Formula One 2011

Asuka's Gonna Kill You · July 24, 2011

Fantastic race so far, Hamilton has been outstanding, such a better and more exciting race at the front without Vettel in there.

Unlucky for Button too, just as he was making progress in the race he's forced to retire.

Fry_4000 · July 24, 2011

Taxi for Alonso

Gazz · July 24, 2011

Watch as Hamilton gets a penalty for leaving parc ferme, Alonso gets a penalty for not being able to give a fuel sample and Webber get a penalty for picking up Alonso, handing the race win to Vettel. :shifty:

Lineker · July 25, 2011

A really interesting race to mark the halfway point of the season. It continues to rain shit on Seb Buemi though (read below)

McLaren's Lewis Hamilton took his first grand prix victory since China in April as he emerged on top in a race-long battle with Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber in the German Grand Prix at a dry Nurburgring.

Polesitter Webber's third place behind Ferrari driver Alonso was Red Bull's best result of the day, as championship leader Sebastian Vettel had a muted home race and came home fourth after a lengthy dice with Felipe Massa in the second Ferrari.

Webber almost got swamped at the start, with Hamilton instantly sweeping past him and the two Ferraris then going either side of the Red Bull into Turn 1. Neither made it through, and while Alonso held on in third ahead of Vettel, Massa was edged out wide and dropped to sixth behind Nico Rosberg.

Vettel would get past Alonso for third when the Ferrari ran wide in the first complex on lap two, but six laps later the Silverstone winner was able to successfully retaliate into Turn 1. Soon afterwards, Vettel lost touch with the lead battle when he brushed the damp white marker line under braking for Turn 10 and snapped into a spin. He rejoined without losing a place, but the top three were long gone.

The lead briefly changed on lap 12, when Hamilton ran wide at the chicane and Webber got a successful run into the final corner - but the McLaren was able to get better momentum onto the pits straight still and squeeze back ahead.

Webber was the first of the evenly-matched lead trio to pit on lap 14. He initially lost time in traffic, but once in clear air he was able to start setting new fastest sector times, meaning that when Hamilton and Alonso pitted in unison on lap 16, they came out just behind the Red Bull.

Once the late-stopping Massa came in for his first tyre change, Webber finally found himself leading a lap for the first time in 2011, though he could not shake off Hamilton and Alonso.

Webber was again the first to come in when the second stops began on lap 30, with Hamilton and Alonso following suit over the next two laps.

This time the under-cut did not work. Hamilton rejoined ahead of Webber and determinedly fended off the Red Bull through the complex. Alonso managed to jump both of them, but Hamilton made the most of his warmer tyres to drive around the outside of the Ferrari at Turn 2 to retake the lead and then start edging clear, holding a three-second cushion while Webber began to drift away from Alonso.

With the medium tyres felt to be significantly slower, the leaders tried to stretch their third set of softs as long as possible. Hamilton came in on lap 50, and though Alonso held on for two laps longer, the McLaren was able to stay narrowly in front.

Webber rolled the dice and ran until lap 56 of 60 before finally taking the harder tyres, but it did not pay off, as he rejoined still some distance behind Hamilton and Alonso, with the McLaren taking what ultimately became a straightforward victory - setting the fastest race lap on the penultimate lap for good measure.

Vettel fell behind Massa at the first stops and spent the rest of the afternoon on the Ferrari's tail. Only when they finally pitted for hards with just one lap to go did Vettel manage to get fourth back as a day after missing the front row of the grid for the first time all year, he finished off the podium for the first time in 2011.

Adrian Sutil's best drive of the year brought him sixth place for Force India, as he made a two-stop strategy work superbly to beat the two Mercedes of Rosberg and Michael Schumacher. The latter had been challenging his team-mate until losing time with a mid-race spin at Turn 10.

A great start and a two-stop strategy helped Kamui Kobayashi come through from 17th on the grid to ninth for Sauber, just ahead of Petrov, who lost ground by staying out too long on his first set of tyres.

Jenson Button never featured at the front. A slow start dropped him to 10th, and he then spent the race in traffic, couped up behind Vitaly Petrov's Renault for most of the first stint. Just after making it past Rosberg and into sixth, the McLaren developed a hydraulic problem and had to retire.

Completing a disappointing day for the majority of the large home driver contingent, Renault's Nick Heidfeld tangled with Paul di Resta's Force India on the opening lap. The German earned a drive-through penalty for the incident, but never got chance to take it as by then he had crashed out for good in a clash with a wandering Sebastien Buemi (Toro Rosso) on the approach to the chicane.

PROVISIONAL RACE RESULTS

The German Grand Prix
Nurburgring, Germany;
60 laps; 308.863km;
Weather: Cloudy.

Classified:

Pos Driver Team Time
1. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1h37:30.334
2. Alonso Ferrari + 3.980
3. Webber Red Bull-Renault + 9.788
4. Vettel Red Bull-Renault + 47.921
5. Massa Ferrari + 52.252
6. Sutil Force India-Mercedes + 1:26.208
7. Rosberg Mercedes + 1 lap
8. Schumacher Mercedes + 1 lap
9. Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari + 1 lap
10. Petrov Renault + 1 lap
11. Perez Sauber-Ferrari + 1 lap
12. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari + 1 lap
13. Di Resta Force India-Mercedes + 1 lap
14. Maldonado Williams-Cosworth + 1 lap
15. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari + 1 lap
16. Kovalainen Lotus-Renault + 2 laps
17. Glock Virgin-Cosworth + 3 laps
18. D-Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth + 3 laps
19. Ricciardo HRT-Cosworth + 3 laps
20. Chandhok Lotus-Renault + 4 laps

Fastest lap: Vettel, 1:34.587

Not classified/retirements:

Driver Team On lap
Liuzzi HRT-Cosworth 37
Button McLaren-Mercedes 35
Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 16
Heidfeld Renault 6

World Championship standings, round 10:

Drivers: Constructors:
1. Vettel 216 1. Red Bull-Renault 355
2. Webber 139 2. McLaren-Mercedes 243
3. Hamilton 134 3. Ferrari 192
4. Alonso 130 4. Mercedes 78
5. Button 109 5. Renault 66
6. Massa 62 6. Sauber-Ferrari 35
7. Rosberg 46 7. Force India-Mercedes 20
8. Heidfeld 34 8. Toro Rosso-Ferrari 17
9. Schumacher 32 9. Williams-Cosworth 4
10. Petrov 32
11. Kobayashi 27
12. Sutil 18
13. Alguersuari 9
14. Perez 8
15. Buemi 8
16. Barrichello 4
17. Di Resta 2

All timing unofficial[/code]

Renault is considering giving its rearward facing exhaust layout another trial at the Hungarian Grand Prix, even though it elected not to race it in Germany this weekend.

As part of a major update push from the Enstone-based team, it trialled a new Red Bull Racing-style blown diffuser layout in Friday practice at the Nurburgring. The exhausts on the new diffuser exit at the rear of the car rather than at the front of the sidepod, as the R31 had been originally designed.

Nick Heidfeld, who evaluated the prototype version in Friday practice, said that the initial feedback from the rearward facing exhausts was encouraging - but the team was not convinced enough with it to keep it on for the race.

However, team principal Eric Boullier says that there is likely to be further evaluation of the concept at the Hungaroring - as it believes there is good development potential for it going forward.

When asked by AUTOSPORT about the team's feeling on the exhausts, Boullier said: "It became pretty obvious that it is a good technical solution, but it had some stalling/unstalling effect which we could not fix here. So we decided to postpone the introduction of this.

"Maybe we will try to bring it back in for the Hungarian Grand Prix. We need to tweak it a little bit to make sure there are no strange effects. With this stalling and unstalling it is not very comfortable."

Boullier says a final green light to racing with the new exhausts will only be given when the concept proves to be a good step forward in pace compared to the current version.

"We have found a lot of developments with our concept, but there will be a point where we decide to keep going or stick with what we have," he said. "Until we have clearly demonstrated to ourselves that the new exhaust is clearly a step forward, we will not go for it."

Nick Heidfeld said his accident with Sebastien Buemi was unavoidable, when the pair made contact at the braking zone into the NGK chicane on lap 20 of the German Grand Prix.

The Renault driver, who had just received a drive-through penalty for punting Paul di Resta into a spin on the opening lap, had been trying to recover from that incident when he attempted to pass Buemi's Toro Rosso.

Heidfeld, on the outside into the braking zone was closed down by the Swiss driver and the two cars collided, sending the Renault sideways across the grass and briefly airborne.

"My start wasn't too good," Heidfeld told the BBC. "I lost some positions there when I collided with Paul [di Resta]. After that I tried hard to make up some positions. I overtook a couple of cars and came up behind Buemi. He was blocking me which was fully okay on the left side, on the long straight before the chicane.

"But then I was next to him on the right and he just moved over, and there was nowhere to go. So he pushed me on to the grass and there was an accident, that couldn't be avoided with what he did."

Heidfeld admitted that the incident with di Resta, which sent the Scot to the back of the field, was his fault entirely.

"I was a bit sandwiched in the second corner, then on the third corner Paul was on the outside and a bit in front of me. I locked up the front wheels, I tried to avoid him, but just slid into him."

Sebastien Buemi will lose five places on the starting grid for the Hungarian Grand Prix after he was given a penalty at the Nurburging.

The Toro Rosso driver was deemed to have caused an accident with Renault's Nick Heidfeld, after squeezing the German out of the track when approaching the chicane during the race.

Heidfeld crashed out of the race after making contact with Buemi's right rear tyre, with the Swiss having to pit to changes his tyres.

The FIA stewards deemed Buemi was at fault and have imposed a five-place grid penalty for next weekend's race.

"Heidfeld drove into me at the chicane and I got a puncture on my right rear," said Buemi. "So I had to pit and change tyres, which compromised our strategy even more and with no rain, that was really it.

"It has been a disappointing weekend in which we cannot be satisfied with our performance, therefore all we can do is look ahead to the Hungarian Grand Prix and at least we don't have long to wait for that."

The penalty comes after Buemi was disqualified after yesterday's qualifying following a fuel irregularity.

Heidfeld was given a drive-through penalty for a crash with Paul di Resta at the start of the race, but the German did not have time to serve it. The FIA said it will not take any further action against the Renault driver.

Jenson Button believes that he could have finished in fourth position in the German Grand Prix had he not been forced to retire his McLaren with a hydraulic problem.

The Briton, who made a bad start to the grand prix and dropped from seventh to tenth, had fought his way back up to sixth ahead of Nico Rosberg when he was forced to stop on lap 35.

"I had a terrible first lap, I don't know where I ended up, and then I couldn't get past [Vitaly] Petrov," Button told the BBC. "Eventually I did, and then I got back past the next two guys.

"My pace was good compared to the guys in front, [Felipe] Massa and [sebastian] Vettel, so it was all looking quite exciting. I had a lot of fun out there and then we had a hydraulic issue and I had to retire the car on safety grounds.

"You never know what's going to happen with hydraulics, because obviously the steering is hydraulic and so is the gearshifts and what have you."

Button added that he was out of the fight for victory, but was fully in the fight for fourth with Massa and Vettel.

"The first three, there was no chance [of catching them] but the next two, yeah it was looking pretty good. Adrian Sutil who I passed before I passed Rosberg, was catching Massa and Vettel, so we would have had a good race.

"I think in the end we wouldn't have been in the top three but fourth was definitely possible. I was enjoying myself out there as well."

Fernando Alonso said he was extremely happy with his second place in the German Grand Prix, especially after his Ferrari team had not the easiest of weekends.

The Spanish driver had won the British Grand Prix two weeks ago, but started the race down from fourth place.

Although Ferrari had a more difficult weekend because of the low track temperatures, Alonso fought for victory and finished less than four seconds behind race winner Lewis Hamilton.

The Spaniard believes the result was a "fantastic achievement" for Ferrari.

"I am extremely happy with today's result," said Alonso. "We had a weekend that probably was not the easiest one. We struggled a bit on Friday, in qualifying we were fourth, half a second from pole so no doubts that we struggled a bit more with the weekend.

"But even with the difficulties we are second and fighting for victory, so this is a fantastic achievement. Second in Valencia, first at Silverstone and second here.

"With three different rules, three different maps, we were constantly first and second on three different circuit and with different temperatures, so with all these conditions we saw consistency that put us in a good position to enjoy this final part of the championship."

Alonso believes Ferrari could be even stronger in the Hungarian Grand Prix next weekend thanks to the higher temperatures and the softer tyres.

"I am looking forward to a bit more temperature on the track. The soft and super soft tyre should be an advantage for us in terms of how we take on the tyres. In a week we will have a very interesting weekend again.

"McLaren did a step forward, and Red Bull will be extremely strong, so it is challenging for us."

Alonso is now 86 points behind championship leader Sebastian Vettel, who finished in fourth today after his worst race of the year.

Alonso, however, does not believe the German is feeling the pressure.

"No, I don't think so, it was a bad race or whatever happened. I think he spun at the beginning of the race and I don't know how he was stuck behind Felipe. These things happen."

Mark Webber conceded Red Bull needs to take a step forward in order to return to winning ways after being outperformed again in Germany.

The Australian started from pole position but was unable to keep Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso at bay, eventually going on to finish in third position, nearly ten seconds behind the Briton.

It was the second race in a row that Red Bull, winner of six of the first eight races, was beaten and Webber admitted the team needs to improve.

"We weren't quick enough today," said Webber. "I did everything I could. I'm happy with the way I drove, but these guys had a bit of an extra margin, especially in back part of the stints. That made us a little bit exposed on strategy.

"We know what we have got to improve on and we couldn't give much more than we did today. I'm disappointed not to get a win, we had a good fight around the stops, so it's mixed emotions.

"You need to perform at a good level to get these. We keep learning and the progress has been decent but we need to improve."

Webber was happy to have outpaced team-mate Sebastian Vettel this weekend, but said the main concern was not the rival teams.

"The last three races it has closed up, if you want to talk about the comparison between us two. But the main comparison was the competition: we got beaten in last race and got beaten here.

"We don't need to be Einstein to work out we need to work hard. We have to keep being consistent and learning. We have a great factory and reliability is good, so we will keep our head down and press on."

Webber, second in the championship behind Vettel, is still 77 points behind the German.

Lewis Hamilton believes his aggressive style and reputation were key factors in a superb victory at the Nurburgring.

The Briton, who equaled Stirling Moss' record of 16 grands prix wins in Germany, said harnessing his typical aggression had helped him triumph over Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber as the trio remained locked in battle for the duration of the race.

"Driving lap after lap within tenths of each other was about real perfection," Hamilton said, "and with my aggressive style, I felt the moves I made were some of the most precise I have pulled in a while.

"Being able to drive with your head all the time and getting it just right is massively satisfying. I was in a good space, and days like this pay off more than you could imagine."

Hamilton said victory was made all the more special by the pressure he and McLaren have been under lately, but that both parties need to replicate such performance on a consistent basis.

"Every win is special, but with the emotion, effort and all the energy the team put into the car and the effort they put in, it just couldn't feel better.

"Coming into this weekend I said I would take it one race at a time. To win is massively positive for us, but there is a long way to go and it is about getting consistency.

"If I say something now it could be a disaster, as the next race is going to be very, very hard. We are back in the fight though, and I hope we can carry this forward and keep the momentum going."

Kamui Kobayashi insists that strategy rather than pace was responsible for his rise from 17th on the grid to ninth at the flag.

The Japanese driver made phenomenal progress on the opening lap as he jumped five places to 12th, giving him the platform to score his seventh top ten of the season.

Kobayashi insists his team were still struggling for pace at the Nurburgring however, and came through the field due to the stargety it adopted.

"The fact we have scored points is down to a very good pit stop strategy," Kobayashi said. "Our pace just wasn't good enough here.

"My start was good, and I was able to overtake both Williams during the race, but it was impossible to get Michael (Schumacher) - he was way too fast on the straights.

"However, I'm happy we managed to score after a bad qualifying, and I want to thank the team for an excellent job. I hope we will be performing better at the next race."

Kobayashi's team-mate Sergio Perez also made up places during the race, moving from 15th to 11th, but blamed himself for not matching Kamui and scoring points.

"I am not at all happy. Given our grid positions we knew it would be difficult to get some points today, but, as Kamui has shown, it was possible.

"I am angry with myself because I made a mistake on lap eight, which is why I had to pit early and change tyres. This obviously was not what was planned in the strategy.

