Formula One: Sutil apologises at assault trial

German driver Adrian Sutil arrives at the district court in Munich yesterday

German Formula One driver Adrian Sutil apologised to a Luxembourg businessman at the start of his assault trial yesterday for wounding him with a champagne glass but said he had not meant to hurt him.
“I am terribly sorry, I did not want that to happen,” the 29-year-old Force India pilot told the district court in Munich, southern Germany, about the incident last April in a Shanghai nightclub after the Chinese Grand Prix.
Sutil is charged with grievous bodily harm for injuring Lotus Renault a Eric Lux with the glass in a brawl that broke out during a celebration of his close friend Lewis Hamilton’s win in the race.
The nine-centimetre-long (four-inch-long) cut on Lux’s throat required stitches, according to prosecutors, who had offered a suspended sentence of one year in exchange for a guilty plea. Sutil refused.
The driver told the court that he had attempted on several occasions to contact Lux to apologise but that the executive had repeatedly rebuffed him and threatened him with lasting damage to his racing career.
Lux, who was not yet in the courtroom when Sutil testified as he is a co-plaintiff in the case, said later that he wanted the pilot to say he was sorry in person.
Hamilton is not due to testify as a witness. A verdict could come as early as Tuesday.