Formula One 2012

[MJB]

What the fuck was Rosberg trying to do to both Alonso and Hamilton?

Oh and McLaren need to sort themselves out.

[LUKIE]

Vettel can suck a humongous cock and choke on it.

({) I'm here for you Kimi.

[EddieG]

Mark Webber, 4 races, 4 fourth places. Talk about consistency.

[Lineker]

Sebastian Vettel delivered his first victory of the 2012 Formula 1 season in the Bahrain Grand Prix, and moved into the championship lead in the process - but only after resisting a stern challenge from the Lotus of Kimi Raikkonen.

On a day when Lotus delivered everything it had promised in the opening races, Raikkonen and team-mate Romain Grosjean hacked through the field to complete the podium behind the winning Red Bull.

Mark Webber took fourth in the second Red Bull, while pitstop problems consigned front row starter and erstwhile championship leader Lewis Hamilton's McLaren to eighth. Nico Rosberg completed the top five after an eventful race for Mercedes.

It soon became clear that the Lotus duo had stunning race pace. Although Vettel stormed away from initial pursuers Hamilton and Webber, Grosjean and Raikkonen were making rapid progress up the order.

Grosjean had moved into fourth at the start, then picked off Webber and Hamilton on laps four and seven, while Raikkonen vaulted from 11th to seventh off the line, had a quick wheel-banging battle with Felipe Massa's Ferrari, then got up to third by the time the first stops were done - by virtue of a string of passes and a long first stint.

Raikkonen then closed on Grosjean, overtook his team-mate on lap 24, just before their second stops, and started hunting down Vettel.

As they approached the final tyre changes, Raikkonen was on Vettel's tail and able to take several looks at passing the Red Bull.

The tension eased after the final stops, though, with Vettel able to rebuild a slight lead and keep the Lotus under control, despite the occasional flurry of fast times from Raikkonen, who remained a secure distance ahead of Grosjean.

Webber had a strangely lonely afternoon in fourth place, but there was plenty of action behind.

Rosberg slipped back to ninth on a scrappy first lap, before recovering to fifth - although he attracted the stewards' attraction along the way after some vigorous defensive moves against Hamilton and Fernando Alonso (Ferrari). The incidents will be investigated after the race. Rosberg slowed as he crossed the line, but made it home for fifth.

The Mercedes' final pass had been on Paul di Resta's Force India with just five laps to go. Di Resta did a masterful job on a unique two-stop strategy, allowing him to lead a grand prix for the first time and take sixth place.

Hamilton's afternoon went awry in the pits, as a wheelnut issue with his left rear cost him a lot of time at both his first and second stops. The Briton had to settle for chasing di Resta and Alonso home in eighth place.

It was a miserable race for McLaren overall. Jenson Button spent the afternoon on the fringes of the top six before a late pitstop with a puncture, and then a mechanical problem that left his sick-sounding car heading for the garage on the penultimate lap.

Alonso had got up to fifth with an assertive start, but did not have the pace to stay there. Massa was respectably close to his team-mate's pace on the way to ninth, while Michael Schumacher was able to come through from 22nd on the grid to 10th in the second Mercedes.

Two stars of qualifying saw their race hopes rapidly dashed. Daniel Ricciardo tumbled down the order on lap one and sustained nose damage, after which he could only get the Toro Rosso back up to 15th. Caterham's Heikki Kovalainen picked up a puncture on lap one.

PROVISIONAL RACE RESULTS


The Bahrain Grand Prix

Bahrain, Bahrain;

57 laps; 308.405km;

Weather: Dry.


Classified:


Pos  Driver        Team                       Time

 1.  Vettel        Red Bull-Renault           1h35:10.990

 2.  Raikkonen     Lotus-Renault              +     3.333

 3.  Grosjean      Lotus-Renault              +    10.194

 4.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault           +    38.788

 5.  Rosberg       Mercedes                   +    55.460

 6.  Di Resta      Force India-Mercedes       +    57.543

 7.  Alonso        Ferrari                    +    57.803

 8.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes           +    58.984

 9.  Massa         Ferrari                    +  1:04.999

10.  Schumacher    Mercedes                   +  1:11.490

11.  Perez         Sauber-Ferrari             +  1:12.702

12.  Hulkenberg    Force India-Mercedes       +  1:16.539

13.  Vergne        Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +  1:30.334

14.  Kobayashi     Sauber-Ferrari             +  1:33.723

15.  Ricciardo     Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +     1 lap

16.  Petrov        Caterham-Renault           +     1 lap

17.  Kovalainen    Caterham-Renault           +     1 lap

18.  Button        McLaren-Mercedes           +     1 lap

19.  Glock         Marussia-Cosworth          +    2 laps

20.  De la Rosa    HRT-Cosworth               +    2 laps

21.  Karthikeyan   HRT-Cosworth               +    2 laps

22.  Senna         Williams-Renault           +    3 laps


Fastest lap: Vettel, 1:36.379


Not classified/retirements:


Driver        Team                         On lap

Maldonado     Williams-Renault             26

Pic           Marussia-Cosworth            25



World Championship standings, round 4:                


Drivers:                    Constructors:             

 1.  Vettel        53        1.  Red Bull-Renault          101

 2.  Hamilton      49        2.  McLaren-Mercedes           92

 3.  Webber        48        3.  Lotus-Renault              57

 4.  Button        43        4.  Ferrari                    45

 5.  Alonso        43        5.  Mercedes                   37

 6.  Rosberg       35        6.  Sauber-Ferrari             31

 7.  Raikkonen     34        7.  Williams-Renault           18

 8.  Grosjean      23        8.  Force India-Mercedes       17

 9.  Perez         22        9.  Toro Rosso-Ferrari          6

10.  Di Resta      15       

11.  Senna         14       

12.  Kobayashi      9       

13.  Vergne         4       

14.  Maldonado      4       

15.  Hulkenberg     2       

16.  Schumacher     2       

17.  Massa          2       

18.  Ricciardo      2       


All timing unofficial[/code]


Nico Rosberg has escaped any sanction for the on-track moments during the Bahrain Grand Prix when he appeared to push Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso off the track.


The stewards of the meeting met with the drivers and their team representatives after the race to look into the details of the clash that took place as Hamilton exited the pits on lap 11 and tried to retake a position.


Rosberg defended hard, moving across to the right on the exit of Turn 3, and Hamilton had to complete his pass off the track before Turn 4.


The situation was repeated when Alonso tried to pass the German on lap 11, although the Spaniard did not manage to overtake.


The stewards looked into the matter and decided that because Rosberg had moved to the right to defend his position in a 'constant and continuous straight line manner' and because Hamilton was not alongside Rosberg as he began that move that the German did nothing wrong.


The stewards added: "Had a significant portion of Car 4 (Hamilton) been alongside that of Car 8 (Rosberg) whilst Car 4 still remained within the confines of the track, then the actions of Car 8 may not be considered legitimate."


Rosberg was cleared for his incident with Alonso for the same reasons.


"I can only say that if, instead of such a wide run-off area there had been a wall, I'm not sure I'd be here now to talk about it," said Alonso.


[b]After hearing the decision, Alonso wrote on Twitter: "I think you are going to have fun in future races! You can defend position as you want and you can overtake outside the track! Enjoy!"[/b]


Sebastian Vettel does not believe that his victory in the Bahrain Grand Prix makes a change in the balance of power in the 2012 Formula 1 title fight, as the reigning world champion thinks the season will continue to be very unpredictable.


Red Bull had trailed McLaren and often also Mercedes in the opening three rounds, with Vettel unable to secure a pole or victory prior to Bahrain.


But his win at Sakhir - on a day when McLaren could manage no better than Lewis Hamilton's eighth place - moved Vettel back into the championship lead that he had held for all of 2011.


Despite the Bahrain result looking like a return to 'business as usual' for Red Bull, Vettel said he expects the top teams' form to keep fluctuating - and believes McLaren remains a very serious threat.


"It's a very tight season, the cars are very close to each other and small things can make a huge difference on a Sunday," he said.


"I think we started the season saying that the McLaren is the fastest car by quite a bit and we've seen that on Sunday it can be a different picture. I think they still have one of the strongest packages.


"But you need to get everything right, you need to have the right tyres, you need to treat them right, you need to find the right set-up through the course of the weekend, so a lot of things to look out for."


Vettel reckons the decision to run an older exhaust package on his car at the preceding race in China, while team-mate Mark Webber continued with the latest spec, had helped Red Bull got to grips with its 2012 car better ready for Bahrain - though he admitted that he was not expecting this weekend's upturn in performance.


"I am very happy we made it [to victory] here. We were not quite sure how competitive we would be," he said.


"I think China was a very good lesson for us to understand the weakness of the car a little bit more by driving with two different packages. Here we focused on the new package and pushing that forward."


The German added that for now he was content to be pleased at having got back to the top step of the podium, rather than worrying too much about whether Red Bull's resurgence was permanent.


"I'm just happy for now, I don't really care what happens in the next race, at least not today," said Vettel.


"I think we will have a good time now and push harder so that we make sure we are there again next race."


Kimi Raikkonen believes that he will be in with a chance to win grands prix again this season after losing out in a close battle to world champion Sebastian Vettel in Bahrain.


Raikkonen, just four races into his comeback with Lotus, scored a fantastic second place at Sakhir having challenged Vettel for the lead during the final stint of the race.


He couldn't get past the Red Bull and settled for second once the grip from his tyres began to fade away.


The Finn admitted afterwards that he was disappointed to have missed out on a 19th career victory, but said he was sure that he would be able to fight for wins again this year.


"Of course I wanted to win and would have been much happier in myself if I had won but nevertheless the team deserved what they got and hopefully we can put ourselves in this position more often," he said afterwards.


"We had the car already in the first three races to be up there but we made some small mistakes and it cost us too much.


"Today wasn't far away. I really should have made it but I didn't so, like I said hopefully we can put ourselves in this position more often to have a chance. But we have to work hard and improve certain areas of the car and I'm sure we can be up there more often and try to get the win.


Raikkonen admitted that he didn't make the most of his one realistic opportunity to pass Vettel on lap 36.


"We got one try on Sebastian but I couldn't use it because I chose the wrong side and then my tyres dropped off and that was it.


"I pretty much knew that was my only chance."


The 32-year-old also reckons that he could have won the race had he not dropped behind the Ferrari's at the start and engaged in a wheel-banging battle with Felipe Massa.


"We gave ourselves a chance at least and it's a bit disappointing that we didn't manage to do it, but I made a small mistake at the beginning, lost one place to a Ferrari and I had to re-overtake him and that took a little time.


"I could pass the people quite easily but if you look in the end it still look too long and we couldn't win the race.


"After the last race when we tried hard and then we failed, I think people probably thought we were a bit stupid, but even after yesterday what we did, but it turned out to be right decision.


"I think the team deserves what we achieved now, we have been working hard in the background and I have not been 100 per cent happy with how the weekends had been gone so far, but we finally got some proper results for the team so it is an important step."


Another battle for second position with his team-mate Romain Grosjean also hindered Raikkonen's progress in his pursuit of Vettel.


"Yeah, but there are no team orders, we know the rules - I tried to get past as quickly as I can, but it is always easy with two similar cars so," he said. "It's always easy afterwards to say we should have done that but in the end we were not fast enough to win so we had to take second."


Romain Grosjean says he did not expect to achieve his first podium in Formula 1 so quickly after finishing in third in the Bahrain Grand Prix.


The Lotus driver, who had scored his first points in F1 in last weekend's Chinese Grand Prix, completed a sensational day for his team after team-mate Kimi Raikkonen finished in second position.


Although Grosjean lost out to the Finn on track, the Frenchman admitted he was delighted with the result.


"It is great, a great feeling so far," said Grosjean. "I am very proud of the team, of what we did. We knew we had a good car but I think we were a little bit surprised at the beginning about where we were.


"It turned out to be not too bad in the end and I think our car is very competitive. I think we can be very happy with what we did. The first points is one step and the next step I thought it would take time but we can be happy and have a week off to enjoy."


Grosjean, the first Frenchman to finish on the podium since Jean Alesi in the 1998 Belgian Grand Prix, said Lotus can be proud of its effort after a strong start to the season.


"I think we are doing some pretty good stuff. The team can be proud of what we did because with the season being so tight, getting the car near the front is hard," he said.


"We have two cars on the podium. The first podium feels pretty good. We will feel even better when we are back in the plane home and are able to relax and go to factory and work."


Jenson Button was mystified by the McLaren team's lack of pace in the Bahrain Grand Prix, having been unable to fight the Red Bulls and Lotus cars for victory.


The Australian Grand Prix winner, who eventually was classified 18th having stopped two laps from the finish having with a differential failure, said he could not understand where the McLaren MP4-27's inherent pace had gone through the weekend.


"The pace wasn't there at the beginning," he said. "We didn't have a very good balance and we were really struggling with oversteer, so all the way through the race we were taking front end out of the car and going massively forward with the brake bias, so I think we were a long way out with the balance for the race. But the pace wasn't there anyway.


"With good pitstops we would have been much happier but still we wouldn't have been anywhere near the front guys and one to one and half seconds [of pace] is something that we don't really understand where it's gone.


"It's very difficult to understand where the pace is and why we don't have it around here. The last few races, in the race, whether we've won it or not we've had good race pace, and we don't have that here."


Button had looked in a position to secure at least fifth position until he ran into a barrage of problems in the closing stages of the race.


"The last stint was a long stint, I was interested to see what was going to happen with everyone's times," he said. "People were pushing at the beginning, I was looking after the tyres and in the last five laps I was pushing pretty hard.


"I caught up with Paul di Resta and Nico Rosberg and as I got them into the DRS zone, I went into the last corner and the front tyre lifted up in the air and I realised I had a puncture so I came in.


"We changed the tyres, so I went out and the car was very noisy, and the reason for the initial problem was an exhaust failure and then a puncture and then a diff failure and that's why I had to eventually retire."


Team principal Martin Whitmarsh told Sky Sports that McLaren would investigate why Button and Lewis Hamilton suffered a lack of pace, but indicated that it related to rear tyre grip.


"My view is that we were just too hard on the rear tyres and that really gave a great challenge to both of our drivers," he said. "Now we know that the tyres have got a very small sweet spot and you have got to be operating within that, if you're outside of it then you are really giving yourself a big, big challenge.


"With the pace of the car, we've been effectively on the front row everywhere, so there is no magic. We didn't lose 50 points of downforce from yesterday to today. Clearly we are beating the tyres much too hard here, we need to understand that and do a better job at the next race."


McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh has promised his drivers there will be a full investigation into its pitstop procedures to ensure that mistakes are ironed out in the future.


Just one week after Jenson Button's hopes of victory in China were dashed by a slow final pitstop, Lewis Hamilton experienced two pitstop errors that pushed him down the field to a disappointing eighth in Bahrain.


At the first pitstop, the wheel nut pegs did not engage properly with the holes in the rim, while at the second stop the nuts cross-threaded.


With the left rear wheel gun man having been involved in the two troubled pitstops, the team elected to change him for the final stop - but Whitmarsh insisted that he had no hard feelings about what had happened.


"We'll review lots of things but I don't think it's a criticism of him as an individual," he said. "He's taken it very badly and it's our job to support to him at the moment.


"Firstly you have got to say that any guy who volunteers to be a gun man in a team like this is a brave guy, and that's one of the reasons I have just been speaking to him now, because I know how hard he is being on himself at the moment.


"These guys are all mechanics and they don't get paid extra for doing it. They put themselves in the firing line and under an enormous amount of pressure, so naturally I'm very protective of them because they deserve my protection.


"They're brave, they volunteer for it, they try hard and they know the pressure they are under. But we have got to look at the equipment, we have got to look at the process, we have got to look at the approach. So it's disappointing."


Lewis Hamilton was frustrated by the pitstop situation - especially because it cost him valuable points at a time when he locked in a tight championship battle.


"I have no idea what went on but I was hoping the second time I came in I wouldn't have that problem," he said. "I was hoping that it would be a good pit stop but it was exactly the same, if not a little bit longer, than the previous one.


"There was a lot of ground lost today. But we still picked up some points so I have got to be happy with that.


"There should be [an inquest] because we gave away a lot of points today which championships are lost through. So we have to try and make sure we pick up on them for the next race because we can't afford to lose points like we did today."


Nico Rosberg described his Bahrain Grand Prix's fifth place for Mercedes as successful damage limitation, and denied the result was frustrating after he had taken a dominant victory in China just a week earlier.


After qualifying, Rosberg had said he was even more confident about his race pace than he had been going into the Shanghai grand prix, but he ended up losing places on the first lap and only managed to recover to fifth.


The German remained upbeat, pointing out that earlier in the season Mercedes would have been expected to suffer far more in a race so hard on tyres.


"Of course coming off a win last weekend it has been a much more mixed weekend here," Rosberg admitted. "But all in all it is still 10 points for fifth place in the most difficult conditions for tyres out there.


"We struggled massively at the beginning of the season and you can see we are moving forward and progressing and from that point of view there are a lot of positives to come from today and push on with the development."


Rosberg thinks Mercedes can still head into the three-week break before the Spanish Grand Prix satisfied with the gains it has made this season.


"[The aim] is just to make the car quicker, that is the main thing, aero wise and mechanical and everything will come together," he said. "But even today in these very tough conditions we were the third best team.


"That is OK - it is keeping in the right direction and some more teams are in a lot more trouble than us."


The stewards are investigating two incidents involving Rosberg's defensive driving, which saw Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso both go off the track while trying to pass him. The pair were critical of Rosberg after the race, but the Mercedes driver was reluctant to comment until he had watched a replay.


"I haven't seen it myself so I prefer not to say anything," said Rosberg.


Pirelli says it is surprised at accusations from Michael Schumacher that the current generation of tyres are not allowing drivers to push their cars to the limit.


On the back of a frustrating afternoon in Bahrain, where Schumacher could not make the progress through the field that he had hoped for, the seven-time champion hit out at the way drivers are being forced to look after their tyres.


"The main thing I feel unhappy about is that everyone has to drive well below a driver's, and in particular, the car limits to maintain the tyres," he told BBC Radio 5.


"I just question whether the tyres should play such a big importance, or whether they should last a bit longer - and that you can drive at normal racing car speed and not cruise around like we have a safety car."


Pirelli's director of motorsport Paul Hembery said he was taken aback by those criticisms, especially because Schumacher had been so happy with the tyres throughout winter testing.


"I'm disappointed to hear those comments from someone of Michael's experience," he told AUTOSPORT. "Others were getting on with the job and getting their tyres to work. His comments during winter testing were that he was very happy with the tyres, and now he seems to have changed his tune."


Schumacher added in his post-race summary that he thinks Pirelli should reconsider its approach to tyres – because the problems of not being able to push to the limit were being experienced by too many people.


