#f1 lore

After the 2011 Chinese GP — which Lewis one — him, Adrian Sutil and Lewis‘ bodyguards made their way to the M1NT Club in Shanghai were later on Sutil would get into it with Luxembourgish businessman Eric Lux (evil coded name if you asked me) who at the time was a co-owner of Lotus Racing, after getting rich from selling Skype.

That night, after some verbal arguments, Sutil glassed him (broke a glass & stabbed him) in the neck with a champagne flute, but later said he only wanted to throw the liquid at him. And now guess who — according to Sutil — saw everything? One Lewis Hamilton.

Back in the day, there were some whispers that the fight had broken out because Lux had made some homophobic remarks about Sutil (and in an extent potentially Lewis.)

Apparently Lux started the — at first purely verbal — fight, of which security footage exists even though it is black & wight and incredibly low resolution. One German Boulevard Paper (incredibly unreliable, think German The Sun) said that it started with Lewis‘ bodyguards trying to make room for Lewis, because he felt mobbed by some fans. They say it’s possible that Lux would not step away. They also allege that a woman spilled her drink over Sutil's pants and Lux somehow got involved (tough it is unclear how those things might be related)

What is clear, however is, that Sutil and Lux got into a verbal disagreement that ended with Sutil stabbing a glass flute into the neck of Lux, resulting in a cut that missed his carotid artery by a centimetre and needed 24 stitches to get it fixed.  

In the aftermath, Sutil said that the incident had occurred is his off-time as a private person and he wanted to keep it private, but that he had been in an unlucky incident where he accidentally hurt another person and that he regrets it & has apologized. The media and FIA equally accepted that it was a private matter, which is why there isn’t much actual information about it to be found.

Multiple people in F1 came to his defence and said he was not the type of guy to get in a fight and that they know him to be really calm & gentle. His lawyer only said that they “got verbally entangled” and that “it was just two alpha men clashing” (whatever that’s supposed to mean.)

They tried settling the matter outside of court. Sutil claimed that Lux demanded a large amount of money — two years of his salary to be precise, which in Sutil's case would have been around 4 million Euros — and for him to voluntarily step back from racing for multiple races. Interestingly enough, there were voices calling this an extortion attempt on Lux’s part. With Sutil claiming, "[Lux] was threatening to destroy" him.

There were rumours Lux asked for the break from racing to either replace Sutil with one of his own drivers (as he was the owner of a driver management) or that he was trying to gain an advantage for his own team with Subtil sitting out a few races.

After the failed settlement attempt, the case went in front of a court in Munich, Germany in January 2012, where Adrian Sutil was sentenced to 18 months of suspended sentences as well as a 200 000€ fine, which went to charity. He also lost his seat at Force India due to the controversy at the time.

Back to Lewis Hamilton's involvement in the story:

Sutil claimed he saw the whole fight and would be able to testify in his favour by supporting the claim that the stabbing had been an accident.

Hamilton however stated that he’d be unable to attend the court hearing as a witness due to it interfering with the McLaren car launch that year (or maybe the team made him say that for PR reasons,) but he did write a letter that was read out in court stating that he hadn't seen the fight and therefore could not exonerate Sutil.

Between the absence from court and the letter he sent, Sutil stated that he no longer wanted to be friends with Lewis Hamilton and going as far as calling him a coward and saying that he “wasn‘t a man.” He did however mention that Anthony Hamilton send him a supportive text, wishing him luck for his court case.

Lewis Hamilton later stated that they’d talk at some point, but that he never went up to him to talk (and he changed his phone number). Sutil said he “needs to grow up,“ among some other bitter sounding things (making him sound like a scorned ex-lover.)

28 days earlier, on 1st August 1976, Niki Lauda had crashed at the Nürburgring. At one stage of the season, Niki had twice the points of his two nearest competitors, James and Clay Regazzoni - 52 to 26. By the time he returned at Monza, his lead had reduced to two points, mostly because James won both the German and the Dutch Grand Prix.

Following Niki's crash, Ferrari called for the Austrian Grand Prix to be cancelled as a mark of respect (cynics claim this was less out of respect for Niki, and more because they hoped he'd be back later in the season and wanted to reduce the number of races where he or they were at a disadvantage). Ultimately they didn't enter the race. News that Niki's condition was no longer critical had broken before the Austrian Grand Prix, and the race proved to be John Watson's maiden win. Niki contacted Watson from his hospital bed to thank him for taking points from James, but he also found time for a forty-five minute call with James, just to chat. They kept in touch by phone while Niki was recovering.

By the time of the Dutch Grand Prix two weeks later, Niki was recovering at home, and the racing press were reporting that he would likely return before the end of the season. Even so, James banking a win in Germany and a fourth place in Austria was making him look like the championship favourite, especially since no one expected Niki to return in the same form as before.

At qualifying in Zandvoort, James missed out on pole by a hundredth of a second to his friend Ronnie Peterson, with Tom Pryce, John Watson and Clay Regazzoni behind him.

Off the line, James locked up and lost second place to a newly clean-shaven Wattie (he had shaved his beard off to mark his first win, following an agreement with team owner Roger Penske), and almost caused a crash as everyone behind tried to avoid him. James managed to get past Watson while Watson was busy trying to overtake Ronnie Peterson. By Lap 13, Ronnie was struggling badly with his tyres and both James and Wattie overtook him and then built a good lead over everyone else.

In James's own words from Against The Odds (written with, but mostly by, Eoin Young):

I was taking advantage of their mistakes because I really didn't do any serious passing of anyone during the whole race. I nipped past Watson while he was still recovering from a big but unsuccessful go he'd had at Ronnie, and then when someone had blown up and dropped a lot of oil on one corner, Ronnie slid very wide and I simply drove quietly past him on the line.

James reported understeer problems all weekend, so once he was out in front, he didn't have an easy time staying there. Wattie was alongside him to overtake twice - at laps 27 and 41 - and had decided to sit tight and wait for James or his car to screw up, when his own gearbox died and he DNFed. A lot of people DNFed, actually - 26 cars qualified for the race and 12 finished.

In the closing stages, James had a 7.5 second lead over Clay Regazzoni, now in second with Andretti third (Andretti said "my chassis was working bitching, and I could see Clay's was a little jumpy."). Pete Lyons wrote in Autosport:

Hunt's advantage was being carved away by Regazzoni with each lap, and with five to go it was less than three seconds. With three to go it was less than two seconds, and next time round McLaren [James] led Ferrari [Clay] by 1.25s; JPS [Andretti] was 1.75s behind that.

In the end, James won by .9 of a second.

Lyons described the race as a "modern classic" and said that it alone could elevate 1976 into a great season. Jody Schecketer said the two points he scored in the race were the hardest he ever earned, and finished his Autosport column following the race with:

Before the Austrian Grand Prix, it looked like both James Hunt and I had a chance at the championship [...] while there's no way I'm giving up yet, I guess the time has come when one has to be realistic and say that it looks like James is going to be this year's World Champion. Apart from me, I must say that there's no one I'd rather see win it. James has done a hell of a lot for Grand Prix racing this year. despite his own various problems, he's managed to give it a new, bright image in the eye of the public, and consequently public interest in the sport is higher than it's been in some years.

James's mother and brother were there to watch him take the victory and make history as the first driver to win on his birthday. After the race, the race organisers arranged a birthday cake in the shape of the circuit.

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Sadly, the weekend also involved the death of a marshall, Ron Lenderink, during a practice session for a touring car race. He died when a sudden rain shower descended and he was assisting a stricken car when another vehicle went out of control in the wet conditions and hit him.

He was also 29 years old.