Coton is a man who knows Formula One and will be conscious of the space a driver needs to focus on their main job, namely winning races, so will be instrumental in creating a ‘bubble’ around Hamilton, that was said to be at the root of his problems last year.

Didier Coton, who runs Sports Marketing and Event Management company Aces Management Group, takes on the task of guiding the 2008 F1 World Champion back to winning form.

Hamilton retains Simon Fuller’s XIX Entertainment to run his broader affairs, whilst the highly-experienced Didier Coton joins XIX to guide Hamilton’s racing career back to world championship winning form.

Coton said: “Being appointed by Simon to join the team is a great honour. I am excited to work alongside two such prestigious personalities and talents. XIX’s visionary approach is unique and one I believe in. I look forward to helping Lewis achieve success and developing long term projects with Simon and his team.”

Hamilton experienced a turbulent year in 2011, which was partly blamed by the media on his long-distance relationship with former Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger. Neither Hamilton nor Scherzinger have ever validated this assumption, although clearly their busy schedules placed tension on their relationship, leading to the pair splitting in October last year.

Since then, the pair have been spotted at a ski resort in Vail, Colorado where they spent New Year’s Eve and earlier this week heading out for dinner in Los Angeles.

With Scherzinger’s recent departure from the judging panel of X Factor U.S., she’ll have a bit more time on her hands, so perhaps that will boost Lewis’ morale and enable him to focus on winning another championship.

“We have made a decision” said Honda CEO, Takanobu Ito “to enter into the WTCC with the European Civic. We will develop a totally new engine for this project and we are all excited about starting this new challenge.”

For this project, Honda has formed a joint partnership with Mugen and J.A.S. Motorsport. Honda R&D is developing a bespoke racing engine, while Mugen will manufacture and maintain it. J.A.S. Motorsport will develop the race car, using the new Honda Civic 5 door produced in Honda’s manufacturing plant located in Swindon (UK).

The racing engine will be a 1.6 litre 4 cylinder direct injection turbo-charged petrol engine, developed in accordance with FIA’s Super 2000 regulations and different to the BTCC’s NGTC (Next Generation Touring Car) specification which Honda’s BTCC team have adopted for 2012.

Honda’s ambition is to join the WTCC as early as this season, with a string of “inaugural rounds”. Discussions are currently being held with the FIA, but these rounds would include Japan (held on 21 October 2012 at Honda’s Suzuka circuit), followed by China and Macau. Honda will then enter a two car team, managed by J.A.S. Motorsport, into every race in the 2013 championship season.

This activity is being run independently to the Honda Racing British Touring Car Championship winning team. Three-times BTCC Champion, Matt Neal and Gordon ‘Flash’ Shedden will be behind the wheel of the race-prepared Team Dynamics version of the new Civic and lining up on the grid at Brands Hatch on 1 April for the first race of the 2012 season.

Racing has always been a fundamental element of Honda’s DNA. In the late 1950s Honda first entered the Isle of man T.T and then Formula 1 in the 1960s. The FIA WTCC is the next chapter in Honda’s on-going commitment to world motor sport and provides a perfect platform to demonstrate its racing spirit to Honda’s numerous fans around the world.

The F2012 is the fifty eighth car built by Ferrari to contest the Formula 1 World Championship and after Wednesday’s launch of the conventional looking McLaren MP4-27, we’re back to the Platypus-shaped nose first seen on Caterham F1′s CT01.

They say that “..a beautiful car is one that wins races..”, so are we to conclude that McLaren are already at a disadvantage? We’ll have a better idea once we see the design of Red Bull Racing’s car, due to be unveiled next Monday (6th February). But the perhaps McLaren are sand-bagging with the car’s design until the first official test.

Ferrari’s statement at the launch of the F2012 in Maranello this morning

The main changes when compared to 2011′s concern the height of the front section of the chassis, the position of the exhaust pipes and the mapping for the electronic engine management.

Practically every area of the car has been fundamentally revised, starting with the suspension layout: both the front and rear feature pull-rods, aimed at favouring aerodynamic performance and lowering the centre of gravity.

The front wing is derived from the one introduced on the 150º Italia in the final part of its racing life and has been evolved from there (minus the wobble hopefully). Further evolutions are planned in this area for the opening races of the season.

The nose has a step in it that is not aesthetically pleasing: with the requirement from the regulations to lower the front part, this was a way of raising the bottom part of the chassis as much as possible for aerodynamic reasons. The sides have been redesigned, through modifications to the side impact structures, the repositioning of the radiators and revisions to all aerodynamic elements.

The lower part of the rear of the car is much narrower and more tapered, a feature achieved partly through a new gearbox casing and a relocation of some mechanical components (this is something that Lewis Hamilton also remarked about with the new McLaren MP4-27).

