Formula One 2012

[Katsuya]

Me thinks Vettel should get a penalty.

[LUKIE]

I would be surprised if he didn't get a penalty. He was completely off the track and went around him.

[Katsuya]

Vettel got a 20 second penalty, which was equivalent to a drive-through. Jenson 2nd, Kimi gets 3rd and Kamui gets his best ever finish in 4th, Vettel down to 5th.

[Lineker]

Fernando Alonso set the pace for Ferrari as a late rain shower hampered teams' efforts in what was otherwise a fully dry final free practice session for the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim.

The Formula 1 championship leader hit the front with 26 minutes to go when he became the first man to try soft tyres and set a 1m16.124s.

Lewis Hamilton actually managed to beat that mark by 0.033 seconds despite still having medium tyres on his McLaren, but Alonso's second soft tyre run put back on top with a 1m16.014s.

Whether that mark would have stood to the end on a dry track would remain a moot point, as rain returned in the final six minutes, preventing the usual flurry of late improvements as teams went into full qualifying mode.

In the event, Hamilton managed to improve his sector one time despite the rain, but would stay second.

Sauber's Sergio Perez also showed impressive pace amid drizzle to take third, ahead of the Lotus of Kimi Raikkonen, and the two Red Bulls. Mark Webber was ahead of long-time pacesetter Sebastian Vettel in the end, although the Australian will take a gearbox change penalty in qualifying and lose five places on the grid.

Pastor Maldonado, Felipe Massa, Kamui Kobayashi and Bruno Senna completed the top 10.

Michael Schumacher, Nico Rosberg and Jenson Button were among the drivers who appeared to be focused on longer and heavy fuel runs until the last minutes, leaving them only 15th, 18th and 24th in the final times.

There were few incidents, mar Massa run wide over the bumpy grass on the stadium entry, so the biggest drama was Charles Pic missing much of the session while Marussia carried out a rapid engine change.

FP3


Pos  Driver                Team                  Time               Laps

 1.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari               1m16.014s            14

 2.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes      1m16.091s  + 0.077   21

 3.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari        1m16.202s  + 0.188   21

 4.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault         1m16.238s  + 0.224   27

 5.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault      1m16.447s  + 0.433   19

 6.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault      1m16.475s  + 0.461   18

 7.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault      1m16.664s  + 0.650   18

 8.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari               1m16.771s  + 0.757   15

 9.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari        1m16.801s  + 0.793   25

10.  Bruno Senna           Williams-Renault      1m16.930s  + 0.916   23

11.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault         1m16.962s  + 0.948   26

12.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes  1m17.033s  + 1.019   26

13.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes  1m17.148s  + 1.134   24

14.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m17.238s  + 1.224   25

15.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes              1m17.266s  + 1.252   22

16.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m17.419s  + 1.405   23

17.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes              1m17.491s  + 1.477   26

18.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault      1m18.366s  + 2.352   21

19.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault      1m18.818s  + 2.804   23

20.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth          1m19.778s  + 3.764   22

21.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth     1m20.235s  + 4.221   22

22.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth     1m20.318s  + 4.304    9

23.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth          1m20.741s  + 4.727   22

24.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes      1m20.914s  + 4.900   25


All Timing Unofficial[/code]




Fernando Alonso secured his second straight pole position as German Grand Prix qualifying at Hockenheim became a last-minute scramble on a wet track.



The 10 drivers in the pole shoot-out were all delivering quicker and quicker times as they acclimatised to the circuit conditions in the final moments, and it was Alonso who handled it best, putting in a 1m40.621s to take pole for Ferrari.



World champion and local hero Sebastian Vettel was Alonso's nearest challenger, lapping 0.4 seconds slower than the current points leader as he took second ahead of his Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber, who will drop five places due to a penalty for a gearbox change.



That will move Michael Schumacher into the top three on the grid on home ground. The German legend was on provisional pole for a while before ending up fourth quickest for Mercedes.



Three of the top four places on the grid will go to German drivers, as Force India's Nico Hulkenberg delivered a spectacular fifth-fastest time to give himself a season-best starting spot on row two. His team-mate Paul di Resta also reached Q3 and was ninth.



Pastor Maldonado completed the top six in his Williams, ahead of the two McLarens. Jenson Button was quicker than Lewis Hamilton, as the 2009 champion delivered his best qualifying performance since Bahrain in April.



Kimi Raikkonen was the final Q3 qualifier and rounds off the top 10 for Lotus.



The rain had arrived just before Q2 began, leading to a scramble to get a quick time in on the one or two laps that were always going to be the fastest of the segment. Among those who missed out were two of the men with five-place gearbox change penalties: Romain Grosjean (Lotus) and Nico Rosberg (Mercedes). They were 15th and 17th respectively.



Felipe Massa slithered off the road on his first Q2 lap and rejoined in Ferrari team-mate Fernando Alonso's path. Being blocked did not stop Alonso reaching Q3, but Massa's error consigned him to 14th.



Toro Rosso's Daniel Ricciardo almost made it into the top 10 as the rain he wanted arrived, missing the Q3 cut by just 0.06s. Also out in the middle segment were the two Saubers and Bruno Senna's Williams.



Q1 was fully dry and relatively predictable, although Schumacher, Button and Webber all cut it a little fine in either timing or pace terms. In the event, the eliminated midfielder was Toro Rosso's Jean-Eric Vergne, for the sixth time in his nine grands prix.



Heikki Kovalainen was nearly a second quicker than Caterham team-mate Vitaly Petrov, while Timo Glock found himself outqualified on home ground by Marussia stablemate Charles Pic, despite the rookie's lack of practice mileage.



[code]Qualifying


Pos  Driver                Team                 Time           Gap   

 1.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari              1m40.621s

 2.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault     1m41.026s  + 0.405

 3.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault     1m41.496s  + 1.838

 4.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes             1m42.459s  + 2.880

 5.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes 1m43.501s  + 3.329

 6.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault     1m43.950s  + 3.492

 7.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes     1m44.113s  + 3.565

 8.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes     1m44.186s  + 0.875

 9.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes 1m44.889s  + 4.268

10.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault        1m45.811s  + 5.190

Q2 cut-off time: 1m39.729s                                   Gap **

11.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m39.789s  + 2.424

12.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari       1m39.933s  + 2.568

13.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari       1m39.985s  + 2.620

14.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari              1m40.212s  + 2.847

15.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault        1m40.574s  + 3.209

16.  Bruno Senna           Williams-Renault     1m40.752s  + 3.387

17.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes             1m41.551s  + 4.186

Q1 cut-off time: 1m16.686s                                    Gap *

18.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m16.741s  + 1.048

19.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault     1m17.620s  + 1.927

20.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault     1m18.531s  + 2.838

21.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth    1m19.220s  + 3.527

22.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth    1m19.291s  + 3.598

23.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth         1m19.912s  + 4.219

24.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth         1m20.230s  + 4.537


107% time: 1m20.991s


* Gap to quickest in Q1


** Gap to quickest in Q2

Caterham has made strides with understanding the set-up demands of its heavily upgraded car despite Friday's bad weather at Hockenheim, according to Heikki Kovalainen.

Coming into the German Grand Prix weekend, the Finn complained that rain at Silverstone made it difficult to get the best out of the revised car.

But despite similar conditions at Hockenheim, he has no doubts that the team's understanding of the Caterham CT01, which has run with modified sidepods and exhausts, a new front wing, floor upgrades and a tweaked floor since Silverstone, has improved.

"We are certainly understanding it better and better all the time and confirming the feeling that I had at Silverstone that the back of the car is strong," Kovalainen told AUTOSPORT.

"It's the front of the car that we need to make work better now to balance the car. We still need to do some rebalancing but we're heading in the right direction now."

Kovalainen admitted that the mixed track conditions made it difficult to draw any conclusions.

But despite this he was pleased that the team was able to complete the work it needed to do on Friday in preparation for qualifying and the race.

"It was a tricky day to make a clear conclusion of where we are," he said. "In the morning, we were able to get the programme done that we were planning and we got a lot of data.

"Depending on when you were on the track, the laptimes were changing quite dramatically but nevertheless, we got a good feel for it. So if it rains on Saturday we are ready to go.

"But it's hard to say for sure from the driver feeling because the conditions were inconsistent."

Heikki Kovalainen insists his Caterham team will need more dry running before it can extract the full potential from its recently-introduced upgrades.

The team ran several new parts at Silverstone, but the lack of running in the dry meant it was unable to get them to work to its maximum.

After rain hit both Friday and Saturday sessions in Germany this weekend as well, Kovalainen reckons there is still more to come from the upgrades.

The Finn qualified in 19th position, nearly a second behind his closest rivals, after what he labelled as a perfect lap.

"For where we are right now that was pretty much the perfect lap," said Kovalainen. "I didn't make any mistakes, nailed every apex and had a clean lap, so I'm pleased with what I got out of the car today. Closing the gap to the cars ahead is obviously our target and I think we are still finding out how to unlock the real potential of the upgrade package we first ran in Silverstone.

"Taking the package as a whole there are a lot of elements we need to get right to really use its potential and I think we still need more dry running to really understand what it will really give us.

"We'll keep working on achieving that and perhaps we'll see more of its value tomorrow as it's due to be sunny, and in Hungary where the hotter conditions will definitely suit us better than the cold, wet weather we've had in Germany and at the last race in Silverstone."

Team-mate Vitaly Petrov qualified right behind, albeit nearly a full second off Kovalainen.

Maria de Villota has returned home to Spain to continue her recovery from her testing accident at Duxford just over a fortnight ago.

De Villota suffered severe head and facial injuries, including the loss of her right eye, when her Marussia came into contact with the tail section of a truck at the end of the shakedown run for what was set to be her debut straightline test with the team.

The Spaniard has been in Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge undergoing treatment since the incident on 3 July. She was flown back to Spain on Friday.

A Marussia team statement said being back in Spain was the best option for the next stage of de Villota's treatment.

"Over the course of the past two weeks, Maria has made significant progress," it said. "More comfortable and familiar surroundings, plus the support of her wider family and friends, will undoubtedly provide a more conducive environment in which Maria can commence the next phase of her recovery.

"The Marussia F1 team have remained in close contact with the medical team at Addenbrooke's Hospital since Maria's admittance and would like to express their gratitude for the remarkable care and attention that she has received there.

"The Marussia F1 team - the staff, race drivers Timo Glock and Charles Pic, and all those associated with the team - wish Maria well with the next stage of her recovery. The management team will continue to liaise closely with Maria and her family and provide any assistance possible during the coming months."

Marussia issued a statement on July 16 revealing that an internal investigation had ruled out a car problem as the cause of the accident.

At Hockenheim on Friday, team principal John Booth confirmed that the investigations related to the Health and Safety Executive is ongoing. He added that further checks carried after the British Grand Prix two weeks ago supported the conclusions of the team's internal report.

"We established that [the car was not the cause] but then revisited our findings straight after Silverstone and now we are confident that the car was not to blame in the slightest," said Booth.

"As for the wider investigation, that is ongoing and will be a very long process, as it has to be in England because it's taken very seriously there.

"It will be some time before we know the final outcome."

Fernando Alonso believes that running in the wet weather conditions in Q3 was 'right on the limit' in spite of taking his 21st career pole position in qualifying for the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim.

The world championship leader said on the radio to his Ferrari team during the break between Q2 and Q3 that he felt the conditions were not ideal to drive in, as heavy rain swept over the track.

Q3 went ahead as planned though and as the rain abated slightly, the Spaniard took pole position with a 1m40.621s lap late in the session.

"I think the conditions were still very on the limit, as far as it is the same for everybody, I think sometimes it is good to check the circuit conditions," he said.

"We did Q3 and I think going into T6 it was not easy for anybody, there was a lot of aquaplaning and we are 280/90 km/h so... but you know everything went well for us and we backed off a little bit in those aquaplaning moments and the rest of the lap was clean."

Alonso added that he was relieved to have made it to the end of the session: "In these conditions there are surprises and moments everywhere. It was not fun.

"When you have these conditions its very difficult to put a clean lap together. Those are survival moments, you need to finish the session and see what you can get. Whatever the position, you are happy because you made the finish."

Alonso complimented his team as well for calling him halfway through Q3 to change tyres, which he said assisted his challenge for pole.

"I think also we made a good strategy call doing a pitstop in Q3 and then have a very fresh set of tyres in the last minute. That was when the track was in a little bit better condition and that helped us a lot to improve the laptime."

Alonso's initial lap at the start of Q3 appeared to be disrupted when he came upon his team-mate Felipe Massa at the hairpin, but he denied that he caused him any problems.

"We all wanted to set a time at the start of the session," he said. "We were all in a group and it was very close for a few corners but it was fine."

Sebastian Vettel said he was not happy with his qualifying lap in Q3, and reckons pole position for the German Grand Prix was possible for him.