"We recovered a bit from there, but not enough for points, which were my aim."

Michael Schumacher was left lamenting his spin during the German Grand Prix, although he said he was pleased with his result.

The German Mercedes driver lost around 15 seconds when he spun on lap 23 of the Nurburgring race.

Despite that, Schumacher charged back to eighth position, but was still sorry about his error.

"My spin caught me by complete surprise, but that spot is known to be tricky in wet conditions, even if the conditions were not so wet today," said Schumacher.

"Anyway, it obviously cost me some positions which was a shame. Towards the end, rain could have helped but the chances were low so I did not count on it.

"All in all, I am OK with the race. With the little improvements we have made, we can look forward to Hungary now."

Schumacher finished behind team-mate Nico Rosberg, who did not enjoy an easy race after his car did not handle as well as during qualifying.

"I had a good start to the race today and made up one position on the first lap to be running in fifth place," he said. "However I didn't have a perfect set-up today and the car wasn't working quite as well as in qualifying. I had some good battles with Massa but despite pushing hard, it was impossible to keep him behind me.

"Seventh place is OK but we know that we have some work to do to maximise our latest upgrades in the race. I have a great team behind me, both the engineers and the boys in the garage, so I am confident that we will do this and we will see what happens next week in Hungary."

Adrian Sutil delivered Force India's best performance of the season as he finished a strong sixth at his home grand prix in Germany.

Sutil enjoyed a relatively quiet run to sixth, even passing compatriot Nico Rosberg in the pit stops, but said the clean air had allowed him to fully demonstrate the potential of the car.

"It was a great race today and I'm so pleased to get this result for the team because we really deserved it," Sutil said. "We had a great car all weekend and everything just went perfectly.

"I spent most of the time running in clean air so I could really show the potential of the car, and to get this result in my home race also makes it extra special.

"This is just the start though, because we still have lots of work to do in the coming races to score lots of points and catch up with the teams ahead of us."

Team-mate Paul di Resta said Sutil's pace was a small consolation for his own race, which was compromised by a clash with Nick Heidfeld on the opening lap.

"Once again it's a frustrating end to my weekend because I had a great chance to score some points today. It's a shame because we came here with a great package and we had a good strategy for the race.

"I pushed hard to recover, but points were just out of reach today.

"The good news is that Adrian has brought in a lot of points and showed just how competitive the car is."

Sebastian Vettel says his Red Bull team must improve after the world champion was soundly beaten by McLaren's Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari's Fernando Alonso in the German Grand Prix on Sunday.

Vettel finished a distant fourth in his home race following a mid-race spin, having only managed to pass Felipe Massa's Ferrari in a pitstop race on the last lap.

Afterwardsl Vettel admitted that Red Bull's rivals are closing the gap to the championship leaders.

"Generally I think fourth anyway was probably our maximum today which is not satisfying but you know we have to accept it and go from there," he told the BBC.

"Next week is the next race and it looks like McLaren and Ferrari are getting quicker and quicker so we need to work harder on our car to try and improve it in order to be back on the podium and maybe stand on the top step again.

"Of course it's not satisfying but I think we have to accept that today other people were quicker than us," he added. "As I said surely I'm not happy so I have to come back next time but for now I think they [McLaren] have been working and improved their car so we need to make sure that we come back.

"I didn't feel very good all weekend, I never got to the pace probably that Mark [Webber] had in the car and as I said I struggled to keep up after the three or four laps of the warm-up stage is over to keep up with the top two or three cars."

Webber, who remained in contention for the victory for much of the race, having started from pole and finished third having lost out to Hamilton and Alonso in the final round of pitstops, concurred with his team-mate's assessment.

The Australian admitted afterwards that there was nothing more he could have done to improve his chances of winning the race.

"I think it's clear to see," he said. "Everyone is reasonably intelligent up and down this pitlane when it comes to performance so we know that in the last race at Silverstone which has normally been a very, very good track for us, Ferrari were very quick there.

"Today there was not much more we could have done to challenge for the victory and we hung in the fight as long as possible but in the end we got outpunched.

"We know that the prizes and points are handed out on Sunday afternoon," he added. "Saturdays have always been a strong area for us, the team and the car, it's not something that we inherently design in the car. We want to do it on Sundays as well so it's something the team will work on and chip away at.

"We have good people and we know what we need to do to try find some more performance on Sundays."

Ferrari has confirmed that the FIA was able to extract the mandatory one litre of fuel required for post-race checks from Fernando Alonso's car after the race.

Alonso was told to stop by the team on the slowing down lap because he was low on fuel - and if the minimum amount required could not be extracted then he could have risked disqualification from the event.

However, after his Ferrari was returned to the pits, Ferrari said that it passed FIA checks - and there was no issue either from the governing body about him not being able to complete the slowing down lap.

Team principal Stefano Domenicali said: "They did the fuel sample as after the race there had to be one litre of fuel. It is all done. So nothing has happened. It was just a precaution."

Domenicali refused to elaborate on the reasons as to why Alonso did not have enough fuel to complete the slowing down lap.

The FIA also stated that Mark Webber would not face any sanctions for stopping on the return to the pits to pick Alonso up – even though it could have been viewed as a breach of the rule requiring cars to proceed directly to parc ferme.

Fernando Alonso says that he will need McLaren's help if he is to stand any chance of winning this year's drivers' crown.

Alonso, who has finished first or second in the last three races, reckons that it will not be enough to simply beat Red Bull for the rest of the season - he needs McLaren to finish ahead of the runaway championship leaders as well if he is to overhaul the points deficit.

Asked about his chances of winning the championship in 2011 he replied: "I think it's still the same [situation] and it's still very difficult and we need some help from Red Bull.

"If they keep finishing the races even third or fourth is enough for them," he added.

"But as I said yesterday, if there is a small chance to win the championship we need the best McLaren possible, because they need to be on the podium constantly and we have to be in front of them as well.

"But we need to have a very competitive McLaren as they were today and hopefully in Budapest we can be both on the podium and not Sebastian [Vettel]."

The Spaniard added that he believed that his recent string of results proves that Ferrari's mid-season revival is well on-track.

"We had a very good race [today], starting fourth again," he said. "In the race we were as quick as the leader in all the stints so we need to keep improving because qualifying is our weakest point at the moment but in general I am extremely happy.

"I finished second in Valencia, won in Silverstone and finished second here. Three different tracks; three different temperatures; three different maps in the exhaust. So that confirms the consistency of our car at the moment and the real improvements that we did."

Ferrari's team principal Stefano Domenicali also believes that the results of the last two grands prix could signify a turning point in the season for the Italian squad.

"The most important thing... if we see this kind of performance we can have a different second half of the season in order to try and challenge Red Bull because they are still ahead and very strong," he told the BBC. "I think we need to take it race-by-race.

"If you remember last year in Germany we were very strong and then we went to Hungary and we were 1s off the pace from the Red Bull. So I think the only signal that for me is great is to see that in the certain conditions the car has improved but let's wait and see."

Bruno Senna will return to grand prix action next weekend when he replaces Nick Heidfeld during the first practice session in Hungary.

The Brazilian, who made his Formula 1 racing debut with the Hispania team last year, will get a one-off opportunity at the Hungaroring.

Senna joined the team in February as a reserve driver and Hungary's outing will be his first in a grand prix weekend with the team.

"I'm really excited to be driving in FP1 at the Hungaroring," said Senna.

"It's not very often you get these opportunities with big teams, and I'm very grateful for getting this chance. Hopefully I can do a good job and show the team the potential I have, and help us move forward.

"I've done some productive work in the R31 already this year - though never during a race weekend - so I know the car layout well and I'm confident it will be a smooth transition. I'm looking forward to working with the team during the session to ensure a good car set-up for Nick when he resumes driving in FP2."

Team boss Eric Boullier added: "We feel now is the right time to give Bruno a chance to drive for us during a Free Practice session. Although he's done some mileage with our R29 and R31 already this year, driving in a Friday session will provide him invaluable experience with the R31 during a race weekend.

"It will also give us with a chance to see how Bruno adapts to driving during a competitive practice session. As of Free Practice 2, Nick will return to the car for the remainder of the weekend alongside Vitaly."

Post-race press conference:

[spoiler]TV UNILATERALS

Q. Lewis, your second win of the season and I get the feeling that meant a little bit more than your first win of the season.

Lewis HAMILTON: Yeah, I think so. I think every win is special but I think the emotion and all the energy the team put into the car and the effort they have put in... when we don't see results like this it slowly builds up, so when you finally hit the sweet-spot and get it, I think it is just ever better. It just couldn't feel any better. I think we never expected to come here this weekend and be so fast. We were hindered in the last race a little bit, but the guys did a fantastic job, really pushing very hard. Even the guys back at Brixworth HPE are pushing very hard and the engine was great. I just feel great. I think one of the best races I think I have ever done.

Q. Fernando, the top three finishers were all pushing hard but maybe pushing a little bit too hard in your case, as you ran out of fuel at the end of the race. Did that compromise your fight with Lewis towards the latter stages?

Fernando ALONSO: No, not really. I think in the last stint we could not get any closer to Lewis. I think with the medium tyres we were not too quick, so we just controlled the gap with Mark and secured the second place. For us, it was a fantastic race, a fantastic Sunday again. We struggled a little in quali, being fourth yesterday, but today the car showed great pace, a great degradation of the tyres, so we can keep the pace of the leaders and we jump (Sebastian) Vettel on the track and Mark in the pit-stop. It was great the second place after the win in Silverstone, the second place in Valencia, so it is definitely a good moment of the championship for us. Next week we have another opportunity.

Q. Mark, describe your emotions after another pole position that sadly, for you, you couldn't convert into a win.

Mark WEBBER: Yeah, we weren't quick enough today. Did everything I could. I was happy with how I drove. I think these guys just had that little extra margin when they needed to do it, especially at the back part of the stints. A little bit more range and that made us a little bit exposed on strategy. We know what we have got to improve on. I couldn't have got much more out of what we had today, so disappointed not to get the win, but all three of us had a smooth day really. A good fight around the stops. Like you say, mixed emotions. Another good result. You need to perform at a high level to get these, but we will keep learning. The progress has been decent but we need to improve.

Q. Lewis, where did your extra margins come from? How much was down to the car and how much was down to you?

LH: Well, I think none of us can win without the car. I think bit by bit just learning more about the how the car is behaving and with the driving style I was able to learn to look after the tyres a little bit more. There were certain areas where I was losing out to these guys. I was quickest in the first sector, quickest in the last sector, but struggling in the middle sector, so it was really improving my line in a lot of different places, particularly turn three. At the apex of turn three I was sliding my tyres quite a lot but later on I was able to recover from that and avoid the sliding. At turn eight, which is the fast chicane, I wasn't able to take (it) flat out at the beginning of the race, while Mark was and he was catching me massively. With a couple of alterations and with all the switches that we have, all the toys we have, it was really fantastic for me to be able to make steps forward. I was really surprised again that my tyres lasted so long later on in the race, so I guess there are still areas we need to improve on, particularly on heavier fuel for the beginning of the race, but this is a massive step forward and I really hope that we, as a team, can really use this to propel us forward and to keep the momentum going.

Q. Fernando, it was such a close fight between all three of you for pretty much all of the 60 laps. How difficult was it to concentrate on the racing and the overtaking while trying to focus on what you needed to do to save tyres and save fuel in your case as well?

FA: Yeah, it was an attacking race. In a way we didn't concentrate too much on the tyres today because when you are in a group fighting three cars together you are just concentrating on getting close enough to the DRS zones and using your KERS in the best possible place. It did work with Sebastian, I was able to overtake him. It didn't work at some other parts of the race, but I think it was nice to watch the fight of all three and at the end fantastic result for us again. Quite a good race.

Q. For the first time this season the championship leader doesn't sit amongst the top three. Mark, is this what we can expect from here on in as we move into the second half of the season, a close fight between you and Sebastian at Red Bull and Lewis at McLaren and Fernando at Ferrari as well?

MW: Yeah, hope so.

Q. What gives you that confidence that it is going to be such a great fight? From what we've seen today or by the developments you feel the three teams are making?

MW: Well, the last three races it has closed up if you want to talk about the little comparison between us two but obviously the main comparison is with our opposition. We got beaten at the last race and we got beaten here, so you don't have to be Einstein to work out that we need to keep working hard. We have had a phenomenal run. We are still leading the Constructors' (Championship) very, very well. Seb has got a good lead in the Drivers' (Championship) but you have got to keep being consistent and learning. We have got great people at the factory and reliability is still good. Obviously JB (Jenson Button) dropped out today so that's an added bonus for us in the team, so keep our head down and press on.

PRESS CONFERENCE

Q. Lewis, let's start with the start. What happened there, as it was pretty good?

LH: Yeah, it was one of our best starts, which is a huge difference to what we had perhaps in some places like Valencia. We have been working really hard on our starts and I think I got good temperature in my tyres, good temperature in my brakes, and as we pulled away it felt just fantastic. It was probably one of the best starts we have had all season and it was just at the right time really. It was important to get into the lead at the beginning, otherwise we may have seen Mark pull away. After that it was just trying to bridge the gap. At the beginning of the stint I was able to do that, but I think we are better at generating heat in our tyres. Then, inevitably, our tyres degraded a little bit quicker and the others began to catch up. But it was an eventful race I think.

Q. Then Mark came past you, but you got him a lap later?

LH: Yeah, I don't know how the other drivers feel but there was a particular point on the track for me going into the chicane, and from lap to lap it was a little bit different braking into the chicane. Maybe it was just my car but I would have a bit of rear wheel locking or something like that and I would just slide into the corner. I had a bit of a wide moment there so just had to be very cautious at that corner more than any others throughout the race. He got past me but fortunately I was in a position to get past him again into turn one. We had a good battle all the way I think down to turn three. Mark was very fair. That is the kind of racing I love. I love having those kind of races with people but fortunately we were able to come out ahead.

Q. The important thing about this stage of the season - is it is important to be on top going into a double header and then the summer break as well?

LH: I think it is always a plus, no matter what point of the season is, to be at the front. We really, really and I particularly didn't expect to be anywhere near where we are today this weekend. I thought we would be struggling behind both Red Bulls and Ferraris and perhaps I may have been able to split one of the Ferraris but it was quite the contrary. Really surprised at the speed that we had. We are always quite quick in the races. I think it is a little bit unfortunate that the rules have been a little bit consistent over the last two races. But we are back in the fight. I think the next race is going to be very hot probably, which will be another big challenge for us but we are working very hard in anticipation of that so hopefully we will still be competitive.

Q. Fernando, second place after winning two weeks ago. Are you happy with second? No one ever is, but are you?

FA: Yeah, absolutely. Extremely happy with today's result. We had a weekend that probably was not the easiest one. We struggled a little bit on Friday and we saw the Red Bull maybe in a better position than Silverstone. Then yesterday in qualifying we were fourth quickest, half a second or four-tenths from pole position, so no doubts we were struggling a little bit more this weekend because of the low temperatures or whatever the reason is. Also, for sure, the improvements that our competitors brought here and even with all these difficulties we are second and fighting for the victory on Sunday so this is a fantastic achievement from the team again. Second in Valencia, first Silverstone, and second here with three different rules, as Lewis touched on, three different maps, we are constantly first or second in the last three races, with three different type of circuits. Silverstone a very high-speed circuit, Valencia heavy braking and Nurburgring a slow-speed corners. Different kind of temperatures. Valencia hot, here nearly winter temperatures. So with all these conditions we saw our consistency and it puts us in a very good position to enjoy this final part of the championship.

Q. So you are particularly looking forward to Budapest coming up and even Belgium?

FA: Definitely, I am looking forward. With a little bit more temperature in the track it will be a help for us. Soft and super soft tyres for next week should be an advantage also for us in the way we take care of our tyres. So, in one week I am sure that we will have a very interesting race again. McLaren did a step forward and is ready to take victories. Red Bull will be extremely strong in Budapest as we saw last year, so it is challenging for us but we are looking forward.

Q. And you overtook Sebastian on lap nine as well.

FA: Yeah, I overtook him at the start, then he overtook me on lap two into turn three. I was on a wet kerb and then I overtook him again on the main straight. It was good. As we said, there is nothing we lose when we attack at the moment the Red Bulls. They have a very comfortable advantage, so every time we can we will try to overtake them.

Q. Mark, what about the start?

MW: It wasn't a big issue today. I led the race.