"I'm not happy about the situation, lets see what happens in future," explained the Mercedes driver. "If it would be a one-off car issue, then you could say it's up on us to deal with it.


"But basically it is everybody with maybe one or two exceptions. And if it is 80 per cent of the field that has this problem, then maybe the tyre supplier should think about that."


Paul di Resta says his sixth place in the Bahrain Grand Prix proves that Force India was absolutely right to sit out Q3 on Saturday.


The Scot reckoned a giant-killing qualifying result might have been possible given his pace at Sakhir, but that it was better to save a set of fresh tyres for the race so he could pull off the two-stop strategy that took him to sixth - equalling his Formula 1 career best.


"We played our cards right in qualifying by saving a set of tyres," di Resta. "We could've gone out there and been a hero in qualifying but today is when it counts and you grab the points.


"It was an amazing job by the whole team in the combination of pitstops and strategy. At one point they said 'another 10 laps on these tyres', and I thought they were asking too much, but no."


Di Resta believes Force India now needs to use his result to 'kick-start' its season.


The team was sixth in last year's constructors' standings, but has seen late-2011 rival Lotus (formerly Renault) stride forward, and Sauber and Williams's strong starts to the season push it back to eighth in the order at present.


"We'll certainly hopefully come to Barcelona in fighting form with the new aero update," said di Resta.


"We need to kick-start our season. There's a lot of people around us that have scored some big points, and we need to keep this form."


He also noted that sitting out the second Friday practice session so the crew could leave the circuit in daylight following an incident with protestors on Wednesday night had not hampered Force India in the end.


"Missing FP2 doesn't look like it made too much difference for us," di Resta said.


The sister Force India of Nico Hulkenberg lost ground on lap one and could only finish 12th.


"My race was pretty much over at the start. Already rolling out of the garage going to the grid we had some clutch issues," he said.


"The clutch didn't behave as we wanted it to, so that compromised the start totally. I had anti-stall and was pretty much last after the start, so from there a pretty difficult race.


"It's been a tough weekend, and there's nothing I can do about these clutch issues. We'll have to look into it and see what it was. It's frustrating."


Fernando Alonso believes it is a "present" that he is only 10 points away from the lead of the Formula 1 world championship after four races.


The Ferrari driver won the Malaysian Grand Prix but his car has not proved competitive enough to repeat the feat in the other races.


Alonso finished in seventh position in Bahrain on Sunday, nearly a full minute behind race winner Sebastian Vettel.


But the Spaniard reckons that having lost just 10 points to the championship leader was unthinkable given Ferrari's form at the start of the season.


He insists, however, that Ferrari must react immediately and be stronger when the European season starts.


"After four races, with 100 points to win, being eight or 10 points behind the leader is completely unthinkable," said Alonso.


"It's a bit like a present what we've had in this first four races. We appreciate it and we take it, but leaving the points aside, what worries the team is the performance of the car, and that we have to improve it right away for Barcelona."


The two-time champion said he was left with mixed feelings after the Sakhir race, having finished so far from the winner but in front of rivals like McLaren.


"I think we have mixed feelings, because on the one hand we were in front of both the McLarens at the end of the race, which is something we didn't expect after quali. On the other side we are 57 seconds away from the winner, so this is bigger than any other race in 2012. So we need to look at why we were so far from the podium positions."


Alonso also said he will accept what the stewards decide on his incident with Nico Rosberg, after the German pushed him off the circuit when fighting for position.


"We'll have to see what the stewards say. I just tried to overtake and went off track. Here it's no problem because there's that extra bit of circuit on the sides, but he did it twice with Lewis [Hamilton] and with me. We'll see. We really need to look on the TV and whatever they decide will be good."


Felipe Massa's withered confidence has been boosted by his first points of the season after finishing ninth in the Bahrain Grand Prix, as the Brazilian admitted he is looking forward to the major upgrades Ferrari intends to put on the F12012 before the beginning of the European season.


The team has been disappointed with the overall pace of the 2012 machine, in spite of Fernando Alonso's unlikely victory in Malaysia last month, and is expected to bring significant changes to the car for the Mugello test at the beginning of May.


Massa, whose own poor performances have been under the spotlight, is hoping that his first points finish and an improved car will help him draw a line under a difficult start to the year.


"It's a nice result at this time, but we are well aware that it is not Ferrari's style to be happy with a ninth place," said Massa. "Having said that, it is a performance that gives me confidence for the rest of the season.


"Clearly we have to improve the performance of the car as soon as possible to be able to fight for worthwhile positions.


"In Barcelona, everyone will bring major updates and we will have had to do have done a better job than the others because we have to make up the ground lost at the start of this championship."


Team principal Stefano Domenicali added that he believed Ferrari had limited the damage to its championship challenges in the first four races before the upgrades arrive.


"What I can say is that what has been a very tough first run of races for us has now come to an end, although this is just what we had expected," said the Italian. "We managed to limit the damage, at least as far as the drivers' championship is concerned.


"Now we must look to the future and make a step up in terms of quality which should allow us to fight for the podium and not just a points finish.


"That's what I have been asking our engineers for several weeks and by Barcelona, I expect to already see the results of the effort we are expending in every area."


Domenicali also paid tribute to a Ferrari engineer, Matteo Vignali, who died over the weekend: "Honestly, what happened on the track today is only of secondary importance for us."


"We are very sad to learn of the death of Matteo Vignali, a young man who worked in the gearbox department, who suffered a heart attack," he said. "He lost his life at just thirty two years of age, something that leaves us in a state of dismay."


Sauber drivers Sergio Perez and Kamui Kobayashi said their car was simply to slow to get into the points in the Bahrain Grand Prix, and that no amount of strategic variations would have given them a chance to improve on their eventual 11th and 13th positions.


Just a week after Kobayashi started third in China, and two races on from Perez's near-win in Malaysia, Sauber was at the tail of the top 10 at Sakhir.


Kobayashi could not sustain his intended two-stop strategy and fell to 13th when he had to make an additional tyre change near the end, while Perez was only 11th.


"We knew this circuit would not be an easy one for us and we were just too slow today," said Perez. "We tried both strategies and split them between the cars but today there was nothing that could have really helped us.


"I had a lot of tyre degradation and due to a problem at the pitstop we lost a place and a point to Michael [schumacher]."


Kobayashi was dropping down the order even before having to make his extra pitstop.


"The tyres degraded quicker than we hoped and I had to do three stops as well, with the last one seven laps before the end," he said.


"I can't see anything that we could have actually done better in today's race. Our problem was a general lack of speed and we will work hard to fix it."


Sauber's head of track engineering Giampaolo Dall'Ara argued that the biggest issue was that the cars did not make good enough starts.


"The key point of the race was on lap one when we lost positions. The start was possibly not so good. That's something we have to look into," said Dall'Ara. "From that point on we were unable to recover."

Post-race press conference:


[spoiler]TV UNILATERAL


Q. Congratulations Sebastian. As defending champion it's always nice to get your first win of the season, even if it is at the fourth time of asking.


Sebastian VETTEL: Yeah, I think it was an incredible race. Extremely tough. Sometimes we had a decent gap but still even from the start we had a very good start, which was crucial. I was able to pull away immediately and pull away from the pack. That turned out to be a big advantage because we always had to go on a used set of tyres as we used nearly all of them yesterday in qualifying. We could see, Kimi was getting through, he was very quick and so was Romain. A difficult race but with the strategy everything seemed to work so I can only say a big thanks to the boys in the garage. I said it yesterday: incredible job they've done over the first four races. The amount of work they had and that we gave them in particular because we weren't happy with the car and we asked for little tweaks here and there and they came back with new parts, old parts, back with the new parts, back with the old parts, back and forth, so extremely tough and they spent a lot of hours in the garage trying to get the car to our liking and I think we got it this weekend together for the first time and I was very happy in qualifying and throughout the whole race to be fair. So given the fact that Kimi found a dealership somewhere where he got some new tyres from, which allowed him to start every new stint on new tyres, it was extremely tough to keep them behind us. Once he was very close and I thought he would get more than just one shot but it turned out to be enough and in the end I was even pulling away a little bit and I could control the last stint. All in all, very happy and very proud of the team.


Q. But I have to ask though, had this race been one lap longer, what would have happened? You stopped fairly suddenly after the chequered flag.


SV: Yeah, a couple of cars did. I had some company down there! I think Nico stopped as well. We were probably surprised by the pace we went in the race. Obviously these guys [Lotus] were pushing us so we couldn't afford to lift but it was enough. We knew how many laps there were from the start so it was fine I guess.


Q. Kimi, welcome back to the podium in Formula One. You had the tyres but was the race win there for you instead?


Kimi RAIKKONEN: I think we gave ourselves a chance at least. It's a bit disappointing that I didn't manage to do it. But I made a small mistake at the beginning and lost one place to Ferrari. I had to re-overtake him and it took a little time. I got past the people quite easily but if you look in the end I think we still took too long and we couldn't win the race. But at least we got the podium with both cars. After the last race we tried hard and failed and probably people thought we were a bit stupid. Even after yesterday what we did. But it turned out to be the right decision and I think the team deserves what we have achieved now. We have been working hard. We've not been 100 per cent happy with how the weekends have run so far but finally we've got some proper results for the team, so it's an important step. Had you been able to get past your team-mate Romain Grosjean in the middle part of the race, a little sooner, would that have made the victory a little easier for you? You certainly had the pace in that middle stint?


KR: Yeah but there are no team orders and we know the rules. I try to get past as quickly as I can but it's not easy with two similar cars. It's always easy to say afterwards 'if we had done that' but in the end we were not fast enough to win and we have to take the second. I got one chance on Sebastian but I chose the wrong side under braking, so that was it really. In the end I didn't have any other chances to try. It's disappointing to finish second but after the last race we have to take it and be pretty happy.


Q. Turning to you, Romain, I'm sure no disappointment whatsoever at finishing third, your first podium in Formula One.


Romain GROSJEAN: For sure it's great. It's a strange feeling so far. I think I will be delighted tonight. But I'm very proud of the team, all we did in the race. We knew we had a good car but I think we were surprised at the beginning by how quick we were. And we chose a different strategy to Kimi. It turned out to be not too bad at the end. Our car is very competitive in what so far has been a very tight season. Every small detail makes a huge difference, so the team is working very hard bringing new pieces as well and then putting back the old and trying to see which one is the best - not always easy when you have so little running. But I think we can be very happy with what we did and personally I'm very, very happy to be on my first podium. It's quite a good feeling I have to say! I was saying first points, then top five, then podium but I jumped one step. The next step will be victory but well, that will take time and now I think we can be happy and now we can have a week off to enjoy the time and to work a little bit at the factory and to find the six or seven second gap there was to Sebastian.


Q. Returning to you Sebastian. Four races, four different winners. What does that say about Formula One in 2012?


SV: I think as Romain touched on, it's a very tight season, cars are very close to each other and small things can make a huge difference on a Sunday. I think we started the season saying that the McLaren is the best car by far, by quite a bit, but we've seen that Sunday it can be a different picture. I think they still have one of the strongest packages but as I said you need to get everything right. You need to have the right tyres, you need to treat them right, you need to find the right set-up over the course of the weekend so a lot of things to look out for. I'm very happy we made it here. We were not quite sure how competitive we would be. China was a very good lesson for us to understand the weakness of the car a little but more, driving with two different packages. For here we focused on the new package, pushing that forward on a circuit where you need a lot of power as well. I think Renault did a fantastic job – one, two, three all powered by Renault, so congratulations to them as well. I'm just happy for now, I don't really care what happens in the next race, at least not today. I think we will have a good time now and then push harder so that we are there again next race.


PRESS CONFERENCE


Q. Sebastian, well done, a little bit of relief to be back on the top step of the podium?


SV: Of course I'm happy, I mean, y'know, I think we had to work extremely hard in the first couple of races, we were not where we wanted to be so therefore I'm extremely happy that we had a much better weekend here. Friday morning, the first time I went out, I felt much happier with the car balance, so I think we found a reasonable package that seemed to work on this circuit pretty well so all in all, I'm very pleased. As I said yesterday, I think I owe this one to the team, to the boys. As I touched on, they've been working so hard, giving them an extremely hard time here at the circuit, back in the factory, we all try to find the best configuration. I don't want you to look in the back of our garage, it's pretty busy and pretty messy: a lot of work, a lot of parts. So we try to get the best package together. As I said, very good yesterday in qualifying and today in the race obviously crucial to get a good start. Then I was able to pull away by three or four seconds immediately which turned out to be crucial. By the time Romain got past Lewis I think he had more or less had the same pace. At the end of the stints I think we were a little bit superior and then yeah, second stint pretty much the same. Kimi always had new tyres so we knew he would be a danger until the last lap. Again, obviously in the beginning trying not to lose too much. I think especially that second-last stint where we were on option tyres, Kimi was on a new prime tyre, so it was difficult. I thought he would make his way past pretty easily. I tried to defend, one time it was really close and after that it seemed that he was running into the same kind of problems with the tyres and we were able to... not pull away but we could open a bit of a gap. So yeah, a very, very tight and difficult race. Obviously not too busy in terms of overtaking and wheel to wheel racing for me, but I knew that every single corner would be crucial with no mistakes allowed. I kept the car on the track at all the time which was a help and yeah, great result and very, very happy.


Q. You had a faster pitstop at the last pitstop but then you seemed to be held up by a Caterham in front of you.


SV: Yeah, a little bit, but it's the same story for all of us. You know, you get there first and depending on where you run into traffic you might get held up – but the guys did a very good job all race long, all the guys we lapped. You're never going to get past without losing a little bit but it's the same when Kimi or Romain faces the traffic. They run into the same problems. I have to say given the amount of marbles and dirt and sand and pickup off-line, they were very fair. You didn't explain why you had to pull off at the end.


SV: Well, I think I wasn't the only one…


Q. But that was another thing altogether…


SV: I don't know.


Q. You were just told to pull off?


SV: Yeah, I think it's not the first time you saw that. It was a very quick race, the pace was extremely high, we had no time at any stage to rest, so a lot of pressure always from behind. So pushing hard and yeah, I was too exhausted to do the in-lap! Except you had to run the whole pitlane…


SV: By then I'd found some extra KERS


Q. Kimi, again a team that changed the car quite a lot during this weekend, especially after last weekend as well – but obviously it was a good car.


KR: My car was the same the whole weekend. We tried two cars with different floors but I mean in the end I don't think there's much difference between them but for sure it looks like we did the right thing. The car cannot be too bad because we finished second and third, we're still not happy in certain areas but that's a pretty normal thing. You're never really 100 per cent happy with things. You always try to find something new and improved. But, I mean, great thing for the team to finish second and third, so I'm happy for them but a bit disappointed to not have more, to not be able to challenge more for the win. I'm not winning but that's life. Was it difficult even with the DRS to get really, really close, close enough?


KR: I think like you saw on TV I got close enough once to have a chance to try but I chose the wrong side, so that's about it. After that my tyres dropped off a bit and I couldn't get close enough. Yep, next time we try, hopefully we can put ourselves in a


Q. similar position later on this season in the next coming races. It's not going to be easy but we will try. And that would be nice. Romain, congratulations to you on your first podium, tell us about the start. It must have been pretty good?


RG: Yeah, it was! I think we are doing some pretty good starts since the beginning, except Melbourne. Malaysia, China and here we have some very good starts. I think it was important for me to be straight up to the front. Then I have to say that I really enjoyed the first stint, the car was fantastic on the option and I could overtake Mark Webber and then Lewis Hamilton. I thought I would come back a little bit on Sebastian and then we choose to go for the prime on the second stint, and it appears that there were a little bit less grip, it was more difficult and Kimi was behind me. He passed me and then the tyres went away. I think the last two stints were pretty good, our car was feeling good, the team can be proud of what they did because with this season so tight between cars it's very difficult to be at the front and we have two cars on the podium which is extremely good. We're working very hard as well, trying some new pieces – the old and new and seeing what is the best – but it's always difficult. Tyres, as you know, are going away quite quickly and it doesn't give you much free practice time but our podium feels pretty good and I think it will feel even better when I'm on the plane home and take one or two days to relax before going to the factory and working and trying to get a better car for the next race.


Q. Was the car better on primes from then on, after using the options from the start?


RG: Unfortunately not. It was pretty good on the two last stints with the new prime but I had a choice between scrubbed primes and scrubbed options for stint two because I did a mistake in Q2 run one where I went wide and used one extra set of options. If I had one new set of options I think I would have put it on and maybe got closer to Seb – but I have to be happy with third place, it's a first podium, we have two cars here and that's fantastic. QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR


Q. (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Kimi, was it the right decision to come in for the last pit stop at the same time as Sebastian? Could you have waited one more lap?


KR: That was the plan. Even if we came in a lap later it would be more or less the same. That was our plan and we followed it. They came in at the same time.


Q. (Michael Schmidt – Auto, Motor und Sport) Sebastian, Lotus already had about 11 kph more in top speed in practice and then on top of that Kimi had DRS and he was behind you. Did it surprise you that you could keep him behind?


SV: I thought exactly the same thing to be honest, when I saw that he was closing in, because we've seen that they are very quick on the straight all weekend. I was particularly aware that as soon as he got into the DRS zone then it would be difficult to keep him Page 6 of 7 behind. So yeah, I think we could see that one time he was fairly close, he got the DRS and he had more speed at the end of the straight than I had. Sure, I think that you pick your optimum for speed, downforce, top speed and you pick whatever you believe is best. I think that all in all it was the right decision to do what we did. I used DRS once in the race, so I didn't use it too often, but after that, I was happy that Kimi ran into the same problems with the tyres and I could get a little bit of a gap out of the last corner which was enough to survive the straight. I think we also had a bit of head wind down the straight, and that's also an advantage for the car behind. I would say it was just enough.


Q. (Livio Oricchio – O Estado de Sao Paulo) The question is for the three drivers: a comment from you about four races, four different winners from different teams, and what do you expect from the rest of the season?


SV: As we've said, I think it's obviously very good to watch. I think those four races have been extremely tight. We had one race where it was pretty chaotic, in Malaysia, with rain etc so up and down. Small things can make a big difference over the weekend – how much tyres you might have left, lap one, gear ratios you might pick, whether DRS is effective or not and you can come back. I think it was a different race here compared to the last race where we had people running in a chain and not being able to pass or not being able to pass too easily. All these things make a big difference and temperature-wise, all four races were very different. Track layouts were different so I'm not surprised that we have a different result every weekend.


RG: Who knows? Who is able to tell who will be World Champion? I think it's like it's never been before. Q2 in China was incredible: ten cars in three tenths or eleven cars. It's just amazing and it just depends who is bringing new updates, but I think the season will be how it is so far and you will have to get the last hundredths and the last tenths to get on the podium.