The Red Bull driver will start from second position after finishing four tenths of a second behind Ferrari rival Fernando Alonso in a session that took place on a very wet track.

Vettel said his quickest lap of the session had been far from perfect, and was convinced his car had the pace to be on pole.

"I was not happy with my lap," admitted the German. "Fernando's strategy was a bit quicker. I could have gone quicker but we don't know if it would have been good enough.

"In these conditions it is tricky, you lose the car a little bit over the rivers on the track and you are on a different place than you targeted to be but it's tricky. Nevertheless we had the pace today to put the car on pole in the end. I think it was possible.

"We need to have a look at what Fernando did at the end with the strategy, maybe that was the better way to do it but overall I think in these conditions it's a bit of a lottery as well."

Vettel is hopeful his Red Bull will be stronger than on Friday following some set-up changes, but the world champion admitted it was hard to get the car right given the changeable weather.

"The car is not bad if we get in the right window so we need to look at what we've done in practice this morning. With the conditions changing we can't find consistency but I think the changes we've made should be a step," he said.

The Red Bull driver said he had lost a lap of running in Q3 because of team-mate Mark Webber, who will start the race from eighth place.

"I lost a lap obviously running into him but it's difficult in these conditions and you can see nothing in the mirror so probably he didn't see me and then with two laps to the chequered flag you can't back off to get your lap again. For sure, I lost a little bit but the track was best at the end. The last lap was not completely clean."

Mark Webber admitted he would have qualified better for the German Grand Prix had he followed polesitter Fernando Alonso's example and put on fresh wet tyres during Q3 at Hockenheim, but said he was still satisfied with third fastest.

Alonso took pole ahead of Webber's Red Bull team-mate Sebastian Vettel.

"We could have maybe, like Fernando, stopped but should have, would have, could have doesn't count," said Webber. "We're third now."

Webber admitted that his tyres were too worn to perform when the track was at its fastest in the closing moments.

"It was a very intense, tricky session for drivers and engineers with decisions," said Webber.

"It was a challenge for us. In Q3, definitely to arrive on the straights in seventh gear was sometimes not possible, to use the kerbs wasn't possible and there was extremely heavy aquaplaning. When the car has wheelspin at 280km/h, it certainly gets your attention.

"So we had to juggle a few balls. We arrived at the end of the lap in reasonable shape. It was becoming obvious that that times were going to be done at the end but our tyres weren't in the best shape at the end."

The Australian will be put down to eighth on the grid as a penalty for an unscheduled gearbox change on his Red Bull on Saturday morning.

"We wanted to be on the front row but eighth with the penalty is OK and we can race from there," Webber said. "We're going to aim to go forward. It's not the best position to start from, it's not ideal, but we have to aim to come forward and let's see how the race goes.

"I did a better job than the other guys who got a five-place penalty."

Pedro de la Rosa called for more respect for drivers in slower cars after being impeded by a rival during qualifying for the German Grand Prix.

The Spaniard, driving for back-of-the-grid squad HRT, said a faster car had ruined his quickest lap in Q1, leaving him down in 23rd position.

De la Rosa believes his lap would have been good enough to finish ahead of the two Marussias.

"It could have been a very good qualifying session, because towards the end I was nine tenths under my time, but on the last two corners I had another car ahead and we lost two positions," said de la Rosa.

"We must all respect each other but now we have to look ahead.

"Leaving that aside, I think we did a good practice session this morning and a good qualifying session; the car performed well and we would have been very close to the Marussias.

"But the important stuff comes tomorrow and we have to focus on getting off to a good start and fighting until the end. We expect a dry race, but on the evidence of these last few days anything is possible."

HRT team-mate Narain Karthikeyan qualified in 24th.

Kamui Kobayashi is convinced he would have easily qualified in the top 10 for the German Grand Prix had it not been wet during the grid-deciding session.

The Sauber driver made it into Q2 without having to use the medium tyres, but he struggled for pace when the rain hit the track during the second qualifying segment.

In the end Kobayashi had to settle for 13th position.

"It is a pity because I'm sure in dry conditions we would easily have been in Q3, as we had a very good pace," said Kobayashi. "I even refrained from using soft tyres, and the lap I did on the medium compound was good enough for Q2. But then in the wet we didn't make it.

"In dry conditions my car is really good. In the wet it is a lot better than it was on Friday when I struggled badly. We found something wrong and did some changes, but it is still not completely right."

Team-mate Sergio Perez, 12th in qualifying, also believes his team would have enjoyed a much stronger day had it not rained.

"It is such a shame," said Perez. "It looked really promising for us until the rain set in. After I changed to soft tyres I ended up second fastest in Q1.

"Then we went out late on intermediates in Q2 and I was stuck in traffic. I had cars in front of me, but could not back off as there were some behind me as well."

Romain Grosjean is worried about his car's lack of pace after a disappointing qualifying for the German Grand Prix.

The Lotus driver was only 15th in Q2, and he will move further down the grid as one of three drivers taking penalties for gearbox changes. But he said he was more concerned with the performance of his car rather than his grid drop.

"A penalty is bad in any case," Grosjean told reporters in the Hockenheim paddock. "But what worries me today is the lack of performance in the dry in Q1. I didn't feel any grip, so we need to work, to analyse, and to get better for tomorrow.

"It felt like the rain came down on my car before the others. No grip in Q1, it was a very difficult session."

Team-mate Kimi Raikkonen topped Q1 in the dry, which Grosjean feels highlights how much trouble he was in on Saturday afternoon.

"Kimi was fastest, so his car was good," Grosjean added. "But we were almost one second behind, which is far too much. So we will try to understand it.

"We need to find the pace. If we want to come back in any way then we have to get the pace in the car. At the moment we don't have it, so hopefully we find it through the night.

"We have to analyse what was wrong, and get back to the level we know from the last few races in the dry. And then we can overtake people."

[Lewis Hamilton admitted he was confused about where his pace went at the end of German Grand Prix qualifying after only managing eighth place in Q3.

The result marked the first time all season that Hamilton had been outqualified by his McLaren team-mate Jenson Button, who was seventh fastest.

Hamilton had been quickest by 0.6 seconds in Q2, which was hit by a shower at the start, so could not understand why his speed faded in similar conditions in the following qualifying segment.

"It does have to come together and we have to put in the laps but I was doing alright for a while and I don't understand what happened in the end," he said.

"It was looking good until it got really wet but I don't know what happened at the end. I was quite quick and then I don't know if the tyres went off or lost temperature. The track was drying up so we should have gone faster but we didn't."

The Briton did not think the timing of his final lap was a factor.

"For sure, the track was drying so it would be better [to have another lap] but I had one lap at the end and I went straight off so it was like driving on ice for us," said Hamilton.

He is determined to make progress in Sunday's grand prix.

"Tomorrow will be a tough race and I plan to hunt down everyone in front," Hamilton said.

He added: "The great thing about here is that you have big DRS down the back so hopefully we will do some big overtaking tomorrow."

Jenson Button is undaunted by McLaren's grid positions for the German Grand Prix as he believes the team's dry weather pace is far superior to what it managed in the wet in Hockenheim qualifying.

Button and team-mate Lewis Hamilton were seventh and eighth quickest in the rain-hit Q3, having struggled to make their wet tyres work.

But having concentrated on his race set-up in the morning's mostly dry practice session, where he posted the slowest time, Button thinks the McLaren is in very good shape for the race.

"I definitely think we should aim for [a podium] and I think we should aim even higher, in dry conditions we have made some good improvements to the car aerodynamically and mechanically and it is just in the wet where we struggle with tyre temperature," said Button.

"The car feels good in the dry and I have done a lot of high-fuel running so we have a lot of information other people don't.

"On Friday we did three long runs and today I did two long runs so I feel we are more ready to race than anyone," he added.

Despite his optimism for the race Button says he is still unsure why he cannot make the tyres work in wet conditions.

"The tyre isn't working, it is just skating and you spend the whole time so fearful that it is just going to send you off into the goonies," he said.

"It wasn't very good really, just really struggling with the same issues we always have in these conditions. We just can't get the tyres working and I've driven F1 cars for 12 or 13 years and I know what it is like to drive in the wet and I know what it feels like when you can't get the tyres working."

Sauber's Sergio Perez will be demoted five places on the German Grand Prix after stewards ruled that he had impeded other cars in qualifying.

The Mexican had qualified 12th, but was found guilty of blocking both Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso in Q2.

A statement from the stewards said the penalty was "imposed due to the driver being involved in two similar offences in the same session."

Perez is the fourth driver to be given a grid penalty for the Hockenheim race. Mark Webber, Romain Grosjean and Nico Rosberg are already facing five-place drops for unscheduled gearbox changes on their cars.

Nico Hulkenberg believes holding on to fourth position will be a big challenge in Sunday's German Grand Prix tomorrow.

The Force India driver secured his best qualifying result of the year when he finished as fifth fastest in the wet session. He will start from fourth, however, after third-placed Mark Webber was handed a penalty for a gearbox change.

Hulkenberg said he was happy with the result, but he is aware that staying in that position will be difficult given the pace of the cars behind in the dry.

"I'm fairly happy, to be honest, although in Q3 I felt better in the car in the beginning when it was wetter and in the end when it was drier I was struggling a bit more," said Hulkenberg.

"To bring it back home in that position is the challenge tomorrow, and it's quite a big task. We will try to defend as best as we can, but the pressure is always there because is ahead and we are in need to score points. We can only do what we can and get the maximum out of this weekend."

The German downplayed the effect luck had on his result, however, saying his team had done a very good job in managing the conditions.

"It was not just luck," he said. "I think it was a good performance by us. We were on the track in the right moments and I did the laps in the right moments. It's the second row only because Mark has a penalty, but even fifth place we can be quite happy with that."

And the Force India driver said his car was set up for a dry race.

"We didn't change the car for the wet," he added.

Felipe Massa has ruled out fighting for a strong result in the German Grand Prix after a poor qualifying on Saturday.

The Brazilian was caught out by the weather conditions and failed to complete a flying lap at the start of the second qualifying segment.

When he did manage a lap, the track was already too wet and he was unable to set a competitive time that would allow him to reach Q3.

Massa qualified down in 14th place, 13 positions behind Ferrari team-mate Fernando Alonso.

"It's a real shame, because the car was and is competitive, both in the wet and in the dry, but tomorrow I will start too far back to fight for the top places," said Massa.

"I will do my very best, as always. It will be important to choose the right tyres at the right moment. We have some idea, but it's a fact we were unable to do many long runs over these two days."

The Ferrari driver admitted it had been a mistake at Turn 8 that cost him the chance to set a lap early on in Q2.

"I did not manage to do a time at the start of Q2 because I went wide at Turn 8 and so was unable to put together a good lap in the only window available to do so. At that point on the track, the Tarmac is different and it is very easy to lock the wheels and thus lose a lot of time.

"Then, it was raining so hard that there was aquaplaning. I had to try and stay on track while also trying to improve my time, but the conditions meant this was absolutely not possible, even when I tried with the extremes."

Bruno Senna says the gap to his Williams team-mate Pastor Maldonado was down to a very small difference in tyre temperature in qualifying for the German Grand Prix.

While Maldonado went on to make Q3 and qualify sixth-fastest, Senna was eliminated in the previous session, setting the 16th best time after the rain fell just before Q2.

But Senna explained afterwards that his intermediate tyres fell out of the ideal operating temperature window, which meant he was powerless to fight higher up the grid.

"It was a bit of a lottery, as it is with these conditions," Senna told AUTOSPORT. "The difference between my tyre conditions and Pastor's was absolutely minimal. It just proves how small the window is with these tyres.

"The smallest difference in temperature can make the biggest difference in laptime, and if you are in the wrong window you are nowhere.

"I absolutely hate making excuses, but sometimes you have to accept that the window is very, very small, and you need to get that right to do anything competitive."

The Brazilian added that the struggles endured by Nico Rosberg and Romain Grosjean, who also fell out in Q2, proved how tricky it was to get the intermediate tyres working.

"Rosberg was behind me," he said. "Grosjean was quick yesterday but he struggled today. It's not really a situation that rewards driving, it's more luck. If you are in the right window then suddenly you are fast.

"We were competitive in the dry in Q1 so we can look forward to the race. But starting from where I am, instead of scoring 10 or 12 points, we can score one or two maximum. You can only overtake so many cars."

McLaren sporting director Sam Michael believes victory is a realistic goal in the German Grand Prix despite Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton starting back in sixth and seventh.

The British duo struggled in wet qualifying, although both gained a place from Mark Webber's gearbox-change penalty.

But with the weather expected to clear up for race day, Michael is very confident about what the upgraded McLaren can do on a dry track.

Asked to assess McLaren's dry pace, he replied: "Very competitive for us, we were very strong in P1 and in P3 on all the tyres and on race fuel loads in particular."

Michael declined to compare McLaren's likely race speed with top qualifiers Ferrari and Red Bull, but said: "All I know is what we did and what we normally do compared to them and all our data shows that we should have a very strong race car tomorrow."

