Formula One 2011

[Lineker]

These things swing round about. Eventually someone will beat the Red Bull. And after Monaco especially, you can't say that F1 hasn't been exciting this year!

Jerome D'Ambrosio will be allowed to start tomorrow's Canadian Grand Prix despite having failed to set a time within the 107 per cent in qualifying.

The Virgin driver set at best time of 1m19.414s, with the 107 per cent time being 1m18.989s.

Despite not being fast enough in qualifying, the stewards decided to allow the Belgian to race, having taken into consideration the fact that he was using a new chassis today.

D'Ambrosio crashed heavily during second practice yesterday, forcing his team to build a new car around the spare chassis, as the rules don't allow for drivers to use the full spare car.

Mercedes GP is staying positive after falling a little short of its practice-session promise in qualifying ahead of Sunday's Canadian Grand Prix.

Having been fastest and third fastest in first practice on Friday, Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher qualified sixth and eighth on Saturday afternoon.

Mercedes' usual strategy of sending its drivers out for one run only in third qualifying failed to produce the desired results, with Schumacher in particular struggling to get his Pirelli super softs up to temperature.

The seven-time world champion also had a brief mechanical problem during his fastest lap, denying him the ultimate performance he had been building towards.

"We can be quite happy with today's qualifying. I had lost drive momentarily after turn four during my last lap but otherwise I had a clean lap," Schumacher told reporters.

"We will have to analyse why that happened, but all went pretty well other than that. We have developed our set-up in the right direction over the weekend, and the long runs looked quite good this morning, so we should be OK in the race."

Rosberg, who lines up sixth and outqualified McLaren's Jenson Button, praised the team's "good progress" and promised he has more in the tank for tomorrow.

"I'm pretty confident that we can do better in the race, certainly compared to our pace in Monaco," he said. "We've put in a lot of work on race performance and I hope we can translate that tomorrow. It's good to have saved a set of new options as well."

Both team principal Ross Brawn and Mercedes motorsport vice-president Norbert Haug felt that the one-run strategy have put their drivers in an advantageous position for tomorrow's race - so long as the weather doesn't upset the team's plans.

"We had a very solid qualifying session today with both the drivers and team doing a good job," said Brawn. "We have given ourselves a decent chance with the tyres and have a set of new options left for both drivers for the race."

"With two runs in Q3, we might have been able to climb a position or two on the grid," added Haug. However, a fresh set of tyres for tomorrow will be even more beneficial – if the race stays dry, of course."

Lewis Hamilton felt he got the absolute maximum speed available from his McLaren in Canadian Grand Prix qualifying, and reckons the team's fifth and seventh places on the grid prove it is losing ground to Red Bull and Ferrari.

Hamilton and team-mate Jenson Button were unable to get involved in the Montreal pole fight, and were 0.5 seconds and 0.8s respectively off the pace.

"We are just very slow this weekend. It appears that the other guys have maybe made a step forward, but I really don't know," said Hamilton.

"We're still not in the worst position, but I would like to be higher up. This was just the maximum the car was able to do. This weekend we're just lacking speed.

"It's a long race, the weather's up and down, anything could happen here so we'll just have to wait and see."

Hamilton was confident he could not have got anything more out of the car.

"I feel happy within myself. I don't think I've ever driven the car so hard in my life, really," he said.

"I was just on such a ragged edge. I think I even touched the wall at one point.

"I tried to use the tow of another car because we're so slow on the straight. We have the wrong gearing, so we're 10km/h - maybe more, maybe 12-13km/h - slower on the straight. So we're losing a couple of tenths just on the back straight.

"But I pushed as hard and that's as good as we can get."

He fears that polesitter Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull are beginning to look uncatchable, and that McLaren's form has stagnated.

"Vettel's gone, he's on his way," Hamilton said. "They're very, very hard for us to catch at this rate.

"But I'm still positive and I'm still hopeful. I don't know when we've got anything coming, but I really, really hope sometime soon we'll have something positive come to the car.

"We didn't really come with any upgrades, the car's not really progressed a lot. While we've been bringing a lot of different updates every now and then, they're not making the car faster generally.

"So we've been at a bit of a standstill for a while. The guys are working as hard as they can, and it's just a matter of time."

Button agreed that McLaren lacked ultimate pace this weekend, and felt he had exacerbated the situation with mistakes on his best lap in Q3.

"It's always frustrating when you're not quick," he said. "We didn't have the pace that we thought we would.