Q. (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) You're now going to have three days of testing in Mugello ; do you think that some teams are going to bring big updates, like Ferrari who are struggling a lot? What are your plans for your cars, are you also having big updates? Do you more or less know the direction?


KR: I don't what the others are doing, you will have to ask them. I'm not aware of our plans regarding the test and we will see what happens there. I haven't talked about it. We first have to finish this race and then put the effort into the test and then go racing after that. I can't say what the other teams are going to do. We try to find more understanding of the car and improve it.


SV: First of all, I think it will be difficult to create a miracle. I think the regulations this year make it very difficult so sure I think every team has something on the list. We've seen that sometimes people bring parts and they don't work so it's not always given that a new parts push you in the right direction so of course it's very useful to have a test in Mugello, to have some more time than just in free practice on Friday, to evaluate first of all whether the package you are running is the best and whatever new parts you might have for the week after in Barcelona is the right way to go.


Q. (Khoda Rawi – F1Arab.com) Kimi, a good result today, but do you think Lotus can keep up the momentum for the next races?


KR: We will try. It's the same story; I have no idea what's going to happen in the next races but the team's been pushing hard to try to improve the car, bringing new parts, but of course they haven't been working as well as we hoped, but anyhow, they are bringing new updates every time when they can. We try to keep pushing and stay up there, but I cannot Page 7 of 7 answer because they are not. That's our aim and that's what we're working for and hopefully it will happen, but who knows how well we can improve or what the others will do. The team is doing good work and we deserve to be here and hopefully we can stay up here in other races also.


Q. (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Are you surprised, Kimi, that it took you only four races to return to the podium?


KR: It could have been in the first three races also, not putting ourselves in a bad position and some problems, being a bit smarter than certain teams but we know from the winter that we have a very good car, good baseline package and just have to make the right decisions and put ourselves where the car can be. This weekend it worked, last weekend it didn't. We know that the speed is there, we just need to try to get everything exactly right.[/spoiler]

Also: Jake & DC interview Martin Brundle!! 

[Lineker]

Bahrain Grand Prix's boss says the running of this year's race is proof that they did the right thing in pushing for the event to happen.

After huge debate over the fate of the Formula 1 race, amid intense focus on human rights and safety issues, the Bahrain GP took place without drama as Sebastian Vettel delivered his first victory of the season.

Track boss Zayed Alzayani said that the hosting of the event was proof that Bahrain was right to push for the race to happen, and he hoped the media spotlight would actually act as a spur for the Gulf state's political troubles to be resolved.

"I think we have proved to the world that whatever is happening on the political scene has nothing to do with what is happening on track," Alzayani told AUTOSPORT.

"Life goes on, and hopefully this will be a catalyst on the government and the opposition to sort out whatever political differences they have and move forward.

"Holding a race is not something new to us. We have done seven grands prix before this one, and I think we have been victimised over the last year. Hopefully by next year when we have the race, all of this will be behind us."

Despite a weekend when team personnel were caught up in clashes between protestors and police - and Force India did not run in second free practice because of safety fears over returning to its hotel on Friday evening - Alzayani believes that if the race had been cancelled it would have led to even more trouble for the country.

"I think it would have caused more problems in Bahrain," he said about the prospect of the race being called off. "It would have heightened tension between the government and the opposition, and it would have been a focal point for finger pointing. There would have been a blame game.

"I am glad it happened and I am glad it went well, and glad that everybody finally saw that the threats, and the talk of bombs and sabotaging the race, did not happen."

Alzayani said after the events of this weekend there was no question in his head of the race taking place in 2013.

"I never had doubts this year, so why would I have doubts next year?" he said. "There was all the criticism that was out there, all the anti-race feelings from people because they said it would have this or that, but the race went on.

"Life goes on in Bahrain. I don't see why next year there should be a question. Hopefully by next year we have sorted out whatever differences there were.

"Maybe the solution takes a long time, and maybe it is a painful solution, but if we have to go through the pain to get the gains then it is worth it. We should think of a better solution for the next generation."

Force India deputy team principal Bob Fernley has no regrets about the decisions he took over the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend, despite the controversy caused by his outfit not running in second practice.

Amid concerns from his staff about leaving the Bahrain track after dark because of safety issues, Fernley agreed that Force India would not take part in Friday's second session so personnel could leave the track early.

And after bouncing back from that tough call to see Paul di Resta finish sixth in the race, Fernley has no doubts he did the right thing

"Of course it is satisfying, and it would be wrong to say it wasn't, but I am actually thrilled for the guys," Fernley told AUTOSPORT. "There was a bit of ridicule about what we did, but I think it proved correct over the weekend.

"I am pleased for them and pleased that we made decisions that were not easy to make. I don't think I've got any regrets at all. It was just unfortunate that we got hauled into everything the way we did, and there was enormous pressure because obviously we had the issues as you know.

"It was not received very well, but we had to be strong enough in what we did. In doing that, it meant we had a focused team and they delivered for us in the race."

Fernley admitted that there were aspects of the Bahrain GP weekend that were hard for him to deal with, but he says it was important he stood up for his staff.

"It was a very uncomfortable position and quite a lonely position at times," he said. "But the bottom line is that as a team, and I am sure our shareholders would agree, we have a duty of care for our employees. That is first and foremost before anything else happens. I believe we executed it properly.

"I feel we have come out of it correctly. I just think it was the right thing to do. It does not matter what the circumstances are, you should just do whatever is right for the team."

Kimi Raikkonen's performance in the Bahrain Grand Prix is exactly what Lotus was expecting of the Finn this year, according to team owner Gerard Lopez.

Although some questioned the wisdom of the Enstone-based team luring Raikkonen back to F1 after two years away from the sport, Lopez insists that he never had doubts the former world champion would deliver.

"I remember not being happy about the interview where people kept on coming back to saying it's a gamble," Lopez told AUTOSPORT. "The guy's a world champion: he's not old, he's fit and he's motivated.

"I've seen him before at teams and I've never seen him this way before in terms of his work patterns and his behaviour. So I honestly think he is where he has to be, where he thought he would be and where he expects to be.

"He has always been a natural, and you don't lose that. If you've got the speed you've got the speed.

"I could see that he was fit, so we had high hopes that he would deliver, and I think this is confirmation of that choice."

Lopez is also confident that Lotus has the potential to keep up the rate of development that will be needed to keep itself in contention for victory over the remainder of the season.

"Not many people realise that last year we had as many development packages as Red Bull did, it is just that ours didn't work," he said. "The year before they all worked but the starting car wasn't that good.

"I remember seeing an article that we were the second most improved team of the season, so this year with a good car and developments that will hopefully work we hope to be able to put up a good fight."

McLaren believes the key to getting itself back to the front in Formula 1 is getting on top of the 2012 tyres.

After a disappointing Bahrain Grand Prix, where Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button struggled to match the pace of Red Bull and Lotus, team boss Martin Whitmarsh thinks that understanding the characteristics of this year's rubber is now vital.

When asked by AUTOSPORT if the most important factor over the course of the season will be exploiting the tyres rather than delivering improvements to its car, Whitmarsh said: "In my view yes, because our downforce hasn't evaporated and disappeared.

"The inherent performance of the car is there, you could see it in qualifying. So then when you stand back, it has to be how we exploit those tyres. And here we were killing the rear tyres, and that made it very difficult for the drivers.

"Our drivers really didn't stand a chance. I think with something like that, it's pressures, temperatures; it's how we are using those tyres. It's a bit of a concern. We have to be calm, analytical and fix it."

McLaren had come into the season buoyed by a promising pre-season testing programme, and secured front row lock outs at both the Australian and Malaysian Grand Prix. But it has delivered just one win in the first four races.

Whitmarsh said he was surprised about how McLaren's form had faded a little, but he thinks the season is going to be very close.

"I think that this is a much more interesting championship right now than I would like it to be," he explained. "We've never discounted the Red Bulls, but you've had four different winners, four different constructors in the first four races.

"And not only Red Bull: but you have got to say congratulations to Lotus, they were bloody quick here.

"I think we have got to focus on what we did wrong, and clearly we did something wrong. You look at our pace here by comparison to long runs on Friday and we were a second slower than we were then.

"One second slower is 30 or 40 points of downforce and we didn't lose that, so it's really these tyres.

"They are very, very challenging and if you get in the sweet spot, then you are in great shape, and if you are out of it then you are in for a pretty tough time. We gave both of our drivers a very tough time here."

Nico Rosberg says the fact he avoided sanction after vigorously defending from both Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso during the Bahrain Grand Prix was proof that it was 'good racing'.

Rosberg appeared to push both drivers off the track on separate occasions between Turns 3 and 4 as he defended hard, with Hamilton forced to overtake off circuit and Alonso forced to abandon his attempt.

The stewards of the meeting met with the drivers and their representatives following the grand prix to discuss the clashes, but it was decided Rosberg's moves were legitimate.

Rosberg said he agreed with the decision, saying: "Of course there were the two incidents with Lewis and Fernando, which were both definitely good racing.

"I even had to go to the stewards for that and thankfully they judged that it was tough but okay so I didn't get a penalty for that."

Rosberg said a superior strategy had helped salvage the damage of a disastrous opening lap, and insisted he was happy to have finished fifth as it was the best he and Mercedes could have hoped for.

"We saw some teams being able to handle [tyre management] better than others, and for me overall fifth place was an okay result," he added.

"The whole first lap didn't go well, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and didn't get the best out of it, so I was back in ninth. From then on we had a great strategy so I came all the way back up to fifth, which even if we started at the front was probably the best we could have gotten today in terms of our speed.

"That's okay - 35 points now in one week is good and only 18 points off the championship lead, that's cool too."

[Lineker]

Formula 1 team bosses have hit out at the way the sport was turned into a political battleground over the Bahrain Grand Prix, on the back of the media storm that erupted around the event.

With the Sakhir race becoming into headline news, and various politicians stepping in to call for it to be cancelled, several team bosses say they are unhappy about the way the situation was portrayed outside the paddock.

Lotus team principal Eric Boullier told AUTOSPORT: "I should not say it, but the media did not do for me what they should have done.

"There are various issues, which are up to the country to fix. But there are issues in every country, even in England, France and other European countries, and the over-dramatisation was definitely wrong.

"F1 is a sport and should be seen as a sport. We also know that it is very important for Bahrain to have this event, it is their biggest event of the year, and F1 should not be used as a political tool."

When asked if the negative coverage could be a turn-off for potential sponsors, Boullier said: "It is their choice, but politics is never good to mix with sport.

"We have enough inside our paddock. We don't need to bring what is going on outside in, and that is what the media did. The media brought the external politics inside the paddock and that is not good."

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said his outfit did not spend much time worrying about how the event was being reported. But he feels that F1 should not have been forced into the political arena.

"It is difficult because you see an awful lot of enthusiasm for Formula 1 in towns and areas of the country," he said. "It is not right for Formula 1 to be dragged into a political debate. And of course it is deemed to be political if you race and it is deemed to be political if you don't.

"So our focus has been on coming here to do a job and getting it done and I am delighted to say that we have."

Force India deputy team principal Bob Fernley, who had to withdraw his team from practice two because of safety concerns from his staff about travelling at night, said that there were positives that came out of the weekend.

"I am probably quite surprised by it all, because I believe irrespective of the criticism and some of the issues we have had, it puts Bernie [Ecclestone] and Jean [Todt] in a very visionary position," he told AUTOSPORT. "They have delivered F1.

"For the Bahraini authorities - they have laid themselves bare to the world's media. If that is not transparency, what is?

"There have been issues, and all sorts of things that we could improve on for next year from an F1 point of view, but F1 should not be about looking back with regret. It should be quite proud of what it has done because the solution now for the politicians in Bahrain is there.

"They now need to get into a dialogue away from F1 – and the fact that F1 was brave enough to go there, and the leadership was strong enough to do it, good for them."

Bahrain circuit boss Zayed Alzayani says he did not understand why there was such a media frenzy surrounding the grand prix last weekend.

The political situation in Bahrain was under intense scrutiny in the media long before Formula 1 personnel and journalists arrived in the kingdom, and that intensity kicked up a notch when reporters started arriving for the grand prix.

With the race now over, several team bosses have expressed their disappointment with the role played by the media over the past week, and Alzayani shares that view.

"You know, what surprised me is that some people continued with this negative tone," Alzayani told AUTOSPORT. "They started this without being on the ground, and throughout the season we offered many of them to come to Bahrain and write whatever they want to write, based on factual events rather than hearsay and speculation. But I don't think any of them took that offer seriously.

"It also surprised me that some of them went looking for a troublesome story to report, and one of the comments Bernie [Ecclestone] made when we paid a visit to the media centre was that he told a journalist that he was glad he was doing his real job, which is reporting about F1.

"If you go looking for trouble you will find it anywhere in the world: but look at the bigger picture. They were looking for a small story and making it the main issue, and leaving the real story uncovered. All in all they have seen that there is not much to report, and as I have said before: the race was really a triumph for Bahrain."

France is increasingly likely to return to the Formula 1 calendar after Bernie Ecclestone confirmed that a deal to race at Paul Ricard 'is done'.

The country has not hosted a grand prix since Magny Cours was dropped for the 2009 season due to financial difficulties.

The event's return now looks guaranteed, with Ecclestone telling France's L'Equipe that he had 'no doubt' about the race taking place. AUTOSPORT understands that the contract is for five grands prix, in 2013, '15, '17, '19 and '21, and that the grand prix would use the full version of the Paul Ricard circuit.

"The deal is done," Ecclestone said. "We actually agreed on financial terms with the sports minister, David Douillet, in my office last Tuesday.

"We are still discussing a few points about money around the race, 'You give me this, I want that' and so on. But, for me, there is no doubt that we will sort it all out."

Despite long-running rumours of a race-share deal with Belgian Grand Prix venue Spa-Francorchamps, there has been no firm decision about which venue will take the slot in France's 'off' years.

Ecclestone's comments come as France heads for the second and final round of its presidential election, fought between incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy and his Socialist rival Francois Hollande.

Ecclestone said he was confident a deal would be sorted regardless of the winning candidate, saying that he was even open to completing before the final elections on May 6.

Asked when the agreement might be fully completed, Ecclestone replied: "before the result of the second round of presidential elections in France, if they wish. Whatever the outcome, I do not care. This is a domestic issue that does concern me."

Red Bull is expecting the remainder of the Formula 1 season to be just as unpredictable as the first four races.

Four teams have taken wins already this year, with reigning champion Sebastian Vettel bouncing back from a tricky start to the year to hold off Kimi Raikkonen's Lotus for victory in a thrilling race in Bahrain on Sunday.

But rather than believe that Vettel's victory marks the start of a resurgence of form for Red Bull, team principal Christian Horner reckons that regular success in 2012 is going to be hard for anyone to achieve.

"I think this season is going to ebb and flow," he said. "It is going to be about being consistent in races you can't win and taking the maximum out of them. And in the races that you can win you need to deliver.

"I am sure with this championship, with 16 races to go, we are going to see a lot more variation. And to predict the Bahrain performance just a week after what happened in China would have been tricky."

Horner added that Red Bull is slightly surprised to be in the lead of both championships at this stage of the campaign, but he believes that is proof of the importance of consistency this year.

"We've consistently managed to be scoring points in the first four races," he said. "We have had four fourth places with Mark [Webber] and a second, a first, a fifth and an 11th [with Vettel].

"That puts us in the lead of both the drivers' and the constructors' championship after the flyaways, which was not what we were expecting after the first couple of races. So it just shows if you concentrate on your teamwork that it can pay dividends."

Vettel's victory in Bahrain came just a few days after the German said he was sceptical about his team's chances of a win without improvements to the car.

When asked what changed over the weekend, Horner said: "We've made a bit of progress here so this weekend it's a different track and different conditions.

"In all honesty coming here I thought it might be a circuit that didn't play to our strengths.

"We've now got the chance of a small respite with a test in Mugello, and we can look at the data from these first four races and see what we've learned from them."

Pirelli is adamant that the best drivers and teams will still win in Formula 1 this year, despite the tyres playing a more important role in the outcome of races.

Many people - including team principals, drivers and engineers – think that getting the 2012 tyres into the right operating window is now essential for success in F1.

That reliance on the tyres prompted Michael Schumacher to hit out at what he felt were limitations being imposed on drivers because they cannot push their cars to the limit without losing tyre performance.

But Pirelli's motorsport director Paul Hembery says that not only are the tyres helping produce great racing, but they are also allowing the best engineers and drivers to shine.

"The season so far has been fantastic: we've had four different winners and four different championship leaders," Hembery told AUTOSPORT. "So the competition has never been closer and part of that is down to the fact that everyone has exactly the same opportunities and challenges with the tyres.

"It is down to them to make the best of it. Formula 1 has always been a meritocracy; in the end the best engineers and drivers will always succeed."

Lotus team principal Eric Boullier concedes that understanding tyres is more essential now than ever – but he does not think teams can ignore more normal car developments.

"It is key to get your car into a position where you can exploit the tyres in the right way," he told AUTOSPORT. "It makes no sense to try and bring a couple of tenths from downforce if you don't understand the tyres, because you can lose a lot more.

"But you have to keep developing the car if you want to keep contact with the top teams."

When asked if he felt the tyres were too critical to performance on a grand prix weekend now, Boullier said: "No. But we need to understand how they work, we need to get the best out of them, and we need to make them last for as long as possible."

Ferrari must 'step up a gear' from the next race in Spain if it is to turn itself into a genuine contender for the Formula 1 world championship this year.

That is the view of team principal Stefano Domenicali who thinks that an immediate leap forward in performance is now essential ­even though Fernando Alonso is just 10 points off the lead of the drivers' championship.

"Clearly we cannot be happy with the way our season began but, after the winter tests, we knew the first four races would be very tough," he told Ferrari's official website.

"We managed to limit the damage, especially in the drivers' championship, in which Fernando Alonso is fifth, just 10 points off the leader. However, it is equally clear that now we must step up a gear, right from the next race.

"Our engineers are well aware of this and are working day and night to give our drivers a much more competitive car than we have seen on track in these first four races."

Ferrari is set to bring some major upgrades to its F2012 for both next week's test at Mugello, and the Spanish Grand Prix ­ which it hopes will allow it to start challenging much nearer the front of the grid.

Domenicali said that team's development programme was still not finalised though, and it was possible that not all the new parts would be ready for Mugello.

"The coming days will be very important, during which the primary objective will be to push as hard as possible on the development of the car," he said. "Next week we have three days of testing at Mugello, but it's not definite that all the updates planned for Barcelona will be seen then. We must try and make the most of every minute available to us to increase the performance of the F2012."

Domenicali also suggested that a great deal of effort at Ferrari was being made on the team's infrastructure to address weaknesses at the outfit.