When asked if McLaren could win on Sunday, Michael said: "Yes, that is our target."

He does not think the fact that the team has very little dry mileage on its major upgrade package will be any kind of disadvantage because he is confident the performance gain available from the new parts has been accurately predicted.

"Our correlation this year has been really strong," said Michael. "I don't think there has been one item that in the end we have been confused about so the correlation has been good."

The McLarens were 3.5 seconds off the pace in the wet Q3 session at Hockenheim, which Michael put down to not getting the Pirelli wets working correctly.

"I think operationally we managed everything right so it is just a matter of understanding how to get the tyres working better because when you are 3.5 seconds off pole that is not 'chip away and find a couple of tenths', that is a switch between it working and not working," he admitted.

"Our dry pace in P1 and P3 has been good so our focus right now is on tomorrow and then in the background understanding how to improve our performance on wets."

Ross Brawn blamed Nico Rosberg's struggles to get temperature into intermediate rubber for the German's poor qualifying performance at Hockenheim.

Rosberg was slowest in Q2 after failing to set a quick time on intermediate rubber. By the time he made a second attempt on wets, conditions were too bad to manage a time anywhere near the top 10. Rosberg will also take a five-place penalty for a gearbox change after a problem on Friday.

Brawn pointed out that while Michael Schumacher, who was fourth fastest in qualifying, was happy with the tyres in those conditions, Rosberg was not.

"Rather peculiarly, Nico was pretty happy with his dry tyre performance and not the wet and Michael was vice versa," said Brawn. "Nico was the fastest on the prime tyre, but struggled to get the temperature into the intermediate for Q2. Michael was the opposite.

"With Nico, we missed the window when the intermediates worked. There was no way we were going to be able to run around on the intermediate in the second half of Q2 as it would just be too wet.

"The frustration was that we didn't manage to get the tyres working well in the first half of Q2. If we didn't get the tyres working in the first half of Q2, we suffered. And we weren't alone in suffering.

"It wasn't a mistake as such but it was a problem that we didn't get the intermediates that Nico went out on up to temperature. Michael was able to do that and the difference in laptime between them was down to that."

Rosberg admitted that he struggled on his set of intermediates, even though he has no doubts that on warm tyres he would have been able to match Schumacher's pace.

"If I had intermediates [up to temperature] on my car then I could do that time too," he said. "On the set that I had, it was just not working. There was no warm-up and I was sliding all over the place."

Despite Rosberg's gearbox problem, Brawn has no doubts that the Mercedes unit will be reliable from now on.

The team introduced a carbon fibre gearbox casing at the Spanish Grand Prix in May and changes have been made to prevent a repeat of the problem.

"It was introduced at Barcelona and Michael and Nico both ran their first five-race cycle with that box," said Brawn. "When we investigated Nico's box we found that there was a dis-bond within the gearbox itself but we don't know what caused it.

"We've got some reinforcement in that area and we don't expect a problem."

Post-qualifying press conference

TV UNILATERAL

Q. Congratulations Fernando, a second successive pole, but we heard on the team radio before the start of Q3 saying it was just too dangerous to go out there. It's stopped raining now so do you want to go back and do it again?

Fernando ALONSO: Well, I think it's still on the limit, the conditions. As far as it's the same for everybody, I think sometimes it's good to check the circuit conditions. But we did Q3, but I think going into turn six it was not easy for anybody - there was a lot of aquaplaning and we are at 280-290km/h. But you know, I think everything went well for us. We got caught a little bit in those aquaplaning moments but the rest of the lap was clean. I also think we made a good strategy call, doing a pit stop in Q3 and then having very fresh tyres in the last minute when the track was in a little bit better condition and I think that helped us a lot to improve the lap time.

Q. Sebastian, second on the grid for you, and the first time you've beaten a team-mate in the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim. You and Mark were running quite close together. You could have gone a bit faster? Were you held up?

Sebastian VETTEL: Well, I lost a lap obviously running into him, but it's difficult in these conditions. You can see nothing in the mirror. He probably didn't see me and then with two laps to go the chequered flag, or the finish line, you can't back off enough to let people go, and get your lap again. So, for sure that lost a little bit but the track was best at the end, so it was the last lap, which not entirely clean. In these conditions it's extremely tricky. You lose the car a little bit over the rivers on the track and you're in a different place than you target to be. So, tricky but nevertheless I think we had the pace today to put the car on pole in the end, I think the lap time was possible. We need to look at what Fernando did at the end, as he touched on, with the strategy. Maybe that was a better way to do it. But overall I think that in these conditions it's always a bit of a lottery as well. You can lose the car without doing any mistake, in aquaplaning conditions. So, fortunately we didn't lose it and yeah we are on the first row which is good, and I'm starting on the inside as well so we'll see what happens tomorrow.

Q. For you Mark, going into qualifying you knew there was a five-place penalty coming your way, so how much trickier did the conditions makes things: knowing that if you did run wide or crash that would totally ruin your race?

Mark WEBBER: Yeah. Tricky for all of us – dodgy conditions, especially when it got wet. Obviously, I did a better job than the other guys who have five-place penalty. It was very, very easy for all of us to not get it right today. So I'm very happy to be quite a long way up. We could have done a bit better here and there perhaps but we did our best out there at that point. We could have maybe done something when Fernando stopped but ifs, buts, 'shoulda', ‘coulda', ‘woulda': it doesn't count. We're third. Eighth now with the penalty for the gearbox but looking to come forward tomorrow.

Q. Back to you Fernando. How confident are you for tomorrow that your Ferrari is the car for all conditions, whatever the German weather might throw at it this weekend?

FA: Yeah, it has been a strange weekend for conditions on the track. I think we have touched on all conditions through the weekend – we've run on inters, extreme and dry tyres both days, and tomorrow the same. If we have to repeat the same thing we will do it. But a dry race: the forecast should be a little bit better for tomorrow so let's see. But I think that the car was performing well in all conditions so we are quite optimistic for tomorrow.

Q. Sebastian, if I could turn to you briefly. We've seen Ferrari and Red Bull [battling for victory] at the last race in Silverstone. Is that a foretaste of the season to come? Is it Ferrari and Red Bull that will be having the closest battles at the sharp end?

SV: I don't think so. I think there are also other teams you still need to be aware of, there's still a long way to go. There's no big difference in points so far. I don't think you can rule out McLaren. They have been extremely quick in qualifying though in the last qualifying on the extremes I don't know quite what went wrong but they were quite a bit far behind. They will be extremely quick tomorrow. Lotus have been extremely quick in the race in the last couple of races. So it's still extremely close I would say. It looks like we are consistent and consistently strong, able to finish in the top three, which is the key. So we try to do our best tomorrow and see what the weather does. I think the forecast looks dry so we'll see where we are.

Q. For your Mark: you can at least do a little bit of overtaking during the race tomorrow. Is this the right track; are these the right conditions; are you in the right car to try to achieve that?

MW: Of course. We'll aim to go forward, for sure. We've shown the car is strong in all conditions and we're going to look to come through. But we have many, many quick cars out there. It's never ideal to put ourselves on the back foot by shooting ourselves in the foot, with some penalties here and there but we'll keep boxing and we're looking forward to the grand prix tomorrow.

PRESS CONFERENCE

Q.Well Fernando, give us some idea what it was like to be out there: fun? Difficult? Incredibly difficult?

FA: Not fun, that's for sure. I think the problem is that you don't know the conditions. It was similar in Silverstone. You wait five, seven minutes in the garage and then you have completely different grip and completely different standing water in places that you don't expect. So in the out-laps you try to memorise a little bit where the water is and how much to push, to feel a little bit with the car the grip. Then you start opening the lap you go surprise after surprise with the car, having moments everywhere, especially with aquaplaning into Turn Six. So, it was not easy qualifying for anybody, and at the end it was a good result but, as you ask, it was not fun for sure.

Q.But hugely satisfying, presumably, to be on pole?

FA: Yeah, very. I think when you have this type of conditions it's very difficult to put a clean lap together and it's very easy to finish in the gravel or to finish in the grass, the wall or whatever. So, those type of conditions are a little bit of a survival moment, that you need to finish the qualifying and see afterwards what position you get. You try to complete the lap, to avoid any problem, and then whatever the position is, you are happy, because you know you were at the maximum, or you felt that you were at the maximum. So when they tell you, you are on pole, it's obviously a very happy moment. But the race is tomorrow, today was good but we need to concentrate for tomorrow and also look at the sky - because the weather has been so changeable at the moment – yesterday and today – and tomorrow we need to be ready for anything.

Q.There was a bit of a worrying Ferrari moment in Q2 there.

FA: It was close. It started raining at the beginning of Q2 and we all wanted to set a time at the beginning of the session because we expected more rain to come. The first or second lap we knew was the best moment to set a time. So we were all in a group. Felipe had a moment in Turn Six and then in Turn Eight and we were very close but it was fine in the end.

Q.Sebastian, does July look a little bit better now?

SV: I think it can't be that bad, I was born in July, so... I said it on Thursday and nothing has changed. I think it was an interesting session, and as Fernando said, things can go completely the other way from what you expect. So, I was not entirely happy with the lap I had in the end when conditions were best. Potentially the strategy Fernando had in the end was a little bit quicker – but nevertheless I think I could have gone a little bit quicker. Whether it would have been quick enough, we'll never know. I will see what we can get tomorrow. We saw Mark getting frustrated with other cars – was that the case for all of you?

SV: What do you mean frustrated with other cars? There was obviously somebody ahead of him...

SV: Well, I think the thing is, if you are too close to someone in these conditions you can't see nothing. I was catching up Mark and in the mirrors obviously you can't see nothing, so I guess he couldn't see me. I don't think he had intention to hold me up. Obviously I lost two laps because of that. But, as I said, the fastest was still the last one. And then if you keep catching someone up, even if he's still three, four, five seconds down the road, you go on the straight, the spray comes up, you see nothing, you don't see the rivers and all of a sudden you are sideways. The car is in seventh gear, 280kph and it's a surprise. So yeah, it's on the limit but obviously you have to do your best under these conditions, everyone else is pushing as well, so no choice.

Q. How do you feel about the car in the dry, which we hope it will be tomorrow?

SV: I think it should be dry. Obviously I grew up more or less here in the area. I'm surprised it's that bad actually, in July, because July is always a nice month weather-wise. Yeah, so, I hope for a good race tomorrow, looking forward. I think the car is not bad if we get in the right window – so we need to see what we've done this morning and qualifying. Obviously with the conditions changing so much you never find consistency and you can't really test one thing against another. But I think the speed is there, we just need to find out how the car works best. Obviously now we can't change anything but I think the changes we've made should be a step forward, especially in the dry.

Mark, your best qualifying position here, things look a little bit better for you. It hasn't always been lucky, as we mentioned the other day.

MW: Yeah, as the other guys have touched on, it was an intense, tricky session for drivers, engineers, decisions. Yeah, it was a challenge for us. I think in Q3, definitely to arrive on the straight in seventh gear was sometimes not possible. To use the KERS wasn't possible, there was extremely heavy aquaplaning, so when the cars are having wheelspin at 280ks it certainly gets your attention. So we had to juggle a few balls, and make sure we arrived at the end of each lap in reasonable shape. It was becoming obvious that the times were going to be done at the end but I think there was a few people out there with tyres not in the best shape at the end, so Fernando's strategy looked pretty good. But in the end I was happy with my lap; happy to be up there again. Yeah, would have liked to have been on the front row. Obviously every position I gained was better against the penalty that I have for the gearbox – but eighth is still OK here, we can race from there.

Q.What are you hoping for tomorrow, a podium at least?

MW: A win. No. Well, y'know. We've got to aim to come forward, I mean that's what we've got to do. It's not the best position to start the grand prix, that's clear. To start eighth is not ideal but we have to aim to come forward and let's see what happens at the front, let's see how the race goes. We've had limited running in the dry, there's been snapshots of information for the teams to get some information. I'm positive going into the race and will try to pick some people off over the course of the grand prix.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q. (Adrian Huber - EFE) Fernando, you've had massive performance on dry tyres, on wet, extreme wet; are you happy also with the direction that the car is developing? And the next question is, would you be happy with a podium tomorrow or are you aiming for your 30th victory?

FA: Yeah, the car is performing well in all conditions this weekend, which didn't always happen: we were quick on inters and not extreme and vice versa, sometimes good on wets and not so competitive on dries but it's true that this weekend both Felipe and me were happy with the balance of the car and also quite competitive in all conditions, so overall, until now it's been a very good weekend for us in terms of car performance, but we need to finish the job tomorrow. Tomorrow we will try to do our best; whatever the position will be at the end is difficult to know because we didn't have enough dry running, I think, to know about degradation, tyre performance etc, because Friday we had some rain in FP1 and this morning in FP3 was not a big preparation for the race either, so tomorrow is a question mark for everybody. We will all start the race in the same condition with some things to learn during the race, very open in strategy, very flexible because, as I said, we don't have enough information from the weekend so far.