"We always knew that our race pace was better than qualifying, but we're surprised to be where we are.

"My last run was looking really good, and then I just over-drove really, starting locking up and losing time.

"A lot can happen here, this is a circuit where you can overtake. We've just got to hope that our race pace is better than our qualifying."

Sauber's eventful weekend continued on Saturday, with the team seeing both drivers advance to the second qualifying stage before exiting together.

Prior to qualifying, the team's mechanics had to perform their second set of major repairs in 24 hours, following stand-in driver Pedro de la Rosa's hefty accident at Turn 4, the same spot team-mate Kamui Kobayashi had crashed at on Friday.

Kobayashi then came perilously close to inflicting more damage on his car, power-sliding within millimetres of the Wall of Champions as he exited the final chicane on his last lap.

"It is a difficult weekend for us," the Japanese driver observed after qualifying 13th for tomorrow's Canadian Grand Prix. "After I crashed yesterday the team had to build up the spare chassis for me.

"I have an overall lack of grip and find it really tricky to get to the limit with the car. Nevertheless today the balance of the car improved a bit. I could have gone a few tenths quicker on my last flying lap."

De la Rosa, continuing his short-course in learning the new Sauber after only joining the team ahead of second practice, was satisfied with reaching the second session and qualifying 17th.

"Yesterday morning I didn't expect to sit in a racing car, and this morning I actually didn't expect a lot from qualifying," he said. "It is not easy to familiarise yourself with the car and all the new buttons in such a short space of time. I'm quite pleased with the outcome of qualifying and I'm optimistic for the race."

The Spaniard, like his new team-mate, was left ruing his own mistake this morning.

"Of course, the crash I had this morning didn't help either. I lost the car and then also a bit of confidence goes. I am very happy the team managed to repair the car and I want to thank them," he added.

Team bosses Peter Sauber and James Key, however, were in more positive moods following qualifying.

"Kamui finished qualifying in P13, and that's the same position he had in Monaco where he was able to deliver a great result," said team principle Sauber. "Considering Pedro only learned yesterday after one o'clock that he was going to race this weekend, he did an excellent job making it into Q2."

Technical director Key added that he thought the team had got about as much out of the car as they could, saying Sauber were "not a hundred percent satisfied, but under the circumstances it's still okay where we are. The race is a totally different story."

Both Lotus Renault GP qualified in the top ten ahead of tomorrow's Canadian Grand Prix as the team bounced back from a nightmare qualifying in Monaco.

Nick Heidfeld lines up ninth on the grid after outqualifying team-mate Vitaly Petrov by just 0.023s, despite carrying a wet set-up as the paddock faces uncertainty over tomorrow's racing conditions.

"Nick and Vitaly are carrying different levels of downforce," confirmed Renault chief mechanic Alan Permane. "When it rains, we're only allowed to change the cooling of the cars. Nick will carry more downforce than Vitaly tomorrow and, depending on the weather, this could be a very strong position to be in."

Heidfeld, who had to go out again at the end of the second qualifying session to fend off the Force India of Paul di Resta, was "extremely happy" with his performance.

"We made some minor adjustments with the car today and certainly got what we could have done from it," said the German veteran. "I'm also happier with how I'm driving on the supersoft tyres; yesterday I was not satisfied but today I really got used to them, and I think that showed through my lap times."

"Obviously you always want to be higher up than P9 but being in the top ten is satisfying and we will try to improve on this tomorrow by securing a good pace and gaining some places."

Petrov admitted to being caught out by the lower track temperatures - during Saturday they were up to 15 degrees lower than on Friday – but was satisfied just have delivered a better performance than two weeks ago.

"The track temperatures were much lower than yesterday and it was very difficult to warm-up the tyres properly throughout qualifying," he said. "As a result, I was lacking grip out there and I lost a bit of time during my quickest lap."

But the Russian is hopeful that Canada's typically changeable race conditions could play into his hands in tomorrow's race.

"Montreal is almost always a crazy race and the safety car is often a part of it," he added.

"Also, the weather forecast is looking unsettled so we can expect anything. As a result, tomorrow will be a case of adapting ourselves to the conditions and taking every single opportunity."

The FIA has told teams that it is not going to waiver from its decision to ban off-throttle use of blown diffusers this year, with it set on outlawing the systems from next month's British Grand Prix.