"We are intensifying the process of changing our working procedures in all areas and, at the same time, we are strengthening our efforts in areas where we are weakest, such as aerodynamics," he said.

"It's a long term project and one that president [Luca di] Montezemolo is studying at first hand, and it is vital to the future of the Scuderia. Formula 1 has changed so much these past few years and we have not always been up to speed with these changes. In this area too we need to step up a gear."

Lotus is confident it has the drivers and car to be quick at every track from now on, after finally delivering its first podium finish of the season in Bahrain.

Despite having shown promising speed in the first few races of the campaign it had failed to finish in the top three until last weekend, when Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean both secured podium spots.

Trackside operations director Alan Permane reckons that the result is proof that Lotus has now got its act together and is ready to show that its E20 can repeat that form at other races.

"There is no doubt we have shown promise all year and we have been saying it will come, it will come, and it has," he told AUTOSPORT.

"We have had a decent straightforward race, and not screwed up the strategy.

"We've demonstrated the car is quick and I think we can be quick just about anywhere. We know our weakness, which is low speed, traction and stuff like that, but we are very happy with the car in higher and medium speeds."

Team principal Eric Boullier revealed that the outfit was getting slightly frustrated before Bahrain at the way it had failed to capitalise on its speed.

"Sometimes things don't work, and this is why we built up this frustration in the first three races," he said. "This weekend it went fine and we had no glitches. There was even a little bit of a gamble on [tyre] strategy but it worked."

When asked why he believed the team had finally got everything together in Bahrain, he said: "I don't know for definite. There is the weather, and the temperature is better for us and better for our car.

"I think at the first three races we were trying to combine everything and make the whole machine work together, which is never easy when you start the season, and never easy when you change both drivers.

"But everybody now starts to know each other, and work better. And also the drivers: they were not in F1 for the last two years so they needed to be up to speed as well, and now I think they are."

Paul di Resta thinks that results like his sixth-placed finish in the Bahrain Grand Prix will enable Force India to recover the ground lost to Sauber after the Swiss team's near-victory in Malaysia earlier this year.

Sauber got a jump on its midfield rivals in the constructors' championship battle when Sergio Perez bagged 18 points at Sepang, leaving Force India 21 adrift at the time.

But with the Silverstone-based team waiting on a major upgrade package for the Spanish GP, di Resta executed a marginal two-stop strategy in Bahrain to take eight points for finishing sixth. That has trimmed the gap to Sauber down to 14 points after the first four flyaway races.

Looking at the constructors' battle, di Resta said: "After what Sauber did in Malaysia, it keeps them in our sights. If we put performance on this car then we can get by them.

"Maintaining sixth this year was going to be difficult, but we'll keep on track, keep on picking up the points. And being realistic about it, if we can get results like that, then they are like wins to us as a midfield team."

Di Resta also praised his Force India team for the result it achieved in difficult circumstances in Bahrain, where travel safety concerns led to both he and Nico Hulkenberg skipping second practice on Friday.

"It was an outstanding performance by every member of the team this weekend, and under difficult circumstances," he added. "They played everything right - strategy and pit stops. I worked with my engineer to dial the car in right, and the track came to us.

"We've got to be happy and hopeful the upgrade we're going to bolt on the car keeps us in this position going into Barcelona."

Jerome d'Ambrosio will have his first taste of the Lotus E20 on the opening day of next week's Mugello Formula 1 test.

The Lotus reserve driver, who raced for Virgin last season but was unable to find a seat for 2012, has not driven since last year's Brazilian Grand Prix, except for a filming run in February in a 2010 Renault.

The Belgian is scheduled to start work in the Lotus simulator on Tuesday ahead of his first taste of the new car on May 1.

"I can't wait until I'm back in the car," d'Ambrosio told AUTOSPORT. "It was November 2010 that I was last in a strong F1 car in the Renault in the Abu Dhabi test and stepping back into a competitive car is something I'm really looking forward to it. I've been out of the car for six months now and that's not easy as a racing driver.

"It's a difficult situation not to be able to drive much. When I chose this role with Lotus, it was because I knew that there was going to be some driving rather than just standing around. There will also be simulator work involved, which starts this week. We will prepare for Mugello there."

Although d'Ambrosio is keen to perform well during the test, his focus is on ensuring that he does a good development job for the team.

Lotus is expected to be among the outfits trying a raft of updates at Mugello and the Belgian insists that this will be his focus despite the outing meaning that he will be better prepared to step in should one of the team's race drivers be unavailable on a race weekend.

"It's not a day for myself, the important thing is to do the best job possible for the team," said d'Ambrosio. "It's an important test day for the team, so I will run to whatever programme we need. I will test what needs to be tested.

"But it would be much more difficult to step in without this. You don't wish harm to drivers, but if something happens and I need to step in, I will have a day in the car under my belt and will be much more efficient.

"It will also allow me to do a better job in the simulator. So far, my job has been quiet, but now it really starts to be an active role. There is a trend that the third driver has a bigger role, which is good because it keeps us in shape for driving."

Kimi Raikkonen is scheduled to drive on the second day of the test, with Romain Grosjean taking over the Lotus on May 3.

Rodolfo Gonzalez will drive the Caterham on the first day of next week's Formula 1 test at Mugello.

Gonzalez, who drives for Caterham's GP2 squad, had previously tested for the squad in the young driver sessions in 2010 and '11, when it was still known as Lotus.

The 25-year-old Venezuelan will be in the cockpit for the opening day on Tuesday, before race drivers Vitaly Petrov and Heikki Kovalainen take a day each.

"It will be my third time in an F1 car with this team and it will be another good chance for me to further my experience at the top level of global motorsport," said Gonzalez.

"I took part in the young driver tests in 2010 and 2011 with the team, so to be able to help their development programme mid-season is another good step in my career and something that I can take lessons from back into my GP2 season with Caterham Racing."

Caterham Group CEO Riad Asmat said Gonzalez had earned the chance with strong performances in previous tests.

"He did a good job for us when he took part in the young driver tests, and we expect him to work to the plans he is given, deliver what we ask him to on track, and provide the engineers with the sort of feedback someone with his experience should," said Asmat.

[Lineker]

Jean-Eric Vergne says he does not feel like he is fighting for a seat at Red Bull Racing during his first Formula 1 season.

Vergne, who finished second in last year's Formula Renault 3.5 championship, has joined Australian Daniel Ricciardo at Toro Rosso, Red Bull Racing's junior squad.

Earlier this year, Red Bull boss Christian Horner said it would only be natural for his team to look at one of the Toro Rosso drivers if RBR were to replace one of its own.

"I think it is entirely logical that if you have a youth policy, and that youth policy is delivering real talent, and that talent is exciting talent as Sebastian Vettel has demonstrated, then it would make more sense to take a home grown driver rather than going externally," said Horner during the Australian GP.

Vergne, however, says he is entirely focused on doing the best possible job for Toro Rosso, and does not see his rivalry with Ricciardo as a fight for the Red Bull drive.

"Some people will tell you that we are in a fight for the Red Bull cockpit, but I don't see that right now," Vergne told the official Formula 1 website. "I am racing for Toro Rosso and I want to help make the car a points contender.

"I have no interest finishing in P15 ahead of him. I'd rather finish in P4 behind him if that meant I had a quicker car. Did I just say finish behind him? No, I don't think that I would like this! (laughs) Only the part about fighting at the front is true. Forget about the rest."

Vergne, the British Formula 3 champion in 2010, has scored four points so far this year after finishing eighth in the Malaysian Grand Prix.

The Frenchman said he had mixed feelings about his performance so far.

"Yes and no," he said when asked if he was satisfied with his showing so far. "Yes, because I think it's quite good, and no, because I think it could have been better," he said.

"Of course I could use the excuse of being a rookie, but I don't want to because I've made some mistakes that should not have happened to a driver, no matter what your status.

"I actually don't believe so much in that rookie status thing. I am a fully-fledged driver."

The HRT team has announced that it will not attend next week's test at the Mugello circuit.

The Spanish squad is currently relocating to its new headquarters in Madrid and said that it wants to focus on the relocation and on the new upgrade package that will be introduced at the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona.

"The start to the season was a little bit rushed for us and, since the cars were set up for the first time, we have been working on them at the Grands Prix," said team boss Luis Perez-Sala.

"The team and the material have just got back from Bahrain after leaving for Australia in early March. And they return, for the first time, to the team's new headquarters at the Caja Magica in Madrid.

"This move is very important for us and by not going to Mugello we can work thoroughly on the car to prepare for the Spanish Grand Prix.

"We won't have the new upgrade package until then so we've preferred to focus on what can contribute more to us, which is teamwork at the headquarters. And there is a lot to do."

The test will take place at the Italian circuit on 1-3 May.

Lotus team principal Eric Boullier believes that Romain Grosjean's performance in the Bahrain Grand Prix has proved that he has the potential to be world champion in the future.

The Franco-Swiss driver claimed his first podium finish in F1, but Boullier was particularly impressed with his pace relative to team-mate Kimi Raikkonen.

"More than the podium finish, what was impressive is the fact that he finished so close to Kimi and just 10 seconds behind Sebastian Vettel," said Boullier when asked by AUTOSPORT about Grosjean's performance.

"I was not expecting to have both drivers to finish so close together.

"That means that he is now capable and ready to compete at the highest level. He has the speed and the talent to be world champion one day."

Boullier believes that the team's strong driver line-up will be key to its success this season.

Despite being impressed with Raikkonen's performances on F1 comeback and hailing his results so far, Boullier expects the Finn to improve further as the season progresses.

"There is more to come," said Boullier. "He has shown many times that he has the pace. When he needed to recover, from a bad qualifying in the race, he has been able to do it.

"It took him very little time to recover after a two year's absence and he showed this weekend that he is there."

[Lineker]

Formula 1 cars could be fitted with forward roll hoops in the future, if ongoing tests by the FIA Institute into increased driver protection continue to deliver good results.

As part of an extensive research programme conducted in the wake of the crashes suffered by Felipe Massa and Henry Surtees in 2009, the FIA Institute has already evaluated polycarbonate windshields and jet fighter canopies to see if they can offer better driver protection.

The latest tests have involved using a titanium roll hoop structure, built by the Lotus team, into which a 20kg F1 wheel is fired at 225 km/h.

On the back of mixed results for the shields - with the polycarbonate one shattering and the aerospace canopy flexing - the roll hoop tests have been more encouraging.

Andy Mellor, the FIA Institute's technical advisor, told the latest issue of IQ magazine: "The roll hoop basically did a very good job. It was able to keep a wheel away from a driver's head. We tested it both by firing the wheel down the centre of the car, and also coming at it from an angle."

The other benefit of the roll hoop design was that the impact deflated the tyre – which meant that it had less chance of being deflected further in subsequent impacts.

"The impact deflated the tyre during both tests," said Mellor. "We tend to think that's a good thing – it means that the wheel doesn't bounce as much. It stops much more quickly if you can deflate the tyre."

Although the first tests have been encouraging, Mellor insists that much more research is needed before the plans can be seriously proposed to Formula 1's decision makers

"At this stage it's almost pure research, which we need if we're to understand what the loads are in such impacts," he said. "We're not at all looking at final solutions as such.

"The work is absolutely exploratory and we are beginning to understand the mechanisms in order to protect a driver's head in this kind of impact. This is the next step in a very detailed process."

When the FIA Institute is satisfied with the results of its tests, and feels that one of the solutions will improve driver safety, then it will put forward its finding to F1's Technical Working Group.

Video.

Daniel Ricciardo has admitted that he has still not got over the disappointment of his Bahrain Grand Prix - when he squandered his sixth position on the grid.

The Scuderia Toro Rosso driver delivered the best qualifying performance of his career, but a poor getaway and troubled first few turns left him down in 16th at the end of the first lap. He finished just one place further up.

Writing on his official blog, Ricciardo admitted that he will likely replay everything that went wrong for a few days yet – until he can shift his focus to the Spanish GP.

"It was frustrating. It was disappointing. It's a race to forget but chances are I won't do that very easily," said the Australian, who is due in the Red Bull simulator for the next two days.

"Whoever you are, this is going to happen from time to time. You're supposed to blank it and get on with the race – but being brutally honest it's hard to blank something like that.

"When I came around to begin the second lap I knew I was 16th, I knew I had a damaged car and I knew the advantage I'd had starting sixth had blown away. You want to pretend it's not happening and imagine you're going to get another chance. The pitboard says otherwise."

Having looked at the data of the start, Ricciardo says that there was nothing in particular that he did wrong – it was just a question of things not clicking in the car.

"I didn't freeze up and make a mess of the procedure – it's just that we struggled," he explained. "It's something I've got to figure out. I'll think about it before the next race.

"Do I now forget about it and brush it off as just one of those things? No, of course not. I'll dwell on it – and nothing is quite as good for dwelling as a long flight with nothing else to do. At some point I'll be fine and looking forward to Barcelona – but I'm not there yet."

Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso are likely to go it alone and be the only teams to conduct their young driver test at Abu Dhabi later this year.

With F1 teams having the option of testing either at Silverstone after the British Grand Prix, or in Abu Dhabi in November, sources have revealed that it appears only the two Red Bull-owned outfits want to wait until later in the year.

Although the final details of the tests have not been sorted, and teams can still change their mind, Pirelli has revealed that it is making preparations for 10 teams to test at Silverstone.

Pirelli is involved because it has been asked to guarantee that the tyres it supplies for both tests are to the exact same specification - so that there is not a technical advantage from running at one over the other.

Paul Hembery, Pirelli's motorsport director, said: "We have 12 partners and we have to go along with what the partners want.

"Ten of them would appear to want to go to Silverstone, and two of them to Abu Dhabi - so it means we will not be taking any of the new products to the young driver tests.

"We have found in the past the young driver test is of limited use for a variety of reasons. The teams at the last young driver test were trying a lot of items for next season, and trying new drivers, so while it gave us indicative results, it was of overall very limited value."

As previously reported, the agreement between teams about the format for young driver testing means that those outfits who want to test at Silverstone can decide to change their plans at the last-minute if the post-British Grand Prix week looks set to be hit by bad weather.

Pirelli has also confirmed that it will not try any experimental rubber for next week's Mugello in-season test.

"It will just be standard tyres for the teams to do their work," said Hembery.

Jules Bianchi will get back behind the wheel of the Force India at Mugello next week, as Force India elects to split testing duties between its three drivers.

The Frenchman last drove the car during Friday practice at the Chinese Grand Prix, ahead of a further eight outings over the course of the season to get valuable race-weekend mileage in a Formula 1 car.

Force India has elected to hand Bianchi running on the first day of next week's Mugello test, with Paul di Resta running on Wednesday and Nico Hulkenberg on the final day.

[Lineker]

Formula 1 teams are convinced that improving strategy calls will be the key factor going forwards if they are to make the most of the current Pirelli tyres.

With an increased focus on the impact that Pirelli's 2012 tyres are having on the racing, there have been some suggestions that the variability of performance this year is turning F1 into a lottery.

However, a number of teams are convinced that the situation will soon settle down - and that the most important improvement teams must make is in understanding how to make race strategies work for them.

Williams chief operations engineer Mark Gillan said: "I would not say it is a lottery, but strategy is becoming much more important - and reacting to the changes in the strategy is key.

"On the pit wall it runs at quite a pace coming up to the stops, and teams have to understand the degradation - is it wear based or thermal based? It is all about reaction."

Gillan also believes that there is now an increased reliance on the drivers to make a call - and ensure they can predict when tyres are past their useful life.

"The drivers are fundamental - because they are the sensors in the car and they have to spot when the tyres are going. The trick is spotting when it happens - because drivers can be good at spotting when the problem happens. The key is doing it the lap before."

Ferrari's head of race operations Diego Ioverno says that the biggest complication this year is trying to time the first stop of the race - because of the dangers of getting trapped behind slower traffic.

"The biggest difference this year is that the field has become so compact - and it has become difficult to define the first pit stop time," he said. "It is nearly impossible to not fall behind traffic now.

"Last year the top cars were going away and were able to stop in clear air, but now it is much more difficult. For us, it is harder because we [Ferrari] are not as quick as we would like."

Despite the wild variations in the competitive order this year, Ioverno does not expect the situation to remain so close for long - because he thinks the bigger teams will be able to improve their cars more to edge clear at the front.

"I would expect in three or four races that the field will be more spread," he said. "The top teams will go away and the others will stay the same, because the top teams can develop their car more. But saying that, understanding tyres is much more difficult this year, so anything may happen."

Lotus trackside operations director Alan Permane says teams are still trying to understand how best to exploit tyres this year - because he says there are still performance differentials that do not make sense.

"In Bahrain, the tyres were working for us and for Red Bull - but it is difficult to believe that it makes one second a lap difference - because that is how much quicker we were than the others there," he told AUTOSPORT. "It cannot be all tyres - but I don't think anyone really know where they should be, otherwise they would all be doing it."

Romain Grosjean sees no reason why Lotus cannot win a race this season, as long as the team continues to deliver improvements to the car.

On the back of an encouraging double podium finish for the team in Bahrain, Grosjean is upbeat that the E20 has the potential to triumph this campaign.

"Winter testing showed us the car was very good," the Frenchman said in a video interview on the Lotus website. "In first qualifying in Melbourne it was amazing being third on the grid, but we did not put everything together in the next races as we deserved.

"But we knew we had a good car, and the team is working hard to bring updates to the car because that will be key to the season. We knew we had something in our hands that worked very well, so now we are working hard to make it better in the next races - and if we put everything right then we may win before the end of the season."

Grosjean said the second and third place that Lotus delivered in Bahrain was a big confidence boost to the team and himself - after a disappointing first few races.

"It was a good result and we were all happy to finish second and third. It was the first podium for myself and it was a very good result, which gives me the confidence to get some more in the future."

Speaking about his own troubled start - where he crashed out early in Australia and Malaysia, Grosjean said: "There are ups and downs in motor racing and the start to the season was not as we were expecting. The performance was there and in China/Bahrain we put everything together.

"And we can get some more from what we saw in Bahrain. It is good for the future and we know if we put everything together we can achieve some even better results."

Although some have suggested that Lotus could even be dark horses for the championship, because its car has been quick at every race, Grosjean is remaining cautious about its chances.

"This season will be very tight and this [the title] is not our goal," he said. "For sure you want do to the best, but we are aiming for fourth in the Constructors' Championships. We are looking pretty good but we know there is still some work to do to get everything right and to be world champion.

"And why not in the future? Sure I would like to be part of this experience - and be world champion with this team. We are working hard to achieve that."

Force India is still hopeful that it will be able to run its new upgrade package at Mugello next week, even though the parts are unlikely to be ready for the start of the test.