In recent years, the area of exhausts has been crucial in terms of car performance and much effort was expended on this front, based on changes to the regulations introduced this year.

The rear wing is conceptually similar to the one used in 2011, but every detail of it has been revised and it is now more efficient. Naturally, it is still fitted with DRS (a drag reduction system,) which is operated hydraulically.

The front and rear air intakes for the brakes have been redesigned and work was carried out in collaboration with Brembo to optimise the braking system.

The engine in the F2012 is an evolution of the one that powered last year’s car, which is inevitable given that the technical regulations forbid any modification to internal components aimed at increasing performance. Furthermore, much effort has gone into improving its installation in the new chassis, so as not to penalise the aerodynamics of the car.

Another area on which the Maranello engine specialists have been working is performance drop off, with the aim of maintaining the highest possible performance level throughout each engine’s cycle of use, which has now reached an average life of three races.

The electronic management of the engine has been revised based on the modifications to the rules regarding the use of exhaust gases, a task that has required a great deal of attention and many hours on the test bed. The kinetic energy recovery system maintains its low central location in the car – a choice also aimed at maximising safety – and has undergone an update directed mainly at reducing its weight and at improving the efficiency of some of its components.

Several decades of technical collaboration with Shell has seen further progress on the fuel and lubricants front, revolving around improving performance in absolute terms and on durability over the life cycle of the engines, as well as reducing consumption. As usual, great attention has been paid to the electronics on the car, especially in terms of reducing weight and, obviously, reliability.

With a reduction in the number of time available for track testing before the start of the Championship, which has dropped from 15 to 12 days, preparatory work on the test beds prior to the car’s track debut, has taken on even more importance.

The three test sessions – at Jerez circuit and Barcelona – will serve to get a picture of the handling of the F2012 and to adapt it to the Pirelli tyres. Indeed, getting the most out of the tyres has been an area that has seen a lot of work both at the design stage and in how the activities at the track are to be managed. The car is due to undergo an intensive development programme over the first part of the season, especially on the aerodynamic front.

One can only imagine the surprise though, when Felipe and Fernando were presented with a pair of Scuderia Ferrari styled Jeep SRT8′s in which to get around in.

Formula One drivers are not known for their patience, so I am sure they would both prefer to be sitting in their new race car, rather than cruising the streets of Maranello in a Jeep, no matter how special they look.

Both cars were custom built and feature an aggressive exterior look with an SRT-exclusive design, adding classic Ferrari brand styling cues and the unmistakable Rosso Corsa signature colour.

The seven-slot Jeep front grille is painted matte black and features custom red inserts. A race-inspired, offset black driver’s stripe with a white accent customises the front and rear bumpers, bonnet, the entire surface of the roof and the rear spoiler.

Additional exclusive details include a matte black painted dual-pane sunroof, Carbon fibre mirror caps and a gloss black rear light bar with red accents on the Jeep logo. To complete the unique exterior trim of the custom-built SRT8 models, the Italian flag has been painted on the underside of the rear spoiler: a tribute to the Ferrari F150º Formula One car.

Ride height has been lowered by 3.8 cm (1.5″) and both vehicles run on unique forged aluminium, 20-inch wheels painted black giving them an even more aggressive stance.

In line with the car’s custom exterior, the interior cabin is enhanced by exclusive Ferrari Red leather inserts on the seats with sculpted bolsters. Also the door trim panels, the central armrest and the instrument panel boast exclusive red leather.

The leather-wrapped SRT8 steering wheel with mounted paddle shifters features red contrasting stitching, whilst the unique instrument cluster features yellow dials which evoke the look of the Maranello’s famous GT sports cars.

The Grand Cherokee SRT8 is powered by an all-new 6.4-litre HEMI V8 engine with Fuel Saver technology that switches off four of the eight cylinders when not required, to increase fuel economy.

With 463 bhp and 465 lb-ft of torque (630 Nm), the SRT8 achieves 0-60 mph in 4.8 seconds, 0-100-0 mph in the mid-16 second range and can cover the quarter mile in the mid-13 second range. It has a top speed of 160 mph, and can brake from 60-0 mph in a little over 35 metres.

If you’re an ardent F1 fan, then you’ll already have pored over all the details on autosport.com, FormulaOne.com or the main UK broadcast rivals BBC and Sky F1 Digital. For a dose of intelligent reflection from the most popular experts, pay a visit to James Allen on F1, Joe Saward and F1 Pit Reporter for SPEED channel, Will Buxton.

If not, then it’s worth setting aside a few minutes and reading what they have to say.

The MP4-27 is the car that Vodafone McLaren Mercedes hope will deliver them back to the top of the rostrum in both the Driver’s and Constructor’s Championships, after a drubbing by Red Bull Racing in 2011 (and previously in 2010). The combination of Adrian Newey, the hottest engineer in F1 and Sebastian Vettel, the hottest driver in F1, has made a formidable opponent and McLaren are determined to fight back from the first race of the season in Melbourne.

