Esteban Gutierrez – AUSmotive.com

Esteban Gutierrez gets flipped off my Pastor Maldonado

The most spectacular incident from this morning’s Bahrain Grand Prix happened when Lotus driver Pastor Maldonado drove into Esteban Gutierrez and flipped over the young Mexican and his Sauber C33.

Gutierrez, bemused immediately after the impact and now resting back on his wheels, asked over the radio: “Whoa! What was that?”

Thankfully, we can laugh about it now because Gutierrez was not hurt.

After the break we have a series of photos captured by those watching the race and shared with the world via twitter, starting with the image above from the BBC.

For his troubles Maldonado received a 10-second stop-go penalty and will also incur a five-place grid penalty after qualifying at the next grand prix. And, yes, in case you were wondering, that is in no way commensurate with the 10-second stop-go penalty and subsequent 10-place grid penalty for harming nobody after driving 100m down pit lane or so with a loose wheel handed down to our Daniel!

Maldonado has also been handed 3 points against his Super Licence, which could lead to a race suspension if he accumulates 12 or more points this season.

UPDATE: Thanks to Scott for the YouTube link, which has been embedded below.

Sauber has taken a low key approach to unveiling its 2014 F1 car, the C33. Just two photos have been released before official testing begins tomorrow night (Australian time). From that we can probably surmise that the C33, like a lot of its rivals, looks absolutely terrible from the front.

Reading through the Sauber press release you get the feeling they have no idea what is about to happen next. Such is the state of anticipation the teams find themselves as these new 2014 regulations are about to get real.

Eric Gandelin, Chrief Designer, takes the lead in trying to explain the feeling within the team: “The radical changes to the technical regulations for 2014 mean that itâ€™s even harder than usual to make predictions for the new season.

“We know what kind of package weâ€™ve put together here, but it is difficult to foresee what shape our rivals are in. The earliest opportunity to gain an impression of where the teams are in relation to one another will come during testing. The path we have followed with the design of the Sauber C33-Ferrari allows us maximum flexibility, so that we can react quickly.

“It is also clear that reliability will be an important factor in the first few races in particular. So this is an area which we have given very high priority.”

Gandelin goes on to add that the C33 which turns up to race in Melbourne will be quite different to the car that starts testing in Jerez this week, with new performance parts scheduled for the two Bahrain tests next month.

“On the one hand this gives us time to maximise the development of these performance relevant parts, and on the other hand we can run the car during the first test and check all the systems, which we feel is crucial, considering all the technical changes,” Gandelin said.

UPDATE 28 January: Sauber tweeted a close up of the C33 nose overnightâ€”it’s a boy! (See below.)