The team has been working hard on a major development package for the Spanish Grand Prix, as it bids to lift its performance.

Deputy team principal Bob Fernley is unsure yet just when the new parts will be ready to run - but says the priority is they are on the car for Barcelona rather than being rushed through for next week.

"The developments are quite important, but the main thing is to run them in Spain," he told AUTOSPORT. "Hopefully we can get some running of them in Mugello, but it depends on how everything flows through.

"Mostly the parts are there: we have cleared about 85% but we need it at 100% - so we are close. Hopefully we can run it for one day, or one-and-a-half days at Mugello, and if it correlates on track to what we have in the wind tunnel then it will be a good car."

With most teams expected to bring developments for the start of the European season, Fernley is well aware that any improvements in track time that the updates bring may not necessarily deliver a step forward in position.

However, with the field being so competitive this year, any gain made over the opposition could be significant in terms of helping drivers Paul di Resta and Nico Hulkenberg deliver more points-scoring finishes.

"We have some wonderful people around us who are trying to do the same thing and improve their cars," said Fernley. "If we stay where we are, or they get a little upgrade and we get a big one, I'm not so sure yet. But even two tenths relative to the opposition nowadays is going to be massive."

Test driver Jules Bianchi will kick off Force India's test on Tuesday, with di Resta and Hulkenberg running one day each.

Pedro de la Rosa believes the break before the start of the European season will be invaluable for HRT - even though the outfit is missing next week's Mugello test.

Having only got its car running properly for the first time at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, HRT has had to deliver improvements on the road over the first four flyaways.

But with the team's car now returning to its new Madrid base for the first time, de la Rosa thinks the next few weeks will be a huge help in allowing the team to find its feet.

"I think now we have some time to go back to base, and when I say base, it is our new base, which is important because finally we have our home," de la Rosa told AUTOSPORT.

"We need to still develop the car, but we can now spend time in the wind tunnel, and spend time optimising the set-up. We know our weaknesses, and these few races have been like the pre-season for us. We were three months too late and have been paying the price for that."

De la Rosa is upbeat about the progress that HRT has made so far - from not qualifying in Australia to outperforming one of the Marussias in the battle for grid positions in Bahrain last weekend.

And he feels that the potential to make further gains is there, even though he is not expecting any dramatic move up the grid.

"I think we have a solid structure underneath us now, and the result in Bahrain was an unexpected bonus because nobody was expecting us to outqualify a Marussia or finish races like in Malaysia.

"I am looking forward to the rest of the season, because we have more time to develop what is a solid platform. We have to improve, but we have the people and the factory now.

"There is stability that we didn't have a few months ago - or even a few weeks ago. It is a new start - now we can say we are starting properly."

[Katsuya]

So, you know the "Out of the Blue" sponsorship things that appeared on Sauber's cars the past couple of races and how it was set to be linked to a brand new sponsor?

Yeah.

It's Chelsea.

[Lineker]

Nico Rosberg believes that the challenges being thrown at drivers by the current Formula 1 tyre situation is good news for the sport.

The closeness of the field this year has increased the influence of the Pirelli rubber on cars' overall performance. This has resulted in teams' form fluctuating as they work to get the rubber into the right operating window for their cars.

The four grands prix so far in 2012 have provided victories for McLaren, Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull, with no team having looked like repeating its success at any other circuit, such has been the vast difference in track conditions at each race.

When asked by AUTOSPORT whether races were becoming too much of a tyre-based lottery based on what has been seen so far this year, Mercedes driver Rosberg said: "No. It's just a very different game.

"We have seen already this year that when you go from one condition to another, one racetrack to another, one temperature to another... different cars are better on the tyres, so there's a very big engineering challenge to understand why, to adapt and to try and be the one to understand the tyres best. That can be a very big key for the season, so we're pushing hard to try and understand that quicker than others.

"Personally, I think it's great for the season. We've had four winners in four races, [so it is] all mixed up. It couldn't be better for Formula 1. Also within the races, with the tyre degradation and with lots of overtaking, we've had lots of exciting races."

Rosberg also claimed that the current performance window of the Mercedes, which was dominant in China and off the absolute frontrunning pace elsewhere, was not yet wide enough.

"Well we're not the best yet [in that regard], so of course we still need to improve in various areas," he added.

"I think we've progressed a lot recently; we were far off in the first race in Australia and even in the most difficult conditions in Bahrain we were there or thereabouts, beating, for example, McLaren and Ferrari. So we're looking much better, progressing in the right direction. We were the fastest car in China all weekend so we're moving forward very quickly."

Formula 1 teams are gearing up for their first proper in-season test for four years, which starts at Mugello on Tuesday, with those involved in no doubt that any progress made there will help play a defining role in the outcome of the world championship.

The first four races have proved just how competitive the field is this year - with almost nothing separating the leading contenders in the battle for victory.

With further complications caused by the sensitive nature of this year's Pirelli tyres, teams have been left with a huge workload to try and get through at Mugello to ensure that they can hit the ground running at the next race in Spain.

A lot of the interest in Mugello will be on Ferrari, which is set to start working on the update package that it hopes will lift it nearer the front of the grid.

The team braced itself for a tough start to the campaign, with is F2012 lacking in performance, but Fernando Alonso's exceptional driving has kept him firmly in contention for the world championship - as he lies just 10 points off leader Sebastian Vettel after the flyaway events.

The full package of developments for Ferrari - which are believed to include new exhaust configurations as well as sidepod and bodywork tweaks – are not expected to be ready until the Spanish GP.

The team said it will use the first two days to carry out exhaust solutions comparisons and that it will introduce 'more significant updates' on the final day.

Alonso himself is under no illusions about how important the next few weeks are for himself and Ferrari – if they are not to squander their efforts in the first four races.

"The team are working day and night, and Felipe and I trust the team and we trust that the next updates will come," said the Spaniard. "I think the Mugello tests and the next races are an important point for us, so hopefully we can start a different championship from that point on."

Mercedes is another team eager to make the most of its three days running, with the W03 having shown itself to be quick in the right conditions – but inconsistent in delivering that peak performance.

Although the Mugello test is the only opportunity teams will have during the season to evaluate new components and conduct work that is not normally possible on a grand prix weekend, the choice of venue has led to questions about the ultimate value of what will be learned from car updates.

Mugelllo's high-speed nature is not typical of many F1 venues – with its set-up and aerodynamic demands only really relevant for tracks like Silverstone and Suzuka. In particular it lacks the slow speed turns that are so typical of forthcoming races in Monaco, Canada and Valencia.

Lotus trackside operations director Alan Permane said that even with the limited value of Mugello, there were still benefits from the test.

"The track is only representative of Silverstone, maybe, so I think it will be more about trying things we cannot do on race weekends," he told AUTOSPORT.

"On race weekends we don't have tyres to test things – so we can run different suspension set-ups in Italy for example. These are things that require complicated changes – so we can hopefully understand the fundamentals over the course of the week, rather than just aero updates that we can do on race weekends."

McLaren is the only team not using its race drivers over the course of the week, with Gary Paffett and Oliver Turvey conducting duties instead of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button.

HRT is the only outfit that has elected not to take part in the test, because it wants to focus its efforts on its new factory move.

Pirelli motorsport director Paul Hembery expects Formula 1 teams to make big strides towards understanding the 2012 tyres during the Mugello test, which starts tomorrow.

The 2012 season has been defined by how well teams have got on top of the Pirelli rubber during the opening four races, with seven-times world champion Michael Schumacher criticising the tyres after the Bahrain Grand Prix.

But Hembery expects most to have taken a step forward in time for the Spanish Grand Prix as the teams get on top of the rubber.

"In Mugello, I suspect that the teams will spend a fair bit of time working on this, certainly the ones that feel that they have more to learn," Hembery told AUTOSPORT.

"From Barcelona on, you will start to see a slightly different and more measured approach.

"The engineers are the best you will ever find in the automotive world. They are exceptional and in two or three races they will have understood the challenge that they have in front of them and we won't be having this type of conversation [about tyres].

"Bahrain was a more extreme race because of the temperature. The majority of the races in the European season will be in the mid-range and people will be wondering what the fuss is about."

Hembery added that limited testing and the need to master the tyres on grand prix weekends has played its part in the struggles that some teams have faced.

By mid-season, he has no doubts that things will become more settled, partly because by then teams will also have a comprehensive understanding of their machinery.

"At the start of the season, it's a new challenge and the focus will be more on the tyres," said Hembery. "Come Silverstone, it will be something that I'm quite sure will be in the background and teams will be on top of the challenge.

"It's more about the teams getting used to their new chassis, as well as the tyres, which have changed slightly. They have very little and have one eye on the race and one on qualifying in changeable conditions during race weekends, so it's hard to get ideas on setups.

"The medium this year is a very close relation to the soft of 2011 and that tyre was the pre dominant one in 18 races. People have forgotten that the cars have changed a lot this year. There are other factors at play."

Rubens Barrichello expects close friend Felipe Massa to remain in Formula 1 for many years to come, despite the Ferrari driver's visit to last weekend's IndyCar event in Sao Paulo fuelling speculation that he could be looking at switching series.

Massa is fighting for his F1 future at Ferrari, with he and his team well aware that he must deliver strong results this year if he is to remain with the outfit in 2013.

But on the back of scoring just two points in the first four races - 41 less than team-mate Fernando Alonso – there are continued question marks about his position, and the latest speculation is linking Mark Webber with a drive at Ferrari once again.

Massa's appearance at the Sao Paulo IndyCar event at the weekend prompted talk that he could follow Barrichello's lead and move to the US-based category – something that has been denied.

Barrichello said that he was full of confidence that Massa continued to have a strong future in F1 – and said his visit to Sao Paulo was purely social.

"He came here because I invited him," explained Barrichello. "It was a pleasure to receive him.

"He stayed on the pit wall with the team radio, living a totally different experience compared to F1. And different to what many people think – he was not here looking for a job. This guy will race a lot more in F1."

Barrichello said his conversations with Massa over the weekend did not give him any indication that his fellow Brazilian was worried about his F1 future.

"To face a problem, you have to smile and be happy with yourself before handling the situation. The important thing is what is inside him, and he seems relaxed. He was happy to be here."

The Sauber team has confirmed it has entered into a new partnership with English Premier League Club Chelsea FC.

The Hinwil squad had sported liveries with the "Out of the Blue" and "True Blue" messages on the engine covers of its car in the Chinese and Bahrain Grands Prix, triggering speculation about a possible deal.

Chelsea's deal was confirmed by the team on Monday morning, and the football club's logo will appear on the car for the first time in the Spanish Grand Prix.

"A partnership like this between Formula 1 and Football has never existed before in this form, yet there are numerous commonalities and possible synergies," said Sauber CEO Monisha Kaltenborn. "In either case we are talking about team sport at the highest - and international - level.

"The Sauber F1 Team and Chelsea FC are dealing with many of the same sporting and commercial topics and we want to strengthen each other in these areas. We are looking forward to exploiting these opportunities, and we congratulate Chelsea on making it to the final of the Champions League."

Chelsea Chief Executive Ron Gourlay added: "This is an innovative partnership that will see a football club link up with a Formula 1 team like never before, bringing together two of the world's biggest sports and uniting our fans. We felt that this Swiss team, the fourth oldest of the existing teams, reflects our own ideals perfectly.

"In a year when Chelsea celebrates 20 seasons as a Premier League team, Sauber does so as a Formula 1 team. We share many philosophies when it comes to how the respective organisations are run, from the development of young talent to constantly striving for success. Sauber's philosophy towards grassroots development has produced some of the best drivers in F1, which mirrors our dedication to develop promising young football talent through our Academy.

"This partnership will benefit us both greatly, with the potential to create unique commercial opportunities. It is a shared vision to unite the two most attractive sports in the world. We look forward to working closely with the Sauber F1 Team and wish them the very best of luck for the remainder of the Formula 1 season."

[Lineker]

Fernando Alonso handed Ferrari the perfect start to Formula 1's in-season test at Mugello by going fastest on the opening morning.

The times, however, mattered little on a day which started wet and dried throughout as the 11-strong field - missing only HRT - headed out.

Alonso's best, a 1m22.444s, was more than one second clear of red Bull's Mark Webber, the Australian running with an array of rear sensors as the Milton Keynes squad attempts to further understand the sidepod configuration it took to Bahrain.

Toro Rosso's Jean-Eric Vergne, who stopped out on circuit barely an hour in to bring out the first of two red flags, was third fastest, ahead of Jerome D'Ambrosio in the Lotus.

Nico Rosberg, cause of the second red flag when his Mercedes stopped at Turn 4 - at the same time as Alonso's F2012 halted at Turn 8 - was fifth, ahead of Kamui Kobayashi and Oliver Turvey, the Briton deputising along with Gary Paffett for McLaren regulars Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button.

Force India's Jules Bianchi opted to sit out most of the morning due to the wet conditions, but managed to complete 18 laps in the dry. He ended eighth fastest ahead of Caterham's Rodolfo Gonzalez, Marussia's Charles Pic and Williams's Valtteri Bottas.

Morning times:


Pos  Driver                 Team                    Time     

 1.  Fernando Alonso        Ferrari                 1m22.444s

 2.  Mark Webber            Red Bull-Renault        1m23.648s  + 1.204s

 3.  Jean-Eric Vergne       Toro Rosso-Ferrari      1m23.891s  + 1.447s

 4.  Jerome d-Ambrosio      Lotus-Renault           1m24.048s  + 1.604s

 5.  Nico Rosberg           Mercedes                1m24.100s  + 1.656s

 6.  Kamui Kobayashi        Sauber-Ferrari          1m24.736s  + 2.292s

 7.  Oliver Turvey          McLaren-Mercedes        1m25.303s  + 2.859s

 8.  Jules Bianchi          Force India-Mercedes    1m25.475s  + 3.031s

 9.  Rodolfo Gonzalez       Caterham-Renault        1m27.197s  + 4.753s

10.  Charles Pic            Marussia-Cosworth       1m27.359s  + 4.915s

11.  Valtteri Bottas        Williams-Renault        1m29.179s  + 6.735s


All Timing Unofficial[/code]




Fernando Alonso's morning best of 1m22.444s was comfortably the fastest time of a rain-hit first day of testing at Mugello on Tuesday.



In contrast to the morning, when a wet circuit had slowly dried, the afternoon started wet following lunchtime showers and only worsened as torrential rain settled in, severely disrupting team's test programmes and the anticipated phasing in of new upgrades.



Conditions became so bad that the circuit at one stage had to be closed, as the emergency helicopter could not take off safely due to the low light.



As a result, several teams decided to skip the session altogether and save tyres for the second and third days of running, choosing as they must from the 100 sets of Pirelli rubber they are assigned for tests at the start of the year.



McLaren's Gary Paffett and Mercedes's Nico Rosberg - taking over from Oliver Turvey and Nico Rosberg respectively – were two of the few who did venture out. Paffett managed just four laps, while Schumacher completed five but did not set a time.



Schumacher's stable-mate Nico Rosberg finished with the highest number of laps completed of any driver, a relatively paltry 49.



The dwindling contingent of fans who braved the weather and stayed until the chequered flag were rewarded when Fernando Alonso rejoined the fray in the final hour, although the Spaniard rarely completed a flying lap as he focussed instead on practice starts from the pitlane.



Better weather is predicted for the second day of running on Wednesday, when a raft of driver changes will take place – among them Felipe Massa taking over at Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel taking charge of the afternoon running for Red Bull.



Today's times:



[code]Pos  Driver                 Team                    Time     

 1.  Fernando Alonso        Ferrari                 1m22.444s

 2.  Mark Webber            Red Bull-Renault        1m23.648s   + 1.204s

 3.  Jean-Eric Vergne       Toro Rosso-Ferrari      1m23.891s   + 1.447s

 4.  Jerome d-Ambrosio      Lotus-Renault           1m24.048s   + 1.604s

 5.  Nico Rosberg           Mercedes                1m24.100s   + 1.656s

 6.  Kamui Kobayashi        Sauber-Ferrari          1m24.736s   + 2.292s

 7.  Oliver Turvey          McLaren-Mercedes        1m25.303s   + 2.859s

 8.  Jules Bianchi          Force India-Mercedes    1m25.475s   + 3.031s

 9.  Rodolfo Gonzalez       Caterham-Renault        1m27.197s   + 4.753s

10.  Charles Pic            Marussia-Cosworth       1m27.359s   + 4.915s

11.  Valtteri Bottas        Williams-Renault        1m29.179s   + 6.735s

12.  Gary Paffett           McLaren-Mercedes        1m50.898s  + 28.454s

13.  Michael Schumacher     Mercedes                No time


All Timing Unofficial

Lotus has scrapped plans for Kimi Raikkonen to test at Mugello this week, because of the unpredictable weather conditions that have greeted the teams.

The Enstone-based outfit, fresh from its double podium finish in the Bahrain Grand Prix, had originally scheduled Raikkonen to run on Wednesday with Romain Grosjean driving on the final day.

However, due to complications caused by the day one washout, Lotus has elected to use Grosjean for the final two days so it has a consistent baseline to work through its testing programme with.

Alan Permane, trackside operations director, said: "We've opted for one driver for the next two days so we can make better use of the time after losing this afternoon's running."

Nico Rosberg believes Mercedes did manage to make some progress at Mugello on Tuesday - despite the terrible weather affecting the opening day of testing.

The first proper in-season test for four years was marred by rain, but even so Rosberg thinks that the conditions did allow his team to get a better understanding of extracting performance from their wet weather tyres.

"It was good and we learned some valuable things this morning in the wet," said the German during the lunchtime break.

"Lately in the wet we weren't that strong. [like] in Malaysia, but we [also] got some dry running in the end and some useful tests there. So we learned something there, which was great and is a good start."

Although Mercedes is targeting a better understanding of tyres as a key element of its challenge going forwards, Rosberg believes it vital that it keeps up a more normal car development process.

"We always have bits and pieces coming for every race, and some things are coming for Barcelona too," he said. "It [in-season development] is an ongoing process and one of the areas where we need to make sure we are strong this year - and we can be strong in that area."

Rosberg also reiterated that he did not believe the current debate over tyres in F1, prompted by criticisms about Pirelli by team-mate Michael Schumacher, was worth much thought.

"I don't think it is an issue," he said. "I think it is good. It is a challenge, and a different challenge with tyre management. It is interesting, and it makes the racing interesting, so that is good."

Red Bull Racing must make the most of this week's test at Mugello to push on with improvements to its car if it is to keep fighting for wins, reckons Mark Webber.

Even though Sebastian Vettel took victory in the Bahrain Grand Prix, Webber thinks that the evidence of the first four races points to just how much work Red Bull Racing needs to get through if it is to get itself back to the kind of form that helped it dominate last year.