Q. (Michael Schmidt - Auto, Motor und Sport) Fernando, how crucial was it that you changed tyres in Q3; your main rivals didn't do that?

FA: I think it was a very good decision in the end, because obviously I didn't know what timed lap you could do if you kept running but as soon as I put on the second set of tyres, I found a little bit more grip in the car. Also the track was improving obviously, but I think we improved a little bit more thanks to the tyres, not only the track conditions, so I'm happy with the strategy today and I think it was the right call.

Q. (Marc Ellerich - Sport 1.de) Sebastian, can you describe what it is like to drive when you can't see out there? How do you drive, do you hear, do you smell; how is it possible, I can't imagine?

SV: Of course you can see a little bit. It's not as if you could close your eyes and it's the same. Don't get me wrong, but you can't see where the track is going. Obviously you know where it's going, you don't need a map to find out where you are but all you see is just the very first bit in front of your car. There are rivers everywhere and there's probably only two lanes: one for the left hand side, one for the right hand side. If you are in that, you are more or less OK but as soon as you are a little bit left, a little bit to the right, a little bit to the left of that then you are in trouble. As soon as the car aquaplanes you are a passenger so there's not much you can do. Obviously once you start to brake and the spray decreases, it gets much better, but the closer you are to another car the worse it is. Even if you are four/five seconds behind on the straights, it's always worse. If you are the first car out and there's no one ahead of you, it's not a big big problem You still have to drive your way around the puddles and the rivers but at least you can see where you're going. It's not the nicest feeling but that's how it is.

Q. (Carlos Miguel - La Gaceta) Fernando, you must be aggressive at the start of the race, because Sebastian makes very good starts this season and last year?

FA: Yes, we will see. Obviously it will depend on how the start is. Sometimes you feel a good start straightaway and you concentrate on the first corner line. If you feel too much wheelspin or too little, you try to cover it a little bit to protect your position, but obviously the race is long, 67 laps in front of us and everything isn't finished at the first corner. So far, our starts have probably been the best this year so I'm not too worried at the moment.

Q. (Marc Ellerich - Sport 1.de) Sebastian, today it was very wet and it's probably going to be dry tomorrow, so how is it to change conditions for your team and for yourself?

SV: Well, I think we had some laps in the dry this weekend but for sure at the start of the race it will be difficult for all of us. Not all of us have done runs on heavy fuel. I think the McLarens did but I don't think Ferrari and us did this morning, so we will see, but it shouldn't be a big problem. We know the circuit pretty well and hopefully we will find the braking point for - not necessarily the first corner but the second corner and then the hairpin and then yeah, you have time to get into the rhythm.

[Lineker]

Vettel given time penalty.

Fernando Alonso extended his Formula 1 world championship lead by fending off Sebastian Vettel and a resurgent Jenson Button to win the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim.

Alonso never had a huge lead in his Ferrari, but did enough to keep the chasing Red Bull and McLaren at bay. In the end he was helped by Vettel and Button battling to the finish, their dice finally settled by a penultimate-lap pass from the Red Bull.

The result stretched Alonso's championship cushion to 34 points, as Silverstone winner Mark Webber finished a muted eighth.

In a similar scenario to the previous race in Britain, Alonso spent the grand prix under increasing pressure. The Ferrari established a slight cushion over Vettel's Red Bull in the opening stint on soft tyres, then came under greater threat once they changed to medium Pirellis at the first pitstops.

By that time Button was also in the fight. The Briton overtook Michael Schumacher and Nico Hulkenberg early on, then closed in on the top two, gaining some ground when his team-mate Lewis Hamilton - who had been delayed with an early puncture - unlapped himself from Vettel.

Stopping a lap earlier than the champion at the final tyre changes then allowed Button to sweep into second place. He resisted Vettel's attempted retaliation at the hairpin, and then set off after Alonso.

But in the closing laps it was Button who was under pressure as Vettel attacked. The Red Bull went down the outside into the hairpin with a lap to go and used the run-off area on the exit to complete a pass then did not impress Button, although the Briton still claimed his first podium since April's Chinese GP. The stewards are investigating the move.

Kimi Raikkonen took an ultimately lonely fourth for Lotus, as the Saubers showed great race pace and tyre life - Kamui Kobayashi and Sergio Perez coming through to fifth and sixth from their midfield grid slots.

Perez held on amid late pressure from Schumacher's Mercedes, which was running a three-stop strategy and charging back on fresh soft tyres.

Webber never featured near the front and took eighth, just ahead of Hulkenberg. The Force India driver drifted down the order as the race progressed, with his team-mate Paul di Resta ending up behind Nico Rosberg's Mercedes in 11th. Rosberg also pitted three times and managed to make up ground well after his practice and qualifying dramas.

Hamilton was one of several drivers delayed in first-lap incidents in which either contact or debris caused damage. The McLaren eventually retired, while fellow early pit visitors Felipe Massa, Bruno Senna and Romain Grosjean kept racing and got back to 12th, 17th and 18th respectively. Also in trouble was Senna's Williams team-mate Pastor Maldonado, who appeared to be suffering high tyre wear as he slumped to 15th.

PROVISIONAL RACE RESULTS


The German Grand Prix

Hockenheimring, Germany;

67 laps; 306.458km;

Weather: Sunny.


Classified:


Pos  Driver        Team                       Time

 1.  Alonso        Ferrari                    1h31:05.862

 2.  Vettel        Red Bull-Renault           +     3.732

 3.  Button        McLaren-Mercedes           +     6.949

 4.  Raikkonen     Lotus-Renault              +    16.409

 5.  Kobayashi     Sauber-Ferrari             +    21.925

 6.  Perez         Sauber-Ferrari             +    27.896

 7.  Schumacher    Mercedes                   +    28.960

 8.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault           +    46.900

 9.  Hulkenberg    Force India-Mercedes       +    48.162

10.  Rosberg       Mercedes                   +    48.889

11.  Di Resta      Force India-Mercedes       +    59.227

12.  Ricciardo     Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +  1:11.428

13.  Massa         Ferrari                    +  1:16.829

14.  Vergne        Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +  1:16.965

15.  Maldonado     Williams-Renault           +     1 lap

16.  Petrov        Caterham-Renault           +     1 lap

17.  Senna         Williams-Renault           +     1 lap

18.  Grosjean      Lotus-Renault              +     1 lap

19.  Kovalainen    Caterham-Renault           +    2 laps

20.  Pic           Marussia-Cosworth          +    2 laps

21.  De la Rosa    HRT-Cosworth               +    3 laps

22.  Glock         Marussia-Cosworth          +    3 laps

23.  Karthikeyan   HRT-Cosworth               +    3 laps


Fastest lap: Schumacher, 1:18.275  


Not classified/retirements:


Driver        Team                         On lap

Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes             58



World Championship standings, round 10:                


Drivers:                    Constructors:             

 1.  Alonso       154        1.  Red Bull-Renault          238

 2.  Webber       120        2.  Ferrari                   177

 3.  Vettel       118        3.  McLaren-Mercedes          157

 4.  Raikkonen     95        4.  Lotus-Renault             156

 5.  Hamilton      92        5.  Mercedes                  105

 6.  Rosberg       76        6.  Sauber-Ferrari             78

 7.  Button        65        7.  Williams-Renault           47

 8.  Grosjean      61        8.  Force India-Mercedes       46

 9.  Perez         47        9.  Toro Rosso-Ferrari          6

10.  Kobayashi     31       

11.  Maldonado     29       

12.  Schumacher    29       

13.  Di Resta      27       

14.  Massa         23       

15.  Hulkenberg    19       

16.  Senna         18       

17.  Vergne         4       

18.  Ricciardo      2       


All timing unofficial[/code]




Sebastian Vettel has been handed a penalty for his overtaking move on Jenson Button in the German Grand Prix.



The Red Bull driver passed his McLaren rival for second with less than two laps to go by running off track at the exit of the hairpin.



Vettel's move was illegal, according to the stewards, who imposed a post-race drive-through penalty on the German, meaning 20 seconds have been added to his finishing time.



"Car 1 left the track and gained an advantage when he rejoined. Breach of article 20.2 of the FIA Formula 1 sporting regulations," said the stewards.



"Drive-through penalty, imposed after the race in accordance with article 16.3 (20 seconds added to the elapsed race time."



The German drops from second to fifth, promoting Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen to third.



[code]Revised results and standings:


Pos  Driver        Team                       

 1.  Alonso        Ferrari

 2.  Button        McLaren-Mercedes

 3.  Raikkonen     Lotus-Renault

 4.  Kobayashi     Sauber-Ferrari

 5.  Vettel        Red Bull-Renault

 6.  Perez         Sauber-Ferrari

 7.  Schumacher    Mercedes

 8.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault

 9.  Hulkenberg    Force India-Mercedes

10.  Rosberg       Mercedes

11.  Di Resta      Force India-Mercedes

12.  Ricciardo     Toro Rosso-Ferrari

13.  Massa         Ferrari

14.  Vergne        Toro Rosso-Ferrari

15.  Maldonado     Williams-Renault

16.  Petrov        Caterham-Renault

17.  Senna         Williams-Renault

18.  Grosjean      Lotus-Renault

19.  Kovalainen    Caterham-Renault

20.  Pic           Marussia-Cosworth

21.  De la Rosa    HRT-Cosworth

22.  Glock         Marussia-Cosworth

23.  Karthikeyan   HRT-Cosworth


Not classified/retirements:


Driver        Team

Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes


World Championship standings, round 10:


Drivers:                    Constructors:

 1.  Alonso       154        1.  Red Bull-Renault          230

 2.  Webber       120        2.  Ferrari                   177

 3.  Vettel       110        3.  McLaren-Mercedes          160

 4.  Raikkonen     98        4.  Lotus-Renault             159

 5.  Hamilton      92        5.  Mercedes                  105

 6.  Rosberg       76        6.  Sauber-Ferrari             80

 7.  Button        68        7.  Williams-Renault           47

 8.  Grosjean      61        8.  Force India-Mercedes       46

 9.  Perez         47        9.  Toro Rosso-Ferrari          6

10.  Kobayashi     33

11.  Maldonado     29

12.  Schumacher    29

13.  Di Resta      27

14.  Massa         23

15.  Hulkenberg    19

16.  Senna         18

17.  Vergne         4

18.  Ricciardo      2


All timing unofficial

The FIA has referred Red Bull to the stewards of the German Grand Prix for a suspected breach of Formula 1's technical regulations.

A statement released by FIA Formula 1 technical delegate Jo Bauer said that the matter related to the engine torque maps on both Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber's cars.

The FIA highlighted that the reduced torque in the mid rpm range on both cars was a breach of the regulations in itself, but also because it could offer an illegal aerodynamic benefit as well.

This suggests that the FIA suspects that there could be a benefit related to the exhaust blown diffuser technology that was effectively curbed at the start of the season through a package of regulations that included those covering engine mapping.

"Having examined the engine base torque map of car numbers 01 and 02 it became apparent that the maximum torque output of both engines is significantly less in the mid rpm range than previously seen at other events," said Bauer in the statement.

"In my opinion this is therefore in breach of article 5.5.3 of the 2012 Formula 1 technical regulations as the engines are able to deliver more torque at a given engine speed in the mid rpm range.

"Furthermore this new torque map will artificially alter the aerodynamic characteristics of both cars which is also in contravention of TD 036-11. I am referring this matter to the stewards."

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner told AUTOSPORT: "I'm not aware of any irregularities. The result was declared after qualifying."

It's too early to say what the consequences will be for Red Bull if the German Grand Prix stewards agree with FIA technical delegate Joe Bauer's conclusions that Red Bull is in breach of Article 5.5.3 of the F1 technical regulations.

But the allegations are serious.

The regulation in question, which is new to the F1 technical regulations this year, states that: "The maximum accelerator pedal travel position must correspond to an engine torque demand equal to or greater than the maximum engine torque at the measured engine speed. The minimum pedal travel position must correspond to an engine torque demand equal to or lower than 0Nm."

In simple terms, this regulation dictates that there must be a linear relationship between the throttle pedal position and the torque demand on the engine.

Bauer's statement, released by the FIA, drew two conclusions, the first is that "the maximum torque output of both engines is significantly less in the mid rpm range than previously seen for these engines at other Events.

"In my opinion this it is therefore in breach of Article 5.5.3 of the 2012 Formula One Technical Regulations as the engines are able to deliver more torque at a given engine speed in the mid rpm range."

This suggests that the maximum torque demand seen in the middle of the rev range is lower than the FIA knows the engine to be capable of from previous races. This would mean that the relationship between throttle pedal position and torque demand is therefore not linear, creating a traction control-style effect.

The second conclusion was that "this new torque map will artificially alter the aerodynamic characteristics of both cars". This alludes to off-throttle exhaust blowing, a system which the 2012 regulations were designed to outlaw.

