Adrian Sutil's returning to the grid in 2013, but Dave Jorgensen wasn't joining in Lewis Hamilton's prayers to have him back.
Formula 1 turned into the last chance saloon this week with Adrian Sutil making a headline-grabbing comeback and Jules Bianchi losing, then winning, a race drive.
Of course Ferrari protege Bianchi still had time to sit on the margins of F1 in that twilight zone role as the reserve driver, but it was effectively Sutil's last shot at it.
Will it be good to have Aid back in the pack? No. To be honest I'd sooner have a pay driver in the second Force India than a mid-pack hack like Sutil. F1 lacks the diversity to give it a worldwide appeal and having another German driver in the sport is the last thing it needs.
What F1 needs is Chinese, Koreans Indians, Americans maybe even an African - anybody but more Brits, Germans, Finns and Italians.
It's not like he slipped through the net. On Sutil's return we won't discover a rare talent that was just waiting for the opportunity to take center stage and become next in line to either Mark Webber's or Felipe Massa's race seat. He had shots at it in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011, and he came out just okay.
Place a driver of Sutil's ability in a nation that's not known for producing F1 talent - say Colombia (Juan Montoya's backyard) and it's a different story. If Adrian Sutil were Colombian he'd be a national figure, a major sporting name in the country. In Germany he sits behind Schumacher, Vettel, Rosberg and Hulkenberg.
The Germans will be so unenthused about his last-minute addition to the F1 ranks that it won't put any extra numbers on the gate for the German GP. Apart from the Sutil family.
Right now, Sutil should be burying the hatchet and apologising to former friend Lewis Hamilton for calling him a coward for not turning up to his Munich trial for Bodily Harm. In case you're late on this one, Sutil got into a fight in the 2011 season when he attacked Lotus team investor Eric Luz in a Shanghai nightclub, creating a wound that needed stitches.
Apart from the hard-to-figure case of legal jurisdiction - why it ended up in court in Munich and not back in Shanghai - the trial was a pretty much foregone conclusion. Sutil had tried to settle it beforehand, so was not contesting his innocence. He offered to pay money to charities in Africa, but Lux wanted his day in court. Sutil was given an 18-month suspended sentence and a 200,000 euro fine (which did go to charity).
The case was heard at the end of January 2012. Hamilton by all accounts was pre-season training at altitude in Colorado, and you have to wonder what influence he would have had on the case.
In the light of Sutil's strong remarks about his friend everyone in the pitlane was interested to see how things would shape up in Barcelona, but as I write there's been no heart-warming Felipe/Lewis-type reconciliation moment. When asked, Sutil said he had no relationship with his former friend and gave the impression there had been radio silence.
So it was interesting to hear Hamilton's side of the story. "I emailed him a couple of times," Lewis was happy to tell reporters. "I emailed him a while ago when I heard he might be getting the seat and I just said I would say a prayer for him and hope he gets it because he really deserves it and I hoped to see him back in F1.
"I emailed him on the way here (to Barcelona) as soon as I found out to say congratulations. I'm really looking forward to seeing him because I haven't seen him for a while. I called ages ago and got his friend on the phone who was one of our good friends, or who used to be a good friend, and he kind of intervened.
It's what the Americans call, "reaching out". In the hit HBO series The Sopranos, about mafia families, whenever there was a dispute one side had "to reach out" to the affronted party. Yet in this case it should be the other way round. It should be Sutil doing the reaching out.
With Vijay Mallya's ongoing financial woes surrounding his billion-dollar-plus- losing Kingfisher Airways, the once darling flamboyant Indian businessman is losing status in India. Once representing the new wave of Indian business figures who unlike their predecessors weren't shy to show their wealth and lifestyle, the recession and business failure has taken the gloss off the public image. What better way to gain some respect than sticking Narain Karthikeyan or Karun Chandhok in the car...
As it is, we'll have another season of Sutil. Let's hope he can show more humility and grace than he has up till now. Eric Luz said he wouldn't accept an apology over the phone, that's why he insisted on taking the assault case as far as it went. Perhaps Sutil can learn a lesson from where he went wrong last time.
DJ
