could see what Jenson was doing and felt that it shouldn’t be a secret known only by the team,

“It became apparent to me very quickly that Jenson’s skill was at a very high level looking at his data traces,” recalled De Ferran, once a champion driver himself in America, “There was never any exaggeration in his throttle, brake or steering, everything was done the precise amount. He would never over do it and come back,

Button on the limit in the Brawn (Darren Heath)

Pressed for examples, De Ferran remembered qualifying for the British Grand Prix 2005 in particular. Button qualified 3rd, but, as is sadly all too common in the sport, the brilliance of what he had achieved was appreciable only by the handful of people inside the team with access to the telemetry,

“I remember looking at his data after qualifying and thinking, ‘Jesus, Christ!’ He had basically judged every corner to absolute perfection. That’s something the public doesn’t see; the tiny adjustments he made to find a whole new limit was very impressive to me. It was perfect – there was not one correction too many. It was all done with surgical precision; the throttle, brake and steering were all just perfect

“I can’t tell you how hard it is to go that fast and be smooth. The public likes the guy with the tail out but in my opinion, being on the limit without those moves, demonstrates a higher degree of skill. “

It’s all subjective stories of course, as so much of the debate about drivers is. And as the comments section on this site and on other sites prove, fans will always talk up their favourites and talk down drivers they dislike.

Button is one of F1′s front runners and race winners at a time of very intense competition among drivers and teams, that’s all that really needs to be said.

He’s also a world champion and the spring in his step these days is because he knows that no-one can take that away from him.

What was most impressive, as I’ve come to expect from the readers of this site, was the amount of guesses which were very close to the final figure.

By our reckoning we had at least 12 entries which were within 2/100ths of a second, so it was far more competitive than the F1 qualifying session itself!

But the winner is Brian M, entry number 336, who correctly predicted that Alonso would beat Webber by 0.133 seconds.

Congratulations to him and a signed and personalised copy of the book will be sent to him on publication date, November 29th.

Thanks to everyone for taking part.

Hamilton: Believes he can win race (Darren Heath)

Hamilton looked quick all day in the McLaren, which has an updated F Duct rear wing this weekend. However he also courted controversy and was called to the stewards for cutting across the front of Bruno Senna and going across the while pit lane entry line. They let him off with a reprimand.

Hamilton believes that after several races where he didn’t have the car to challenge the Red Bulls and Ferraris, he can get in amongst them, “I don’t think I’m fighting for fourth this weekend,” he said with a smile.

The Red Bulls looked like they were sliding on the harder of the Bridgestone tyres. When Vettel went onto the soft tyre later in the session the car looked like it had more bite. But in today’s running Hamilton’s McLaren seemed to have the edge in the final sector of the lap, which features a lot of low speed, off camber corners.

Today’s performance is not necessarily conclusive proof that McLaren will be spoiling the party for Red Bull and Ferrari in qualifying tomorrow; McLaren have been quick on Fridays before then come up short on Saturday in qualifying.

But it would be very interesting of he bumped one of Vettel Webber or Alonso out of the top three on the grid. That would make for a very interesting race on Sunday.

Fernando Alonso, who starts the weekend with an eight point advantage over Mark Webber, complained of oversteer in the low speed corners.

His team mate Felipe Massa stopped out on the track the end of the second session when he ran out of fuel. He radioed this message to the team, which was broadcast to the other teams. It is interesting that he should have been running with low enough fuel levels to run out at that stage of practice.

ABU DHABI GRAND PRIX, Friday practice

1. Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1m40.888s
2. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m41.145s + 0.257s
3. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m41.314s + 0.426s
4. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m41.315s + 0.427s
5. Robert Kubica Renault 1m41.576s + 0.688s
6. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m41.583s + 0.695s
7. Vitaly Petrov Renault 1m42.096s + 1.208s
8. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m42.132s + 1.244s
9. Tonio Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 1m42.203s + 1.315s
10. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m42.222s + 1.334s
11. Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1m42.246s + 1.358s
12. Nico Hulkenberg Williams-Cosworth 1m42.449s + 1.561s
13. Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1m42.535s + 1.647s
14. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1m42.768s + 1.880s
15. Rubens Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1m42.914s + 2.026s
16. Nick Heidfeld Sauber-Ferrari 1m42.950s + 2.062s
17. Jaime Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m43.128s + 2.240s
18. Sebastien Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m43.584s + 2.696s
19. Heikki Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth 1m45.180s + 4.292s
20. Timo Glock Virgin-Cosworth 1m45.259s + 4.371s
21. Jarno Trulli Lotus-Cosworth 1m45.612s + 4.724s
22. Lucas di Grassi Virgin-Cosworth 1m46.053s + 5.165s
23. Christian Klien Hispania-Cosworth 1m47.210s + 6.322s
24. Bruno Senna Hispania-Cosworth 1m47.434s + 6.546s