AUTOSPORT understands that the FIA wrote to F1 teams on Saturday morning in Montreal informing them that it was committed to not allowing them to continue off-throttle use of blown diffusers.

The FIA originally intended to ban the systems from the Spanish Grand Prix, but that decision was delayed after the governing body was made aware of 'unintended consequences' of such a move.

However, ahead of a meeting of the F1 think tank Technical Working Group in London on Thursday, the FIA says that it is set on its course of action.

As well as outlining its decision to make off-throttle blown diffusers illegal from the British Grand Prix, it suggests a change to the technical regulations for 2012 that will outlaw teams from using blown diffusers at all.

Williams technical director Sam Michael confirmed that the teams had been informed of the plan - and that Thursday's meeting would be about how best to implement the FIA's decision.

"The FIA has made its position very clear," said Michael. "They want to talk about the fine details on Thursday, but what Charlie [Whiting, FIA technical delegate] is saying is that hot blowing is banned and cold blowing is banned from the Silverstone GP onwards.

"For 2012, the exhaust system must exit behind the rear wheel centre line, actually 330mm behind, so right out the back of the diffuser.

"That means there cannot be any exhaust influence on the diffuser. That is what the FIA has clarified and then Thursday is about implementation."

Whiting said at the Spanish Grand Prix that the FIA acted on the blown diffuser situation because it was worried teams were exploiting that area of car design too much.

"It became apparent to us, through examination of data, that what we thought was a fairly benign feature was turning into something that was being used, in our opinion, illegally," he said during a media briefing.

"An exhaust system is there for the purpose of exhausting gasses from the engine and when you're off-throttle, it isn't doing that any more. Therefore it's being used to influence the aerodynamic characteristics of the car. We think arguably, this infringes Article 3.15 of the technical regulations."

Mark Webber says he remains in no rush to try and sort out a fresh contract with Red Bull Racing for 2012, despite claiming his current focus is on staying at the team for another year.

Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner prompted speculation that Webber is in the driving seat to remain as Sebastian Vettel's team-mate for another year earlier this weekend when he revealed the Australian had told him he wanted to race on.

And although neither party plans to enter serious contract negotiations until the summer, Webber said in Montreal on Saturday that he saw no reason to be thinking of anything other than staying at Red Bull Racing.

"I am comfortable, mate," said Webber, when asked by AUTOSPORT about his reaction to what Horner had said:

"I'm very comfortable. I am happy here. The guys have done a phenomenal job for me in terms of on the floor. The boys and mechanics, I am very happy with all that.

"But we will just keep talking. We don't have to rush. There is time to talk so we will keep doing that."

When asked if he was looking at options elsewhere on the grid, Webber said: "No."

Webber's contract has most recently been renewed on a year-by-year basis, with the team and driver both keen to keep their options open as their partnership continues.

As well as a future path at Red Bull Racing, speculation has also linked Webber with a move to Ferrari - although the Italian outfit recently said that Felipe Massa would definitely be staying for 2012.

Post-qualifying press conference:

TV UNILATERALS

Q. Sebastian, six poles in seven races. This wasn't supposed to be Red Bull's strongest track yet here you are again.

Sebastian VETTEL: Yeah, I think we made up some ground from last year. Obviously last year we committed to a different strategy and I sacrificed qualifying. But this year I feel quite comfortable here. I had a rough start yesterday morning but the boys could fix the car in time and I had more practice in the afternoon, which is important around here. It is a tricky track with the kerbs and chicanes to understand coming from high speeds, hard braking, but I think we had a smooth qualifying and two very good runs. We were able to use first timed lap of the tyre so all in all I am very happy. It is obviously a big step. But the main task comes tomorrow. Conditions are very likely to change so we will see some rain. The question is when and how much. We will see. But P1 is the best possible position to start from.

Q. Fernando, a tenth-and-a-half behind Sebastian only. But how are you feelings about the race tomorrow?

Fernando ALONSO: Well we feel good, we feel confident. I think let's go step by step. We concentrate in qualifying on Saturday and it is the best result of the year for the team, second and third, and as you said two-tenths or one-and-a-half tenths behind Red Bull which is a much better result than we expect. Or a much better result that in the first six races so extremely happy with today's performance from the car and the whole weekend has been very smooth for us so looking forward for tomorrow. As Seb said, conditions are likely to change so maybe it is the less important qualifying of the year. Unfortunately we had the first row of the grid but it is always better to start at the front and tomorrow I think all the cards are on the table and I think we will have a chance to win the race for sure.