Q. So that's one thing accomplished?

MW: Lewis obviously had a phenomenal start. Better than ours. Then we got into the first part of the grand prix. It is always difficult to keep the pressure on the guy in front, which I could do with Lewis in the first stint not too bad. But we know with these tyres that the consumption on them is pretty high following someone like that, so it is always a line line how much you want to be on someone around the stops, around the DRS, but also you hurt the tyres by doing that. It is hard to race when they are like that, but anyway that's the way it is. Then I jumped them around the stop. Led the middle stint I think and then we got jumped in the next round of pit stops by both guys. Fernando went one lap longer and jumped both of us. Lewis got him on the outside of three. I tried to do the same move on Lewis but it was quite close. I wasn't far enough around to really win the corner so all of us are warming up our tyres in the first sector having had the guy that's just pitted. But overall mixed emotions. I don't think I could have got much more. I think I drove to the limit of the car. All of us did. Lewis deserved the win. Fernando, all of us, were pushing hard for the majority of the grand prix and it comes down to the team-work in the pit-stops and everything together. In the end disappointed not to win of course, but we will keep pushing for Budapest. We know we have to improve the car on Sundays. It's an area that has been brewing the last few races and it is something that we need to try to address soon.

Q. Is that just the way you run the car or is that development parts?

MW: It has been like it for the past two-and-a-half years. The car has been very, very quick on Saturday and normally enough on Sundays to win grands prix. Obviously, the last two we have been done fair-and-square. Seb last weekend, me this weekend, so we didn't really have much to punch back with. So hats off to the opposition. That's what it's about but it is good that we have only got four days and we are in Budapest again to try and have another crack.

Q. Is Budapest a track you feel will suit you?

MW: I think the car should go well there, yes. But again, it is down to tyres, but we saw last year it is a little bit more like the middle sector here.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q. (Vincent Marre - SportsZeitung) Lewis, how do you rate your percentage chance of winning the Championship, if you had to rate it ?

LH: The chance? We're not really looking at that. Coming into this weekend, I said we would just try and take it one race at a time. Again, we never really anticipated being so competitive this weekend, but of course, we've just had a win and with the way people have finished the race, it's a massive bonus or positive for us, but there's still a long, long way to go and it's about trying to keep doing this, trying to get some consistency. If I say something now, and then the next race could be a disaster because it's a very, very hot track, we could be in a similar position as we were in Valencia. I would prefer to keep my mouth closed and let the pace of our car do the talking.

Q. (Alvaro Faes – La Nueva Espana) Lewis, we all know that music is very important for you, it's very important in your life. I would like to know if you knew or were a friend of Amy Winehouse, and if you have any special thoughts for her after winning today?

LH: I think it's a very, very tragic time. Music, in general, is a huge, huge part of my life. I don't know what I would do without music and she was a very, very uniquely talented singer and writer, and she was really one of the very few nowadays that even writes their own songs, so she was very special and I can't imagine how tough it is for all of the family, but mine and my family's thoughts and wishes go to them. We all said a prayer for her last night and for the family as well.

Q. (Sarah Holt – BBC Sport) Lewis, you never stop believing in your driving style, despite various criticisms that you've had this season and in the past. How important was that today, because you were producing very stylish moves, progressive?

LH: I think days like this definitely pay off more than you could imagine, and being able to have close races – this was a great race in the sense that there was Mark, me and Fernando all within a tenth of each other, lap after lap after lap and it was about real perfection and it was about really not making mistakes. It was awesome and I think both of these guys drove exceptionally well. And then for me, with my aggressive style, people comment about being able to use it. I think today I was in a really very good head space and perhaps I feel even better because I felt the moves I did were some of the most precise moves I have pulled in a while. Being able to drive with your head all the time and get it right, just right, is massively satisfying. As I said, I will continue to do it the way I do it and continue to improve.

Q. (Joris Fioriti – Agence France Presse) Fernando, during the last races you've been saying that what you have to do is get as many points as possible, and wait for Sebastian Vettel to make mistakes. Today he made a couple of them; do you think it's due to the pressure that you put on him, and also to Mark and Lewis.

FA: No, I don't think so. I think it's just about racing; whatever happens I don't know what happened to him. I think he spun at the beginning of the race. I don't know how he was stuck behind Felipe, whether he lost position in a pit stop or whatever but these things happen. For sure if you start from pole position, you have a second advantage in your car and you lead the whole race, it's very easy. When there is more competition, you need to take races in a different way, you need to be perfect in all things: the start, the pit stops, qualifying etc and maybe today they had some difficulties in one of the areas but I think they are still very, very quick. They were on pole position yesterday, they are by far the favourites for Budapest so after this race it still doesn't change anything compared to yesterday. For sure, as I said, if we have a small chance to recover the gap in the championship, if we do races like today, we are on the podium and he isn't. To have that combination in our case, we need the best possible performance from our teammates, as I said yesterday, in my case, we need the best McLaren performance as well, to see the McLarens very, very strong and taking points from Red Bull.

LH: You can't expect him to be perfect all the time. He's won a huge amount of races from the end of last year into this year. It's easy for everyone to criticise him, just from one race, but he's been exceptionally consistent for a long time. For whatever reasons, I'm sure he will bounce back, he will be very quick at the next race and I think it's maybe a one-off.

Q. (Jaime Rodriguez – El Mundo) Fernando, can you explain what happened on the last lap? It was a strange way to arrive to the podium, making autostop.

FA: Yes. The team told me to stop the car for safety reasons and I stopped the car. Mark was there so I took the taxi!

Q. (Michael Schmidt – Auto, Motor und Sport) Mark and Fernando, in the first two stints, you three were pretty well packed, and then in the third stint, all of a sudden the gap opened. Was there a problem with this particular set of tyres or did you play it strategically to go as late as possible onto the harder tyre?

MW: It's very, very complex. It's hard to explain all the time why gaps open up here and there. I think I did three laps on this set of tyres in Q2, one quick one, one slow one, one quick one, so probably the lowest priority set for us in terms of the race. Also, I locked the rears like Lewis did in the chicane on one of the laps, so I lost a second and a half, two seconds at the start of that stint, trying to stay with Fernando. Yeah, the cars also behave a bit differently: different fuel loads, all those type of things come into it and then all of a sudden you have one or two tenths per lap and the gaps start to eke away a bit differently to what they were at the start. Also, when we're close together, obviously the DRS can give you a chance to stay in the zone, but when all of us are free of DRS, then the real pace starts to show ,inevitably.

Q. (Livio Oricchio – O Estado de Sao Paulo) Mark, this was the first loss of your team this season, real loss, no pit stop error in the pit stops, no rain, nothing, and you lost to two teams, McLaren and Ferrari. Is this the real moment, is this the real picture of the second part of the season?

MW: I don't think we can blame a four second pit stop at Silverstone. I think we got beaten fair and square in Silverstone, so this isn't the first time we've been beaten, so this is the second race. Is it the form for the second part of the championship? Difficult to say, because we're going to go to a track next weekend which should be a bit better for us than this track. Let's see. If we start to see a real trend, like I say, we've got company on Saturday and we're really not in trouble but Sunday's are more of a handful for us at the moment. Fernando was with us in Turkey and also in Valencia and Lewis in Barcelona on Sunday. Let's see. I think it's a bit early, but it's not like... Seb had a good run, but it's not like… I think we were more dominant last year than we were this year. It's just that we always put things together and we've always been there at the end, but last year we were probably more dominant. It's just that Seb had a good run, but close victories, not winning by twenty seconds.

Q. (Flavio Vanetti – Il Corriere della Sera) Fernando, apart from the track not being particularly favourable to Ferrari, were you missing anything that would allow you to win today? Were you missing anything in the car?

FA: Yeah, I think qualifying was one of the important things that we missed this weekend, because on race pace we were quite quick, or as quick as the leader normally in all parts of the race, all parts of the stints. If you start in fourth, you always have to overtake people, either in the pit stops, where you have to anticipate and try to overtake or stay out longer, or overtake on the track. You are always running behind traffic, so you damage your tyres a little bit more when you are running a second behind another car, so in general I think with a clean race from the front, with clean air, I think we would have a little bit more pace, which we didn't maximise today. So I think qualifying is one thing that we maybe missed this weekend and then secondly maybe also some of the moments in the race, in the pit stops, when we were very close to overtaking them, especially the second pit stop when I was first in the first corner and I lost the position in the second and in one lap I think I lost two seconds so the warm-up on the out lap was very, very bad, so that's something that we need to keep working on.

Q. (Frederic Ferret – L'Equipe) Mark, can we have a few words about Cadel Evans's win in the Tour de France?

MW: Obviously cycling has had a lot of controversy in the last ten years. I've always kept an eye on it, of course, tried my best to enjoy the sport and still watching the incredible courage that the guys show to take on the mountains and climb at altitude and all those type of things, and back up day after day. We know with Cadel that he's a really strong fighter. He did most of the riding in the mountains on his own. He didn't have much support. Obviously on the Alpe d'Huez day he had to get a few mechanicals with the bike as well, so he lost a lot of time there. He absolutely deserves the victory, it's been inspiring to watch him, particularly over the last week, fight on his own. It's been a weekend of mixed emotions. You obviously have something like that, which is incredible, but I couldn't believe what happened in Norway, it's never far from your mind. It brings what we're here for into perspective. Obviously we enjoy the racing but there are other people who have had a very, very difficult weekend, for sure.

Q. (Frederic Ferret – L'Equipe) Fernando and Lewis, do you think it's McLaren and Ferrari in front of the Red Bulls now, apart from Budapest? Do you think the gap is closed to the two Red Bulls and you can fight for the championship with them?

LH: It appears so but like I say, we didn't really think we would be so fast and not quite sure what we've done, because we've not really brought much here. I don't know if it's the conditions. I think we were competitive in Montreal and in Monaco and in Valencia, in hot temperatures, we are less competitive. We obviously went to Silverstone with the rule changes which was a big problem for us, and then we come back here to where we were, really, in cool conditions. I think we're there or thereabouts but I do still feel that the overall performance of the two guys here, particularly the Red Bulls', is slightly better than ours. You can see this weekend, I was quickest in the first sector and the last sector, but we lose a lot in the middle sector, and that's because we don't have a DRS system as efficient as theirs, so I think that we will lose at least half of those four tenths in the middle sector. If we can improve in that area, then I think we could definitely eke ahead of them, so that's what we need to work on.

FA: Yes, same for me. I think that as Lewis said, it seems that one weekend is good for us in terms of Silverstone, the characteristics of the corners or whatever. This weekend seems good for McLaren, for whatever reason, but Red Bull is always there. It seems that all conditions on most circuits are good for them, so that's the only difference and I think we need to make another step if we want to be at the same level.

Q. (Kate Walker – GirlRacer) Lewis and Fernando, the Hungaroring is supposed to be a Red Bull track; can you tell us anything about the updates that your teams might be bringing to try and negate that advantage next weekend?

LH: I'm not quite sure what we have coming. I think the car stays the same although, again, I will inevitably go back and speak to my engineers now and we will do an assessment as to how things were during the race and I will tell them exactly where we can be better and I will push them in every direction possible to hopefully see what we can get. Anything that we may have coming in the future again, I'm certain my team is pushing very hard to try and bring forward. There are things that we really, really need so we need to put every little bit of resource and effort into that.

FA: In three days time we are in Budapest so the cars will be identical to what we have raced here. I know that there are some parts that we tested on Friday but they were not positive so maybe they check it again in Budapest but the car will be quite similar. The biggest difference or the most significant difference for the car performance and behaviour will be the tyres with the soft and supersoft. The car should work differently for all the teams and we need to adjust the car in a way to exploit the grip from the tyres.[/spoiler]

Lineker · July 26, 2011

McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh says his outfit must remain focused only on its own performance - rather than what Sebastian Vettel is up to - if it is going to deliver the race wins needed to get itself genuinely back in the world championship fight.

Lewis Hamilton's brilliant victory from Fernando Alonso in the German Grand Prix, with Vettel finishing only fourth after a spin early in the race, has lifted hopes that the second half of the season will not deliver the kind of Red Bull Racing dominance that happened at the start of the year.

And although Vettel's comfortable gap at the head of the points table means he and his team will need to make more mistakes if he is to be beaten, Whitmarsh says there is little point in his outfit thinking about what can go wrong for the German.

"We cannot bring about his failure," explained Whitmarsh. "All we can do is put the pressure on him, and I think Sebastian made a couple of mistakes here. But balance that at the start of the year he was supreme in his confidence, not making any mistakes whatsoever.

"We have to just concentrate on our own act and improve our performance, improve our reliability and improve everything that we do. That is all you can do. If that turns out to be good enough to win races then that will be great."

McLaren is planning to bring further updates to its car for this weekend's race in Hungary, but Whitmarsh thinks the fact that current form tends to fluctuate between his team, Ferrari and Red Bull Racing means that it is difficult to make any confident claims about potential.

"I think giving predictions in this sport is virtually impossible," he said. "There is a see-saw of form here and I don't think we can say that this victory shows them we are on a roll. I don't think we are.

"I think we have to say that yes we could win. We can win or it can see-saw and go the other way, so we will be working very, very hard to make sure that we do the best job possible in the next race."

Whitmarsh also said that he would not use Hamilton's victory to hit back at critics who suggested his job was on the line recently on the back of a poor run of results.

"I think we are a pretty resilient team," he said. "We have good people and we don't pay too much attention to outside.

"We are tough on ourselves, and we don't like not winning. I think all that stuff that I enjoyed two weeks ago – remember that at that point we were second in the world championship, more than 50 points ahead of Ferrari, and ahead of some pretty good teams. We lapped some pretty big teams here.

"I think we believe in ourselves, and we believe we can be better. But at the same time we also know we are not too bad either. It proves the resilience and the toughness of this team."

Red Bull Racing says that the German Grand Prix has acted as a 'reminder' that it cannot afford to relax if it is going to deliver the world championship again this year.

Having been so dominant in the races earlier in the campaign, neither Sebastian Vettel nor Mark Webber could do anything to stop Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso taking the top two positions in the race.

And with Hamilton's victory ensuring that there has been four different winners in the last four grands prix, it points towards a far more competitive second half of the season.

Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner insists that its German GP performance was not too bad - and that it will actually serve to help motivate his workforce to keep working hard to improve the car and their own performance.

"I think if you look at Valencia, McLaren was down a bit there as well and Ferrari was up a bit, but for sure they are both great teams and they are both pushing very hard," explained Horner.

"We have managed to be competitive at many, many different types of track. We have had pole position at every single GP this year; we have won six out of 10 and been on the podium at every single race, so it is far from a disaster.

"But for sure this race is a reminder that we cannot back off, and not any member of the team is backing off at the moment. Everybody is pushing flat out."

Webber said after the race that he felt Red Bull Racing needed to address the fact that its car was not as fast as it should be in the races – with its single-lap performance being made clear by the fact that the team has taken pole position at every race so far this year.

Horner does not feel there is such a major problem, however – as Red Bull Racing has shown it can fight for wins at every venue.

"You are always learning and we have seen very different climatic conditions here," he said. "It has probably been colder than winter testing and we saw McLaren struggling quite a lot two weeks ago with tyres.

"I think the key to performance is understanding the tyres and getting the most from the tyres, and Red Bull has been pretty consistent across the 10 races whereas other teams have been up and down.

"We will for sure look to learn lessons from this weekend, and the next GP will be in different conditions probably. It is probably going to be another 20 degrees hotter.

"You are always learning, always looking to move forward, but the one thing Red Bull has consistently done is be able to run at the front this year."

He added: "Let's not forget that Lewis at the first GP wasn't that far away, but it has tended to be either McLaren or Ferrari challenging us. This weekend it happened to be both of them, so I think the team has really developed and I think operationally we are very, very strong.

"That is part of the reason that looking at the championship table we have managed to achieve the kind of results we have. I am sure we will see races continue to ebb and flow and hopefully we can maintain a consistent performance. Everyone in the factory is working flat out with bits coming through, so we are in the heart of the development race at the moment."

Fernando Alonso and Ferrari are ready to adopt a full-on 'attack' mode in their bid to win races - as the outfit predicts a thrilling second half to the F1 season.

With updates to the team's 2011 challenger having helped Fernando Alonso finish in the top two positions at four of the last five races, its world championship hopes have been reignited.

And although the 86 points deficit between Alonso and world championship leader Sebastian Vettel is still huge, the outfit knows that if it focuses on delivering as many wins as possible now then it can think about the title later.