Should the FIA race stewards, which includes former grand prix driver Derek Warwick, concur with Bauer, then it is inevitable that action will be taken.

If they do not, then the car will be deemed legal and not in contravention of Article 5.5.3.

Among the most likely initial outcomes would be the exclusion of Red Bull drivers Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber from qualifying, or even from the entire weekend. This would likely trigger an appeal, meaning that it's possible that they could start the race, with the FIA hearing the appeal at a later date and applying any punishment retrospectively.

Further sanctions cannot be ruled out if Red Bull is found guilty. This could even stretch to race bans, similar to the two-race exclusion of the BAR team in 2005 applied after it was found to be using fuel as ballast. At this stage, however, there is no suggestion from the FIA that this will happen.

Whatever happens, it's likely that the debates about the legality of the Red Bull-Renault RB8 will carry on beyond today.

German Grand Prix race stewards have decided to take no further action against Red Bull over torque map irregularities.

The stewards stated that, while they did not accept all of Red Bull's arguments, there was no infringement of Article 5.5.3 of the technical regulations.

This means that Sebastian Vettel will be allowed to line up second on the grid for the race, with team-mate Mark Wark Webber eighth after a gearbox change.

The statement from the stewards read as follows: "The stewards received a report from the FIA technical delegate, along with specific ECU data from Red Bull Racing cars #1 and #2. The Stewards met with the team representatives and the representative of the engine supplier Renault.

"While the stewards do not accept all the arguments of the team, they however conclude that as the regulation is written, the map presented does not breach the text of Art 5.5.3 of the Formula 1 Technical Regulations and therefore decided to take no action."

The equivocal wording of the stewards' statement suggests that Red Bull might be not entirely within the spirit of the regulations. If the FIA is unhappy with what Red Bull is doing with its engine mapping, it is possible that there could be a rules clarification at a later date closing any potential loophole.

McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh is confident that the FIA and Formula 1 teams can come to a final agreement on cost-cutting soon.

Teams had originally been given a deadline of the end of last month to finalise such measures, but this deadline was extended after no agreement was reached in time.

The new deadline allowed the FIA World Motorsport Council to accept changes to the sporting and technical regulations, which would include measures for the FIA to police a resource restriction agreement up until Tuedsay (July 24).

A meeting between FIA president Jean Todt and the teams was previous planned to take place on Monday. This will not happen, with Todt likely to meet with leading teams at Hockenheim today to discuss the situation.

Key to the success of the agreement will be getting Red Bull to commit.

"The teams have an RRA agreement, we signed it in Singapore in 2010 and all of the teams are working under it," said Whitmarsh when asked about the chances of an agreement in time for Tuesday's deadline by AUTOSPORT.

"What we need to do to enhance confidence is to have an independent review process and that's what we've asked the FIA to do. I think they are close to achieving that and that would only strengthen it.

"It's vitally important for the sport that we can arrest the escalation of costs and that we can get everyone the confidence that they are on a level playing field. The FIA recognises the value of being involved in that process."

AUTOSPORT understands that the FIA is keen to finalise a fully-integrated package of cost-cutting measures, which will include an RRA covering the engine as well as team operations.

It's possible that the final form of the agreement could address cost-cutting in several distinct areas, with a chassis RRA alongside an engine RRA and restrictions on areas such as windtunnel and CFD work.

Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn shares Whitmarsh's confidence that a deal can be agreed.

However, he was equivocal about the timing of implementation. In order for the measures to be integrated into the 2013 technical and sporting regulations, it's possible that cost control measures could be referred to, with appendices to be added later covering the detail.

"There is some very good work being done, some excellent work on the chassis RRA that is very close to the broadly agreed position," said Brawn in response to AUTOSPORT's question about the impending deadline.

"The FIA wants the engine RRA to be settled as well and bring the whole thing in as a complete package with engine and chassis.

"So the engine discussions are ongoing in a very positive and constructive way. There is still some time needed to finalise the agreements and positions but it seems to be progressing in a constructive way.

"As for timing of introduction, I can't comment."

Despite the confidence of Whitmarsh and Brawn, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner remains sceptical about the measures.

While supporting the idea of cost-saving, he is concerned that it will be difficult to police the activities of those teams whose activities expand beyond race car development and operations.

"We would agree to a lot of cost-cutting measures that are physical and practical, which includes the windtunnel, which includes restrictions on people at the circuit etc," Horner told AUTOSPORT.

"But the way that the discussions have taken place so far, you have got different corporate entities and you have to have consistency of treatment within their different structures.

"That's very difficult to achieve and what we don't want to find is that we are in any way discriminated against because we are not part of an automotive group.

"We support the principle of cost-saving, but not the RRA as it's currently drafted. Trying to police F1 by accountancy is wrong. You've got to deal with the cost-drivers."

Fernando Alonso believes he did not have the quickest car in the German Grand Prix, where the Spaniard secured his third win of the season.

Alonso started from pole, a position he secured in the wet on Saturday, and managed to keep his rivals at bay throughout the whole race despite intense pressure from both Jenson Button and Sebastian Vettel.

The Ferrari driver became the first man to win three races in the 2012 season, also extending his lead in the championship to 34 points over Mark Webber, who was eighth at Hockenheim.

Alonso admitted it had not been an easy day for him.

"It was tough, definitely. It was not an easy race, maybe we were not the quickest in the dry," said Alonso. "But we were quite competitive, enough to keep the lead. There were also some good calls by the team in terms of strategy. When Jenson pitted we had to react.

"After that I knew it was a long race, 27 laps to the end with Jenson putting on a lot of pressure. The car was feeling good on traction and top speed so it was enough to keep the lead into Turn 6. After that you can't pass so it was about controlling the tyres."

The Spaniard said the tyres performed as expected, despite the lack of dry running during the weekend.

"The tyres were a question mark because we didn't test enough to know about them. The Pirellis were fine, we were thinking it would be two stops and it was two stops. When you are in the lead you just need to cover the others. The degradation was quite low, so not a lot of surprises with the tyres."

Alonso, who won the race by less than four seconds from Vettel, is expecting next weekend's race in Hungary to be equally close, and he reckons perfect preparation will be crucial to be able to stay in the fight for victory.

"It's going to be tight. It's a short circuit and as we saw this year, in two or three tenths there are eight or nine cars. So we need to make a perfect preparation and a perfect qualifying, because you can be out of the top 10 if you miss a couple of tenths. We need to maximise what we have in Hungary and hopefully bring some new parts."

Sebastian Vettel hit out at Lewis Hamilton for unlapping himself during the German Grand Prix, calling the McLaren driver's actions "stupid".

Hamilton was a lap down after sustaining a puncture on debris early in the race, but was going faster than leaders Fernando Alonso and Vettel having just pitted for fresh tyres.

The McLaren spent a while between the first and second-placed Ferrari and Red Bull, while at the same time Hamilton's team-mate Jenson Button was closing in on Vettel.

"That was not nice of Lewis. I don't see why he was racing us," said Vettel. "If he wants to go fast he should drop back and find a gap. It was stupid as he was a lap down."

He added: "If you want to go quick and you have no chance to win the race you should respect that and use common sense. I didn't expect him to attack because I didn't see the point, and then I was surprised when he was side by side."

Vettel reckons the delay he incurred battling with Hamilton was critical in his loss of second place to Button in the subsequent pitstops. The Red Bull later regained the spot with a controversial late pass.

"I think that [Hamilton battle] lost us the place to Button because shortly after that we pitted," said Vettel.

Alonso acknowledged that Vettel's dice with Hamilton had been handy for him, and that he would have swiftly let the McLaren past if necessary.

"I knew that if Lewis was close enough with the DRS and trying to overtake, I had no problem to leave the space," said Alonso. "I knew he was not in the race. We didn't want to risk anything. For me it was a good position to have Hamilton between me and Sebastian.

"Having Hamilton there it meant Sebastian was 2.5s behind approaching the pitstop, so I tried to keep Lewis there."

Vettel also felt his Red Bull was not quite quick enough at times in the race, particularly when in traffic.

"Overall the pace was there but it was extremely difficult," said Vettel. "When we were close to Fernando and to Jenson we lost a lot and it was hard to stay close to try something under braking. That seemed to be the problem.

"I'm not entirely happy, because I think we could have been a bit better if we were in clean air for most of the race."

Jenson Button says the television replays "say it all" about Sebastian Vettel's pass on him during the German Grand Prix, the Briton declining to comment and leaving the stewards to rule on the incident.

Vettel passed Button for second place with less than two laps to go by running off track at the exit of the hairpin.

The move is under investigation by the stewards, and Vettel faces a potential penalty for having not respected the limits of the tracks to pass a rival.

"There's nothing to say really," Button said after the race. "The TV camera says it all. I'd rather talk about the race."

Vettel said he had gone wide because he wanted to avoid contact with Button, claiming he did not know where the McLaren driver was.

"It was a difficult one, I didn't know if he was on the inside or not," Vettel said. "The last thing you want is contact. I can't see him from the side of the car so I tried to give enough room and went wide. We were all struggling with our tyres and I think that was the case for Jenson and that's why I passed him."

He added: "I was thinking he was still there and I didn't want to close [the door] too early. I wanted to leave some space. The last thing you want at the end is to crash. So I decided to go off the circuit to make it safe. He had no traction but even on the slippery paint I was able to pass."

Michael Schumacher said seventh place was the maximum he could have hoped for in the German Grand Prix after saying he had "squeezed everything" out of his car.

The seven-time champion was optimistic of a strong result after starting the race from third position, but his hopes were shortlived and the Mercedes driver was unable to keep up with his rivals.

In the end he dropped down to seventh position, which he said was the best possible result given his pace.

"There are nicer ways to finish a home race than falling back from third to seventh place," said Schumacher. "I squeezed everything I could out of the car but, unfortunately, that's everything we could manage today. It's a pity because I would have loved to have given something more to all our Mercedes-Benz colleagues who were supporting us today.

"Before this weekend, we expected to be racing between P5 and P7, and of course fifth place would have been the better option, but seventh was our maximum in these circumstances.

"I got a decent start and the short battle with Sebastian [Vettel] was fun. After that, unfortunately, there weren't too many highlights, apart from setting the fastest lap, perhaps. However, we couldn't maintain that pace for very long. Now we have to look forwards and do our maximum at the next race."

Team-mate Nico Rosberg completed a low-key home race for Mercedes, the German crossing the line in 10th position to pick up a point.

"It feels OK to have scored one point today after such a bad qualifying yesterday and starting right at the back," he said. "We had a good strategy and I had great fun out there at times overtaking so many people to move from 21st to 10th place.

"Some of the guys I had to overtake a couple of times and there were some nice manoeuvres."

Kamui Kobayashi and Sergio Perez believe their fifth and sixth place finishes in the German Grand Prix was actually a lot less than their Sauber team was capable of if they had qualified better.

The duo converted 12th and 17th places on the grid to top-six finishes, using great race pace to move through the field with a series of passes on rivals and a sharply-executed two-stop strategy.

"I am very happy for the team that we have managed to get a good result again. We have been unlucky in the two most recent races, and also had a bad qualifying yesterday," said Kobayashi.

"The performance of our car, especially in the dry, is really strong. If we only had qualified better we could have achieved even more today.

"At the beginning of the race it was a bit difficult on the medium tyres, but our strategy was good. Considering where we came from, 18 points is an excellent result."

Perez said he had been hampered by a possible puncture so could potentially have gained even more ground.

"My strategy was a little bit compromised because I had to do my first pitstop a bit earlier than planned," he said. "I felt something strange on the left hand side of the car - perhaps it was a puncture - but I don't really know yet what it was. This obviously meant we had to extend the later stint and I ended up with quite old tyres."

Team owner Peter Sauber described his squad's performance as "outstanding". The result pulled Sauber clear of pursuers Williams and Force India in the battle for sixth in the constructors' standings.

Jenson Button believes that no car is faster than his McLaren after he fought for the win at Hockenheim.

The Briton only qualified seventh in wet conditions on Saturday but made rapid progress in the race and finished second.

Button said that he had felt confident the car's handling in Valencia and at Silverstone, but that the McLaren still lacked outright speed at that point. With the updates fitted in Germany, he was now confident the team can remain at the front, after matching German Grand Prix winner Fernando Alonso's pace in the final stint.

"I am happy that we have done a good job and we have good pace, there is no one quicker than us at the moment and we can fight for the win in the next few races," said Button.

"I have had some difficult races earlier in the year but the last two I have felt confident in myself and the team, but we weren't quick enough so to come here and fight at the front for the victory was a very special feeling," he added.

"They [Ferrari] did look impressive but I wouldn't say they were quicker than us, over a stint they were unbelievably similar.

"They were looking after their tyres at the start of stints when I had to push and at the end of the stint he was quicker than me so it evened itself out."

Button is confident that if he can be more competitive in qualifying he can fight for wins in the coming races.