Q. Felipe, fastest in Q2. Great scrap with Fernando today and your best qualifying performance of the season. You must be delighted.

Felipe MASSA: Yeah, it is a very good weekend for us until now as Fernando said. I mean we were pretty competitive yesterday, this morning, in the qualifying and even when we were on the same tyres as the Red Bulls in Q2, the supersoft, it was also close. I think that's really good for us and good for me as well. Back to a good qualifying. Starting in a better position compared to the other races. Maybe the weather tomorrow can be a little bit different than today but we need to be ready and starting in a good position, in the front. In the good or in the bad weather it is the best we can have. Anyway, happy with the car, happy with the team and I think we did a good job today.

Q. Sebastian, you have had quite a lot of pressure in the last two grands prix to hold onto the win. Are you expecting some troubles from the Ferraris tomorrow in the race.

SV: Not trouble, but pressure yes, obviously. We have seen all this weekend it is pretty close. Going into this weekend we know that probably this is not our strongest circuit. We like high-speed corners. You don't necessarily find much of them here but still we managed to have the fastest package today, to do the best job, so I think we can be very confident. The runs we had, they looked very promising. I think the pace is there in the car. Surely it is never easy and it won't be easy tomorrow but I think like the last two races we are also ready to fight so we will see what happens tomorrow.

PRESS CONFERENCE

Q. Sebastian, it has been a little bit of an up-and-down practice and qualifying for you given what happened yesterday, but here you are on pole today.

SV: Yes, so need to make sure it doesn't become a habit to crash the car on Friday and be on pole on Saturday. I think the Friday bit, obviously, the target is to do many laps without damaging the car. I think the team worked very hard. Initially there was not much chance I would say, or hope, to go out again in the second session. They fixed it very quickly. Fortunately there wasn't too much damage and we had the whole of P2 so that was very good and very important also for today. This place you really need to get into the rhythm as in the end to squeeze everything out of your car this is a rough track with the kerbs and so on. As I said it is important to have a couple of laps to find that rhythm and in qualifying we had a good feeling in Q1, Q2 and probably knew that putting things together a little bit more we can improve another bit for Q3. Still I think we saw in Q1 and Q2 we are not going around and joking so it has been very, very close. Q3 again not much. Going into this weekend we know that this is probably not our favourite race track but still we put a very strong package together. We had some new bits and it seemed to work pretty well and here we are. I think up to now we had a great weekend and did our homework. It is a bit of a shame for Mark (Webber) obviously. He was not able to run this morning, which surely it is not easy then, as I mentioned earlier, to find that rhythm straight away. But I think both of us we should have a good race tomorrow.

Q. The two Ferrari drivers have been fastest in certain sessions. Are you feeling more pressure from those two than perhaps you have from others so far this year?

SV: Not really. At this stage everyone looks after himself and in qualifying you know it is between you and the car. You are fighting against the others, but first of all you try to maximise your own performance. That's the best you can do anyway. Tomorrow is a different ballpark and very likely to rain so I am quite happy as we brought rain tyres. We are as prepared as we can be. This is always a very long race with a lot of things to happen. We have seen from the last two races in particular it will be very close so we don't expect anything else than that. As I said for today we can be happy but tomorrow is a new day and probably a new adventure.

Q. The inevitable question about KERS particularly as your team-mate missed out a whole session this morning. How has your KERS been so far this weekend?

SV: Fine, so no problems so far. It is difficult from outside to understand what is going on with us and the KERS. We know, obviously, a little bit more but as I said it is a shame. Sometimes it is no problem then all of a sudden we get caught out as happened to Mark this morning. He had to cancel the whole session of P3. We will see but so far I have been lucky this weekend. The KERS has been working and will be working tomorrow as well.

Q. Fernando, you said yesterday was one of the best Fridays. One of the best Saturdays today?

FA: Yeah, the best. No doubts. I think the car felt competitive from yesterday and today being on the first row of the grid, it is probably Singapore last year that we were on the first row. It is a good feeling. Back to the first positions, fighting with the pole position and for Felipe and me being here in the top three, both Ferraris, is a nice team result and a nice performance so far in this weekend. But the real job is coming tomorrow. It is the race where points are given so we need to maximise what we have tomorrow. We need to maximise this privileged starting position and score as many points as possible.

Q. What do you think has made the difference? Is it because of the circuit or do you feel you have really made progress with the car as well?