It’s a wide ranging discussion with Ferrari’s lead driver and in it he admits that he’s made mistakes this season, but that driving for Ferrari you are more under scrutiny. He says that he isn’t giving up on the championship, explains the key to being fast at Monza and touches on other interesting topics.

Photo: Darren Heath

Asked whether he agrees that he’s “made many mistakes” this year he says, “Yes. In the past I made maybe 2 or 3 mistakes a season, but in Ferrari everything you do is more scrutinised and mistakes count double, they show up more. Which one bothers me most? Monaco, the one in practice. We had the car to win the race, the place is special, Ferrari had been wanting a win there for many years, we were counting on it.”

Former Ferrari driver Eddie Irvine believes that the Alonso’s emotional nature was keot in balance by working with British teams like McLaren and Renault, but that without figures like Ross Brawn and Jean Todt at Ferrari, the combination of Alonso and Ferrari is creating an emotional maelstrom in which mistakes are being made.

With six races from the 13 he has started this season having yielded no points or fewer points than expected, this has been a messy season by Alonso’s standards. He always knows exactly what the points situation is at any given time and reveals that he analyses it in great detail. Although the picture isn’t rosy -and he has to score big this weekend and for every other weekend this year – he hasn’t given up yet and remains optimistic,

“The championship positions change quickly,” he said. “The championship isn’t closed and I’m still in the hunt. I’m not giving up. I always do calculations, work out average points scores. The championship plan I had at the start of the year, however, has gone out of the window.”

This weekend Ferrari should have a good chance of winning on home soil for the first time in four years. The key to winning Monza, Alonso says is, “The start – it’s 80% of the race. It’s a long way to the first corner, you can gain or lose a lot. The first chicane is a funnel. The two Lesmo corners are crucial. They are medium speed with a car which has little downforce. There are four or five braking zones where you go from 300km/h to 60km/h. If you brake five metres late you gain a couple of tenths, if you brake 6 metres late you run wide and lose time. It’s very hard to find the limit.”

Photo: Darren Heath

The atmosphere at Monza should be pretty special this weekend. The tifosi are always passionate about their team and as this is Alonso’s first Monza as a Ferrari driver it should be great theatre. The team doesn’t have a history of hiring in champions, preferring to make them itself. Rare exceptions include Schumacher, Fangio and now Alonso.

With the FIA’s hearing into team orders now behind them and with his role as Ferrari’s number one now clear, Alonso will attack Monza with some passion, but it will be a big test of whether he can keep the emotion in check and deliver the win he and Italy are hoping for.

The Times one caught my eye because it was an open expression of regret that Formula 1 has become a job and that he does not enjoy the political environment around him.

Hamilton has slotted into the space left vacant by Michael Schumacher in Formula 1, clearly massively talented, unloved by his fellow drivers and always seeming to find himself tangled up in controversies. Senna occupied that space before Schumacher.

The Times interview reveals the state of mind of the driver in the third season of his F1 career. He is weary of the politics, no longer enjoys the banter with the media, he is on his guard, feeling caged and also unfulfilled because his car isn’t fast enough to get him in the game.

“It doesn’t feel so good,” he said, “Getting up in the morning and knowing you can’t win that weekend no matter how hard you drive or how good a job you or the team does.

“It’s hard to take but it’s a fact and you have to deal with it. You just have to adjust your expectations and find new goals.”

In other words he now finds himself in the same position as most drivers in F1, who have no chance of winning a race, even though their career up to F1 was probably gilded with victories and championships. Hamilton described some of these drivers as ‘the monkeys at the back’ last season and that went down like a cup of cold sick. Few have any sympathy for him now.

In Spain last weekend he found out how it felt to be at the back, lapped by Jenson Button in the closing stages of the race.