"We have brought it [the upgrade] here and we have done a very good job with it, we need a little bit more as we always do, but you'd say we are in the mix and if we can sort out qualifying then we've got a really good chance of winning races at the moment," he said.

Nico Hulkenberg conceded he was hoping for a better result in the German Grand Prix, even though he said he did not expect to be able to hold on to fourth.

The Force India driver started from the second row of the grid after a strong qualifying showing in the wet, but his pace in the dry did not allow him to fight to retain the position.

Hulkenberg dropped to ninth place in the end, scoring two points for his team, but said after his promising Saturday he was hoping for a better result.

"We always knew it was going to be tough to hang on to fourth place because we did not look especially strong in the dry conditions on Saturday morning," said Hulkenberg. "But when you're in that position you hope for the best and actually the first part of the race was strong for me and I had some good battles.

"In terms of strategy, doing three stops was the way forward because a two-stop race was not possible with the way the tyres were degrading. So it's good to come away with some points but I was certainly hoping for a bit more from my home race."

Paul di Resta finished outside the points in 11th, the Scot left believing a more aggressive strategy may have helped his cause in the race.

"A tough race today and ultimately we didn't have the pace to match teams like Lotus and Sauber," he said. "The story of the race was deciding whether to stop two or three times and with hindsight we probably could have been more aggressive. But it was hard to understand the tyres and we seemed to struggle for pace in the middle of each stint.

"I think we have the baseline speed in the car but we just couldn't demonstrate it today and that's why I missed out on points. Hopefully we can find the sweet spot next weekend before the summer break."

Post-race press conference

PODIUM INTERVIEWS (by Niki Lauda)

Q. Congratulations Fernando, your third win, what go you think of a Spaniard in an Italian car, to win the German Grand Prix in front of all these German people here?

Fernando ALONSO: OK, so I'm not a fan of politics so much but it is true that the situation is not great in Spain but it fun to drive an Italian car - designed by a Greek man – it's good to win here. But, we enjoyed the race. We were competitive yesterday in wet conditions and today, starting on pole was, I think, the key factor, because it was difficult to overtake. We were maybe not the fastest but we keep the position.

Q. Sebastian, I have a difficult question. First of all you are second, congratulations, but I know that the stewards are looking because Jenson wasn't very happy with the way you passed him. So, what do you think about it?

Sebastian VETTEL: Well, he didn't say anything to me, so... he didn't complain to me so… it was a difficult one, I wasn't sure whether he was still on the inside or not and obviously the last thing you want to do is make contact, so, yeah, because at the angle he's side by side but not really and I can't see him from the inside of the car, so I tried to give enough room and then went wide and obviously we're all struggling with our tyres, Jenson in particular, and that's how I was able to get close and pass him.

Q. Congratulations Jenson, congratulations being third. Quick comment on the pass from Sebastian. Happy about it?

Jenson BUTTON: Well, first of all I want to say thank you to the crowd. It's amazing to see so many people here in the paddock. I had a great race out there. It's nice to be fighting at the front again. It's been a little while. But I had a great race and I don't wish to comment at the moment on the manoeuvre at Turn Six.

PRESS CONFERENCE

Q. Fernando, well done, you were under pressure the whole time, I think the biggest lead you had was two seconds. How tough a race was it?

FA: It was tough, definitely, I don't think it was an easy race because maybe we were not the quickest on dry conditions. But we were quite competitive, enough to maintain the lead. Also it was some good calls by the team in terms of strategy in the first stop and then obviously in the second stop when Jenson pits, we have to react, Sebastian and me, and up to that point I knew it was a long race, 27 laps to the end with Jenson putting a lot of pressure, but I don't know, the car was feeling good, feeling good on traction and top speed, so it was enough to keep the lead into Turn Six. And then after that it is not possible to overtake in the last sector, so you try to control the tyres and, a little bit the race.

Q. How much of a mystery where the tyres?

FA: It was a question mark, I think, for everybody because we didn't test on Friday enough laps to understand the tyres, also last year it was at the Nürburgring so the first time for Pirelli in this asphalt. The predictions, more or less, were right; we were thinking to do two stops and at the end it was two stops. The lap, I think, it very flexible. It depends on when the others stop, especially if you are in the lead, because you just need to cover them. But yeah, it was not big surprises, degradation was quite low, as suspected and it was fine.

Q. Looking back at the last couple of races, and this one now as well, what are you feeling about next weekend?

FA: Well, it's going to be tight again. It's a very short circuit in Hungary again, and as we saw this year, in two- or three-tenths there are eight, nine cars. In Hungary we need to make a perfect preparation again, a perfect qualifying, because you can be starting in 12th or 13th if you make a little mistake, so we need to approach the race in the same way we did the last couple of races, try to maximise what we have in Hungary and hopefully bring in some new parts that can help us in that circuit.

Q. It's a circuit where you have a little history, I think your first win there?

FA: Yes.

Q. Is it a circuit that will also suit Ferrari?

FA: I think so. I think at the moment the car seems OK in all areas, there is not weak points, as maybe we had at the beginning of the season, that we were suffering a little bit on traction and top speed. Now I think that we are OK on that. In Hungary I think with these slow speed corners, traction etc., I don't see any problem with the car and we should be competitive there.

Q. Sebastian, you got very close to Fernando and then there was Lewis Hamilton in there as well. How much did that upset the rhythm of things?

SV: That was not nice of him. I don't see the point why he's trying to race us. If he wants to go fast he can drop back, find a gap and go fast there. But it's a bit stupid to disturb the leaders. He was a lap down so I don't see the point anyways. I think that potentially lost us the position to Jenson. Because soon after that we pitted, I think only two or three laps after that. So yeah, I think all in all the pace was there but it was extremely difficult once we were close to Fernando, and also in the end closer to Jenson. We seemed to lose quite a lot and not stay close enough to really try something for the following corner or to get close at the straights to try something under braking, so that seemed to be the problem. Yeah, so… ah, not entirely happy. I think we could have been a little bit better in clean air if we would have, yeah, been in clean air for most of the race. But that wasn't the case, so all in all I think we did a good race, especially a good recovery at the end, looking after the tyres and getting past Jenson. It was more a less a question of when to pass him as his tyres were is quite poor shape and he was struggling a lot. So happy to take second in the end.

Q. You needed a little bit of extra circuit as well to do it…

SV: Yeah, obviously I tried to out-brake him, then he released the brake a little bit so he was at the inside and I wasn't sure if he had given up the corner or not. I was thinking 'he's fighting for the position', so I didn't… I was thinking 'he's still there', which I think he was, and I didn't want to close and turn in too early, I wanted to leave him some space and obviously it's difficult to know at that time where exactly he is, so the last thing you want with two laps to go, or one lap to go is to have a crash in both of our positions. So then I decided to go off the circuit to make it safe for both of us. As it turned out his rear tyres had no traction so even on the paint, which is quite a lot more slippery than the asphalt, I was able to stay ahead. Then it was very close braking for Turn Eight, but I was able to stay ahead.

Q. Jenson, what was your version of those events?

JB: There's nothing to say really, I think the TV cameras say it all. I'd rather talk about the race. For me it was a real fun race and I really enjoyed the race. I couldn't quite challenge Fernando in the last stint. When you're in the middle of three people, you really have to push, because you have to watch out for the guy behind and you're obviously trying to get past the guy in front. So I was probably pushing more than these two in the early part of the first stint but I had to, to try and get past Fernando and then when you're in the lead you can cruise it on the places where you can't get overtaking and obviously you have good tyres for the exit before DRS. So, it was a tricky situation but we thought it was best to go aggressive, which we did, but it was just one or two laps really.

Q. And you were getting so close to Fernando as well?

JB: Yeah it was really close. But Fernando knows exactly, as we all do, how to use KERS to keep someone behind you, not just in the DRS zone but in other areas around the lap. I just ran out of steam at the end of the straight. It was a little big too big, the gap, to get past. I'm a little but disappointed with that but all in all a fun race and I really enjoyed racing out there today. It's nice to be back on the podium and to get some good points. In the last couple of races, as I've said, I've been very happy with the car – the balance of the car anyway – and my feeling with it, he confidence. The results haven't been there because the pace hasn't been there with the car. This race gives me a lot of confidence and I'm very happy with being up here. I have to say thanks to the guys for bringing good updates here. We're there or thereabouts at the front. Still a little bit more to go maybe. Also big thanks for the pits stops. The second pit stop was phenomenally quick and that's what put us in the fight for the win.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q. (Adrian Huber - Agencia EFE) Fernando, it looks like a perfect weekend; yesterday you set your 22nd pole and today it's your 30th victory in Formula One. Did you really expect this much? And secondly, although there is still half of the championship to go, do you think the team and yourself have established the basis for your third world title?

FA: I think before coming here we were not sure about the performance of the car. It's true that we were OK in Valencia, but Red Bull was quicker than anybody there but we took advantage of the mechanical problem that Sebastian had in Valencia and we won the race there. In Silverstone we were OK in wet conditions but a little bit slower than Red Bull in dry conditions and Mark won the race and he deserved it, because he was the quickest. Yesterday, OK, we set pole in wet conditions again which seems to suit our car but in the dry, we again saw that we are still not the quickest. Sebastian and Jenson put a lot of pressure on us, also Hamilton was extremely quick but he had some problems in the race. It's halfway through the season; we made a very good recovery when you think of where we started in the Jerez test where we were maybe two seconds off the pace. In Australia we were 1.6s in Q2 and now we are very happy with the points that we have achieved in the first half but it means nothing, because there are still another ten races in which we need to improve the car. We need to be consistent and we need to keep finishing all the races. One or two drivers always don't finish the race because of mechanical problems or incidents or something, so we need to avoid these problems.

Q. (Vincent Marre – Sport Zeitung ) Fernando, don't you think it was risky to fight Hamilton as he was already lapped? You could have lost the race, because you lost some seconds.

FA: For me, yes, I didn't feel any risk to be honest. I knew that if Lewis was close enough and using the DRS and trying to overtake, going for it, I had a problem to leave the space and I knew that he was not in the race, so we didn't want to risk anything. For me, it was a good position to have Hamilton between me and Sebastian because we were approaching the pit stop time and having Hamilton there meant that Hamilton was around a second behind you and Sebastian was another second or 1.5s behind Lewis, so this 2.5s to Sebastian was very good, approaching the pit stop time so I tried to keep Lewis behind.

Q. (Vincent Marre – Sport Zeitung ) Sebastian, you were waving your hands at Hamilton; as you just said, you were upset about this. Do you think the rules should be changed, that someone who has been lapped should not be allowed to fight in the race?

SV: I think I've said it before, I don't think we need a different rule. As I said, if you want to go quick and you're a lap down and there's no chance to win the race any more, I think you should respect that and use common sense so I don't think we need a rule. I think everyone is aware. As I said, to be honest I didn't expect him to attack because I didn't see the point, and then I was surprised when he was side-by-side and lost quite a bit. For Fernando it was quite welcome, I think. He didn't mind. Then later on I saw that he was defending against Lewis so obviously he knew that as soon as he gets passed by Lewis he will lose some time, so he tried to avoid that, especially as we were approaching the pit stops.

Q. (Michael Schmidt - Auto, Motor und Sport) Jenson, at the beginning of the last stint you flat-spotted the right front; was that a problem for the rest of the race?

JB: No, it gave me a little bit of a headache, but that was about it. It was unusual. I guess they just weren't up to temperature when I hit the brakes that time. We've been very good with front-locking in this race. Normally it's a big issue with the McLaren. In testing we had big issues with front locking. We did some set-up work and we've solved a lot of that, which is great for us. It makes a big big difference having confidence when you hit the brakes, but that was just a one-off time. It did give me vibration but it didn't continuously lock up because of the vibration which was positive.

Q. (Marc Ellerich - Sport 1.de) Sebastian, how frightening was the news in the morning that Red Bull was under inspection by the FIA?

SV: I had the answers on the grid. Our car was on the grid and not in the pit lane so I guess it was fine. There wasn't much I could do, could I, so as I said, as soon as we got the message that it was fine, which I think we were convinced of, then there was no more need to spend any energy thinking about that.

Q. (Livio Oricchio - O Estado de Sao Paulo) Fernando, at the end of the race were you confident that you could keep the pace and not suffer a repeat of Silverstone when you lost the race in the last six laps?

FA: Yeah, I was more confident. At Silverstone, the problem was that we were with different tyres so we knew that in the last stint we would have a tough time coming because we were forced to put on the option tyre which we thought was the less performing tyre and for sure Webber was a little bit quicker on that. The stint here... stopping on the same lap as the others and putting on the same type of tyre, I was much more confident.

Q. (Marc Ellerich - Sport 1.de) Sebastian, which feeling is stronger: not breaking your July spell in Germany or the happiness about your second place?