In the following video, former World Champions Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton share their thoughts on the upcoming 2012 season, together with what drives them and their team in their pursuit for success. In addition. McLaren MD Jonathan Neale also provides his insight into the development of the MP4-27 and how it differs from last season’s car.

Given how early we are in the season, with only 2 cars (from Caterham F1 and McLaren) currently revealed, I was surprised to see the comment from Sky Sports’ Technical Analyst Mark Hughes that the MP4-27 represented “..nothing new” and the more asinine remark that “..McLaren are still yet to uncover the secret of Adrian Newey’s ongoing success at Red Bull.”

Hopefully such speculation is not indicative of Sky’s F1 coverage for the season ahead. As McLaren’s Team Principal Martin Whitmarsh said yesterday, even they don’t know how good a car they’ve built and won’t really know until qualifying at Melbourne. To conclude anything at this stage, especially given how much the cars will change between now and mid-March, smacks of naivety or downright link-baiting to grab prominence in the search listings.

I guess all we can say just now is the drivers looked calm and refreshed from the winter break, the engineers looked satisfied with their endeavours and the team as a whole were realistic in their aspirations for the season ahead and the amount of work they need to invest in order to beat Red Bull.

Roll on Melbourne.

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When she says, “..take me for a ride”, maybe she actually means ‘to the shops’ rather than around a race track.

You will probably have already seen the first of these videos from 2008 showing ex-F1 driver Riccardo Patrese and his wife in a Honda Civic Type-R around Jerez circuit, Spain.

There are several priceless moments, including the hand signal from Italian-speaking Mrs P that needs no translation.

At last weekend’s Daytona 24 Hours the wife of Portuguese racing driver, João Barbosa, made the same mistake of trusting her dignity to a husband with a wicked sense of humour.

Strapped into a 2-seater Prototype, the 2010 Rolex 24 Daytona champion takes his wife on a 185 mph ride around the International Speedway, with inevitable consequences.

Assuming their relationship survived beyond the journey back home, perhaps the lesson to be learned is to wait until there’s a ring on her finger before subjecting your loved one to such a test. Especially if you then intend to post the evidence of her distress on YouTube for all her closest friends to see..

If you’re a Ferrari Community member there are two further ways to get involved.

Earlier in the day, on Friday 3 February 2012, an exclusive Ferrari Passion Day will be held at the Fiorano track where 30 members of the Community will be able to see the new F1 2012 car up close. The event will be joined by drivers Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso, together with team principal Stefano Domenicali.

Community members who join the Passion Day will be able to post their first impressions live at the presentation ceremony later in the evening.

If you miss this opportunity, there’s a further chance to gain access to Ferrari’s new car and it’s drivers. A prize draw open to Premium Community members is offering tickets for two people to join pre-season testing in Barcelona from 29 February to 1 March 2012.

The prize includes flights, hotels, lunch with the Scuderia team and a guaranteed grin permanently affixed to your face. If you’re interested, make sure you sign up as a premium member before 12 February 2012, then visit the competition page to enter.

Q: Can you give a technical overview of what the team has been up to during the winter and where are we on the creation of the CTO1?

Well, in short, we’ve been designing and building our new racing car! Throughout the off-season we’ve been focusing on a number of key elements of the development of this year’s car, including a lot of work on optimising the windtunnel. We have taken into consideration the changes in the technical regulations this year, most noticeably around the nose box and the push-off tests we had to pass.

Mike Gascoyne talks shop with team owner Tony Fernandes.

The rules around crash testing now mean that the cars have to be homologated before the first test, which meant bringing forward all the homologation tests by a month to six weeks before T1. From that point of view, we had a very successful development programme and we fully homologated the chassis before Christmas and, actually, I believe we were the first team to pass all the tests.

The design of the car has been progressing since early 2011. It’s the first year of real stability for us on the technical side, and by keeping the Renault Sport F1 engine and Red Bull Technology gearbox, we know exactly what we’re working with and what we can expect. Each year so far we’ve effectively not only had a new design team but also a new gearbox and engine combination.

Now, however, we have a very stable design team under our Technical Director Mark Smith, and this means we can take a much bigger step forward in terms of the detail of the design – and that really showed in the homologation process.

The car build has gone very smoothly. The car will be completely ready for the first test in Jerez on February 7th. In terms of aerodynamic development, we’ve continued our programme in Italy but have augmented that with a development programme in the Williams windtunnel, which has significantly increased our resources. All of that means I think we’ll be able to have a better and more competitive car, and we look forward to getting it out, testing it, and proving what the numbers are telling us.

Q: What are the big changes. What should the untrained eye be looking out for?