“I have known Jenson since I was 10 years old, ” continues Hamilton. “He has had some tough tough years and I think I can appreciate that even more after this year exactly how he felt. I have a huge amount of respect for how he dealt with it all.”

What is happening at the moment with Hamilton is that he is having to rebuild relationships. Imagine a telephone switchboard, with loads of leads plugged in all over the place. Well Hamilton is unplugging all the leads and taking care over how he plugs them back in again. It is a root and branch reconstruction of some of the key relationships which make up the ebb and flow of his F1 life; his relationship with his team after the lying episode in Melbourne and the human damage which ensued, his relationship with the media, his relationship with his fellow drivers.

The media one is a perpetual battle. Hamilton will have hated being made to go in front of the press in Malaysia to apologise for lying. It worked well and most of the media respected him for doing it, but the trouble now is that whenever he finds himself in the middle of another controversy, there will be the inevitable, “Are you going to apologise, Lewis?”

Exactly the same thing happened with Schumacher. He tired of dealing with the media and always refused to give them what they wanted, when they demanded apologies for things. He was stubborn like that. I bet Lewis will be the same.

Schumacher, despite in later years growing to hate his dealings with the media, was very professional and always did what he had to do, always gave an answer. He found a coping mode, which got him through to the end of his career. He was extremely well advised by Sabine Kehm, a former F1 editor on the German equivalent of the Times.

Lewis has his Dad and the McLaren media department to help him, but no-one who’s done the Fleet Street nasty stuff and who is there to look after his interests alone. He’s lost out because of that, no question.

Lately he’s been trying the disrespectful grunt or monosyllabic answer, particularly to the Fleet Street tabloid contingent and it has got him no-where. They are a thick skinned lot, however, and he will be a big story as long as he stays in F1. I am sure Lewis will slot into ‘Schumacher media mode’ too, once he’s unplugged the leads and plugged them back in again, figuring out out who are the good guys and who are the bad.

To be reworking relationships across so many sectors at once seems to be taking a lot on. At least he has the mental space and time for that this year. He’s not under pressure for the title race. The car isn’t going to give him much this season, it will improve, but it’s one of those McLarens that doesn’t really work, so he’ll be ‘polishing a turd ‘ as racing folk have it, for the rest of the season.

Let’s hope the same cannot be said for his relationship rebuilding exercise.

It all relates to an autograph signing session on Thursday in the pit lane, where he was surrounded by photographers, so couldn’t get to the fans. He lost his temper and left the pits, then came back when the photographers had gone and signed the autographs.

This was reported in El Mundo in particular as Alonso being rude to fans and showing arrogance towards poor people who’ve saved up to see their hero. Alonso was very angry with this treatment: “I’m furious, ” he said. “I don’t like it when things are said to set me against the fans.”

When he had calmed down he gave an interesting view on how he and Renault stand at the moment in this critical weekend when so many teams have new parts on the car.

“The updates have given us more downforce, more grip. The car is more consistent now, but it’s not a magic solution.

“The situation is better than 2008, when we had a car that was difficult to drive, but this is the moment to score some big points because in two or three races time most of the grid will be out of the championship, where I want to be.”

This last point is the important one as far as Ferrari and McLaren are concerned and it’s why the next few races are so important. McLaren were making good progress, but were flattered by the circuit in Bahrain and they will be lucky to get a car into the top ten in qualifying, while Ferrari have moved forward, but we will only find out later in qualifying whether it is enough to get them into the hunt. They have to start racking up the points this weekend and in Monaco or they will be out of the championship.

“I had very specific problems with not having enough water in the car because I lost five and a half kilos in the race, this is not normal, ” said Fernando. “There was a problem with the radiator, we had some hot gas going into the cockpit. It burned my back and that was taking out even more water from my body. It was a very unlucky combination of factors that put me in that condition in the race.”

Five and a half kilos of bodyweight is a lot to lose in 90 minutes, it’s about 8% of his total bodyweight. One or two kilos is normal for drivers to lose on hot days.

Alonso disagreed with Nico Rosberg’s claims earlier today that the drivers are struggling at the end of races this year because they have been forced to lose too much weight, to compensate for the KERS systems in the cars.

“Generally I feel in better condition at the end of races than last year,” said Alonso. “We are running with less aerodynamics in the car so maybe it’s not so demanding in the high speed corners in terms of the physical [side].”