SV: Well, as I said, unfortunately there was never really a chance to start a manoeuvre to try to overtake. I think if I was close enough I would have tried for sure, because the target was to win, just as at all the other races, but we didn't have the chance, so, as I mentioned, in some phases of the race, we were quite competitive and very quick, I think quicker than Fernando. I was able to close the gap but then, yeah, not enough to get close enough. I think second place was the maximum we could get today, so I'm very happy with that. It was nice to be on the podium. It's my home Grand Prix and yeah, nice to see the fans and give something back.

[Lineker]

Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali says he told his team to ignore the Red Bull technical row that broke out ahead of the German Grand Prix.

The FIA released a statement four hours before the start of the race revealing that its technical delegate Jo Bauer had referred a matter surrounding the Red Bull's engine maps to the stewards of the meeting.

The stewards eventually decided to take no action just ahead of the race, and after Fernando Alonso's victory Domenicali revealed that he had warned his team not to pay any attention to the matter.

"When I first saw the note from the technical delegate, I said 'stay focused on our job today,'" Domenicali told reporters after the race. "This is something that engineers see and they try to think about.

"But no, stay focused on what you have to do. Forget about what is happening."

The FIA's technical working group is holding a scheduled meeting tomorrow, and Domenicali believes that the situation surrounding Red Bull will become clearer after that.

"We need to understand what is the point raised by the technical delegate, and what is the point from the stewards," he said. "Right now I don't have anything to add. Tomorrow there will be a technical meeting and this will be discussed.

"We rely on the regulator, the FIA, to make sure the fight has to be fair. If I had any single doubt that that is not the case, I would do something else.

"I am a sportsman; I always congratulate the others when they win, and I never speak bad about the others even if they speak about us. But I have to rely on the regulator to do its job."

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner accepts that question marks over the legality of the team's engine mapping could lead to Formula 1's regulations being clarified.

The FIA referred Red Bull to the stewards this morning to investigate irregularities related to the torque map used by the team's Renault engines during qualifying for the German Grand Prix.

Although stewards subsequently deemed the Red Bull to be legal, the statement the FIA issued confirming that no action would be taken was equivocal.

It referred to the fact that the stewards "do not accept all the arguments of the team", suggesting that further action could be taken to curb the torque maps used by Red Bull to force it to change its engine maps.

This could happen before the Hungarian Grand Prix, with the F1 technical working group scheduled to meet in London tomorrow.

"I'm sure there is going to be debate about it," he said when asked by AUTOSPORT whether he expected such a move. "Conveniently, there is a technical working group meeting tomorrow and this will no doubt go on the agenda.

"The regulations are clear, so there could well be further technical directives that are designed to try and further clarify those regulations."

Horner underlined that he had no concerns about the legality of the car and that suggestions that it was against the spirit of the regulations are irrelevant in this case.

"There's no clause in the regulations that refers to the spirit of the regulations," said Horner.

"The regulations are straightforward, it's either in or out. It can't be a little bit in or a little bit out.

"Renault made their case very clearly and the stewards listened to the discussion and looked at all of the evidence, not just from this race but from all of the races from this year and deemed that [the car] was in full compliance."

McLaren sporting director Sam Michael believes that Sebastian Vettel would not have been able to complete the pass on Jenson Button without going off the track, meaning that a post-race penalty was inevitable.

Vettel overtook Button around the outside at the hairpin on the penultimate lap of the German Grand Prix to take second place, but used asphalt run-off beyond the track limits to do so.

This led to Vettel being hit with a 20-second time penalty post-race in lieu of a drive-through, which promoted Button to second place and relegated the German to fifth.

"The stewards decided in Jenson's favour because Vettel left the track and gained an advantage," said Michael when asked by AUTOSPORT about the decision.

"Without leaving the track, he would not have been able to complete the manoeuvre and the stewards thought the same thing. That's why they gave him the penalty."

Michael added that Vettel could not legitimately claim that he was forced to go wide because of where Button positioned his car.

"Jenson left plenty of space," he said. "He did not crowd him off the circuit and Vettel took the decision very early at the apex of the corner not to stay on the racing line, you can see that from the way he accelerates out and heads straight off the track.

"There's no violent steering angle where he is trying to stay on the track. That's why the stewards decided in Jenson's favour."

Lewis Hamilton labelled the puncture he suffered in the German Grand Prix as "cruel luck" for him.

The McLaren driver was one of the victims of the debris on track at the start of the race following a collision involving Ferrari's Felipe Massa.

Hamilton's right rear tyre was punctured, the Briton dropping to the bottom of the field. He later retired from the race.

The Briton, competing in his 100th grand prix, was left lamenting his bad luck.

"My second-lap puncture was incredibly unfortunate: there was debris scattered across the full width of the track and I didn't have any option other than to drive straight through it," said Hamilton.

"What's more frustrating is that, at the time, I was the eighth car through - so to be the one to get the puncture is just cruel luck.

"It was immediately clear that my car didn't feel the same after the puncture. However, after a few laps, I was able to adapt my driving style, and the car had good pace during the middle stint. However, with the damage to the rear, I think we were lucky to get that far, to be honest."

Hamilton was nonetheless encouraged by McLaren's pace following the introduction of new upgrades.

"At least I was able to have some fun out on track - my pace was good enough to be able to match the leaders during the middle stint. And that's encouraging for me, because we know our car's been genuinely quick this weekend.

"We'll put that pace in our pockets and take it to Hungary next weekend. I'm back in the car in five days' time – and that's the best possible news for me after a day like today."

McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh has defended Lewis Hamilton after he was accused of pulling a "stupid" move when unlapping himself during the German Grand Prix.

Hamilton lost time early in the race with a puncture, but emerged from the pits behind Vettel, who was chasing Fernando Alonso for the lead and decided to unlap himself on the Red Bull driver.

"Racing drivers race," said Whitmarsh. "He was quicker, he overtook and he pulled away, so I'm not sure what stupidity there is in that."

After emerging from the pits, Hamilton could either have backed off and let team-mate Jenson Button past after being shown a blue flag, or push on and unlap himself.

Sporting director Sam Michael explained that there was no problem with what Hamilton did and that the team told him to go past Vettel.

"It was completely legal," said Michael when asked by AUTOSPORT about the incident. "He came out and he was fast. We said to him that you've got blue flags for Jenson.

"When you get a blue flag, you have two choices. You let the car past, or you speed up significantly.

"So we told him to speed up significantly and overtake Vettel and he did so. He didn't hold Vettel up at all because Vettel couldn't keep up with him. So it didn't have any material impact on Vettel's race and it's completely legal."

Whitmarsh believes that although Hamilton had a disappointing day, retiring from the race late on while running outside the points, his performance was encouraging.

"It was a deeply frustrating day for Lewis and I am sure he will be frustrated for the rest of this day," said Whitmarsh.

"But he'll know the car is quicker and he has been driving well in dry conditions and recognise that we have had good races in Hungary and he'll be going there wanting to win."

Kimi Raikkonen believes he could have pushed the leaders in the German Grand Prix had he been able to qualify higher up the grid.

The Finn endured a difficult qualifying in the wet on Saturday and had to started the race from 10th position.

From there, however, the Lotus driver put on a charging drive to finish in fourth position, 16 seconds off race winner Fernando Alonso.

Raikkonen was elevated to third when Sebastian Vettel was handed a penalty for passing Jenson Button off track.

The former world champion welcomed to podium finish, but said he thought pushing for victory would have been possible had he started from the front.

"It's nice to have another podium, but obviously we would rather get it on the track," said Raikkonen. "Having said that I think we did the best we could today from the position we started. Maybe if we had found a bit more pace in the wet yesterday we could have started higher, avoided the traffic and pushed the leaders, but it is what it is.

"We were hoping for a bit better, but the car worked well all through the race and we still brought home some good points for the team so there are some positives to take to the next race."

The result allowed Raikkonen to move into fourth place in the championship with 98 points.

The Finn - returning to F1 following a two-year absence - admitted he had mixed feelings about his position, feeling he could have scored better results in some of this year's races.

"If you had told me in January that we would be fourth halfway through the season, I think I would have been pretty pleased. It's not a bad place to be, but I think we have a car good enough to have scored more points.

"I want to win and the whole team is pushing hard to make it happen, so let's see what we can do in the second half of the season..."

Williams's chief operations engineer Mark Gillan said substantial damage to Pastor Maldonado's car from debris led to his lapped 15th-place finish at Hockenheim.

The damage was sustained on lap 12 when the Venezuelan driver ran over a piece of carbon fibre that damaged the left hand side of his car.

Maldonado had been confident of a strong finish after starting in fifth position on the grid and was running sixth when he hit the debris. The Williams was too badly damaged to maintain that pace.

"It is obviously very disappointing today with Pastor, he was going quite well at the beginning and he went over some debris on lap 12 and it has quite badly damaged his car. He has quite a big loss, the car is so sensitive to it and almost immediately we lost the grip and never got it back," Gillan told AUTOSPORT.

"He picked up a little bit of carbon that was lying in the middle of the track and it must have disintegrated as he ran over it so it must have been big enough to damage quite a few of our aero bits on the left hand side of the car," he added.

"Pastor was pushing hard and looking to finish pretty much where he was and there was no reason why he couldn't. He was confident in the car and our long-run pace was pretty good."

After incidents in Valencia and at Silverstone for Maldonado and a poor run of form for Bruno Senna, Gillan said that the team will need to do better in Hungary, but believes this is possible.

"We have been pretty good on all kinds of circuit so there is no one circuit where I rub my hands with glee but we are looking forward to it and we need to start scoring points. We lost a number of points today through no fault of the drivers," he said.

[Lineker]

Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali believes Fernando Alonso is driving better than ever this year, following the Spaniard's third win of the season in Germany.

The double world champion led from start to finish at Hockenheim on Sunday, sustaining relentless pressure from Jenson Button and Sebastian Vettel to take victory.

Alonso said afterwards that he didn't feel the Ferrari F2012 was the fastest car last weekend. His team boss agreed, saying that the world championship leader has been in a different class this year.

"Considering that the race was 67 qualifying laps, it shows that Fernando is at the peak of his performance," said Domenicali. "He is in a great moment, and we will try to keep this momentum for as long as possible.

"It's true, I believe that we still do not have the fastest car. If we had the fastest car then it would be easier to win. We need to improve the car; in such a tight championship you need to make sure you develop race by race, otherwise you will lose points.

"The competition is so strong. Here the first three cars were within two or three seconds. It's nothing, considering that Fernando had to do 67 laps of qualifying."

Domenicali also praised Alonso's attitude at the start of the year, and the way he reacted to Ferrari's 2012 challenger starting the year way off the pace.

"This year it was important for Fernando not to lose faith in this team, when we had difficult days at the start of the season, with a car that was not a car!" he added.

"To see him always motivated or focused on the job, it was really good and it makes the difference when you are under pressure.

"We had a big job to improve the car, but if you see that your world champion is pushing in the right way for the team to work, then that is something fundamental. And for that we thank him a lot."

Felipe Massa believes that Fernando Alonso will need his support if the Spaniard is to win the world championship for Ferrari this year.

The Spaniard extended his championship lead to 34 points with his third win of the season at Hockenheim on Sunday.

But over the weekend Alonso highlighted the fact that he expects both Red Bull drivers and Lewis Hamilton to pose a big threat in the championship fight.

And Massa, who feels he has turned his form around in the last few races despite a weekend to forget in Germany, is certain that he will have to play a role in the second half of the season.

"Sure, Fernando needs me," said Massa. "In a championship like this, it is very important to have both cars scoring points.

"This year it is so competitive between many drivers, many teams, so you know how important every result is. It is a championship that maybe one point can be enough to win or lose."

Massa believes that the title fight will go down to the last race of the season, and he has urged Ferrari to keep pushing in the development race to make sure that Alonso is a part of that battle.

"Every race will be important [in the championship], from now until the last one," he said. "We need to keep working like we were doing in the last few races and improving the car, and then Fernando has even more chance to fight until the last race."

The Brazilian's future was a hot topic again over the German Grand Prix weekend following Mark Webber's admission that he spoke to Ferrari before deciding to stay at Red Bull.

But Massa reiterated his belief that he is capable of good results, after he came home only 12th on Sunday.

"I feel very good now," he said. "I would say after Monaco I feel very automatic driving the car, very competitive, and that is the most important thing.

"I was not feeling very good in the beginning of the season, but after the first races many things changed.

"It is easy [to deal with a bad race] when you have the pace. It is much harder if you are nowhere. But here we had a crash at the start and that was it. There was nothing wrong with the pace."

McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh is certain that the team now has the car and a strong enough development programme to fight for the world championship after a difficult spell.

After disappointing results in the European and British Grands Prix, McLaren returned to form with Jenson Button's second place at Hockenheim yesterday.

This was off the back of a major upgrade package, which included modified sidepods and exhausts that made the McLaren arguably the fastest car in dry conditions in Germany.

"It is good enough at the moment," said Whitmarsh when asked if the car is now strong enough to fight for the championship. "But it won't be [if we don't keep developing it] because we have half-a-season to go.