Plus, with McLaren having rediscovered its form as Lewis Hamilton took victory in Germany, the fact that having two teams battling Vettel could help boost both their chances of success.

Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali said: "For sure what we need to do is attack every race and then, not now because it is too far away from us, later on to see what is happening [in the championship].

"Of course the only thing we can say is that the more drivers and the more cars that can fight, the easier it is to score more points and minimise the gap. At the moment the gap is still very big."

Although Alonso was unable to beat Hamilton at the Nurburgring, Domenicali has said he is hugely encouraged that the team was so competitive in the cold German temperatures – because it has struggled all year in trying to get its tyres into the right operating window.

"We know that in these conditions our problem is the warm up," he said. "We need to be very happy to see a car that performed so well in these conditions, which for sure are not the best for us.

"I am happy to see that in the last couple of races that Fernando has scored the most number of points, and that means we have come back to the performance that we should have. I am expecting a second part to the season that will be interesting for sure.

"I really feel that the Red Bull is still the strongest team, but McLaren showed here that they were very good, so I am not underestimating the competitors. But I am very happy to see the people have reacted and the performance is where we need to be.

"Now we go to Hungary where I don't forget that last year after the win in Germany we were one second off the pace of Red Bull, so we need to keep our feet on the ground and keep working on the development of the car."

Williams will put KERS back on Rubens Barrichello's car at this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix, after experimenting to see what effect removing it would have in Germany.

The team wanted answers as to whether removing KERS would help with tyre degradation - so it elected to try it out at the Nurburgring.

On the back of its experience there, however, Williams technical director Sam Michael confirmed on Monday that KERS would be run on both cars.

Speaking in Germany about the reasons behind the KERS experiment, Michael told AUTOSPORT: "We have had doubts over KERS in the past with controlling the brake balance under braking, where you end up with quite a difficult situation.

"We always felt in the past that the few times in races where we have turned it off, it has actually been better on rear tyre degradation. There is no doubt in qualifying that it is better because it gives you three and a half tenths because you can go out and we don't have to charge KERS for qualifying.

"Some guys are obviously more on top of their changing than we are, so the penalty for running it is something that we thought we could try at this track. We were planning to try and do it here."

The removal of KERS from Barrichello's car also meant that the team could play around more with weight distribution.

"You have to have a body mass that you can then use for weight distribution and centre of gravity. What we needed to do was go through a race weekend and see what happens to a car when it is not charging, because when we were in Silverstone and didn't have the blowing we could then switch to a different mode in the engine," Michael explained.

"We could use a lot of the ignition firing to control the braking and it was much better, but we cannot do both, the engine is not capable of doing that.

"So we cannot have 100 per cent blowing and ignition firing, as we can't do the ignition retarding that other teams do. So we can stop the blowing under braking and control the brake balance, or we can do the opposite. It is a bit tricky for us."

Williams technical director Sam Michael's last race with the team will be the Korean Grand Prix, before handing his responsibilities over to other people.

Michael resigned from the outfit earlier this year on the back of the team's poor start to the campaign, having felt the Grove-based operation would benefit from a restructuring of its technical operation.

With the outfit having signed new technical staff, including Mike Coughlan, Michael has now agreed the handover procedure before he leaves - with Korea being his final race.

"Most technical directors travel to races, but the structure that Williams is going for is not having a travelling technical director," explained Michael.

"There will be a chief operations engineer in Mark Gillan, so he is going to come to Japan and Korea, and be in the background to see how I operate for those two races. Then he will take over from there."

Michael remains contracted to Williams until March 1, and says he was not clear whether he would return to a factory role after Korea or be put on gardening leave.

"I definitely won't be at the races, but what is going to happen at the factory I don't know," he said.

Although Michael has been linked with roles at various teams, including Force India, Ferrari and Mercedes GP, he insists no final decision has been made on where he will move to.

"No," he said when asked if it was decided what his plans were. "It is still open."

The FIA has decided to place the DRS zone on the main start-finish straight at the Hungaroring for this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix.

Although the governing body has been considering using multiple zones at some venues this year, it has elected to stick with a single area on the tight-and-twisty Budapest circuit.

The DRS zone will start 70 metres after the apex of the final corner, with the detection point being just ahead of the entry to the last turn.

The Hungaroring has traditionally been a difficult venue to overtake at, with the downhill right-handed first turn remaining the most common location for passes, despite a track revamp a few years ago to try and produce more opportunities elsewhere on the lap.

Ferrari has promised to take a much more aggressive approach to the design of its 2012 car after learning the lessons from its slow start to this year's campaign.

Although the outfit retains hope that a surge over the second half of the season can help it close down the gap to runaway championship leader Sebastian Vettel, it also recognises it should have done better in the opening races of the campaign.

On the back of a technical revamp that resulted in Aldo Costa leaving the team and Pat Fry taking over technical leadership, its chief designer Nikolas Tombazis has said that the team is already preparing to push its 2012 design to the edge to ensure that it hits the ground running next year.

When asked if the new car would be an evolution of this year's design or a total clean sheet concept, Tombazis said: "I think neither, to be honest. We have taken a very fresh approach, and there are a lot of areas of the car that will change substantially. In that regard it represents a bigger change compared to previous years and previous cars and, quite frankly, we need to do that because we need to make a bigger step forward than we have done previously.

"In modern F1 you never start with a clean sheet and throw everything in the bin, and say, 'Okay guys, let's start from zero.' You do have a lot of things you learn from the previous years and you have to apply them.

"I think if you look at the different cars in the pit lane you will find strong points in every single car, even the ones that are slowest, so nobody starts from a totally clean sheet ever. I think the degree of change will be quite big."

Although vowing to make significant changes for next year's car, Tombazis says there remains very much a focus on delivering more wins in 2011 - with major updates continuing to be added over the next few races.

As well as front and rear wing developments, the team believes that there is much scope for improvement to be made in the area of blown diffusers - especially now that teams are free to do what they want in that area.

"This is an area of clear performance gain that we have found for this year's car, so some resource naturally has to be spent on this year's car because we want to win races, and we do have quite a few more races ahead of us. Therefore we want to get more wins under our belt.

"Obviously, the research is not applicable for next year's car but other things we are doing for this year's car also has some bearing towards next year's car, so it is a bit of a mix on that – trying to prioritise best our resources to cover both cars."

When asked if he felt there was room to extract even more performance from this year's car, Tombazis said: "I think as long as we are not winning on a race-by-race basis then there is enough margin.

"I think that Silverstone was an indication of a performance improvement, and the Nurburgring is not what would have been considered a track that was favourable to us a few months ago and a few months ago we would have been further behind.

"I think that the developments that we have in the pipeline for the next few races should enable us to be up there fighting."

Lewis Hamilton says this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix cannot come soon enough - as he bids to follow his German GP triumph with another win this time out.

The Briton reignited his championship challenge with a well-earned victory at the Nurburgring, and he hopes the updates that helped his outfit last weekend work just as well around the Hungaroring.

"After my win at the Nurburgring on Sunday, the Hungarian Grand Prix can't come soon enough," he explained. "The team performed brilliantly last weekend and I want to maintain that momentum at the Hungaroring.

"It's going to be a completely different challenge. The weather conditions will be much hotter than they were at the 'Ring and the nature of the circuit will be very different too.

"The Hungaroring is a tight and twisty racetrack, not dissimilar to Monaco in terms of downforce levels, and it offers no let up for the drivers. We're always working behind the wheel, so it's very physical."

He added: "There wasn't much between McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull in Germany. It's going to be fascinating to see which team holds the advantage next weekend."

Team principal Martin Whitmarsh reckons that when Hamilton is driving as well as he did at the Nurburgring then he is an invincible force.

"Lewis proved at the Nurburgring that he's at the top of his game at the moment. He was perfect in qualifying and perfect again in the race, and when he's in that kind of form he's very difficult to beat," he said.

"As for Jenson [button], he's had some bad luck in the last couple of races. But he's mentally tough and he knows that the tide will turn. He's driven beautifully this year and it's up to us to give him a car worthy of his talents."

Renault boss Eric Boullier says his team must start raising its game from the Hungarian Grand Prix following a series of disappointing results.

With the team having failed to deliver the kind of strong performances seen in the first part of the season, Boullier admitted Renault has not been improving quickly enough.

And he reckons the team must starting making progress from Hungary given how competitive the F1 field is this year.

"I've expected improvement from our car for a number of races now, and we are making improvement, but we have got to get our heads down and make bigger strides," said Boullier ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix.

"It's a competitive field out there, with Force India and Sauber also competing in higher positions, so we've got to raise our game starting in Hungary."

Boullier said no one in the team was happy with its competitiveness, and the Frenchman conceded the updates introduced in the German Grand Prix last weekend had not been enough.

"I've made no secret of the fact that I'm not satisfied with where we are, no one in the team is," he said. "We started the season well, but that feels like a while ago now and we have to face the facts, which are that we've been off the pace and we are trying hard to put that right.

"We brought some developments to the car in Germany, which didn't produce nearly enough so we are now all eyes forward to Hungary to ensure we have the opportunity to head on our summer breaks on a high."

Technical director James Allison said there were "a lot" of new updates for the upcoming races.

"We have quite lot of improvements to deliver over the next five races," he said. "These developments are largely as a result of research work that is already complete, leaving us with the task of designing and manufacturing them for use in the races.

"By the time the summer break is complete, most of our factory research resource and around half of our manufacturing capacity will have transferred to next year's car."

Renault boss Eric Boullier believes that Romain Grosjean is ready to be given a second chance in Formula 1, amid mounting speculation that the Frenchman could be drafted in to the Enstone-based team later this year.

Grosjean had a troubled start to his F1 career with Renault in 2009, but has rediscovered his confidence and is currently leading the GP2 Series standings.

His form has impressed Boullier and, with Nick Heidfeld not delivering all that was expected of him, Renault is understood to be considering giving Grosjean another F1 tryout - and it could even happen after the GP2 campaign finishes in Monza.

Boullier believes that Grosjean has what it takes to make a good impression in F1 - but says the team's future plans are open.

"He is obviously on my radar, yes," Boullier told AUTOSPORT. "He is doing very well in GP2, he is now showing to everybody he is mature and strong enough to be in F1, and I truly believe he has the potential to be one of the big boys here.

"Being very close to him now I can confirm that he is different, and much more mature than two years ago."

With Vitaly Petrov doing well this season, and having a contract in place for 2012, Grosjean's opportunity beyond this year will very much depend on if Robert Kubica is able to come back to racing from injury.

Although Kubica's return had appeared doubtful a few weeks ago, sources suggest he has made great progress in the last fortnight – which has lifted hopes for him competing in F1 again.

The Pole is due to have an elbow operation next month to unblock it, while the temperature of his injured right hand is crucially back to normal now, and he is said to have good hand movements.

Boullier has reiterated that the priority is for the team to wait for Kubica to make a call on what is possible, before it decides on if it needs to find a replacement.

"We are waiting to see what is going on with Robert – when he will be back and how he will be back obviously," he explained. "We are waiting for him to give us a clear understanding."

Force India owner Vijay Mallya has hailed the progress made by his team since the Monaco Grand Prix onwards, which culminated in a strong sixth-place finish in Germany last weekend.

Adrian Sutil gave his team its best result of the season at the Nurburgring, after finishing in sixth position on merit, even beating both the Mercedes drivers.

"We showed great promise actually from Monaco onwards," said Mallya, whose team uses Mercedes engines, on his team's website on Tuesday. "We were competitive in Canada, where at one stage Paul was running fifth or sixth.

"Then both the drivers had moments and did not finish. In Valencia Adrian scored points, and at Silverstone once again there was no reason why both cars should not have finished in the points, but we just messed it up on the pit wall. Everything came together in Germany."

He added: "For Adrian to finish sixth, in front of both Mercedes cars, we have every reason to be very proud. Unfortunately Paul had this incident with Nick Heidfeld, otherwise he would have been in the points as well. We've had our fair share of bad luck, so I hope that stops now!

"What happened to Paul was clearly bad luck, no fault of his at all. Both drivers have said they are very happy with the car, happy with the team, and I was pretty happy to see a greatly improved step up in performance on the pit wall today. The strategy was planned right and executed right, so I'm pleased."

Mallya reckons Force India can look forward to another strong weekend in Hungary, with more developments in the pipeline for later on.

"We have a lot more downforce than we did, so I feel quite confident that we can put up a good show," he said. "We have a small development for Hungary, we have a special Monza package, and we want to do some serious development in time for Singapore and beyond for the flyaway races. So I'm greatly encouraged."

Pirelli would prefer next year's in-season testing to take place at a track immediately after a grand prix - because it believes that would provide much better data.

As AUTOSPORT revealed last weekend, Formula 1 teams are edging closer a deal that will see the return of an official in-season test to allow development work.

The current plan, which was discussed at a meeting of the Formula One Teams' Association (FOTA) on the Saturday night at the Nurburgring, is for a three-day test to take place before the start of the European stage of the 2012 season.

The venue for the test has not been decided, as teams want to wait for the final calendar to be confirmed by Bernie Ecclestone and the FIA. However, one possibility being looked at is for the run to take place at a non-F1 race venue, like Mugello.

Although Pirelli is keen too for the test to happen, as it has very limited opportunities to run on track during the season, it has said it would make more sense if it took place at an actual GP track in the days after an F1 race.

Pirelli director of motorsport Paul Hembery told AUTOSPORT: "We'd love to do a mid-season test in correct championship conditions – preferably at a championship circuit.

"It would be ideal for us to stay on, as we do after the young driver test at Abu Dhabi, because then you have all the data from the race, plus the data you will get from any modifications.

"From our point of view it would be ideal if we could stay on after a particular race, and it doesn't really matter where it is."

Lineker · July 27, 2011

Ferrari admits it has to work on perfecting its pitstops after Felipe Massa lost time during its final stop in the German Grand Prix.

The Italian squad decided to switch to a new specification of wheel nut from the British Grand Prix, hoping to get rid of the issues that had marred Massa's chances earlier in the year, and to also improve its speed.

At the Nurburgring, Ferrari made six pitstops of which four were flawless, but Massa lost time in his final stop after a problem with the new wheel nut.

Ferrari's head of track operations Diego Ioverno said the team is still working on improving its pitstop performance.

"Since the beginning of the year we have had various issues with pitstops, which we are currently fixing step by step, knowing that this year, with so many stops, anything can happen and indeed we have seen other teams also experience difficulties in this area," said Ioverno.

"Our issues concerned the car itself and the jig of the tools we use and especially the wheel nuts, where we have had several problems. Silverstone was the first race we ran with a completely new specification of wheel nut, which has been very interesting, because in the British Grand Prix, our pitstops were the quickest in the race.

"Then, in Germany we were again using this new wheel nut, which does work better, but the system is still not perfect and, at Felipe's last tyre change, we lost the connection between the wheel nut and wheel nut gun, which cost us around one and a half seconds. So we have more work to do on perfecting it."

Fernando Alonso believes it is vital his Ferrari team manages to raise its game in qualifying in order to have a better shot at winning more races during the 2011 season.

The Spanish driver won the British Grand Prix over two weeks ago and has been the most consistent driver in the last three races, with second places in Valencia and Germany added to that win.

Although Ferrari has taken a significant step forward in recent weeks, Alonso believes it is imperative that the Maranello team improves even more.

The two-time champion says his team cannot rely on making up positions in the race all the time, which is why a qualifying improvement is key.

"We have made up a lot of ground compared to the very early part of the season in terms of performance, but we must take a further step forward, as I have said so often before," said Alonso on Ferrari's website.

"We still lack something, especially in qualifying: it's true that in the race we can make up for this, but it's not always possible to move up two places compared to our grid position, as happened in Monaco, Valencia, Silverstone and Nurburgring."

Alonso also believes Ferrari will be stronger in this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix thanks to the higher temperatures expected following two races with low track temperatures hurting his chances.

"At the Hungaroring, the weather should be more in keeping with summer, which is no bad thing as I've had enough of the cold and damp we experienced in England and Germany," he said.

"That goes not just for me, but also for our car: it would definitely work better in temperatures higher than the 13 degrees we had last Sunday.

"I know the Hungarian Grand Prix has a special significance for the Scuderia, as it has experienced some great moments, but also some dramatic ones, like when Felipe was injured in that fluke accident when he was hit by a part of Rubens' Brawn.

"Budapest is special for me too, as it was at this very race in 2003 that I took my first ever Formula 1 win. It was a very emotional day, the memory of which will always stay with me."