FA: Both. I think the circuit is a huge help for us with no high speed corners so the aerodynamic is less important which is our weakest point at the moment no doubts, I think all the new parts we brought here seem to work okay. Sometimes you bring new parts to the race. You test it on Fridays and there are some parts that are going okay, some parts that are not so good at the moment, so you need to keep developing. This Friday, yesterday, everything seems to work okay. Everything we brought here is in the car now as it was fine so we make a step forward but, as I said, the biggest help is coming from the characteristics of the circuit I think.

Q. Barcelona start tomorrow?

FA: Barcelona or Monaco is okay. I think in both cases I overtook one Red Bull so it's okay.

Q. Felipe, you must be pleased with this third on the grid?

FM: Yeah, I think it was a good qualifying for us. I think we had a good car yesterday straight away. It looked competitive compared to the other tracks, even compared to all the teams that were always in front of us straight away like McLaren, for example. We were not 100 per cent sure that it was really like that but this morning we saw as well that our car is competitive. We can drive with better grip and we are much closer to Sebastian, to Red Bull, compared to the other tracks as well. I think it was a good qualifying. It was a good day for us and shows that we need to carry on in that direction to make the car quicker and quicker all the time. It is also true that this track is maybe a little bit better for our car. Tomorrow is tomorrow. Maybe it is raining, maybe not. We don't know but we need to be ready and starting in a good position. It is good on the dry and good on the wet so hope we can have a good day tomorrow as well.

Q. Did you make many changes from yesterday to today?

FM: Yes, a little bit but just some details on the set-up on the car. But even yesterday the car was good.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q. (Paolo Ianieri - La Gazzetta dello Sport) Fernando and Felipe, we have seen this year, apart from Barcelona, that Ferrari has been stronger on race pace than in qualifying. Red Bull here looks a little bit closer. What are you expecting from tomorrow. You said that you are going to go for a win; is that the case?

FA: Let's wait and see. As Felipe said, the forecast so far is for rain tomorrow. We've never run all together, in race conditions, all the cars this year. We did a couple of laps in the Barcelona test but not all the teams were there, and we did a couple of laps in China, but some ran on Friday and some waited in the garage, so maybe tomorrow will be the first time that we see all the cars together with the new Pirelli wet tyres, so let's wait and see what the pace is. We also can't forget McLaren. I think that in spite of the qualifying position, with the set-up that they have, the speeds that they have, they are probably running with a lot of downforce, so in wet conditions I think they can become very competitive, so it will be a tough competition tomorrow but it will nice for you to watch, maybe more stress for us but that's OK.

FM: Yeah, as Fernando said, tomorrow, maybe, we see different conditions, different weather, a different race. For sure, if we do as we do in many races... we make a step forward; from qualifying to the race is better, that's what we're looking for, but we need to be ready that maybe the weather tomorrow is different than what we have had up until now for races. Plus, this is not an easy track to race on in the rain, so we need to be very careful about that.

Q. (Frederic Ferret – L'Equipe) For all three of you; how have you prepared yourselves for the possibility of rain tomorrow?

SV: We brought some rain tyres and I brought a coat and an umbrella. To be honest, there's not much more we can do now. We cannot touch the cars. If anything, we had to make our bed before qualifying, so car-wise the only things we can change now are small things and the tyres. And then we will see what happens. We will see how strong the rain will be, how long it will be and it's also predicted to be quite windy, not very hot, but usually either heat or a lot of wind makes the circuit dry quickly so it depends. I think at the moment if you look at different weather forecasts, they all say something different, so I think the best thing is to wake up tomorrow morning, look outside and see how we are.

Q. (Flavio Vanetti – Il Corriere della Sera) To Fernando and Felipe: do you feel a sort of relief not having a bigger disadvantage to Sebastian this time?

FM: Yes. We are always looking to be first, you know, and seeing what Sebastian's done this year – so many pole positions, always in the front – when you see that you are able to fight in the right direction, in Q2, Q3, with the same tyres, it makes us even stronger. I think that's the direction, to push harder and to carry on, to see all the qualifying and races in a good fight.

Q. (Peter Windsor - Clarcksport) Sebastian, Mark Webber's just confirmed that he didn't have KERS in qualifying either. My question to you is that if you're in the terrible situation that maybe you had a problem with KERS tomorrow, do you think you could win the race without KERS?

