Sutil handed 18-month suspended sentence

Former Force India Formula One driver Adrian Sutil was found guilty of grievous bodily harm by a Munich court on Tuesday and given an 18-month suspended sentence and 200,000 euro ($262,300)fine for a night club brawl in China last year.

The 29-year-old German, who has yet to find a race seat this year, was found guilty of injuring Eric Lux, chief executive of Renault F1 team owners Genii Capital, in a Shanghai nightclub after the Chinese Grand Prix, Judge Christiane Thiemann said.

Lux needed several stitches for a neck wound after Sutil injured him with a champagne glass.

The Renault team has since been renamed Lotus and Force India have already announced Germany's Nico Hulkenberg as Sutil's replacement.

Sutil had told the court on the first day of proceedings on Monday he had repeatedly apologised to Lux and denied it was his intention to hurt him but rather to throw a drink in his face.

The prosecution, however, had asked for a 21-month sentence and a 300,000 euro fine, saying as a professional athlete Sutil should not have acted that way.

"Pushing someone away with a glass is adventurous and not in line with our experience of life ," prosecutor Nicole Selzam told the court.

"Professional athletes play a role model function in public life and such incidents should not occur."

The fine will be paid to charities.

The court had also wanted to hear from McLaren's Lewis Hamilton, who won the race in China and was in the night club at the time, but the 2008 world champion was excused due to team commitments.

First Published: Jan 31, 2012 18:29 IST