The Spaniard is 86 points behind championship leader Sebastian Vettel in the standings with nine races to go.

Felipe Massa says Budapest will forever be a part of his personal history, as Formula 1 prepares to visit the circuit at which he was critically injured in 2009.

The Brazilian plans to visit circuit and hospital staff who aided his recovery from a damaged skull and brain concussion, suffered after being hit by a spring during qualifying.

Massa says his recovery was 'like a victory' which he shared with circuit and hospital staff, whom he hopes to visit ahead of this weekend's Grand Prix.

"Clearly, after what happened two years ago, Budapest and the Hungarian people are an important part of my personal history," Massa told the official Ferrari website.

"Once again I plan to meet the people who helped me through that difficult time, both at the track and at the hospital.

"I spent some time in Budapest and made a full recovery, which was like a victory for me and the people here felt part of that victory."

Massa predicts a good grand prix for the Hungarian fans, and said he expected conditions to suit Ferrari far more than the cold temperatures of the Nurburgring.

"On current form, we can be optimistic of having another positive weekend," he declared.

"We will again have the Pirelli soft and supersoft tyres, which we know suits our car best, and in Hungary the hot temperatures will also be on our side.

"The Hungaroring race has sometimes been a bit processional; this year for sure there will be more overtaking. We continue to fight on a race by race basis, with the aim of winning as many as possible between now and the finale in Brazil, so I think the crowd can expect a good show."

Sauber's technical director James Key believes it will be possible for his team to secure sixth place in the championship this year, although he concedes it will not be easy.

The Swiss squad has scored points in all but two of the first ten races of the season and sits rather comfortably in sixth position in the constructors' championship.

Force India is 15 points behind, having scored 20 in total, with Toro Rosso down on 17.

Key said keeping sixth place is a realistic goal, but he is aware that the improved pace of Force India will mean the battle is very tough.

"They've certainly taken a step forward and I think we need to do the same," said Key. "I think we've had a particularly bad weekend because we haven't suddenly taken a second per lap off the car.

"We haven't been very quick here in the conditions so I'm hoping it will equalise out a bit more in the next event.

"I think we have to watch out for sure but we have updates outlined and quite a big points advantage.

"Also Renault were certainly stronger this weekend but somehow we finished ahead of them. There is still half a season to go. It will be bloody tough but I think it's possible and I think we should aim for that."

Sauber had a difficult time in Germany last weekend due to the low temperatures and the nature of the track, but Key is hopeful the Hungarian Grand Prix will see the team performing better.

"A warm and sweeping circuit is generally pretty good for us. We will have to watch traction but it should be quite a reasonable track for us. Certainly better than this," he added.

Virgin is in no hurry to complete its 2012 Formula 1 driver line-up, having announced a three-year contract extension for Timo Glock last weekend.

The team's CEO Graeme Lowdon said that retaining Glock means that there is no reason to rush a decision on whether Jerome D'Ambrosio will continue as his team-mate next year.

When asked whether driver negotiations would be left until the end of the season, Lowdon said: "I would think so, certainly after the break, probably on a similar time scale to what we had last year."

Lowdon said that D'Ambrosio has impressed him during the Belgian driver's rookie season in Formula 1 and that he was one of the men in contention for the second seat.

"Jerome's doing a really great job, I think he's surprised a lot of people with his maturity in the races as well," he added.

"You see with other drivers coming in for the first time, its not an easy formula to adapt to because of everything that's around it, and you cant really talk too highly about Jerome's performance so far.

"So again in terms of just straightforward contractual time then it will be more towards the back end of the season."

Lineker · July 28, 2011

Sauber will retain its current drivers for 2012, with Kamui Kobayashi and Sergio Perez having agreed new contracts with the Swiss-based team.

The duo have impressed this year, and the team announced on the eve of the Hungarian Grand Prix that it will continue with an unchanged line-up heading into next year.

Team principal Peter Sauber said: "We are very pleased with our drivers. Kamui has grown into his role extremely well this year. Though it is only his second full Formula 1 season, he is already taking on the responsibilities that naturally fall to the more experienced driver in the team.

"We are delighted with him at both a sporting and a personal level. We had an option of working with him in 2012 and there was never any doubt that we would take it."

Perez already had a contract in place for 2012 after agreeing a multi-year deal before he signed, and Sauber said that the Mexican's pace this year had shown he was right to have faith in the youngster.

"Sergio has achieved more than one could expect from a rookie. From the very first race he proved that he is capable of driving not only fast but consistently as well. And after the accident in Monaco he demonstrated that he can handle difficult situations too.

"From the outset we had already signed a contract with Sergio that went beyond 2011. With a rookie that always entails a certain risk, of course, but clearly it has paid off."

Perez said that having confirmation that he was remaining on board for next year would be a boost to his focus for the remainder of this campaign.

"Of course it is very good to have continuity and this way I can intensively prepare with my race engineer for what will be my second Formula 1 season," he said.

"But for now I'm concentrating on finishing this season on a high. The summer break will be very good for me because since my accident in Monaco it has been a busy time."

Sauber's decision to retain both its drivers comes amid an increasing likelihood that there will be no major driver changes at teams this year. Ferrari is the only outfit to officially confirm the identity of both its drivers, with Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa remaining on board.

However, Red Bull Racing, McLaren and Mercedes GP are almost certain to have unchanged driver line-ups next year too.

Sauber has also confirmed it will retain Esteban Gutierrez as its reserve driver.

"Esteban's career is advancing in steady strides," added Sauber. "After his commanding victory in GP3 it was a logical step for him to move up into GP2, where he has now taken his first win.

"He will then enter Formula 1 when he is ready for it. For us he has been a firm fixture of the team since 2010, and we will continue to support him on his way towards Formula 1."

Volkswagen may consider joining Formula 1 in seven years' time, the car maker's head of motorsports Wolfgang Duerheimer has said.

"I could imagine involvement in Formula 1 in 2018, when the company is at the forefront of the industry," Duerheimer told Auto Motor und Sport magazine.

"We have enough brands that could do that."

The car maker had said last year that Formula 1 would need more stability and a better image before the company considered joining the sport.

That came after Volkswagen revealed in 2009 that it was evaluating the potential benefits of F1 when new engine regulations are introduced from the start of 2014.

Volkswagen's line-up of brands include Audi, Lamborghini, Porsche, Skoda, Bugatti and SEAT.

Daniel Ricciardo has set his sights on outpacing HRT team-mate Vitantonio Liuzzi 'sooner rather than later' as he bids to secure his long-term future in the sport.

Ricciardo, a Red Bull protege, has already shown rapid improvement in his first two grands prix, qualifying just 0.025 seconds slower than Liuzzi at the Nurburgring.

The Australian says that while Red Bull's motorsport advisor Helmut Marko has not set him any specific targets, he understands the need to impress quickly - and that means getting the upper hand on Liuzzi.

Asked whether Marko had set him any specific goals, Ricciardo said: "He doesn't say, by tomorrow you have to out qualify him or that is it. But I know what he wants more or less and I know it is better to do these things sooner rather than later.

"He definitely expects me to be getting some results - I think he wants to see me out qualifying and out racing Tonio and mixing it with the Virgin guys.

"At the same time I cannot get too caught up in what Tonio is doing - if that is my only focus and only task then maybe I will forget about my own tasks. First I will worry about myself and then hopefully the lap time will come.

"The Nurburgring was definitely a good step forward for me though and now I just have to make that next step – and maybe this weekend I can ramp it up a little bit more."

Although Ricciardo remains one of Red Bull's brightest prospects, the team elected to place him within HRT rather than Toro Rosso – and Ricciardo says he would consider spending next year with the Spanish squad if no other options became available.

"For now, I really want to establish myself in F1 and set up a nice future – so if it is here again, and nothing else opens up and I don't deserve to go forward with the current situation, then that is fine.

"The long term goal is to be world champion and that is really what I have in my mindset. Wherever that is in a few years' time is where it will be, but I think as long as I can keep the relationship with Red Bull they will find the best position for me and the position I deserve at the end of the day."

Paul di Resta is still annoyed with Nick Heidfeld five days after the pair came together on the opening lap at the Nurburgring last weekend.

During the build-up to the Hungarian Grand Prix, Force India driver di Resta said that his Renault rival has not apologised to him for the incident, despite being given a drive-through penalty for causing it.

When asked if he was disappointed with Heidfeld's refusal to say sorry, di Resta answered: "Yeah, because it [the incident] was pretty blatant. I lost more out of it than he did. He was the one that committed the crime.

"You've got to [apologise when you make a mistake], haven't you? It's only right you do it, but whether they accept it or not is another thing. At least make the effort."

Heidfeld said that the reason he has not apologised is that he does not believe he was at fault for the collision, which happened during the first few seconds of last weekend's German Grand Prix.

He also pointed to a coming together between the pair during in Canada in June, for which he believed di Resta was to blame.

"In Canada people thought he crashed into the back of my car, and rather than apologise, he blamed me," Heidfeld said. "So why should I go and apologise?

"[in Germany] I locked up the front, he turned in front of me, I couldn't do anything any more, and the stewards decided to give me a penalty. You have to live with that.

"It was a racing incident, I'm okay with them penalising me, but no special reason."

Nick Heidfeld believes he has done enough this season to convince Formula 1 teams that he deserves a seat next year.

The German driver, who was without a racing seat prior to the start of the season, was drafted in to replace Robert Kubica at Renault following the Pole's accident during a rally in February.

Heidfeld scored a podium for Renault in the second race of the year, but has been unable to emulate that sort of performance since then.

Heidfeld will be replaced by Bruno Senna in tomorrow's first practice for the Hungarian GP, while Romain Grosjean's praise by team boss Eric Boullier has triggered speculation that the Frenchman could take Heidfeld's seat this year.

Heidfeld says, however, that while his season has not been perfect, he is calm about his future.

"I'm happy with where I am with the team. I think we all get on well," said Heidfeld on Thursday. "Bruno gets the chance to drive here, and I think Eric said Grosjean is doing a good job in GP2, but that doesn't mean that he's going to take my seat."

He added: "I don't think it has been a perfect season so far, but I think it's been good and certainly good enough to fight for a seat next year. I will obviously keep on pushing and try to do my best and then we'll see what happens."

The German admits his qualifying performance has not been great this season, but says he has learned a lot and is making progress all the time.

"I think there's been some very good performances. Obviously there were some races where I had some problems like in Barcelona where the car was on fire in qualifying, but still finished eighth.

"Overall I think I did well. I think in qualifying I did not always maximised the potential, but I learned a lot about it and I think it has been better. It's just small things but it explains why I struggle a bit."

Renault is not planning to use its rearward-facing exhausts system during this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix.

Nick Heidfeld tested the new system during Friday practice in Germany and, despite positive results, the team decided not to use it during the rest of the weekend.

Heidfeld revealed on Thursday in Budapest that Renault is not even planning to run it this weekend, sticking to its forward-facing concept for the time being.

"We are planning, as far as I know, to use the forward version here," said Heidfeld on Thursday. "We are still investigating the rear one. We'll see when we get that back, but for sure we are looking into it."

Despite Renault deciding against using the rearward-facing system, Heidfeld said the car performed better with it.

"The general updates worked. Our performance was clearly better than at Silverstone," he said.

The German driver said Renault only had a few improvements this weekend, with a bigger update planned for the Belgian Grand Prix.

"Just small bits on the aero side," he said about this weekend's updates. "We've lately seen a lot of improvement in the wind tunnel, but we don't have a lot of those parts here unfortunately. For Spa we will have a big update."

Bruno Senna says a measured, realistic approach will be far better than trying to be a hero when he makes his first appearance of the season for Renault tomorrow.

The Brazilian will take the wheel of Nick Heidfeld's car in first free practice at the Hungaroring, his first experience of F1 machinery in six months.

Given that lengthy time out of the seat, Senna says he will give himself time to settle back in and that his main priority is to assist the team by providing feedback on their development work.

"The frame of mind that I have is just to get back into it, there is no point trying to be a hero," he said.

"I need to be realistic: six months and half a season is a lot of time. I know exactly how it feels to be in a car for half a season, and how much easier that makes it to deliver.

"Of course there is pressure because I want to do well, but there is no point trying to operate a miracle here.

"[The goal] is to do a good job for the team to continue their work and development, and make my transition as smooth as possible. I hope to have some fun as well!"

Although Senna has been touted as a potential replacement for Heidfeld should Renault decide to replace the German, he insists that his focus is on securing a full-time seat on the 2012 F1 grid.

"All I want to do is get in the car; of course I want to do that as often as possible, but at the end of the day I'm the reserve driver here and my function is to be the guy who jumps in the car when the regular drivers can't. Whether that changes or not doesn't depend on me.

"I will always try and improve my chances, but my main plan is to get back in a seat next year.

"It depends on the work that I do here and also on potential backing and support from sponsors, which together can create an opportunity, but I'm looking at [2012] especially and hopefully by the end of the year I will know."

Mark Webber says Red Bull will not be forced into a knee-jerk reaction following its defeat by McLaren and Ferrari at last weekend's German Grand Prix.

Drivers Webber and Sebastian Vettel, who have dominated the season so far, could only finish third and fourth at the Nurburgring after overworking their tyres and causing them to degrade quicker than their rivals' rubber at the end of each race stint.

This, coupled with Fernando Alonso's British Grand Prix victory, means Red Bull has gone two races without a win for the first time since September last year.

However, Webber says there is no need to panic as Vettel still holds a commanding 77-point lead over the Australian in the drivers' championship while the team is 112 ahead of McLaren in the race for the constructors' prize.

"There is no need for a knee-jerk reaction," said the Australian during the build-up to the Hungarian GP. "We don't plan to have meetings or plan stuff any quicker than we do [normally]. We know we don't take anything for granted, we haven't done that for 18 months, we will arrive there quickly.

"[Red Bull chief technical officer] Adrian [Newey] is working very hard with his group of people and [chief designer] Rob Marshall and his people are all working hard.

"We are not cruising around. We are looking at what will conceptually work for our car for the remaining races. We were a little bit off the pace in Nurburgring, [but] not much. We challenged for the victory, but we need to go quicker again.

"That is what we need to work on, we learn about ourselves going racing and that is the most important thing - to react in a positive, constructive way off the back of being beaten fair and square."

Sebastian Vettel says Red Bull Racing must waste no time dwelling on what went wrong at the Nurburgring, if it is going to make the response it needs at this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix.

The world championship leader finished off the podium for the first time this year at the German GP, in a race that has prompted talk he could yet face a challenge for title glory this year.

And although his form over the Nurburgring is something of a mystery, because he has been so dominant earlier on in the campaign, Vettel says that he and his outfit must think only of putting things right this time out.

"We have obviously analysed what happened, but we have to refocus on this race - because we cannot spend our time thinking too much about the Nurburgring and then not focusing on starting the practice tomorrow," said Vettel after arriving at the Hungaroring.

"We finished third and fourth. It is a result which is not a disaster, but we are not happy with it. You can't be satisfied but in a way we have to accept it.

"For here our target is not to finish third and fourth. We want to do better. But we have a couple of things playing around, trying to make the package a little bit more competitive once again."

He added: "We can't change the result of the Nurburgring, but we can change the result here. There is no point trying to find any kind of excuses, the race is done. People who finished ahead of me deserved to be ahead of me, but I am not happy with that. I want it the other way around this weekend."

Vettel says that his poor performance at the Nurburgring was the result of him failing to find the perfect balance - although quite why that happened has not been fully explained.

"It was a tricky weekend with the conditions," he said. "I don't want to blame the conditions or anything, Mark was a bit quicker around the weekend and struggling to feel comfortable in the car, so I could never find a good balance.

"We had not the easiest time and we have understood most of it. When we have more time in the break to look at the Nurburgring again we will do so. It is very hard to say we only had three days."

With McLaren and Ferrari have beaten Red Bull Racing at the Nurburgring, Vettel says he is expecting as tough a fight this weekend as he has faced in recent races – rather than the dominance that his outfit delivered in Hungary 12 months ago.

"Every race is different – the conditions can be very different, the circuits are different," he said. "We were very competitive here last year so we will see, but the car is not last year's car, it is a new car.

"It's a new challenge again, so we see what we can do, but we expect Ferrari and McLaren to be very quick and to be our main rivals.

"Looking over three, four or five races, you can speak of a tendency and you can say Ferrari in particular have improved their pace and they are getting quicker and quicker. Surely they are one of the favourites going into this race."