SV: The thing is that if I have a problem, then I have no choice. I can't stop and say 'OK, recharge' or whatever. So far this weekend, as I've said, I've had no problems and it looks as good as it can be. You never know. You can ask these two if by any chance their engine would blow up tomorrow. I think the chances are very low but you never know, so, surely, with our KERS, there's a bigger risk than probably the Ferrari engine blowing up. Mark obviously still had a problem this afternoon. I think they could be able to fix it tonight; we will have to wait and see. At this stage I think it's too early. It would be very difficult (to win it without KERS). Here, I think the effect of KERS is quite big, both to attack and to defend in the race situation. Yes, we have the rear wing so I think that makes a bigger difference than the KERS but still, I think you can check some of the other races. In Barcelona I had it on and off in the race and I felt more uncomfortable when it didn't work so I would love to have it, yes.

Q. (Thomas Richter – TV Nova) Fernando, you said after two or three races that it's difficult to predict tyre behaviour, tyre strategies. Do you feel it's much better, you're more comfortable with your engineers while choosing the correct strategy and do you maybe have some ideas for tomorrow?

FA: Yeah. After six races we have more experience with tyres. The soft tyre, in particular, we have used so far in the whole championship, all the races, the same soft tyre and the supersoft experience from Monaco as well. Yesterday, we got some information on the long runs, so we should have a much better idea now after a couple of races in the championship, how they behave and how the tyres behave. Anyway, every Sunday is a different strategy or a different possibility, depending on how the first corner goes, which position you are in. So normally you have to react to some other strategy. If someone running in eighth position stops (pits for tyres) and (then) goes very quickly, you need to react, you need to stop again because, if not, he overtakes you. Even if you have a perfect plan or an idea, the strategy this year is always very flexible.

Q. (Marco degli Innocenti – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Sebastian, did you expect such a strong Ferrari, both Ferraris or are you more worried about Hamilton and McLaren?

SV: I think after yesterday it was pretty clear that Ferrari is very quick around here as well but tomorrow is a long race. McLaren is right there behind us and I'm quite sure that as Fernando said, if you look at their speeds, maybe they had a different idea going into qualifying and preparing the weekend, preparing the race so we will see whether that works for them tomorrow or not. For us, we knew that it would be difficult here. I think we had a very good day today so we can be very happy but the main task is coming tomorrow and it will be a very difficult race, on top of the fact that usually here the cars are fairly close; I think with the DRS tomorrow it will be difficult to disappear. On top of that, we don't know what the weather is doing so I think it could be quite interesting for you to watch, but surely, I agree with Fernando, it will be busy for us.

Q. (Marina Cappitti – Il Cittadino Canadese) Alonso and Massa, one word for the Italian community in Canada who are waiting for this moment to feel Italian?

FA: Well, we feel very proud to drive for Ferrari. We feel very privileged to be in the red cars, so every place we go, every race we go to, we try to do our best, not only for us, not only for our team, also for the whole Italian community and all the tifosi around the world with the Ferrari flags and the red caps in the grandstands. So here is a very special place for Ferrari. I felt last year for the first time when I came here in red and I feel it again this year, despite our results in this campaign. The support for Ferrari is always huge here, so hopefully we can put on a good show for them tomorrow. Both cars on the podium would be a good present.

FM: For me as well, I did an interview two days ago and sent a message to the Brazilian community because we have a lot of Brazilians here as well and I did the same with the Italians. I hope everybody is here, you know, supporting Ferrari. We know how many and how much tifosi we have by racing for Ferrari and hope we can have a good result for all of them as well and I hope they're happy to see Ferrari racing here but also for the Canadian people who are in love with Formula One. It's always nice to come here and race in front of all of these people.

Q. (Livio Oricchio – O Estado do Sao Paulo) To all of you: let's suppose that the weather forecast is dry; do you expect a race like last year when you used even harder tyres than this year?

SV: You're right. I don't think there's anybody who can give you a guarantee on the weather. We have had the experience that it changes. If you look at the last three days, it changed a lot (to) today. Going into this weekend it was supposed to be completely wet. Today the rain has shifted and moved around, so it's a bit unclear when there will be rain. If you look up, it doesn't really look like a sunny day, so there will be rain, the question is how much and when? Surely, there will be some tomorrow morning. It can change quickly around here, I'm told, so I think we will have to wait and see but nevertheless we will see a very exciting Grand Prix here as usual, with different strategies. I think the tyres will be the key factor, similar to most of the places, but probably a little bit more because the conditions, the tarmac is different to other places. We've struggled a bit last year so I don't expect it to be much better than last year so it will be an exciting race and surely grid position is important but it's a long race and it will be much more important where you finish.