Aerodynamics is always the main focus of performance and improvement. Last year it was all about the blown diffuser, which we struggled with because not having it in 2010 meant we were always playing catch up throughout the 2011 season in comparison to other teams.

The fact it’s banned this year certainly plays to our advantage. Other teams had so much more development time, they were able to get much more out of it than we were ever able to, so that eliminates a little of the competition in terms of technical development. But really, aerodynamics is always one of the main features of development and that’s why we’ve put so much additional resource into it.

Q: And KERS?

Yes, it’s no secret that we’ll have KERS on the car this year. Towards the end of last year it really started to affect us racing with the midfield cars. It hurt us in qualifying and in our eventual race positions. At the last race in 2011, Heikki made a good start and gained a lot of positions but then lost out by not having KERS.

Having KERS embedded into our 2012 car is another good step forward for us. We had our best ever qualifying in relation to the cars ahead of us in Brazil, and with KERS we could have possibly out-qualified a few of them. So, again, we have another good reason to be very positive about 2012.

Q: What about this nose? It’s creating quite a lot of debate…

Yes, well the regulations have changed to limit the height of the nosebox to try to ensure that noses don’t get too high. Our challenge is that you always want to get the chassis as high as possible to allow clean air flow to the underside of the car, and what you see on the CT01 is our solution to that.

As we’re the first car out it is obviously stirring up a lot of debate, but because of the 2012 regulations I think you’ll probably be seeing this type of nose on most of the cars this year.

Q: What are your targets for 2012?

I think we need to see the car on track first and get feedback from the first tests. Until we run the car, we only have numbers and simulation data to work with. But every team wants to move up the grid and we’re no different. We finished 10th in the last two years, which has been our target, but now I think it’s time we moved forward again. Let’s see what happens we get out on track.

The new FIA World Endurance Championship team, based at Toyota Motorsport GmbH (TMG) in Cologne, Germany, will make its race debut on 5 May in the Six Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, which is the second round of the championship.

A driver line-up of Alex Wurz, Nicolas Lapierre and Kazuki Nakajima has already been confirmed for one car while discussions are still ongoing to finalise the driver line-up for the other. Additionally, Andrea Caldarelli, from Pescara, Italy, has joined Toyota Racing as a junior driver.

The TS030 HYBRID is Toyota’s successor to the iconic TS010 and TS020 cars which participated at Le Mans with podium success during the 1990s, with TS an acronym for ToyotaSport.

Toyota is the first manufacturer to confirm its participation in the FIA World Endurance Championship using a hybrid system, emphasising the pioneering approach to this technology which has seen more than 3.5 million Toyota hybrid vehicles sold worldwide.

The THS-R (Toyota Hybrid System – Racing) powertrain is designed to deliver maximum performance and features an all-new V8 3.4litre normally-aspirated petrol engine and hybrid system with capacitor storage developed by official team partner Nisshinbo.

The team will use the TS030 HYBRID’s first test to evaluate the merits, within the current regulations, of a front motor system produced by Aisin AW and a rear motor system developed by official team partner DENSO. Those regulations limit hybrid systems to recovering a maximum of 500kJ between braking zones whilst restricting deployment to only two wheels.

A brand new carbon fibre LMP1 chassis has been developed and produced at TMG, where the complete car was assembled for the first time in preparation for a roll-out on 11-13 January at Paul Ricard.

During an exclusive test session at the French track, which included running in darkness, the TS030 HYBRID completed several hundred kilometres, showing an impressive level of reliability and performance for this very early stage in the car’s testing programme.

Alex Wurz and Nicolas Lapierre both put the TS030 HYBRID through its paces at Paul Ricard, joined by 30-year-old Japanese driver Hiroaki Ishiura, who is a candidate to join the driver line-up at races where Toyota Racing participates with two cars.

Official partners to the Toyota Racing programme include ZENT, Aisin, Nippon Steel, Takata, Toyoda Gosei and Michelin.

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The team will post further images tomorrow, along with an interview with Mike Gascoyne on the car’s design and build process.

Since this is the first ever Caterham F1 car, the chassis has been named CT01 however this is actually the third car built since the team came into existence (as Team Lotus in 2010) and borrows heavily on the mechanical and aerodynamic progress made by last year’s 2011 T128 race car.

As expected, green and yellow remains the livery in use, whilst the CT01 will now be powered by a Renault engine. The standout feature (and this if far from being a compliment), is the new car’s ‘platypus’-style nose, which is expected to become commonplace this year due to new safety regulations concerning nose height.

The CT01 is due to make its on-track debut at the first official test session of the year at Spain’s Jerez circuit on February 7th-10th.

Caterham F1 will be updating their Facebook page tomorrow morning with all the details, plus that interview with Mike Gascoyne. Meanwhile you can read more about their 2012 car in an interview with Mark Smith, who talks about the chassis build and crash testing process.