"The next few days will be important," said Webber at the end of the rain-hit opening day of Mugello testing. "There is lots of information to gather and although today did not work out, we are optimistic the next two will."

Red Bull Racing has openly admitted that its main weakness at the moment is its qualifying pace - with its form in races being strong enough to lift it through the field.

Webber thinks that even though the team triumphed in Bahrain, it faced a tough fight to do so - having come under extreme pressure from Kimi Raikkonen in the Lotus.

"It's certainly closed up, no question about it," explained the Australian about the competitive order in 2012. "The Saturday pace for us has been more challenging.

"In Bahrain, Sebastian put in a clean weekend but still wasn't dominating. Obviously off the pole he had more of a clean grand prix to manipulate the race, but no-one has had a dominant weekend.

"Ultimately it's about the dominance of the car and we want to get back to those days, where we can be more comfortable in all conditions. It's a great car, but we need to make it better."

Looking at his own championship situation, Webber is not displeased about his third position in the standings - although acknowledges he needs to start finishing better than fourth.

"I am happy to have those points no doubt, and it is a really good base to come in to Europe," he said. "You could also say if you had two crashes and two wins you'd have the same number of points, so it's not a very spectacular way to accumulate.

"You need bigger points than that if you're going to challenge at the end, and I realise that."

Formula 1 drivers should be happy to accept the challenge posed by Pirelli's current generation of tyres because they are helping make the racing more exciting.

That is the view of Mark Webber, who reckons that complaints that the high degradation is detracting from the thrill of pushing F1 cars to the limit are not valid.

"Tyres have always been an important part of Formula 1," said the Red Bull Racing driver. "Things were probably a little less punishing in the past to get them right, but now you need to be right there and, if you aren't, it can be quite tricky.

"Everybody has the same stuff to deal with so you have to get on with it. We just drive the cars and do the best job with what we have."

The impact of tyres on the racing has become a big talking point after Michael Schumacher criticised the characteristics of Pirelli's rubber after the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Webber acknowledges that all drivers would love perfect tyres, but says that the most important consideration should be the entertainment for the fans.

"We would all love to have quicker laptimes and extremely consistent tyres like we did in the old days, but that wasn't the most exciting thing for the racing," he explained.

"Trying to find somewhere in the middle is always tricky, but at the moment we have a pretty good show for the crowd. Whether it's by design or not, it's turned out like that."

Pirelli boss Paul Hembery says the manufacturer is open to changing its tyre philosophy if Formula 1 teams want it - but insists it has had no indication that there is any unhappiness about its rubber.

Speaking at Mugello, Hembery reiterated his belief that the current generation of tyres had helped produce more exciting racing, but said Pirelli was always open to discussion about it's strategy and approach.

"We were asked to come up with a certain approach, and that was agreed with teams," Hembery said. "The leader for the teams' views was actually Ross [brawn], and he told us that Canada 2010 was the model they wanted and that is what we worked on.

"What do we want? One car to disappear into the distance? The public turned away from the sport when that happened, so there was a very clear decision made by the sport to address the racing.

"If the sport decides we are too aggressive we can change though; we can supply tyres that don't degrade and allow you to push, as we did last year when the hard and medium tyres had negative degradation - the loss of performance from the tyre was less than the loss of fuel.

"We would [be open to change] for the sport, but its not just the drivers – it's the teams, the promoter. The team principals tend to be quite pragmatic and look at the bigger picture, and I would be very surprised if they asked us to do anything different.

"At the end of the day we do what they want and also the right thing for the sport: it is not us on our own deciding a direction, you have to work together as a partnership."

Asked specifically about Michael Schumacher's criticism of the Pirelli compounds, Hembery said he was sympathetic to the seven-time champion's views.

"I can see Michael's frustrations, but it is the sport that asks us," he said. "There is a strange misconception in that drivers don't push. All four winners were pushing and they were also quicker than their team-mates, so it's hard for me to understand that concept.

"We have limited to some extent what they can push but that doesn't mean they don't have an influence: there is no doubt [they count] and that's very important in a sport that should be about the drivers.

"It's hard to please everybody, we accept that. Tomorrow morning we could do something different, but right now that's not really what the majority is asking."

Kamui Kobayashi thinks Sauber has reason to feel encouraged by the updates it brought to the Mugello test - even though the first day was effectively a washout.

Sauber delivered a host of developments to its car on Tuesday - including revised exhausts, new front wing and new diffuser - but only managed to complete a few laps in dry conditions over the course of the day.

However, Kobayashi says even with that limited running there was a positive feeling from the car - as the team awaits better weather.

"It was difficult to take any feeling from today, and we are looking at the data to work on it," Kobayashi told AUTOSPORT. "At the moment though we don't have any negative feelings and it is looking positive - so hopefully we can have some more dry running from tomorrow."

With other teams waiting until later in the test to unveil their latest update package, Kobayashi has backed his outfit's decision to deliver their bits early.

"We wanted to get data - and that is very important for us," he said. "We don't know what is going to happen with the weather, so we have to get all the mileage we can and check that all the systems are working well.

"We have so many things to test here, so it was better that we started doing that from today."

[Lineker]

Romain Grosjean put Lotus on top as the second morning of in-season testing at Mugello came to a close.

In contrast to the torrential weather which blighted the opening day, conditions were dry almost from the outset, allowing teams the chance to catch up with their disrupted programmes.

Many therefore opted to run with periscope gauges or various aero sensors rather than chase times.

Such priorities would not diminish Grosjean's pace, however, as he pulled clear of the field after barely an hour in and never looked under threat thereafter. He ended the morning on a 1m21.603s.

Mark Webber, in the Red Bull for this morning before handing over to reigning champion Sebastian Vettel for the final day and a half, ended the morning as Grosjean's nearest challenger.

Webber had run second for much of the morning, still more than 1.5s adrift of the Frenchman, but in the final hour a medium-tyre run allowed him to close to within four tenths. The pair were the only two to dip below the 1m22s mark.

Felipe Massa kept Ferrari near the top by going third fastest, despite a programme which saw him make several low speed runs early on and run with a periscope gauge attached to his roll hoop for almost the duration.

Toro Rosso's Jean-Eric Vergne ended fourth ahead of Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi and Mercedes' Michael Schumacher, with the German managing 74 laps, the most of any driver.

That was in stark contrast to Paul di Resta, who managed just seven laps and failed to set a time in the Force India. The team said an issue with the hydraulics was the most likely cause of its woes, but it remains optimistic of running before the end of the day.

The Scot propped up the timesheets as a result, separated from Schumacher by Charles Pic (Marussia), Vitaly Petrov (Caterham), Gary Paffett (McLaren) and Bruno Senna (Williams).

Pos  Driver                 Team                    Time     

 1.  Romain Grosjean        Lotus-Renault           1m21.603s

 2.  Mark Webber            Red Bull-Renault        1m21.997s   + 0.294s

 3.  Felipe Massa           Ferrari                 1m22.257s   + 0.654s

 4.  Jean-Eric Vergne       Toro Rosso-Ferrari      1m22.422s   + 0.819s

 5.  Kamui Kobayashi        Sauber-Ferrari          1m22.424s   + 0.821s

 6.  Michael Schumacher     Mercedes                1m23.404s   + 1.801s

 7.  Charles Pic            Marussia-Cosworth       1m23.982s   + 2.379s

 8.  Vitaly Petrov          Caterham-Renault        1m24.312s   + 2.709s

 9.  Gary Paffett           McLaren-Mercedes        1m24.480s   + 2.877s

10.  Bruno Senna            Williams-Renault        1m25.221s   + 3.618s

11.  Paul di Resta          Force India-Mercedes    No time


All Timing Unofficial[/code]




Romain Grosjean and Kamui Kobayashi have topped the second day of Formula 1 testing at Mugello with almost identical times.



Grosjean banked his 1m21.603s best for Lotus just over an hour into the morning session, while Sauber's Kobayashi waited until there was just four minutes left for the day to replicate Grosjean's time to the thousandth of a second.



Sebastian Vettel finished the day third fastest, having taken over the Red Bull RB8 from Mark Webber after the lunch break. Vettel completed 64 laps in the afternoon session, his 1m21.825 best narrowly eclipsing Webber's fastest morning time of 1m21.997s. Grosjean, Kobayashi, Vettel and Webber were the only drivers to break into the 1m21s bracket.



Felipe Massa was one of three drivers to complete more than 100 laps throughout the day, finishing fifth fastest. Behind him it was the Toro Rosso pair of Jean-Eric Vergne and Daniel Ricciardo, with the Frenchman taking part in the morning session before handing over to the Australia. However, Ricciardo got less than an hour's running in, emerging from the pits for the first time with just 47 minutes remaining for the day.



Michael Schumacher was eighth fastest after completing more laps than any other driver, with 144 for the day. Charles Pic and Vitaly Petrov rounded out the top 10.



Garry Paffett finished the day 11th for McLaren after completing just 59 laps, while Timo Glock's post-lunch running was also limited thanks to a power steering problem, which required a full steering rack change. The German still managed to bank 37 laps, the best of which put him 12th for the session.



Paul di Resta completed even less laps, hydraulic problems limiting him to just 14 for the entire day. He and Bruno Senna finished the day 13th and 14th respectively.



[code]Pos  Driver                 Team                    Time     

 1.  Romain Grosjean        Lotus-Renault           1m21.603s

 2.  Kamui Kobayashi        Sauber-Ferrari          1m21.603s   + 0.000s

 3.  Sebastian Vettel       Red Bull-Renault        1m21.825s   + 0.222s

 4.  Mark Webber            Red Bull-Renault        1m21.997s   + 0.394s

 5.  Felipe Massa           Ferrari                 1m22.257s   + 0.654s

 6.  Jean-Eric Vergne       Toro Rosso-Ferrari      1m22.422s   + 0.819s

 7.  Daniel Ricciardo       Toro Rosso-Ferrari      1m22.588s   + 0.985s

 8.  Michael Schumacher     Mercedes                1m23.404s   + 1.801s

 9.  Charles Pic            Marussia-Cosworth       1m23.982s   + 2.379s

10.  Vitaly Petrov          Caterham-Renault        1m24.312s   + 2.709s

11.  Gary Paffett           McLaren-Mercedes        1m24.480s   + 2.877s

12.  Timo Glock             Marussia-Cosworth       1m24.499s   + 2.896s

13.  Paul di Resta          Force India-Mercedes    1m24.749s   + 3.146s

14.  Bruno Senna            Williams-Renault        1m24.842s   + 3.239s


All Timing Unofficial

Sebastian Vettel has conceded that Red Bull Racing still needs to do more to get itself in the hunt for regular race wins - but thinks it is making good progress in getting there at Mugello this week.

Although Vettel leads the world championship after four races thanks to his win in Bahrain, the reigning world champion has openly admitted that his team's RB8 is not yet the pace-setter in F1.

That is why he thinks it will be crucial for Red Bull Racing to crunch through the analysis of this week's test before the Spanish Grand Prix so it can work out exactly how to deliver the necessary improvements.

"Obviously it is good to win races, that is our target, but nevertheless we know we have a lot of catching up to do," said Vettel about the start to his campaign.

"That is the idea here at the test, to do a lot of laps and to get some mileage and sort out some of the stuff we have been testing at previous events, and will do in the future.

"But much more important is the analysis after this test to see what happens to this car."

With F1 being so close this year – as proven by the first four races delivering four different winners – Vettel thinks it unlikely that his outfit is going to rediscover the kind of form that allowed it to dominate in 2010.

"Dominant is always a very difficult word," he explained. "We had four races this year, and we had one win. All-in-all, I think the other races we had we were competitive. Surely not strong enough to win, but not disastrous enough either.

"We can be happy with what we have achieved so far, but we want more. That is why we are here working hard to find new parts to improve the performance of this car."

Mark Webber says that the decision for he and Sebastian Vettel to share the running during this week's in-season test at Mugello in Italy was a "no-brainer".

McLaren has opted to not run Lewis Hamilton or Jenson Button during the three-day test, relying on Gary Paffett and Oliver Turvey to assess any pre-Barcelona upgrades.

According to Webber, Red Bull never even considered going down a similar path to its title rivals.

"It was an absolute no-brainer for [sebastian and I] to be here," said the Australian.

"There was never any consideration that the race drivers wouldn't come to this test. Mileage is so limited these days that's its good for me to be in the car. Any chance we get to drive the car in the real world, we'll do it."

While the fast and flowing Mugello circuit is radically different to most of the tracks that make up the Formula 1 calendar, Webber still feels that the team will be able to collect some useful data from some parts of the lap.

"There are parts of the lap that we don't really race on these days - the very, very fast stuff is not how we race on the modern tracks these days. But there is still information that we can take to other venues, particularly from an aerodynamic point of view."

Webber also warned not to expect any ground-breaking upgrades to be fitted into the RB8 before next week's Spanish Grand Prix.

"I don't think so," he said. "I think that there will be small details. As far as I know, we'll have some things but I don't think it will be drastic."

McLaren test driver Oliver Turvey says the team is on target to achieve all of its goals after the first day of testing at Mugello.

Turvey is sharing the driving duties with last weekend's DTM winner Gary Paffett over the three days, and despite heavy rain affecting mileage on day one, Turvey insists that the team was able to gather a significant amount of data.

"We weren't able to achieve everything," he told AUTOSPORT. "There was little dry running but we managed to achieve the main things so I think that is positive and the forecast is getting better so I expect to achieve everything we came here for," he said.

Turvey said the team was able to gather most of its data in a narrow period of drier running before lunch.

"It is obviously frustrating not to have better track conditions but in the time available I think we have made the most of the track time and we got quite a lot out of that narrow period before lunch, so I think we did all we could do."

Turvey, seventh quickest on Tuesday, says McLaren was keen for its test drivers to spend some time behind the wheel at Mugello and help with some of the developments for Barcelona.

"I think the team wanted to use me and Gary because of the work we do with the simulator so it is a good opportunity for us to both get in the car and work on the car, especially at this time of the season. It is an important time to push the development as much as we can," he said.

Fernando Alonso is convinced Ferrari is an almost perfect team despite its failure to produce a car that enables him to fight for victories on a regular basis.

"I have no doubt. As external factors go, we are by now an almost perfect team," Alonso told Gazzetta dello Sport in an interview.

Although the two-time champion admitted that pushing his car to the limit was "like walking on a tight rope", he does believe that its recent struggles have made Ferrari much stronger.

"It's like walking on a tight rope at 30 metres above ground, you can never make mistakes," he said. "If you hit a curb in Q1, you're out. Same goes in Q2 if a wheel locks in a turn. But all this makes the team stronger. The mistakes we made in 2010 and 2011 with strategy, pit stops, and driver errors haven't happened anymore.

"That's because the team, by walking on that tight rope, has reached a level of professionalism and confidence higher than you could imagine. The most important thing, the quickest car, is still lacking, but the struggles of these years have made the team improve at double speed compared to a normal year."

When asked if Ferrari could win the title without having the strongest car, he said: "Yes."

The Spaniard, who is 10 points behind championship leader Sebastian Vettel, says Ferrari has managed to minimise the damage in the first four races of the year, but concedes it must react quickly now the European season begins.

He denied, however, that his 2012 title bid would effectively be finished should Ferrari not manage to gain sufficient ground on the leading teams by next week's Spanish Grand Prix.

"We have kind of saved the first four races, but now we must react and take charge," Alonso said. "In any case we never give up.

"This is just the first step, we need to consistently make up the gap race after race. If things go bad in Montmelo, it's not like our season is finished."

Alonso also reckons his team has been paying the price for the lack of testing in Formula 1, because he says its structure has been based around on-track work.

"We are more penalised than others because Ferrari's development philosophy has always been based on this," he added.

Felipe Massa has backed team-mate Fernando Alonso's view that Ferrari will make a good step forward in form at the Spanish Grand Prix - but thinks it too much to expect its updates to help it fight for victory straightaway.

With a number of developments to the F2012 due to be run by Alonso at Mugello on Thursday, Ferrari should get a first indication of exactly how much progress it will be able to make with its car for the start of the European season.

And with Alonso looking at a top five grid slot, Massa reckons that getting both cars inside the top ten is what he is setting his sights on.

"This [both Ferrari's starting in the top ten at Barcelona] is inside my expectation, but we haven't tried all the new parts so we need to see in Barcelona how it will be and how much they improve the car," he said after wrapping up his testing programme in Italy.

"Then we can be more realistic, but it is inside my expectations, definitely."

Ferrari's hopes of a step forward very much depend on how much progress it makes over its rivals in delivering more speed from its car – which is why Massa is keeping his ambitions in check.

"To close the gap you need to improve much more than the others and they are working and improving," he said. "In three weeks, you see cars improving by two or three tenths, so we need to make a huge step forward.

"Definitely it [winning races] is a bit too optimistic but when we have new parts and everything on the car then we can talk better. Without trying the new parts it is difficult to say, but to close the gap to the guys in front and win races is a little bit too optimistic - but we hope."

Although Massa will not get to try out the latest car upgrades before the Spanish GP, he is not too concerned that he will suffer as a result.

"It is always better to run the new parts, but the programme was like that for Fernando to try the new exhaust yesterday and for me to try the old one today to do the back-to-back," said the Brazilian.

"Tomorrow we will run some new pieces which are arriving this evening. It won't be everything, as everything will be ready for Barcelona."

Romain Grosjean has welcomed the extra running he will get at Mugello after his Lotus team revised its plans for the test.

The Frenchman was scheduled to drive today only, with team-mate Kimi Raikkonen taking over for the final day.

However, the poor weather on Tuesday meant Lotus decided to change its plans and keep Grosjean for tomorrow too in order to have a consistent baseline to work with.

Grosjean, quickest today, welcomed the additional track time.

"The more time I spend in the car, the better I feel," Grosjean said at the end of the day. "It's only my first season so the more time I spend in the car it's better for me.

"I really want to go far with this team and be world champion one day if everything goes well. You need a lot of things, but this is our goal and if we can achieve this by growing up together I would be very happy."

The Frenchman, who finished on the podium in the previous race in Bahrain, said his quickest time today meant little however.

"It's always good to end the day on top, but we have to remember that in testing lap times mean very little," he said. "Having said that, the car felt great and I was very comfortable from the start.

"This test gives us an opportunity to try things that we wouldn't have time to do during a race weekend, so hopefully it'll help us to keep pushing forward.

"We've done a lot of set-up work today, and for sure we'll need to take some time to look through all the data and analyse what we need to focus on tomorrow, but it's a good baseline for the final day."

Lotus reserve driver Jerome D'Ambrosio says an extremely limited day of running was still enough to convince him of the car's potential.

The 26-year-old Belgian took control on the first day of Mugello, but managed just 10 dry laps as torrential rain led to an afternoon washout.

