Lotus F1 news - TG: on F1 pit crew this weekend - 2010

We're not quite sure how this has happened. We're pretty sure it's a very bad idea. Somehow, TopGear's Dan Read has talked his way onto the Lotus pit crew for this weekend's F1 Grand Prix in Hockenheim.

If that statement doesn't alarm you, it really should. Dan is not a trained engineer. In fact, he's not really a trained... anything. He is flummoxed by spanners. He can barely tie his shoelaces. His mechanical know-how is limited to changing the batteries on a remote control.

And this weekend he'll be a vital cog in the slick, drilled-to-the-millisecond machine that is an F1 pit crew. On race day. With yer Hamiltons and Buttons and Vettels zipping all around him. This has the potential to go very, very, wrong.

When he gets a minute between making tea and extracting his bloody, mangled fingers from an important bit of engine, Dan will be providing us with regular updates from Hockenheim.

Keep checking back to our F1 blog throughout the weekend for all the latest from Hockenheim. And if you spot a slightly rotund, green-suited man being dragged down the pit lane with one arm wedged in the rear diffuser of a Lotus, well, you know who to blame...