FA: With tyres not much different to last year, I think they were harder but they were degrading a lot here, especially the soft tyres, so we went to two stops and it was a surprise last year because we normally do one stop but I don't think the tyres will be a problem tomorrow if it's dry. What, for sure, is a more interesting or chaotic race is if there are safety cars and things like that. We have seen two or three red flags already this weekend. If this happens in the race or if there is a safety car period, then different strategies appear, if you chose to stop, if you chose to stay out. You need to make the right call and be a little bit lucky. Same in wet conditions. If it's wet, right call, right tyres at the right moment. So the luck factor tomorrow is quite important.

FM: Like Fernando and Sebastian said, last year was different because it was just one more stop compared to the other races. It was strange last year but for this year I don't think it will be so different from what we we've seen in many races this year and I think the strategy will be more or less what everyone is expecting, not like last year which was different to other races. So it shouldn't be a big difference to be honest.

Q. (Ted Kravitz – BBC Sport) Sebastian, on the slow down lap, you apologised again for the crash on Friday. How much had you been beating yourself up about it and why?

SV: To be honest, we are here to drive the car on the limit and mistakes can happen, surely it is better when they happen on Friday than on Saturday or Sunday. It doesn't feel nice when you come back to your garage without your car. I've seen that they've been working very hard, they had no lunch, just for me to get out again, so obviously, if you see days like today, or the races that we had, we all know what is our target and what we're here for, but surely it's not always easy. Naturally, I feel sorry for them because all I do is go back to my room, there's not much I can physically do to help them. The only way to say thanks is to make sure next time I have the chance is to drive the car as quick as I can and put it in a good position.

[GA!]

They need to be stricter with the 107% rule. When a car can't make the 107% in practice, or Q1 where a lot of drivers will coast around because you have to be very unlucky like Mark Webber was to fall out at this stage, it shows it's not good enough to race - new chassis or not.

[Sam]

Yes but some of this comes out of the blown diffuser thing because I don't think Virgin are running one and seeing as it's been deemed not legal you enter really shady waters when they don't qualify within the 107% running a legal car because the fastest car is technically illegal. It'll be interesting to see what happens when the can no longer use these blown diffusers as I suspect Red Bull are the team that benefits the most from it.

[LUKIE]

The only time they shouldn't be allowed to race, is if it will be deamed unsafe.

[Rich]

The only time they shouldn't be allowed to race, is if it will be deamed unsafe.

Which is the whole point of the 107% rule, if there are drivers going around a lot slower than the front runners, when you are doing 200 Miles Per Hour, it is a huge safety concern, as Webber found out last year in his huge incident with the Lotus.

[Katsuya]

Reportedly, it's Sauber, Toro Rosso, Williams, Virgin and Hispania that don't have the technology. Essentially, it's really bad news for Renault and Force India, because that throws them right in to the clutches of Sauber and to a lesser extent Williams. Especially Renault since they reckon that it could give them up to a second more a lap, which would really cripple them if the ban comes in to play.

[Katsuya]

Ugh. Pointless safety car start, thankfully it's in this lap but even so, they didn't need to do that.

[Sam]

Bloody hell Lewis! At it again.

[EddieG]

Jesus christ, Lewis Hamilton didn't wait around, did he? Cunt.

[Fry_4000]

Lewis punts off webber

[Sam]

Oh for christ sake now he's gone and taken out Button! Now he's retired, obviously doesn't fancy ruining other peoples races.

Edited June 12, 2011 by Sam

[Fry_4000]

what is Lewis playing at

[Katsuya]

I don't really think that Button and Lewis was Hamilton's fault, to be honest.

[Sam]

He's a great racer who is just making too many mistakes and being far too aggressive.

[LUKIE]

Can't really call that anyones fault. Hamilton was making a move he would have normally made on anyone else, Button moved in to follow the racing line, and as the commentators said, there was no way he would have known Hamilton was there. Racing incident.

[Fry_4000]

Why is Jenson on Inters? still looks to wet

[Katsuya]

They probably thought that they'd clear the safety car quicker than this and manage to make up some time before the rain.

[Fry_4000]

Kamui up to 6th

[Sam]

Button is on the charge now! Great stuff.

[Katsuya]

HOLY SHIT THE RAIN!