D'Ambrosio conceded conditions had been disappointing, but said he was still happy to have time in a car he labelled 'incredible'.

"Obviously with the conditions we were very limited in what we could do," he said, "but I could still get a bit out of the day and it is always good to get confident with the car.

"And then I had the feel of the car, which I think is fantastic. I was really limited, but even with 20 laps you know it - we have an incredible car. In terms of stability, how predictable it is, it is very nice to drive."

Asked how the Lotus related to the Virgin he drove in 2010, D'Ambrosio added: "You can't really compare – it's in another world. There is a big difference – a very big difference."

The Lotus reserve driver added that the rain had proved unwelcome both for him and for Lotus, disrupting the planned programme before Romain Grosjean takes over for the final two days.

"Supposing it was going to be dry – and we didn't get anywhere near that – there are things we wanted to try, thing you just don't have time to try on a race weekend. We wanted – we couldn't do it.

"The problem was in the afternoon there would have been value in going back out on inters and comparing to the morning, but in the end the condition was just too much rain.

"Of course as a driver you always want to go out, but you're also a professional and if the team doesn't want to go out you don't. The benefits are very limited: if the race was like this it would be stopped straight away. You don't go through these conditions, so there was just no point.

"It was definitely [disappointing]. We knew it, and in the end you can't do much about it, but it's disappointing because I should have done about 100 laps in the dry, and I did 20. Not just for me though, there were a few test items we wanted to try."

Force India has been forced to change its testing plans for the final day at Mugello, after Paul di Resta's day two running was limited to just 14 laps due to a hydraulics problem.

The Scot spent most of the second day in the garage while the team chased a hydraulic problem, which eventually resulted in an engine change.

While Nico Hulkenberg was expected to be in the car for the entirety of the final day, di Resta will make up for the lost time by taking the morning session, with his German team-mate to take over the car after the lunch break.

"We had some faults in the data and we needed to do quite a few changes to the hydraulic system to eliminate it. [it was] a bit of a painful day," said Force India's deputy team principal Bob Fernley.

"[The] problem was tracers. We were just worried it was going to cause an issue, partly safety and not wanting to cause any damage. We changed everything; the engine, the hydraulic pack. The key thing was to make sure Paul was comfortable.

"We will change our schedule, run half a day with Paul [Thursday] morning and Nico in the afternoon, to give them equal time in the car."

According to di Resta, the lack of running isn't a huge concern.

"I don't think it's massive," he said. "We're quite limited with what we were going to learn anyway, given the way the track is. It's not got that many similar characteristics compared to the tracks we're racing at.

"It would have been nice to get some more running, but these things happen. If we can get cracking tomorrow and get a full programme in we'll be okay."

Rodolfo Gonzalez declared himself happy with his performance in his first outing with the Caterham team at Mugello on Tuesday.

The Venezuelan, who had tested for the team when it was Lotus last year, admitted however that he was frustrated by the lack of running after torrential rain hindered the teams' progress.

Gonzalez completed 35 laps in Caterham's new chassis on his way to the ninth fastest time of the day.

The 25-year-old said he was satisfied with his work despite the poor weather conditions.

"In the rain it was a little bit difficult to adapt but in the dry obviously after four or five laps I started adapting to the car and starting getting on the limit," said Gonzalez. "I'm sure we would have put some new tyres, some softer compounds if I had a few more laps, and I would have been even faster.

"The team seems pretty happy, satisfied. They all told me that I did a good, solid job, and that I was sensible and that I didn't put the car at risk. So I'm definitely satisfied with what I did. Had the conditions been better and with more running it would have been better. But for what we had I'm happy enough."

Gonzalez, who races for Caterham in GP2, conceded he was at pleased to have at least managed to do some running given the forecast said it would rain in the morning too.

"It could have been worse, because you saw how much it rained in the morning, and it could have been the same in the morning. You saw the forecast was the same for the morning," he said.

"So in that aspect it's a little bit frustrating that we didn't get more running, which I would have liked, but it could always be worse. I'm sure I'll have more day in a Formula 1 car this year and next year. This is motor racing. It happens."

Ha, holy shit, identical times - how rare is it to see that!!!

[Adam]

That is insanely unlikely, brilliant stuff.

I didn't even know they had brought back in-season testing. Though it is only the one event, it's a start.

[Katsuya]

The best was when Schumi, Villeneuve and Frentzen all set identical times in Jerez.

[Lineker]

Sebastian Vettel closed out the last morning of Formula 1 testing at Mugello on top of the timesheets for Red Bull Racing.

The German fired his way to the top of the times with a 1m21.314s flyer just over an hour before the lunch break, and then improved the benchmark time to a 1m21.267s several runs later.

Behind Vettel there was little breathing room. Fresh from topping Wednesday's times, Romain Grosjean was back in the hunt for Lotus, his best just 0.067 seconds slower than Vettel's. Fernando Alonso was just 0.029s behind Grosjean, the top three covered by less than a tenth at the break.

But it was not all smooth running for Ferrari. Just under an hour into the day's running, Alonso went off at Turn 12, nudging the wall and damaging the front of the F2012. It took more than two hours for the Spaniard to return to the track. The team was running its latest upgrade package - which it hopes will turn its season around - for the first time this morning.

Daniel Ricciardo (Toro Rosso) and Sergio Perez (Sauber) finished fourth and fifth respectively, while Force India's Paul di Resta was sixth fastest despite having to be rescued from the gravel after an off at the exit of Scarperia halfway through the morning.

Heikki Kovalainen was the busiest driver for the morning, completing 62 laps in the Caterham. He finished up seventh, ahead of McLaren's Oliver Turvey, Nico Rosberg's Mercedes and Timo Glock's Marussia.

Pastor Maldonado ended the morning slowest, after completing just four laps thanks to an electrical problem on the Williams.

Pos  Driver                 Team                    Time     

 1.  Sebastian Vettel       Red Bull-Renault        1m21.267s

 2.  Romain Grosjean        Lotus-Renault           1m21.334s   + 0.067s

 3.  Fernando Alonso        Ferrari                 1m21.363s   + 0.096s

 4.  Daniel Ricciardo       Toro Rosso-Ferrari      1m22.143s   + 0.876s

 5.  Sergio Perez           Sauber-Ferrari          1m22.229s   + 0.962s

 6.  Paul di Resta          Force India-Mercedes    1m23.071s   + 1.804s

 7.  Heikki Kovalainen      Caterham-Renault        1m23.169s   + 1.902s

 8.  Oliver Turvey          McLaren-Mercedes        1m23.221s   + 1.954s

 9.  Nico Rosberg           Mercedes                1m24.017s   + 2.750s

10.  Timo Glock             Marussia-Cosworth       1m24.310s   + 3.043s

11.  Pastor Maldonado       Williams-Renault        1m31.769s  + 10.502s


All Timing Unofficial[/code]




Romain Grosjean put the seal on an impressive test at Mugello for his Lotus team by going fastest on the final afternoon.



His best - a 1m21.035s set with two hours of the afternoon to run - was the quickest any driver managed across the three days.



The Frenchman had also topped the second day of running at the Italian circuit, Lotus having opted to alter plans and give him both days of testing following the day one washout.



Sebastian Vettel's morning best was enough to keep him second for Red Bull, less than one tenth of a second ahead of Ferrari's Fernando Alonso.



The Spaniard had set the early running in a Ferrari featuring revisions to its exhaust exits and rear bodywork, but an hour in he went off and nudged the wall at Turn 12, leading to delays of more than two hours for the Scuderia.



Toro Rosso's Daniel Ricciardo closed to within a quarter of a second of Alonso in the afternoon, ending the day fourth fastest.



Sergio Perez finished six tenths of a second down the road in fifth, having triggered one of several red flags on the final day when his Sauber stopped on the main straight at the exit of the pitlane.



Nico Hulkenberg, taking over from Paul di Resta for the final afternoon, was less than one tenth of a second slower in sixth.



Di Resta was initially tucked up behind his Force India stable-mate, but late improvements from Pastor Maldonado, Oliver Turvey and Nico Rosberg forced him down to 10th.



Rosberg (Mercedes) set new bests on his final two tours to jump into eighth, 0.082s behind Maldonado's Williams.



Turvey meanwhile completed a low-key test for McLaren, which opted not to run either of its two race drivers, by finishing ninth ahead of Heikki Kovalainen and Timo Glock.



Kovalainen was the busiest driver of the day, completing 138 laps in the Caterham.



[code]Pos  Driver                 Team                    Time     

 1.  Romain Grosjean        Lotus-Renault           1m21.035s

 2.  Sebastian Vettel       Red Bull-Renault        1m21.267s   + 0.232s

 3.  Fernando Alonso        Ferrari                 1m21.363s   + 0.328s

 4.  Daniel Ricciardo       Toro Rosso-Ferrari      1m21.604s   + 0.569s

 5.  Sergio Perez           Sauber-Ferrari          1m22.229s   + 0.879s

 6.  Nico Hulkenberg        Force India-Mercedes    1m22.325s   + 0.975s

 7.  Pastor Maldonado       Williams-Renault        1m22.497s   + 1.147s

 8.  Nico Rosberg           Mercedes                1m22.579s   + 1.229s

 9.  Oliver Turvey          McLaren-Mercedes        1m22.662s   + 1.312s

10.  Paul di Resta          Force India-Mercedes    1m23.002s   + 1.652s

11.  Heikki Kovalainen      Caterham-Renault        1m23.169s   + 1.819s

12.  Timo Glock             Marussia-Cosworth       1m23.466s   + 2.116s


All Timing Unofficial

Vitaly Petrov has criticised the decision by Formula 1 teams to test at Mugello this week - claiming the track is too dangerous for grand prix cars.

With teams having agreed last year to Ferrari's idea of holding 2012's in-season test at its Italian track, a number of drivers have revelled in their first proper experience of the high-speed venue.

But Petrov has questioned the wisdom of the decision - and thinks the safety provisions at Mugello are not up to F1 standard.

"I don't think we should have come here," said the Caterham driver. "It is not safe and wide enough.

"If you lose it, the walls are so close and you will smash into the tyres. It is not for Formula 1 and, if you lost the steering or the tyre pressure dropped or whatever, then it will be a big crash."

Petrov is the only driver who has been critical of the Mugello venue this week, though, with a number of his rivals claiming the circuit is a step up from other venues.

Red Bull Racing's Mark Webber tweeted after the first day: "Did 10 dry laps today around Mugello, which is the same as doing 1000 laps around Abu Dhabi track in terms of satisfaction."

Daniel Ricciardo said: "Love driving the beast round here. Awesome high speed circuit."

Ferrari unveiled the first step of its major new upgrade package at Mugello on Thursday, as the team brought in revisions to the exhaust exits and rear bodywork of its F2012.

Having made a beleaguered start to its 2012 campaign, Ferrari always planned to use Mugello as the stage in which it would start phasing in significant developments, with further revisions also expected for the Spanish Grand Prix.

The very first items appeared late on Wednesday, when Felipe Massa tried out new turning vanes under the nose. On Thursday morning, it was Fernando Alonso's turn to give the first laps to a new rear bodywork structure.

AUTOSPORT technical consultant Gary Anderson said the changes had the potential to deliver significant gains.

"On the sidepods they've put the exhaust pipes into a more conventional position," explained Anderson. "They are not getting any great degree of benefit, but they’re not getting any negatives either, and I think with a troublesome car that’s the best place to get to.

“Because of the way the letterbox exit for the exhaust was being used for a radiator exit they’ve had to compromise a little. They still have a radiator exit there in the new iteration, but it is much narrower and the coke bottle is much better.

“I think what they have done is a reasonable compromise for where they are. They can exploit it further though by getting rid of the radiator, and I think that will be phase two.

“It’s very difficult to quantify the changes in terms of lap time, but I do believe they lost quite a lot of downforce with the letterbox radiator exit system they had. It just isn’t right to feed low speed air from the radiator into an area where you want high-speed flow.

“Potentially you could be looking at two or three tenths from that one change alone."

Fernando Alonso says Ferrari 'must' build on a solid week of testing with a step forward in performance at the Spanish Grand Prix if it is to keep its title hopes alive.

With the team delivering the first parts of a major update package on the final day of Mugello testing, Alonso says he is under no illusions about the importance of Ferrari's development plans - even though it is too early to judge how much of a step forward it will bring.

"We will try to reduce the gap with the leaders at the moment because we were on average eight or nine tenths off the top guys in the first four races between Q1 and Q3," he said. "We need to reduce this immediately if we want to be in the fight for points and the championship.

"In Barcelona, we need to do the first step. We know there is no magic button that in Barcelona we will be on pole position, because everyone will improve their cars as well. But we need to reduce this gap.

"Barcelona has to be the first step, in Canada the second step, and Valencia the third – to be close to them. But the Barcelona one for sure is one of the most important steps that we have to do. We must do it. We cannot be fighting for Q3 if we want to be fighting for the championship."

Alonso ran a new exhaust concept and rear bodywork on the final day at Mugello, but has played down the significance of what he tried out - and thinks too much is now being made about exhaust designs.

When asked for his feeling on the new exhaust configuration, he said: "Nothing surprising in terms of performance. I think we tried different configurations of exhaust layout and each day we had a different one and different parts on the car. I think it was just to confirm what our thoughts were and what to bring for the next races and for development.

"This year it is not any more important what position you choose [for the exhausts], or how you manage the position. We saw in Australia one of the quickest cars had the lateral exhausts like McLaren, we saw in China two Red Bulls with different [exhaust] positions and we saw in Bahrain, Red Bull with the lateral ones, but the quickest car was Lotus with the straight ones.

"So we cannot lose even five minutes on this. There are bigger areas of the car where we need to improve and we try to do it."

What was encouraging for Alonso was the fact that there now appears to be a good correlation between windtunnel figures and Ferrari's track data.

"In a way it was a positive week and a positive test, because all the parts we put on, even if they were small in terms of performance, they worked as expected," he said.

"After some problems in the winter and last year, where we brought new parts for testing, six were working and four of them not working, here even if we only brought three or four, all were working as expected.

"So this gives us confidence for Barcelona, of bigger updates and future development. And now it seems we can trust the factory a little bit more."

Nico Rosberg believes Mercedes has made good progress in understanding tyres at this week's Mugello test - but thinks his team needs to do more to improve its high-speed corner performance.

With its experience in the first four races showing how important tyre management is, Rosberg and Mercedes spent a lot of time on the final day working on improving its knowledge of that area.

Speaking at the conclusion of testing, Rosberg said he was upbeat about what could be expected for the next race in Spain – although he was well aware that other progress was needed.

"It has been a good testing programme for us here in Mugello," explained Rosberg, who won the Chinese Grand Prix. "Today, we learned a lot about tyre management, and this should help us at the next race in Barcelona.

"There is still a lot of work to do of course, and we do need to improve our car in fast corners, but overall I am pleased with the progress that we have made here this week."

Although there have been some suggestions that teams have not got as much out of this week's test as they could have hoped, Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn was happy with how things had gone.

"The first opportunity for in-season testing for some time has proved beneficial, particularly as it has enabled us to test some new development ideas and take a closer look at improving the car from things that we have identified over the first four races," he said.

Development will be the key to success in Formula 1 for Lotus over the remainder of the 2012 season, according to Romain Grosjean.

Fresh from topping the second and third days of in-season testing at Mugello, Grosjean indicated that the Lotus E20 will feature a raft of updates at next week's Spanish Grand Prix at Barcelona, with ongoing development key to fighting with the likes of Red Bull Racing, McLaren and Mercedes on a regular basis.

"Development is the key this year," he said.

"I think that we saw in China that if you gain one tenth, then the car is maybe five places [further] on the grid. We're trying to get everything we can from the car. There will be a nice update coming, and that's good to know."

Grosjean also confirmed that the team understood the E20 better now than it did before the three-day test, right down to the car's baseline.

"We are now more clear on the baseline that we want to start with. It was not really 100 per cent from the first grand prix, but now we know what we want to put on the car, we know where we want to start, and that's a good point. We could confirm [at Mugello] that what we have is the right thing to have."

A crucial factor for Lotus at Barcelona may well be the weather, with Grosjean admitting the car is better in warmer conditions.

"Sakhir was the more realistic track in terms of the temperatures we may get if the summer, or spring, wants to come at some point. It seems the E20 is working better when it is hot than when it's cold."

Bruno Senna has no concerns over the ongoing development of the Williams FW34, despite setting the slowest time during day two's running at Mugello on Wednesday.

Senna ended the second day at the bottom of the timesheets, his best of 1m24.842s more than three seconds adrift of Romain Grosjean's benchmark time for Lotus. However, the Brazilian put the time down to "boring" development work, rather than an actual lack of pace.

"It was a long day," he said. "We tried a million parts in the car, and all of these parts needed validation, so we tried exactly the same thing, with procedures.

"The morning was very boring, but it was important to get it out of the way, and fortunately the day was good in terms of weather so we got some good information.

"You always want to be in the top part of the times, but you don't know what everyone else is doing in the field, and this is a track that if you take some fuel out of the car, the lap-time comes big time. It was more important for us to know where we are than do a lap-time."

On the back of the test, Senna is expecting a raft of small changes to be made to the FW34 before next week's Spanish Grand Prix.

"It's a never ending upgrade game in Formula 1," he added.

"What we're trying here will probably show up in Barcelona. It's always improving and getting better, and I think other guys are finding some good things in their cars so we need to keep it up and keep pushing.

"It's always going to be an evolution. Learning from what we've brought, some things have had the right reaction, and some things haven't quite got the results that were expected. There is a lot of data to go through and [the team] are having some late nights, they are pushing very hard to understand what the performance is and bring the good bits to Barcelona and onwards."

Sauber is almost certain not to pursue the double-DRS concept pioneered by Mercedes, because of the high costs involved in fitting it to the car.

With the Mercedes design, which helps stall the front wing for improved balance and an extra speed boost in qualifying, having been given the all-clear by the FIA, rival teams have been working out if they need to add it to their own cars too.

But the relatively limited benefit - believed to be just a few tenths of a second per lap in qualifying – against the high costs of fitting internal piping means that only the big-money teams are likely to pursue it fully.

Sauber chief designer Matt Morris said early analysis by his own outfit had left it feeling that it would be better off devoting resources to finding more normal development progress.

"We have done some evaluation on it in the factory, but at the moment it's not really working for us in terms of cost versus performance," Morris told AUTOSPORT.

"It doesn't really stack up for us at the moment. And beyond the cost versus performance issue, it's difficult to know exactly the potential benefits and then it's only really useful in qualifying as well.

"It's definitely a few tenths of a second in qualifying, but to get that [benefit] so many parts in the car would have to be changed. That's the problem."

Sauber ran with external piping on its C31 during testing at Mugello on Thursday, which prompted speculation that it could have been evaluating the double DRS further.