Gilles Simon has left his position as the FIA's director of power train and electronics to join the PURE corporation as technical director.

Simon, who had joined the FIA from the Ferrari team in December of 2009, will join Craig Pollock's company, which has plans to build Formula 1 engines from the 2014 season.

Simon had been been Ferrari's engine chief from 2006 until October of 2009.

He will start working for PURE next month.

"This appointment marks another key milestone in the development of PURE," said Pollock.

"With Gilles Simon on board we have an exceptional and proven power train designer who has been instrumental in driving an environmentally friendly agenda into F1."

Simon added: "Making F1 more environmentally friendly is a personal goal of mine. The 2014 power train regulations mark the biggest change in this area of F1 for a generation.

"This opportunity to develop the PURE power train is a fantastic challenge and allows me to go to back to my passion - designing engines."

PURE, launched in May of this year, is aiming to build and develop an environmentally-responsible engine for Formula 1.

"Gilles leaves the FIA with my thanks and best wishes," said FIA president Jean Todt. "We have worked together on a variety of projects over many years, at Peugeot, Ferrari and at the FIA, and I know how much of his life has been devoted to his love of designing power trains.

"After a very fruitful 18-month period at the FIA where he has been able to leave a significant legacy in the 2014 power train regulations, Gilles has been offered an opportunity at PURE that will enable him to make a substantial contribution to a new era in F1. I wish him a successful future."

Pastor Maldonado is confident that the similarities between the Hungaroring and Monaco - where he was denied a possible top six finish by being pushed into the wall by Lewis Hamilton - could help him to score his maiden Formula 1 points this weekend.

The Venezuelan, who won the GP2 feature race at the Hungaroring last year and also claimed victory in a Euroseries 3000 race there in 2007, believes that the characteristics of the track could allow him to fight for position higher in the midfield than he has in recent races.

As well as being a track dominated by slow corners, Pirelli has allocated the supersoft and soft tyre compounds that were used in Monaco. This means that despite the Hungaroring not requiring the same precision driving between barriers, there are plenty of features in common with the track where Maldonado starred two months ago.

"It is not exactly the same, but in terms of set-up Hungary is very close to Monaco," said Maldonado when asked by AUTOSPORT if he thought he could recapture his Monaco form in Hungary.

"The track is very bumpy and it's very difficult mentally and physically, so on that side of things, it's very much like Monaco. Having the supersoft and the soft tyre should work better with our car. So I hope to close the gap a little bit more [to the front] than in the previous races at normal tracks."

Maldonado has shown impressive Saturday form so far this season, outqualifying his vastly more experienced team-mate Rubens Barrichello five times in 10 races. But he has called on the team to improve the performance of its car in race trim, with tyre degradation a particular weakness.

His best race finish this year has been 14th, which he claimed at the Nurburgring and Silverstone, but he has qualified in the top 10 on three occasions, showing that the car struggles on long runs.

"The car is a bit more competitive in qualifying than during the race," said Maldonado. "We are working hard to improve on that. If we could be more consistent during the race, it will give the engineers more chances strategically. Our strategies in the races can be very limited because we have to work with the tyres. We have been progressing on this, but not enough."

"Tyre wear will be one of the most important things during Sunday's race, so it will be a tough weekend for everybody. We need to manage that situation really well."

Lewis Hamilton is staying realistic about his chances of victory in Hungary despite his win in the previous race in Germany.

The McLaren driver took his second win of the season at the Nurburgring after one of his strongest weekends of the year so far.

Hamilton, however, admitted on Thursday that his car will not be fastest at the Hungaroring this weekend.

"The car's not changed. I'm confident in its reliability, in its performance, but we know it's definitely not the fastest car here," said Hamilton.

"We know the others still have a very competitive car that suits certain conditions, and the Red Bull has been quick at every single track throughout the year.

"It was quick at the last race, it still grabbed pole, whereas we don't have a car that's fast everywhere. It's fast in some places, not so fast in others."

The Briton did acknowledged his victory in Germany had been a boost for the team after a couple of difficult races, and he is hopeful McLaren can make another push to continue fighting for victories this year.

"That weekend probably sparked something special for the team, and hopefully it's encouraged them to push even more than they've ever pushed before," he said.

"I'm pushing and pushing and pushing, and sometimes you have to break through a wall of caution.

"I'm the one that pushes past the limits, and it's the team who are the ones who try to keep it under control, but we pushed through the limit that weekend.

"When I spoke to them on Monday, it was like we had raised our limit, raised our margins, and now we have more space, and we can keep pushing more, and that's important."

He also downplayed his chances of starting from pole position in Hungary, despite coming close to beating Red Bull in Germany.

"We've not had pole for 18 races, something like that, so it's been over a year since we had pole, so I don't come here thinking we can get pole.

"If we do it will be a blessing. It's nice to start from pole. I've done that a couple times here, and it makes it much easier, though I did lose out to Massa in 2008."

The McLaren driver is also hoping the weather doesn't get too hot this weekend, as he warned his team may struggle then.

"I don't want to speak too soon. You never know with the weather because it could be rapidly hot tomorrow or the next day. I have heard it is going to get better and better.

"On my iPhone it says it's going to be 22 or 23 degrees throughout the weekend, which if true will be fantastic for us. Any hotter this weekend then we might struggle."

Michael Schumacher believes that tyre degradation is no longer as significant a weakness for Mercedes as it was earlier in the season, thanks to the team's recent car upgrades.

Schumacher and his team-mate Nico Rosberg both finished behind Adrian Sutil's Force India - which made only two stops to their three - at last week's German Grand Prix. But the seven-time world champion insists that the team's three-stop race was not forced by tyre degradation.

The Mercedes W02's Red Bull-style exhaust-blown diffuser has improved the degradation on the rear tyres, making Schumacher confident that the car has improved in this area.

"We have made improvements in this area," said Schumacher when asked by AUTOSPORT about the team's tyre degradation problems. "Nurburgring was on the cold side so it wasn't about overheating the tyres, which normally we would suffer from.

"Since we have had the new updates, most of these issues have been solved. Tyre degradation is certainly one area [we will focus on this weekend] but if it is the main area I'm not sure.

"From my point of view, not having the spin [during the German GP], I could perhaps have been in front of Adrian. It's a question of choosing the right strategy rather than whether our tyres last longer."

Schumacher added that he expects Mercedes to be fighting to be 'best of the rest' behind Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren this weekend, with the car not currently good enough to fight at the front.

"From what we saw at the Nurburgring, we are about seventh and eighth," said the 42-year-old German. "You could say that if things were normal, if I didn't have a spin and if Nico didn't have a bad set of tyres, we would have been seventh and eighth.

"That's our position. It's a long way to the podium from there. If there are unforeseen circumstances, you never know what can happen, but the weather forecast for Sunday is for no rain. So it's about consolidating our fourth position in the constructors' championship - that's what we are working on."

Fernando Alonso reckons Red Bull is still the dominant force in F1, even if both Ferrari and McLaren seemed to have the edge in race pace at the Nurburgring.

Both Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber called for their team to respond to the growing threat from Ferrari and McLaren in Germany, but despite scoring more points than any other driver over the past three races Alonso says Red Bull remain the team to beat.

"No, I don't think so," Alonso said when asked whether Ferrari was close to replacing Red Bull as the dominant marque. "First and second in Silverstone qualifying, first and third at the Nurburgring - (they're) still dominant.

"We need to be both cars in the top three constantly in qualifying and in the race if we want to say that Ferrari is dominant in this moment."

Despite such an assessment, Alonso was in bullish mood about his own race prospects as higher temperatures and the return on Pirelli super soft rubber is expected to suit the Scuderia.

"I have no doubts that the softer tyres work a bit better with our car, so we can maximise them in the race. Obviously we also want it as hot as possible, but at the moment it is raining so hopefully we will see for Saturday and Sunday.

"We repeat a couple of times, we had a wind tunnel issue (at the start of the season), so we struggled to understand our problems. It was a shame to have these three or four months with the issue, but now it is also very encouraging that the problems are in the past and we look confident for the rest of the season and also for next year.

"I think we need to make another step forward (in Hungary) though because as I said Red Bull is still the reference."

Formula 1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone plans to move the Bahrain Grand Prix to the tail end of the 2012 season, AUTOSPORT can reveal, as part of a revised calendar that looks set to see Turkey dropped entirely.

Although the FIA published its version of the 2012 schedule at its most recent meeting of the FIA World Motor Sport Council last month, it is understood that Ecclestone has undertaken a major reshuffle in the plans for next year.

With teams concerned about the first race being in Bahrain - because of the still uncertain political situation and the spotlight that could overshadow the season build-up ahead of the event's return to the calendar – Ecclestone's primary focus was on sorting out what to do with the Sakhir date.

As well as that, there was some concern in the United States about the possibility of hosting the new race in Austin in June – when very high temperatures could prove troublesome for drivers, teams and spectators.

Sources have revealed that Ecclestone has now finalised his major reorganisation of the calendar, which he has given to the teams for them to highlight any issues they have.

It is understood that he plans for the 2012 season to now start in Australia, with Bahrain shifting to a November date where it will be fitted in as a back-to-back with Abu Dhabi.

This will give Bahrain authorities an extra nine months to ensure the political situation in the Gulf state is improved enough for there to be no concerns from teams about the staging of the event.

As well as moving Bahrain to later on in the calendar, it is also understood that Austin will be moved to the end of the campaign – with it becoming the penultimate race of the season before Brazil. The two events will also form a back-to-back.

The shifting of Bahrain means that the 2012 season is now likely to start with the Australian Grand Prix, which will return to being a back-to-back event with Malaysia.

The Chinese and Indian Grands Prix will then follow as stand alone events, before a three week gap to the start of the European season in Barcelona.

The inclusion of this three-week gap means that F1 teams will now be able to schedule an in-season test – which will likely take place at either Mugello or Silverstone.

With the calendar size being restricted to 20 events, it is understood that Turkey is absent from the 2012 schedule that has been provided to the teams – with the Istanbul venue having stalled earlier on this year in agreeing a new contract with F1's commercial rights organisation.

Ecclestone's plans for the calendar remain provisional, but if teams do not complain about any major logistical dramas then it could be submitted to the FIA's World Motor Sport Council for ratification later this year.

Thursday's press conference:

DRIVERS - Jaime ALGUERSUARI (Toro Rosso), Jenson BUTTON (McLaren), Heikki KOVALAINEN (Team Lotus), Felipe MASSA (Ferrari), Mark WEBBER (Red Bull)

PRESS CONFERENCE

Q. Heikki, I guess you have got good memories of this circuit. Your win in 2008 from second on the grid?

Heikki KOVALAINEN: Yeah, of course a great memory for myself. It was the best day of my racing career so far but I think I am 110 per cent ready for the next one of those so waiting for that.

Q. Is this still a very popular race with your compatriots?

HK: Yeah, absolutely. There are a lot of Finnish people coming over here to watch the grand prix. It is very, very easy to get here from Finland I think and I think also, the Finnish people, they love the city. They come here for a holiday as well so always seem to be a lot of Finnish flags around here, which is great.

Q. So this is as close to home as it gets is it?

HK: kind of, kind of. For a home grand prix I suppose there are probably more Finnish flags and Finnish supporters here than any other grand prix, so in that sense yes.

Q. What's your aim at grands prix these days? What are you looking to do, just get closer to say Scuderia Toro Rosso for example.

HK: Yeah, of course, at the grand prix, the aim always has to be a win and a pole but at the moment that is not realistic, so we are targeting at the moment to be ahead of the other new teams and closing the gap to the cars ahead of us. We still have got a lot of work to do. We have got to improve as a team, but we are constantly working on it and that's where the focus is at the moment.

Q. But do you see that can happen? Can you get ahead of Toro Rosso by the end of the year, for example?

HK: By the end of the year, I don't know. We are trying to close the gap every weekend but Formula One is very competitive. The teams ahead of us are bigger and better than we are at the moment so it is not very easy but whether it is by the end of this year or next year, whenever it is, the target is to close the gap. We believe we can do it so that's why we are doing it.

Q. Jaime, similar question. This circuit holds some memories for you too. Your first ever grand prix here a couple of years ago.

Jaime ALGUERSUARI: Yeah it is nice to be back here. I like this place and the track is very nice so hopefully we have a good race and we stay in the points on Sunday.

Q. The results have been pretty good recently. Have you been pleased with them?

JA: Yes, I think we have done the maximum we could have done in the last races. It is difficult to say where we are now, as I think Force India have done a great step forward in terms of performance, so it is a bit difficult to stay in front of them now in the race but we will see how we can attack this weekend in comparison to last weekend and where we will finish.

Q. And you talk all the time about learning. Everyone is always learning, but do you feel you are really making progress?

JA: I think this year it's pretty good. I think it's the biggest example so far as this year everything changed a lot in Formula One. The tyres, and it was a bit difficult at the beginning of the season to get the best out of the car, to work for qualifying and to work for the race. Now everything is coming up. It's a bit late, as I think the other teams have done a really good step forward, especially Force India, so it has been difficult at the moment to stay in front of them. But I think we are getting out the maximum of the car. Last race at the Nurburgring there was nothing else we could do. I think we did a good race, we did the maximum we could have done and (Paul) di Resta finished a fair bit behind me. He was clearly faster than me, so I think we have done really the best. I think there is still potential to come from our side set-up wise, of development during the year, but I think the target is to stay very close to Force India, to the championship, which will be tough and obviously to stay in front of Williams.

Q. Mark, obviously a winner a year ago and just one retirement in nine races here. That's not a bad record is it?

Mark WEBBER: Yeah, I didn't know about that. That's good. I hope I can continue. Last year's race was good and looking to give it another crack this weekend if I can. The car should be good here. I've been pretty quick myself of late so I'll see what I can do.

Q. Everyone says the Red Bulls are going to be quick here, but where do you see yourselves?

MW: Well, last year is a little bit of a form card. Obviously, the regulations have changed a lot since then, so let's see how that goes. Clearly, McLaren and Ferrari aren't hanging round as well. Qualifying has tightened up a lot in the last few events and so have the races, as we saw. Silverstone would have been a track where you would think we could have been a bit more competitive or more dominant compared to the high standards we have set around some particular venues around the world and this one you might pick as well. So, find out Sunday night.

Q. In fact, third place in the last four races. You must be getting a bit fed up with that?

MW: Yeah, I think it has been consistent. I suppose all of us here want to do better, that's human nature. I have had some good fights. The last race was a very good grand prix from all of us fighting for the victory, and it went Lewis (Hamilton's) way. Yeah, it is better than having five fifths in a row. But to get the win you need everything perfect, even for second for that matter. To bang out podiums you still need to get a lot of things right, so I am not getting too carried away with a good run of results, but to go the next step you have just got to tick the last few boxes and just get it done.

Q. You have had a couple of pole positions in the last two races as well. Do you feel you have got work to do on your start? Is that a problem do you feel?

MW: I think the whole team, we all do, need to. Felipe probably had the best start at the last race. Sebastian (Vettel) was under a lot of pressure himself, so both of us didn't have the easiest run to the first corner. Silverstone was a dry track, intermediates on the car, so it was an interesting start. Sebastian did the same to me as what I did to him at Silverstone the year before. A little bit more grip on that side and off you go. The starts, you know. Jenson has had some good ones and the last one was a shocker for him. That's just the car. There a lot of things that go into the starts, how it all works, so we need to continue to focus on that. We need to focus on pit-stops. That's Formula One racing. Lots of things need to be put into the mix to get the right results.

Q. Felipe, that pit-stop at the last race. That was a little bit too exciting wasn't it, the last lap in Germany?

Felipe MASSA: Yeah, a little bit. We lost one position, but we are working pretty hard in all directions and sometimes it happens.

Q. Just talk about this circuit. A little bit emotional coming back here, I believe, for you. It is the circuit where you had your accident. What are your thoughts coming back here?

FM: Well it's a circuit I really enjoy to drive. I always had little problems on the weekends here. I remember in 2007 in the qualifying I had a problem and sat on the back. In 2008, I was leading, three laps to go, and I had an engine fail. In 2009, my accident. So, every year something happens. Last year was the best one, I finished fourth, and I hope this year we can have a good direction, finish on the podium, also try to win. But anyway, it is a place I always enjoy to come here. Especially after my accident. I have a lot of fans here so really like the people here. Also to come back. I was with my doctor, the doctor who operated on me, yesterday, so it always a great pleasure as this is a good side. It is something that you never forget and this is a good point and also I hope I can have all this good energy for a good weekend as well.