However, Morris clarified that it was simply measuring aerodynamic forces at the rear of the car.

"We have been running some pressure tappings around the rear, that's what all the pipes were," he said. "It's just pressure measurement, that's all."

Daniel Ricciardo says his disastrous race day in Bahrain will make him a stronger driver for the rest of the 2012 Formula 1 season.

The Toro Rosso driver starred on Saturday at the Sakhir circuit, qualifying a career-best sixth, 11 places clear of his team-mate Jean-Eric Vergne. But a poor opening lap in the race left the Australian on the back foot, his final result a disappointing 15th place.

"I think it's going to make me stronger," Ricciardo said at Mugello during the current in-season test.

"Unfortunately, you have to go through these low points at some time in your career - all of the good blokes have at some point gone through them. As long as you learn from it, and take something from it, and I know I have.

"You have to improve from it and become better because of it, that's what makes you stronger.

"I'm ready to smash it in Barcelona, and the next three circuits are ones that I love – Barcelona, Monaco and Montreal. I'll set some good expectations for the next few."

Having shared Wednesday's running at Mugello with Vergne, Ricciardo will have the car to himself on Thursday, as the team continues the development of its new exhaust system, as well as evaluating new parts in the floor and the diffuser.

"As far as I know we're not planning any longer runs [on Thursday], so it will be quite short and sharp," he added.

"We still need to go through some stuff with the floor and a bit with the diffuser as well, so it's going to be similar to Jean-Eric [on Wednesday]; three or four laps, change, assess, and so on. We've got quite a few things to try.

"It's actually cool; lots of time in the car, and it's good for us to experience how to improve our feedback with the changes."

Silverstone's owner, the British Racing Drivers' Club, is to expand its hunt for investors as it bids to realise its ambitious plans for the future.

With the circuit having secured a long-term deal for the British Grand Prix, the BRDC now wants to ramp up development of its 760-acre site to turn it into a leisure and business complex.

An exclusive agreement reached with one potential group of investors, believed to be from Qatar, is due to come to an end soon without a deal having been concluded yet - and the BRDC has made it clear that it will soon be open to beginning talks with other interested parties.

BRDC chairman Stuart Rolt said: "The commercial potential of Silverstone and the estate is significant and we are seeking external investment, from third parties who share our vision, to help us realise that potential more quickly.

"While progress has, and is, being made with our original preferred partner, negotiations have not yet developed into an agreement. As the period of exclusivity has come to a close we are now speaking to other potential investors."

Rolt added that even if Silverstone was unsuccessful in attracting investors, the BRDC still had the resources available to keep improving the venue.

"If we cannot find a suitable partner, we shall continue with the development ourselves, albeit at a slower pace," he explained.

[Lineker]

Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner believes Formula 1 teams should rethink whether an in-season test becomes a regular feature in the future, on the back of this week's Mugello experience.

Although the 11 teams present were able to complete some valuable development work, Horner is one of many leading figures who suggests that the benefit may not have been worth the cost of running there.

Speaking to AUTOSPORT about his views on the week, Horner said: "Any test time you have is useful, but whether it is the right thing for F1 to be testing in-season is probably a bigger topic.

"When you look at the cost of running here, we will have done three times the mileage of a grand prix weekend. In many respects would it have been better to have another grand prix weekend than to go testing?"

Horner says that as well as the financial cost of the Mugello test, the three days of running has also put extra stress on staff - who are already facing the prospect of a 20-race calendar.

"The season is gruelling for the guys and we disbanded test teams some while ago," he said. "Mugello is a great venue, a lovely track and the drivers enjoy it, but I think in the scale of things is it right to be testing in-season?

"If you look at the focus on cost saving, this test hasn't achieved that for any team. Moving forward we should look at whether or not in-season testing is the right thing to be doing."

Lotus team principal Eric Boullier also reckons that the test probably turned out beneficial only for those outfits who were left struggling with their cars after the first four races of the season.

"We would have liked to avoid this one," he said. "When you are struggling it is different and I'm sure Ferrari is happy to have this test.

"In general we are not in favour of this. We would prefer to have had all the testing in February, like last year, but it depends on your position, I'm sure some teams will vote in favour because they need track time to develop their car faster, but the teams with good cars don't need it."

While F1's team principals have been sceptical about the benefits of the test, drivers were more positive about the value of the three-days of extra running.

Fernando Alonso said: "I think we don't have enough tests. In a way I prefer what we did this year because in this test there is, after the first four races, different thoughts and different things that you may discover in the first four races that you need to reconfirm in one test. It is always nice to have this opportunity.

"This week has been amazing here. Driving in Mugello, driving one lap here is like driving 100 laps at another circuit. The emotions and feelings you have here are quite special. I enjoy so much this week, so I am quite happy with the test."

Romain Grosjean added: "I think it's good to have both [pre-season and in-season tests] like we have now. It's important to have a good amount of pre-season running, as the cars are brand new and you want to make sure everything works and try to develop a good baseline setup before the races themselves.

"On the other hand, this gives us time to work on developments that maybe wouldn't have taken the same direction at the start of the year before we had the data from the first four races, so like I said, I think the balance is about right."

Fernando Alonso has reiterated his full support for team-mate Felipe Massa and their boss Stefano Domenicali, despite a difficult start to the campaign.

With Ferrari's F2012 having fallen short of the team's high expectations, there has been speculation that both Domenicali and Massa could be fighting for their futures if the situation does not improve.

But Alonso is in no doubt that both men are doing an excellent job - and he sees no reason why any thought should be given to change.

Writing on his official website in response to questions from fans, Alonso said about Massa: "He's one of the best drivers in the world, and he has shown it during his whole career.

"It's easy to praise when you have a good car but also to criticise when you have a bad one. I lived similar situations during my last stint at Renault, when some of my team-mates were unfairly criticized and now, they are being praised once again."

When asked about Domenicali's situation, and whether it would be better to have someone like Flavio Briatore in charge, Alonso said: "Stefano's work is fantastic in every sense and I can't think of anyone better than him.

"As I explained before, it only takes one race to pass from criticism to praise. I'm very good friends with Flavio and we talk frequently. He's one of the most intelligent people I've ever met."

Alonso also revealed that he was troubled by severe leg pain at the start of the 2010 campaign.

"I think the time I suffered most was at the beginning of last season, when I was suffering from an injury to the sciatic nerve which caused me a lot of pain to the leg towards the end of races," he said.

HRT is approaching its home race in Spain in much calmer state, after spending the time since the Bahrain Grand Prix setting up camp at its new Madrid base, according to team boss Luis Perez-Sala.

The Spanish squad elected to skip this week's Mugello test in favour of moving into its new headquarters, and to introduce and upgrade package before the Spanish Grand Prix at Barcelona.

Perez-Sala is confident that HRT will be better prepared for the rest of the season, with performance and reliability being high on the list of priorities.

"After the first four races we're heading into this one with much more calm. We arrive more organized and better prepared after having rested a bit this week," he said.

"We're bringing some updates to Montmelo which we hope will take us one step forwards in terms of performance and reliability."

Pedro de la Rosa is also confident that missing the Mugello test was the right thing to do as it gives the team its first opportunity to fully dismantle and reassemble the car since the start of the season.

"Not going to Mugello wasn't an easy decision but it was important to go to the headquarters for the first time and work calmly because it's the first time my car is in Europe," he said.

"For the first time the mechanics have had the time to dismantle the car, build it and assemble it."

Force India has been ordered to pay £650,000 costs in relation to its legal action against Caterham, Mike Gascoyne and Aerolab over potential copyright infringement.

Back in March, the High Court awarded Force India £21,000 in damages after ruling that parts of its 2010 car had been used in the design process of that year's Lotus contender.

However, the judge did not agree with claims that Lotus, as Caterham was formerly known, had 'systematically' copied the Force India car - and instead ruled that the infringements had taken place simply as a short cut in the design process.

In a hearing on Friday, the court ruled that Force India will have to pay Caterham technical chief Mike Gascoyne, who was exonerated of any wrongdoing in the original case, costs on a full indemnity basis from November 2011 and costs on a standard basis before then - which amounts to roughly £400,000.

Furthermore, the 1 Malaysia Racing Team, under which Lotus raced, was awarded costs on a similar basis - but this was estimated to be in the region of £250,000.

Force India said its application for permission to appeal "was postponed with a further hearing expected in the coming weeks".

"The appeal relates to the 25,000 Euros of damages that Aerolab and Fondtech were ordered to pay Sahara Force India Formula One Team for misuse of confidential information.

"The interim costs payments awarded to Mr Gascoyne and 1 Malaysia Racing in today's ruling are more than covered by funds already provided by Sahara Force India Formula One Team as security for costs pending the outcome of the case," said a statement.

Alexander Rossi will get his first taste of Formula 1 machinery on a grand prix weekend in Spain next week, with Caterham handing him a run in first free practice at Barcelona.

The American, who last drove for the Hingham-based team at the young driver test at Yas Marina last year, will stand in for Heikki Kovalainen.

Speaking about his opportunity, Rossi said: "I am looking forward to getting back into the F1 car in Spain and I want to thank the team for the chance to run in FP1 in Barcelona.

"I have a clear goal for the session - make sure I run to the plan set by the engineers, not make any mistakes and learn as much as I can over the whole weekend."

Rossi's only other F1 experience came at the end of 2009. He was given a run by BMW Sauber when the young driver test was held at Jerez.

Michael Schumacher has warned against high expectations for his Mercedes team at next week's Spanish Grand Prix, despite some encouraging progress made at the Mugello test this week.

With Mercedes having shown well at the Circuit de Catalunya in pre-season testing, and its W03 already proven to be a winner, the team is viewed by many as a strong contender for victory at the next race.

However, Schumacher is playing down prospects - but says that the team's situation should improve over the forthcoming races thanks to some encouraging feedback from upgrades tested in Mugello.

"The positive thing about the test was that we could really concentrate on the developments we were aiming to work on," said Schumacher. "This should give us a good basis for further developments, even if maybe not for the next race to come.

"Barcelona is a track we have driven extensively on, and this is why we know that its characteristics do not exactly play fully into our hands. But then, we will definitely go there and try our best and at the same time keep on working for the things to come."

Team-mate Nico Rosberg believes that the team could head to Barcelona with slightly more confidence about its competitive situation after the lessons learned from Mugello.

"The test in Mugello this week was very positive for us, and I believe we will arrive in Barcelona with a much better understanding of the tyres and how we need to set our car up," said the German.

"Despite the familiarity of the track, there will still be a lot of work for us to do, and it should be a good challenge."

Lewis Hamilton thinks the battle for victory in the Spanish Grand Prix is wide open, thanks to the unpredictable start to the Formula 1 season.

With four different teams having won the opening four grands prix of the season, the former world champion is well aware that no outfit is heading in to the Barcelona event as favourite - even though McLaren has been on the front row at three races this year.

"Our performance at Barcelona during winter testing looked promising - but the form of the season is still very hard to read, so it's difficult to predict who'll be at the front next weekend," said Hamilton, who finished a close second behind Sebastian Vettel at the 2011 Spanish GP.

"Nonetheless, we had a great race there last year – I pushed Sebastian [Vettel] all the way to the finish. I think we have a comparatively stronger car this year, so I hope we can have another strong race."

Hamilton's chances of victory last year were hampered by his gear ratio choice - which failed to allow him enough straight-line speed to overtake Vettel in the DRS zone.

He believes that overtaking will again be a big challenge this year - which could further complicate tyre strategy and the balance between qualifying form and race pace.

"It'll be interesting to see how straightforward overtaking will be this year. It's always been a tough place for passing – as I found out last year – but I really hope DRS and KERS-Hybrid combined will make it a little easier," he explained.

"I think it's going to be one of the toughest tracks of the year for overtaking, but I'll be hoping for a strong performance in qualifying in order to make it as straightforward as possible in the race."

McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh thinks the Barcelona race will provide a more realistic picture of what the formbook will be like over the rest of the campaign - because the conditions will be similar to what can be expected at forthcoming events.

"Barcelona should give all the teams a clearer understanding of how the tyres behave in what's likely to be a 'typical' European race climate. But there will still be plenty to learn," he said.

Kimi Raikkonen says his sights are firmly set on victory now, on the back of the strong start to the season that his Lotus team has delivered.

After challenging Sebastian Vettel hard for the win in Bahrain a fortnight ago, Raikkonen sees no reason why his outfit cannot secure a place on the top step of the podium if it gets its act together.

"The car feels good everywhere we've been so far," said Raikkonen, in a team preview issued on Friday.

"I am here to race and I race to win. That is the target for me and the team. We want to win grands prix. We have a good car and we saw in Bahrain it is good enough to win. That's the target."

Raikkonen is under no illusions how close things are at the front of the grid, but he is sure Lotus can build on its double podium finish from Bahrain.

Reflecting on the positives from the Sakhir weekend, Raikkonen said: "I never had any doubts in myself and it is clear we have a good car so in some ways the podium could have come sooner.

"We had the car already in the first three races to be up there, but we made some small mistakes and it cost us a lot. I would have been much happier if we had managed to get the victory, but nevertheless it's a good result and the team deserved it for all their hard work. We have been good in every race so far, so hopefully we will be regular visitors to the podium this season."

He added: "I expect Lotus to be very competitive at Barcelona. It's going to be very, very close between the top teams. This is the only circuit where the teams have already tested with the new cars, and the set up is crucial as the track changes with the wind and temperature. All the teams have updates for the first European race, which makes it even more interesting and even tighter at the top."

Raikkonen also reckons his absence from last week's Mugello test will not hamper him at all in terms of extracting the most from the Lotus car.

"We didn't have any major new parts to test and we don't race at Mugello so I was not crying when it was decided that I wouldn't test," he said. "I know the track well but there was no need for me to drive. I am here to race and that is what I will do in Barcelona."

Kamui Kobayashi believes his Sauber team can head to the Spanish Grand Prix with a degree of confidence about its chances on the back of successful upgrades tried out at Mugello this week.

The Hinwil-based team has had mixed fortunes in the first four races of the season, but Kobayashi thinks the team can deliver on its full potential at the Circuit de Catalunya.

"At the Mugello test I definitely had the feeling our new update to the car is a step forward for us," said the Japanese.

"This is good, of course, but only at the Barcelona circuit will we be able to tell how much of an improvement it really is. Not only because testing never allows for proper comparisons to the competition, but also because the Circuit de Catalunya is special."

Sauber's head of track engineering Giampaolo Dall'Ara says that the true benefit of its upgrade is wholly dependent on the amount of progress its rivals have been able to make.

"We tested a major upgrade to the car in Mugello, consisting of a new front wing and new bodywork, including a different exhaust exit and a new diffuser," he said. "The results of the test were encouraging.

"However, all the teams had some upgrades, and only the next race weekend will give us confirmation whether we are able to strengthen our position compared to our competitors. Nevertheless I'm confident that we can have a strong performance in Barcelona."

[maninblack]

Thanks for the updates!

[Lineker]

You're more than welcome!!

Red Bull Racing team boss Christian Horner says he sees no reason why Mark Webber would want to leave the squad, despite fresh rumours linking the Australian with Ferrari.

Webber has been mooted as a potential replacement for Felipe Massa at the Italian team next year - with some rumours suggesting that a deal is already done - but Horner said there had been no movement for 2013 yet, and that he felt Webber would be happy to stay put.

"Every spring seems to be a reciprocal thing that Mark is going to Ferrari," Horner told AUTOSPORT. "He is not wearing red overalls. I think it is inevitable, almost every driver in the pitlane has been linked alongside Fernando [Alonso] next year, but we are focused on ourselves.

"Mark enjoys being within the team, he is happy here and we are happy with him. At the relevant time later in the year we will sit down and talk about the future as we have done in previous seasons.

"It's something we will talk about later in the year. I'm not aware of any discussion. I think Mark is happy where he is, he is in a strong position here, but inevitably it's part of this business that there is speculation."

Although Webber has yet to take a podium finish in 2012, his pace relative to Red Bull team-mate Sebastian Vettel has been better than last season, and Horner expects that situation to continue all year.

"Mark has driven very well at the first few races," said Horner. "He has been settled in the car, turned up with a different approach this year which has been evident and he's in good shape.

"Four fourths... obviously we would dearly like to see him on the podium but they are vital points and he has driven very strongly. For sure he can put a very strong campaign together.

"I think it is good they push each other, it brings the best out of Sebastian as well. You want team-mates to keep raising the bar. There is a good dynamic between the two of them, they have pushed each other and the car hard, which is what you want."

Formula 1's stock market flotation remains on course to go ahead in Singapore, according to a board member of the sport's commercial rights holding company Delta Topco.

Austrian Peter Braback-Letmathe has been tipped to run the flotation. As well as being on the board of Delta Topco, he is chairman of the board and a former CEO of food giant Nestle.

In an interview with Austrian newspaper Salzburger Nachrichten, Braback-Letmathe confirmed that progress towards the flotation was ongoing, and he was in line for a major role.

"We intend to float F1 in Singapore soon," said Braback-Letmathe. "Some roadshows and presentations have taken place already.

"It's true that I said I would be ready to chair the board in a non-operative function. If F1 goes public it will be important to have an independent chairman."

Braback-Letmathe added that Delta Topco was also aware that it would have to be ready for a post-Bernie Ecclestone future.

"We all hope that Bernie stays healthy for a long time and continues. I am impressed by his efforts," said the Austrian.

"However, it is the duty of a board to secure the succession. At Nestle, I always made sure that any executive board member could be replaced within 24 hours. This would also apply to F1 when it becomes a public company.

"We have to consider the future long-term, with new structures, new individuals, possibly both."

[Lineker]

Jaime Alguersuari will participate in his first on-track Formula 1 running as a Pirelli test driver as the Italian company runs its 2010 Renault R30 for the first time at Jerez this week.

The three day test, which runs from May 7-9, will be aimed at defining the range of 2013 Pirelli tyres. Three further tests are scheduled for Spa, Monza and Barcelona later in the year.

Following its struggles to secure a 2012 test car over the winter, Pirelli has invited teams to send observers to the first running of the R30 in order to ensure no outfit gains an unfair advantage.

Alguersuari, who joined Pirelli alongside Lucas di Grassi in March, said he could not wait to get behind the wheel of a Formula 1 car again.

"No one can imagine my enthusiasm in this very moment: I'm just counting down the minutes to be behind the wheel of the most sophisticated machinery in the world," Alguersuari said. "I could never imagine that I was going to miss so much the taste of Formula 1.

"I want to state my gratitude to Pirelli for their confidence, having had other options, and I'll try to do the best job for them!

"Alongside this role I will keep my post with BBC Radio. I am really grateful to them for giving me the opportunity of joining such a professional team. I'm a happy man."