Q. You come off the back of two really fighting races. This was Felipe Massa of old. This is the one we wanted to see. You must have been very pleased with those last two races?

FM: Yeah, it was okay. You are always pleased when you finish in the front. But I think it was two good races in terms of fights, especially the last race, the biggest problem was not just the pit-stop. It was also the amount of seconds I lost behind Nico (Rosberg) in the first stint. I think that I lost all the opportunity to fight with the guys in front. But just looking to improve even more this race and even after the break.

Q. Jenson, this is a bit of a momentous weekend in some ways and a circuit where you had your first win from 14th on the grid, let's remember?

Jenson BUTTON: Yeah, got very good memories of 2006. Obviously a long time ago now and it's the perfect place for me to have my 200th grand prix I suppose. The last couple of races for me have been a bit difficult in terms of not finishing so hopefully we can have a good result here on such a special weekend.

Q. People talk about it being a circuit that is difficult to overtake on and yet from 14th on the grid you must have done a fair bit of it?

JB: Yeah, in mixed conditions it is always a lot easier when you are trying to find the grip and it is changing every lap. But you can overtake here. There are a couple of places and I think with the tyres, with KERS, with DRS, we have seen a lot of improvements in overtaking. I don't think this will be any different. First of all the aim is to qualify as high as possible and and not have to overtake anyone but it is always there if it's needed.

Q. I know the cycling finished a week ago, with the Tour de France, but McLaren were involved with Mark Cavendish's bike as well. I think you have done a certain amount of cycling on that bike as well. Did you help with the development?

JB: Did I help the development? Not really, it needs an engine strapped to it for me to help with the development. I have had a lot of fun on it, but it is very different to what those guys are doing. It is great to see so many wins by Cav in the tour and also to get the green jersey. Yeah it's nice. We have got a lot of wins this year. I think it is seven in total now.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q. (Luis Fernando Ramos - Radio Banderantes) The question is to Mark, Felipe and Jenson. On qualifying this year you have been more often than not outqualified by your team-mate. I just want to hear the reasons about that and how do you feel this is evolving throughout the season, the qualifying. Will it be better against your team-mate?

MW: Yeah, it's an important part of the weekend. All three of us have pretty strong team-mates and that's what you want. I think all of us also are pretty good drivers. We are driving for the three top teams and you can argue it's only the six to eight drivers are the best guys on the grid so inevitably there is going to be a bit of momentum either way. Speaking from my side, we know Seb has done a good job in qualifying, particularly at the start of the season. The last few races it has tightened up a little bit and last year there wasn't much in it so let's see how we go for the second part of the championship

FM: Yeah, I think its the same. Qualifying is an important part of the race. The position you start is always important. Fernando did a better job on the qualifying so just need to improve a bit, to fight to try and be in front, and it is an important part. Just pushing hard to improve all the time.

JB: Yeah, exactly the same. We are racing against the best drivers in the world and sometimes it goes one way rather than the other. This year for me Lewis has been quicker in qualifying which is something you want to improve on. You want to be as quick as you can in qualifying as it is always all about getting a better position for Sunday and making your race a lot easier. But I think it is a little bit different this year than it has been over the past few years. I think even if you have qualified a few places back, you can still have a really good race and really fight for a victory so I think Saturdays are important but obviously Sundays are the ones that get you the good points.

Q. (Michael Noir Trawniczek – Rally & More) Felipe, if you compare yourself with Fernando, he is often quicker than you. Do you think you can change this on a consistent basis and what do you think you have to improve to beat him?

FM: I think we can, for sure, in terms of working and trying to improve the direction. He did a better job, I have no problem to say that, just working hard at all the races, in all directions, on the car, on the set-up and hopefully we get there. We're working to achieve that.

Q. (Peter Farkas – Auto Motor) Jenson, I think these conditions recall some nice memories for you from 2006; are you actually hoping for rain for this year's race as well?

JB: Yeah. You know rain would be a lot of fun around here. We've been here in the wet before and for me it was one of the best races I've been involved in and actually watched back, because there was a lot of overtaking, a lot of fighting. Yeah, it brings something to the race, but I think even in the dry, wet or intermediate conditions we've got to make sure we're quick. Lewis proved at the last race the pace of the car is very good in dry conditions, in cool conditions. I also think we'll be there in hot conditions. Whatever the weather does we've got to be ready for it. I agree that when it's mixed conditions here it's a fun race.

Q. (Peter Vamosi – Vas Nepe) Jenson, have you seen your overalls for Saturday, the Hungarian edition? What do you think about it and do you know where Kalocsa is? (Note: Kalocsa is a Hungarian town whose emblem will be seen on the back of the McLaren drivers' driving suits on Saturday)

JB: This is going to be a very short answer to this one. No, I haven't... and no. But I've enjoyed wearing different overalls over this season. Some have been pretty cool, some have been interesting but it's a nice change, it's nice that there's a lot of interest in it. I think it's a great bit of marketing by Hugo Boss, personally, and it's good to get people involved with the team: fans of the sport, fans of McLaren, to actually have an involvement in what the drivers wear.

Q. (Livio Oricchio – O Estado de Sao Paulo) Mark, Felipe and Jenson, in the last three races we had wins from Vettel in Valencia, Alonso in Silverstone, and Hamilton at Nurburgring. Is it realistic to believe that we will have a fight between your teams in this race? We have elements to believe that: maybe hot weather, the tyres supplied and the evolution of the teams.

MW: If I understood the question correctly, you mean that the same teams can fight for victory here? I think it will be tight again. All three teams, as you've said, have shown forms of… well, they have won, simple as that. It's not chances, ifs, buts and whens. They actually have gone out and won grands prix fair and square: Sebastian in Valencia, Fernando in Silverstone and then Lewis. None of those victories were handed to them, no one was in front and then had a technical problem. They were grands prix that were won fair and square, so there is real form there, and I think that this weekend, whether it's three teams remains to be seen, but two definitely could challenge for the victory. Three is a bonus, obviously, for the neutrals, you guys. Three would be the maximum; I don't think we will have four teams but three will probably mean that one of six drivers can win the race.

FM: I think the same. In the last races we saw improvements from our car, even McLaren at the last race. Red Bull was, for sure, always very strong, even if they didn't win they were strong anyway so I think here we can see another fight between us. Sometimes there are tracks that are better for one car than the others. We will wait and see how it's going to be here, but I think it can be a big battle again.

JB: I think it's a great time for F1, to have three top teams fighting at the front. We've had four different winners from the last four races and hopefully we will have a great race here. As we've said, we don't know who is going to be the most competitive here. It was great to see three teams fighting for victory at the last race, and hopefully it's going to be the same thing here. Hopefully there will be six of us really at the front with a chance of victory. That's all we all love doing, we all love the challenge and hopefully we will get the chance to fight for it here.

Q. (Sarah Holt – BBC Sport) Actually, my question is just a continuation; Jenson, do you think we can see this tight three-way battle now for the rest of the season?

JB: I really don't know. I think if you look at the last three races you would say we've all been making improvements in different areas. The races have been reasonably close even if there's been a different winner in every race, there's been a good fight, it hasn't been an easy victory for anyone. I hope so, obviously I hope that we are the quickest and we can win every race, but I think it's also fun when you have the challenge of fighting with other top teams and I think that's the way it's going to be when you're at the pinnacle of the sport. There's going to be a lot of competition, it's not just one team doing a great job; we're all pushing as hard as we can. We're trying to look at every area possible and we're all doing a pretty good job, I would say, in terms of teamwork and the pace of the car.

Q.(: (Heinz Prüller – Forza) Gentlemen, the usual Budapest question: what are you planning for your holidays – if we promise we won't follow you?

MW: A lot of cycling – no, no, just relaxing in France.

FM: Well, go to Brazil. A little bit of time at home is always good. We don't live very close to Brazil, so when I have a bit of time, even if it's not very hot there, it's winter, but home is always home.

JB: I'm going to the beach, I'm going to Hawaii for a few days and then I've got a best friend's wedding to go to which is going to be… interesting.

HK: I'm going in the snow in Finland, playing golf in the snow, in the winter in Finland. Handicap's coming down. Yesterday came down to 9.4 so now on the way to single figures, probably.

JA: I stay in Barcelona in Spain.

Q. (James Allen – Financial Times) Mark, you were saying it's tightened up in qualifying and in the last few races the other teams have actually been faster than you in qualifying. You called for a reaction from the team post-race in Germany; have you been to the factory, have you seen the conveyor belt of go-faster bits coming from Red Bull for the second half of the season and how are you feeling about that?

MW: Yeah, I've been to the factory but there's no real knee-jerk reaction. Obviously, we don't plan to start having meetings and start planning more stuff any quicker than we probably had envisaged anyway. We know that we don't take anything for granted, we've never done that over the last 18 months. We know that people can arrive back very very quickly and hopefully you can go back away again as quickly as they arrived, so obviously Adrian's working very hard with his group of people. Rob Marshall (chief designer), everyone, the guys are working very hard. As JB touched on, we're not all cruising around, we're trying to do what we can conceptually for our car that's going to work for the remaining races and you cannot redesign the car in three days, obviously. We were a little bit off the pace in Nürburgring, not much. We challenged for victory but we need to go quicker again, and that's what we've got to work on and address. It's by going racing that you learn about yourself; we don't learn about ourselves at the factory, we learn about going racing and that's the most important thing, to react in a positive, constructive way off the back of being beaten fair and square.

Q. (Mat Coch – pitpass.com) This is to anyone who is willing to answer: we're halfway through the season, we've got DRS and new tyres. What are your thoughts: has DRS helped overtaking more, have the tyres contributed more? At the halfway mark, what are your thoughts?

JB: I think the tyres have played a big part, and KERS. I don't think we can forget about KERS. I think it's played a big part in overtaking. Obviously we all have it, but it's how you use it on the circuit. I think DRS has obviously made a couple of boring moves, but I think it's helped tremendously. I think the good outweighs the bad, with DRS. The last race – it was very very difficult to overtake with DRS, for me it was impossible but it put you in an easier position to challenge later on in the lap. I think the changes that have been made have been great and I think we've just got to watch the races back and see the fights and the overtaking moves. It's that we're taking more risks this year, it's a different situation than we've found before. There's a lot of great overtaking and I think Formula One is in a great place. I keep saying it but it's the truth.

Q. (Peter Farkas – Auto Motor) To all, of you, a follow-up on the holiday thread; so when will you leave Budapest? None of you plan to stay here for a couple of days after the race?

MW: I leave Monday morning.

FM: Sunday evening. Moderator: Saturday evening?

FM: Sunday! Saturday evening? I hope not. I cannot say so much because two years ago on Saturday evening I was not the… you know.

JB: Yeah, Sunday. It's always strange staying around after a Grand Prix.

HK: Sunday, seven o' clock.

JA: I leave on Monday morning.

MW: It's a beautiful city, though.

Q. (Gary Meenaghan – The National) This is obviously a back-to-back race; just wondered what your thoughts were on that: how draining is it for a driver and some of the challenges that are involved in racing two consecutive weekends?

MW: Yeah, it's not a bad question, actually. I think it's something that's not new to us. We've had back-to-backs; for the experienced guys it's obviously something that we've experienced quite a lot. We know it's coming, you prepare for it. Obviously the teams know it's coming as well in terms of logistics, in terms of how they deal with it, but for us, normally it's two Europeans. Obviously sometimes we have back-to-backs later in the year: Japan and Korea and things like that. If you had two Singapore Grands Prix in a row obviously it's a little bit more draining, an event like that but obviously when you have two cool events like we're going to have here, that's not very demanding or taxing on us. Obviously the cars are much easier physically as well, so I think that from our perspective the load is obviously not too bad. It's reasonably straightforward. Obviously you just get sick of the sight of the mechanics and the engineers; ten days in a row and you have only two days away from them, but we all love each other, so that's fine. I'm sure after the back-toback we look forward to a break.

FM: I think the same. It's not very easy for the whole team, to do back-to-back races. Sometimes it's not so difficult, some races are a little bit more difficult and you have a little bit of travelling to do from one race to another. Here it's OK. For the team, for sure, it's a big effort. But especially this back-to-back is also the best one because everyone knows we have a little bit of time afterwards to relax and to prepare yourself for the next part of the season. It's OK.

JB: For us it's not an issue. Physically it's not too demanding. As Felipe said, we have a nice break after this. For the team, yeah, it's lot busier. They don't get a break between the two races like we do, they are flat out, which again is not so bad because they know they've got the break coming up. For them, the busy one is Barcelona-Monaco, that, for them, is very very hectic. That's the tough one.

JA: I think the calendar has been quite good. As Jenson says, it's not really a big issue for the drivers. I think racing is not as physical as it was. As long as back-to-back races are in Europe, I don't think it's an issue for anyone, to be honest, so at the moment it's fine.

This weekend's race in Hungary is the 850th Grand Prix in Formula 1 history. Incredibly @rubarrichello has driven in over 36% of them! #F1

Berober · July 29, 2011

And SSN is reporting that Sky Sports have F1 rights next year.

GA! · July 29, 2011

Confirmed. I'm done with F1 at the end of the year.

Gazz · July 29, 2011

Oh God, does this mean I'm going to have to listen to Jamie Redknapp's 'expert' opinion on rear diffusers?

GA! · July 29, 2011

Oh God, does this mean I'm going to have to listen to Jamie Redknapp's 'expert' opinion on rear diffusers?

I can't wait until they analyse what wheels are by digitally drawing a circle around one (American football style), and then explaining how they move fast because they are round. Work in some tabloid newspaper lingo to entice thick people, and hey presto. For some reason I imagine Johnny Herbert to be the Paul Merson of F1 so he'll be lead commentator.

The BBC are gutless cowards, simple as that. They have more than justified paying a lot for the coverage as it rakes in seven-eight million on a Sunday afternoon; yet they'd rather save their little inside joke known as BBC Three.

DJ Ice · July 29, 2011

Oh God, does this mean I'm going to have to listen to Jamie Redknapp's 'expert' opinion on rear diffusers?

I can't wait until they analyse what wheels are by digitally drawing a circle around one (American football style), and then explaining how they move fast because they are round. Work in some tabloid newspaper lingo to entice thick people, and hey presto. For some reason I imagine Johnny Herbert to be the Paul Merson of F1 so he'll be lead commentator.

The BBC are gutless cowards, simple as that. They have more than justified paying a lot for the coverage as it rakes in seven-eight million on a Sunday afternoon; yet they'd rather save their little inside joke known as BBC Three.

Johnny Herbert to get fired after being found making sexist comments about Danica Patrick

Lineker · July 29, 2011

Oh God, does this mean I'm going to have to listen to Jamie Redknapp's 'expert' opinion on rear diffusers?

Worse. Tony Jardine.

Anyway, I'll post up the reaction to this stupidness here and put up the other news of the day later.

Half the Formula 1 calendar will be taken off free-to-air television in the United Kingdom from 2012 as part of a new share deal between Sky Sports and the BBC.

While all grands prix, qualifying and practice sessions will be broadcast on pay channel Sky Sports, only half the races will be shown live on the free-to-air BBC in the new arrangement, which runs from 2012 to 2018.

The BBC will continue to show highlights of the races it is not covering live, and its Radio 5 Live arm will have live commentary on all rounds.

BBC Sport director Barbara Slater said: "We are absolutely delighted that F1 will remain on the BBC.

"The sport has never been more popular with TV audiences at a 10-year high and the BBC has always stated its commitment to the big national sporting moments.

"With this new deal not only have we delivered significant savings but we have also ensured that through our live and extended highlights coverage all the action continues to be available to licence-fee payers."

Sky Sports' managing director Barney Francis added: "This is fantastic news for F1 fans and Sky Sports will be the only place to follow every race live and in HD.

"We will give F1 the full Sky Sports treatment with a commitment to each race never seen before on UK television."

The BBC had a deal to exclusively broadcast F1 in the UK until the end of 2013, but the company had been under pressure to reduce costs.

The Monaco and British Grands Prix and the season finale are among the races that the BBC will continue to show.

Formula 1 teams are to seek clarification from Bernie Ecclestone on the new BBC/Sky television deal amid concerns about the sport moving away from free-to-air television in 2012.

In a shock announcement on Friday morning, the BBC and Sky announced that they would be sharing coverage of F1 in Britain next year - with Sky showing every race on its subscription channels and the BBC showing only half of them.

That move has led to outrage from fans, who are unhappy that they will not be able to follow every race on free-to-air television.

Team principals have also expressed some surprise at not having every race shown on free-to-air television, but they want more details from Ecclestone to find out what the specifics of the deal are.

McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh said that he would seek more information from Ecclestone, especially because he felt it important F1 was not taken off free-to-air.

"As I understand BBC are covering half the grands prix, and Sky are doing every practice session and everything else. It's interesting," he told AUTOSPORT. "I don't think anyone should be immediately reacting to say this is good, bad, or indifferent.

"What we need to understand is whether the large audience we currently enjoy in Formula 1 will be maintained. I think we also need to understand exactly how this is being done."

Whitmarsh said moves to take F1 off free-to-air could be viewed as a breach of the Concorde Agreement, with him claiming that there were clauses in the deal that ties the teams, Ecclestone and the FIA together that guarantees the sport's broadcast platform.

"We've got a range of safeguards within Concorde, and the right thing to do is to explore how the Formula 1 coverage is going to be dealt with in the future, and take a view from there," he said. "I don't know how many homes in the UK have Sky, but it is a pretty high proportion."

Williams chairman Adam Parr said the key was understanding the finer details of the arrangement - because what teams lose in widespread television viewing figures could be gained in an increased revenue from Sky.

"In principle I have no issue with optimising the balance between the revenues that we need, and getting a good reach in the audience," he told AUTOSPORT. "The devil is in the detail.

"I think it is a balance and, without knowing the details, you cannot comment on whether it is good or bad. What I do know is that Bernie is a very passionate believer in getting the broadest audience possible and I think he has almost certainly done this in order to do that. "

When asked what his message would be to disappointed fans, Parr said: "I am sympathetic to them. I understand it is difficult - but English Premier League fans have had that for a while haven't they?

"The one thing I would say, which I have said before, I know that whether you are coming to a race or are watching the sport at home and have to do that on pay TV which seems expensive, people have to bear in mind what it costs to put on this show. It is part of the character of F1.

"For us to design and build the two cars that we will have on the grid on Sunday here, without putting an engine in them, without putting a driver in them, without accounting for the 70 staff that we bring to each race – without all of that those cars cost £2 million. You multiply that by all the cars on the grid and that is £24 million minimum of the costs just to make the parts. That is part of the show.

"It is not a bloke or two blokes with a tennis racket and a pair of plimsolls with zero cost. It is a very, very expensive sport. The best thing we can do for fans, whether they want to come to the races or want to watch it on TV, is to reduce the cost of the sport without spoiling the show."

Parr also pointed out that the Sky/BBC deal was part of a changing media platform – and he drew comparisons between it and the 'freemium' platform of AUTOSPORT.

"I think that media distribution has changed so much, whether you have gone from paper magazines to a combination of magazine and online," he said. "For example, if you are a lover of AUTOSPORT you have a subscription service there as well as a free-to-air element. The whole media landscape is changing so quickly.

"The argument from AUTOSPORT would be: we cannot do this for free. We can get some revenue from advertising on the website, some from selling magazines, but we have to optimise our income – and if you want the really good quality of the coverage that you love it is not free, we have to pay to get people to the events.

"It is a question of degree and balance but also recognising that the way media is distributed is changing. It may well be that the next time around it is not Sky because Google has won the bid and we are all watching it live on the Internet."

BBC commentator and former F1 driver Martin Brundle said on Twitter that he was "not impressed" with the deal.

"BBC/Sky/F1 2012+. Found out last night, no idea how it will work yet I'm out of contract, will calmly work through options. Not impressed," he wrote.

Sky Sports has confirmed that it will not run adverts during its broadcast coverage of Formula 1 races next year, and will instead limit them to the pre and post-race show.

The broadcaster announced on Friday morning that it will screen every race, qualifying and practice session of the 2012 F1 season live while BBC Sport will scale-back its coverage to include just half the races.

Adverts became hugely unpopular with UK television audiences when F1 switched from the BBC to ITV in 1997, and a number of key moments during races - including Damon Hill taking the lead of that year's Hungarian Grand Prix in an Arrows - were missed as a result.

A spokesperson for Sky Sports told AUTOSPORT: "We won't have adverts while the races are running. We know they were very unpopular in the past and we don't have to go down that route."

The broadcaster has no plans to introduce a 'pay-per-view' scheme for races, meaning that fans will have to purchase a Sky Sports package and pay for it on a monthly basis.

Sky Sports News, which is available on all Sky packages without the need for a Sky Sports subscription, will feature pre and post-race analysis in addition to that broadcast on Sky Sports.

Everything broadcast on Sky Sports will also be available online and via mobile and tablet.

BBC will continue to show highlights of each race it does not broadcast live.

DJ Ice · July 29, 2011

Well of course Martin Brundle isn't impressed with the deal

He'll be more than happy with it though if Sky offer him enough money

The 2012 season will still kick off on March 18 next year, despite the Bahrain Grand Prix being moved to a November date.

As revealed by AUTOSPORT, Formula 1 bosses and teams are working on a revised calendar, quite different to that published by the FIA earlier this year.

As reported yesterday, the season will kick off in Australia rather than in Bahrain in order to give the country more time to clam the political situation down.

Formula 1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone circulated a calendar among teams in Hungary to get their feedback, and it confirmed the season will still begin on March 18 - the date originally assigned to Bahrain - in Melbourne.

The calendar also confirms the United States Grand Prix at Austin will move to November 18 in order for the race to take place in cooler conditions. The race will be followed by the season finale in Brazil just a week later.

Ecclestone's proposed calendar - which will need to be approved by the FIA - confirms the Turkish Grand Prix will be dropped from next year.

Bernie Ecclestone's proposed calendar:

18 March Australian GP25 March Malaysian GP8 April Chinese GP22 April Indian GP13 May Spanish GP27 May Monaco GP10 June Canada GP24 June European GP8 July British GP22 July German GP29 July Hungarian GP2 September Belgian GP9 September Italian GP23 September Singapore GP7 October Japanese GP14 October Korean GP28 October Abu Dhabi GP4 November Bahrain GP18 November US GP25 November Brazilian GP

Edited July 29, 2011 by DJ Ice

Lineker · July 29, 2011

Yes, thank you for posting the exact same thing five minutes after (Y). Much needed!

DJ Ice · July 29, 2011

Oh yeah, I thought it was slightly different

Aaaand removed...

GA! · July 29, 2011

Well of course Martin Brundle isn't impressed with the deal

He'll be more than happy with it though if Sky offer him enough money

In all fairness to Martin, he's just been informed out of the blue that only half of his service will be needed from now on. I'd fully understand if he or any of the F1 pundits jump over to Sky.

DJ Ice · July 29, 2011

Well of course Martin Brundle isn't impressed with the deal

He'll be more than happy with it though if Sky offer him enough money

In all fairness to Martin, he's just been informed out of the blue that only half of his service will be needed from now on. I'd fully understand if he or any of the F1 pundits jump over to Sky.

Yeah, suppose so.

I would estatic if him, DC and Eddie J moved to Sky. That would be great, just keep it the same

Also, do BBC show practice sessions? I need to know

Lineker · July 29, 2011

Yeah they do, on the red button.

Their services would still required but they would only be for race highlights on the non-BBC race weekends.

Lewis Hamilton picked up where he left off last weekend in Germany as he set the fastest time in the first practice session for the Hungarian Grand Prix in Budapest.

The McLaren driver outpaced world championship leader Sebastian Vettel by 0.214 seconds with a lap of 1m23.350s, while Fernando Alonso was third fastest for Ferrari.

Mark Webber was fourth, despite a shunt late in the session, ahead of Jenson Button and Felipe Massa in the second Ferrari..

The circuit was dry when the session started but overnight rain had dampened it at the edges, and as ever the Hungaroring was devoid of purchase in these early stages of the grand prix weekend.

Nico Hulkenberg was the first man to gun it, setting a lap of 1m29.671s 20 minutes into the session. That time would be lowered by more than six seconds through the 90 minutes of running. The German, who was standing in for compatriot Adrian Sutil at Force India for the first session, indeed improved on that time on the very next lap to a 1m28.286s.

Just before the half hour mark Sebastien Buemi lowered it again by more than a second (1m27.058s) in the Toro Rosso as he begun the team's 100th grand prix weekend - not counting all those it completed as Minardi.

Button was the first heavy-hitter to file a time, that of 1m25.697s. Not long after that McLaren team-mate and German Grand Prix winner Hamilton joined him on track and immediately went faster with a 1m24.284s. Button then improved to 0.699s behind his team-mate before heading back to the pits as the team evaluated new aero parts and a diffuser.

Ferrari's Massa then went second quickest to split the McLarens, before his team-mate Alonso lapped fastest of all (1m24.179s) having recovered from a small fire early on due to overheating when he returned from the pits after his constant speed run.

It was just about half distance when finally the Red Bulls came out, but Alonso was still working it and lowered his own best time even further to a 1m23.642s

Webber's best at this point was only good enough for second behind the Ferrari.

Vettel meanwhile made steady progress with a fairly long run, which included a lap to back off and a run through the pitlane, which eventually saw him move to the top with a 1m23.564s. The stint also included a locked up moment when he ran across the Turn Five chicane.

With 20 minutes to go the McLarens returned to the action and Hamilton lowered the target time to 1m23.350s, some 0.214s quicker than Vettel had managed.

It was about this time that Webber had a rare shunt, but not before he'd improved to fourth in the times. The Australian went off at Turn Nine, taking off his front wing in the process, having run wide over the kerbs that then pinged him across the track and into the barrier. The car was sufficiently unbroken for him to drive back to the pits however.

After that, most drivers were satisfied to complete their long-run information gathering which ensured that Hamilton ended up fastest from Vettel, Alonso, Webber, Button and Massa. Hamilton himself though was set to improve his own time in the dying minutes, having set purple sectors in the first two, only to be blocked by Jaime Alguersuari. The McLaren man returned the compliment on the next tour.

The Mercedes of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher were split by 0.119s in seventh and eight positions, while Sergio Perez (Sauber) and Vitaly Petrov (Renault) completed the top ten.

Bruno Senna ended the session 15th on his first free practice run for Renault - the Brazilian some 0.7s off the pace of Petrov.

Further down the field, Jarno Trulli, who was projected to use a new power-steering system for this race in a bid to help him get to grips with the Lotus - ended the session 20th, 0.5s off Heikki Kovalainen's time.
FP1


Pos  Driver                Team                  Time               Laps

 1.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes      1m23.350s   	      19

 2.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault      1m23.564s  + 0.214   24

 3.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari               1m23.642s  + 0.292   29

 4.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault      1m23.666s  + 0.316   12

 5.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes      1m23.772s  + 0.422   20

 6.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari               1m24.115s  + 0.765   25

 7.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes              1m24.250s  + 0.900   22

 8.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes              1m24.369s  + 1.019   20

 9.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari        1m24.620s  + 1.270   24

10.  Vitaly Petrov         Renault               1m25.093s  + 1.743   22

11.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari        1m25.113s  + 1.763   21

12.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes  1m25.336s  + 1.986   22

13.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes  1m25.357s  + 2.007   17

14.  Rubens Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth     1m25.836s  + 2.486   24

15.  Bruno Senna           Renault               1m25.855s  + 2.505   25

16.  Sebastien Buemi       Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m25.890s  + 2.540   28

17.  Jaime Alguersuari     Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m26.099s  + 2.749   36

18.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Cosworth     1m26.124s  + 2.774   25

19.  Heikki Kovalainen     Lotus-Renault         1m26.878s  + 3.528   26

20.  Jarno Trulli          Lotus-Renault         1m27.352s  + 4.002   21

21.  Timo Glock            Virgin-Cosworth       1m28.533s  + 5.183   30

22.  Jerome D-Ambrosio     Virgin-Cosworth       1m28.903s  + 5.553   22

23.  Tonio Liuzzi          HRT-Cosworth          1m29.059s  + 5.709   24

24.  Daniel Ricciardo      HRT-Cosworth          1m29.904s  + 6.554   26


All Timing Unofficial[/code]




Lewis Hamilton continued to set the ultimate pace in second practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix as the McLaren man led the way with a 1m21.018s lap ahead of Fernando Alonso's Ferrari.



In a session dominated by long runs and analysis on the relative degradation of Pirelli's supersoft option and harder prime tyres, Hamilton went fastest on an early short run with his red-walled tyres 50 minutes in and was never headed thereafter, though it was Red Bull that looked strong in the late soft-tyre analysis.



Hamilton's team-mate Jenson Button was third quickest ahead of Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel's Red Bulls, proving if nothing else that the weekend promises to be very close between the top three teams once again.



An initial threat of a shower prompted the teams to fire out of the pits early in P2 and very quickly Hamilton was back to the top of the timesheets with a time of 1m22.969s.



But that rain which spattered the back of the grandstands down near Turn 1, never materialised and things soon returned to normal as everyone concentrated on their long runs.



Nevertheless the early burst of activity saw Alonso move to the top of the times with a 1m22.297s that remained the benchmark until after the halfway point in the session as drivers worked on their prime tyre analysis.



At this point though the order was Alonso, from Vettel, Button, Massa and Hamilton.



Ferrari was the first front-running team to switch to the red-walled super soft Pirelli option tyre and Felipe Massa threatened to go fastest until the Brazilian ran wide at Turn 5 with 40 minutes of the session to go.



His team-mate Alonso wasn't far behind though and the Spaniard fired in a rapid 1m21.259s lap.



This triggered a brace of option runs and Hamilton, visibly enthusiastic in his work on track, moved right back to the top with a 1m21.018s.



Button then moved to third ahead of Webber, fastest of the Red Bulls, who was only fourth, ahead of world championship leading team-mate Sebastien Vettel.



That's how things stayed as drivers settled down to do more evaluating of the extent of the super-soft's operating window - or most of them at least. Ominously though, it was Red Bull that looked most competitive during this phase.



Behind Massa, who ended up sixth fastest, was Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher in the Mercedes cars, which were neither close to the top three teams or particularly threatened by Force India immediately behind it.



Force India's drivers therefore completed the top ten with Paul di Resta out-pacing Adrian Sutil.



Further down the field, notable times included that of Jarno Trulli which was half a second quicker than Lotus team-mate Heikki Kovalainen and Daniel Ricciardo who was a similar amount faster than HRT veteran Vitantonio Liuzzi.





[code]FP2


Pos  Driver                Team                  Time               Laps

 1.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes      1m21.018s           29

 2.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari               1m21.259s  + 0.241  40

 3.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes      1m21.322s  + 0.304  34

 4.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault      1m21.508s  + 0.490  35

 5.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault      1m21.549s  + 0.531  31

 6.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari               1m22.099s  + 1.081  40

 7.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes              1m22.121s  + 1.103  36

 8.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes              1m22.440s  + 1.422  36

 9.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes  1m22.835s  + 1.817  40

10.  Adrian Sutil          Force India-Mercedes  1m22.981s  + 1.963  37

11.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari        1m23.030s  + 2.012  34

12.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari        1m23.399s  + 2.381  37

13.  Rubens Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth     1m23.679s  + 2.661  34

14.  Nick Heidfeld         Renault               1m23.861s  + 2.843  28

15.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Cosworth     1m24.181s  + 3.163  39

16.  Jaime Alguersuari     Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m24.182s  + 3.164  26

17.  Vitaly Petrov         Renault               1m24.546s  + 3.528  21

18.  Sebastien Buemi       Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m24.878s  + 3.860  35

19.  Jarno Trulli          Lotus-Renault         1m24.994s  + 3.976  38

20.  Heikki Kovalainen     Lotus-Renault         1m25.447s  + 4.429  39

21.  Timo Glock            Virgin-Cosworth       1m26.823s  + 5.805  33

22.  Jerome D-Ambrosio     Virgin-Cosworth       1m27.261s  + 6.243  28

23.  Daniel Ricciardo      HRT-Cosworth          1m27.730s  + 6.712  31

24.  Tonio Liuzzi          HRT-Cosworth          1m28.255s  + 7.237  25


All Timing Unofficial

Katsuya · July 29, 2011

To be honest, all I was worried about was that there'd be ad breaks during the race if it moved to Sky. If there aren't, then I'm not bothered in the slighest. I imagine Brundle will jump ship, Sky would be fools not to since he's effectively become the new Murray Walker.

Formula One 2011

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