"Both of our drivers are capable of winning races and this year's world championship. The onus is on us to keep developing.

"We have a reasonable amount of momentum in the system at the moment. From what I have seen, that was the opinion of our engineers."

Whitmarsh refused to rule out either his drivers or the team making up big points deficits to get into the title hunt.

In the constructors' championship, McLaren is in third place, 70 points behind Red Bull, while Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button are 62 and 86 points off drivers' championship leader Fernando Alonso.

"Fernando is doing a great job and so is Ferrari but we are fighters so there will be some great races [to come] and we need to maximise our points," Whitmarsh added.

"He is a really strong competitor. In Germany, we could catch him and hurt our tyres, but we couldn't get past him. We were a reasonable amount quicker, but if you put someone like Fernando at the front of a race then you are going to have difficulty getting past him.

"Coming out of Melbourne, we were on a roll but Ferrari have turned it around. The same thing can happen [to us].

Whitmarsh admitted that McLaren's lack of performance on wet rubber in qualifying was a concern.

While Hamilton and Button were competitive on intermediate tyre during Q2, they were only seventh and eighth fastest in the top 10 shootout.

"It was just about temperature," said Whitmarsh. "The irony is that we came from Silverstone, where we were reasonable in the dry and pretty good on the wets but a disaster on the intermediates.

"Here, we were quick in the dry and the intermediates, but we didn't have it on the wets.

"These tyres have a small operating window and if you get into that, it is great. We are still learning [how to do that]."

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has accepted that there was nothing wrong with Lewis Hamilton passing Sebastian Vettel to unlap himself in the German Grand Prix.

Vettel was highly critical of Hamilton post-race after the McLaren driver got himself involved in the battle for the lead between Fernando Alonso, Vettel and Jenson Button.

But while Horner accepted that Hamilton's actions cost Red Bull a shot at victory, as it prevented Vettel from being close enough to potentially take the lead during the pitstops, he stopped short of criticising the 2008 world champion.

"If you look at the rules, I don't think that there is anything to say that a car can't unlap itself," said Horner. "It's frustrating that it cost us a second and it's unfortunate that he didn't unlap himself from Fernando as well.

"If it had cost Fernando a second as well, then it would have negated the disadvantage of being unlapped. But he was entitled to do it.

"We probably dropped about a second when Lewis unlapped himself, which was frustrating. But when you are fighting for hundredths and tenths of a second, that's the way it goes sometimes."

Horner also defended Vettel for his criticism of Hamilton, after the reigning world champion branded the McLaren driver as "stupid" in the post-race press conference.

"Obviously, drivers' emotions run high," said Horner. "It was an unusual situation because usually when you lap a car, it doesn't come back past you. But Lewis was on fresh tyres.

"In Seb's opinion, it affected his race and it did affect his race. But it's within the rules and he [Hamilton] did nothing wrong and arguably helped his team-mate."

McLaren sporting director Sam Michael is confident that the team's pit woes are behind it after again setting a new pitstop record during the German Grand Prix.

Michael claimed a 2.31-second stationary time for its best stop, which was timed at 2.4s by the FIA, and believes that the inevitable pitlane errors that affect all teams are now only measured in terms of lost tenths, rather than seconds, for McLaren.

"We still have issues, the same as any team in the pitlane so we will still have stops where things happen but the guys have a really good margin now," said Michael when asked by AUTOSPORT if McLaren's early-season pitstop troubles are now in the past.

"If they do a 3.1-second stop, it feels incredibly slow and that's pretty much the stop time that everybody else is doing. So they have got the margin to lose seven or eight tenths and, while not the quickest, still be very competitive."

Michael added that McLaren can still improve on its pitstops and that ways to improve consistency are still being evaluated and implemented.

The fact that McLaren has been consistently quick over the past two races suggest that it is achieving its goal despite costly mistakes in almost every race from the Australian to the European Grand Prix.

"We've still got lots of work to do," he said. "There are so many humans involved in the process that what you have got to look at is how you limit the recovery time so it's a question of tenths rather than seconds.

"That's what we have focused on to get consistency. We don't have any incentive to break pit-stop records. They come by default because we work to get consistent."

Michael believes that the pit crew's contribution to Jenson Button's successful race will be a big boost after heavy criticism earlier in the year.

"They broke their record again with a 2.31s stationary time and it was decisive to get past Vettel," said Michael. "It's so rewarding for the pit crew to do that when it actually makes a position difference on the track.

"It gives justification to them over why they do it. They don't do it just to be quickest, they do it to gain position. This is fantastic for the crew."

Kimi Raikkonen says it would be wrong for Lotus to believe that it has been unlucky not to win a race so far this year.

The 2009 world champion got his fourth podium finish of the season in Germany following Sebastian Vettel's post-race penalty while team-mate Romain Grosjean has made the top three twice.

Lotus has been close to winning on some of those occasions, but Raikkonen says that the fact that it has missed out so far this season cannot be put down to bad luck.

"Luck is nothing to do with it," said Raikkonen. "It's not unlucky if something goes wrong, it's because we did something wrong ourselves.

"If something breaks, it means somewhere there has been a mistake with a part or whatever it is, so it's not strong enough or has been designed wrong.

"Normally it's human error. It's the same as if I do a mistake in the car; it's not unlucky, it's my mistakes. That's racing."

Raikkonen said that Lotus had plenty of reasons to be happy with its start to the season, even if he felt that it was possible to achieve more in the first half of the campaign.

"We could be better, but we could be an awful lot worse," he added. "It's always easy to say we should win or do better in certain races, but when you have to make decisions you try to do the best possible. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But you have to learn if you make a mistake.

"We know that we have to improve on certain things. We're still not 100 per cent happy with how things have gone on all the weekends, but I would say that is what I was expecting.

"I think we learned a lot from the first part of the season and hopefully we can improve. We'll try to achieve a little bit more in the second half. I don't know if it is going to happen or not, but we will see."

Lotus team boss Eric Boullier says he is confident his team can stay in the fight for third place in the standings despite having been passed by McLaren.

The Woking-based squad moved into third in the constructors' championship thanks to Jenson Button's second place in the German Grand Prix, where Kimi Raikkonen was third.

With both their team-mates Lewis Hamilton and Romain Grosjean failing to score, Lotus is now one point behind McLaren.

Boullier admitted it was disappointing to be relegated to fourth, and while he concedes the battle will be very tough, he is hopeful Lotus can keep up its development rate and stay in the fight until the end.

"It's obviously disappointing to lose third place, but it's very, very tight and we've built a gap over the fifth-placed team." said Boullier.

"However, we are hungry for success and we do want more. If we can keep bringing the developments and updates we have been planning and make them work on track then I think we should be able to defend our current position.

"I am not sure about third or fourth by the end of the year, as everything is very close, but I am pretty convinced that we will be in the fight for one of the prime places in the constructors' championship."

Boullier says the team is aware that it needs to improve its qualifying performance in order to be able to fight for better positions.

Raikkonen qualified in 10th in Germany, while Grosjean started from 19th after a penalty for changing his gearbox.

"It's clear what we need to do for better results. Anyone who watches Formula 1 can tell us this. We need to do better in qualifying," Boullier said.

"It's clear that if we want to win the races we have to be top four or five on the grid."

Bruno Senna believes that his performances in Formula 1 this year have deserved more points than he has to his name so far.

The Williams driver only has 18 points after 10 races. While team-mate Pastor Maldonado is not far ahead on 29, the Venezuelan has run closer to the front in most races, and took victory in the Spanish Grand Prix.

Senna had another race to forget in Germany, where a first lap collision forced him back to the pits with a puncture. From there he had good pace for the rest of the afternoon, but there was no hope of recovering enough to score any points.

"I have been in very tough situations this year and still managed to have good races," Senna told AUTOSPORT. "I just feel that we deserve more points from those races.

"I'm happy with how the races have gone, and I've been making few mistakes. If we can continue like this I'm sure we can start scoring some very serious points, and that's the aim."

Senna admitted that his qualifying performances have let him down too many times in the first half of the campaign.

"There has been a shift from last year in terms of how qualifying and race performances went," he said. "Last year I struggled a lot in the races and this year I'm struggling in qualifying.

"It's tough, but the important thing is to make the most of it. I'm doing these qualifying sessions [on tracks in the first half of the year] for the first time [in a good car], but other people with more experience are doing them again.

"We have been doing a good job as a team to get in the right direction. We are still competitive and we have no reason to fear the rest of the year."

Dani Clos will get another outing with the HRT team during Friday practice for this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix.

The Spaniard, who has already driven the car in Spain, Britain and Germany, will replace Indian Narain Karthikeyan once more at the Hungaroring.

"I'm really excited about having another opportunity to drive the car in the first free practice session in Hungary," said Clos.

"It will be the third consecutive grand prix and the fourth time this season that I get into the F112, and I hope to transform that continuity into a good rhythm and a positive result on the track with which to make my contribution to the team.

"To not compete is something new for me so I have to enjoy and make the most of these opportunities presented to me to continue learning."

[Lineker]

Red Bull Racing is set to be forced to make changes to the engine mapping of its cars for this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix, AUTOSPORT has learned, with the FIA poised to issue a clarification in the next 48 hours on the matter.

Following the controversy at Hockenheim on Sunday, when Red Bull Racing was referred to the stewards to explain why its cars were operating with engine maps that had reduced torque in the mid rpm range, motor racing's governing body is now close to acting.

AUTOSPORT understands that the FIA is planning to issue an official clarification on the matter before action gets underway in Budapest on Friday.

This document is almost certain to make it clear that what Red Bull Racing was doing in Germany will no longer be deemed acceptable.

Sources suggest that the FIA will lay down specific limits on the variations of torque that can be used throughout the rev range - with Red Bull Racing believed to have been using much less than the maximum available torque in the middle rev range.

It is understood that the new limit could allow as little tolerance in torque as two per cent, which is believed to be well inside the variation shown on the engine map used by Red Bull Racing at the German GP.

By having a greater variation in its engine mapping, Red Bull Racing was able to both minimise wheelspin and also pump more gases through its engines, therefore helping the aerodynamic benefits that the outfit still gets through the use of exhaust flow at the rear of the car.

Although Formula 1 technical delegate Jo Bauer believed that Red Bull Racing's engine maps were in breach of the regulations in Germany, the race stewards did not agree - even though they also did not accept the team's explanations of what was happening.

Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner was keen to play down the matter at Hockenheim, suggesting that he never had any doubt his team was in compliance with the regulations.

"Unfortunately, when you have a quick car, it's inevitable that questions are asked," he said. "F1 is a competitive business.

"The rules are pretty black and white and having looked at the evidence, the data, they [the stewards] were fully satisfied. That's the nature of Formula 1 at the end of the day. Of course, you are always going to get other teams that are going to speculate."

Even if the FIA rule clarification does mean Red Bull Racing has to make changes to its engine maps, it should be a fairly simply matter for the team to revert to settings that it used without problem earlier in the campaign.

Formula 1 drivers were warned specifically about increased scrutiny on anyone gaining an advantage by leaving the track, before Sebastian Vettel's controversial move on Jenson Button at the German Grand Prix.

Vettel grabbed second place from Button on the penultimate lap at Hockenheim after using the run-off area at the exit of the hairpin to drive past his McLaren rival.

That incident was investigated by the race stewards, who deemed that Vettel was in breach of the rules for not using the track "at all times" - and he was given a 20-second time penalty in lieu of a drive-through for his actions.

The decision, which dropped Vettel to fifth in the race results, caused some controversy because in other situations - like Lewis Hamilton overtaking Nico Rosberg off track in Bahrain, a move the officials ruled was ultimately completed on track under braking - drivers have escaped punishment. But it is understood that the stewards were reacting to the latest clarification of the rules that was issued at the British GP.

Prior to the race at Silverstone, F1 race director Charlie Whiting sent a note to all teams and race stewards making it clear that while the regulations state no driver can gain an advantage by leaving the track, race stewards would be encouraged to use their discretion in determining the extent of any benefit.

In the note, a copy of which has been seen by AUTOSPORT, Whiting stated: "Any driver leaving the track, (i.e. no part of his car remains in contact with the track in accordance with the current regulations), may rejoin the track but without gaining an advantage.

"Whilst the relevant regulation stated that a driver may gain no advantage at all by leaving the track, we feel the stewards should be encouraged to use their discretion in cases where it is not entirely clear whether or not a driver has gained any direct or immediate advantage."

The clarification over drivers not gaining any advantage when they run off the track came in the same document where Whiting issued new guidelines about defensive driving – stating that drivers could use the full width of the track to hold back a rival providing that no part of their front wing was alongside the rear wheel of their car.

McLaren will introduce further car upgrades for this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix as it bids to build on its impressive performance at Hockenheim.

A major package of updates, which included modified sidepods and exhausts allowed McLaren to return to race-winning contention in the German Grand Prix.

It is hoped that further aerodynamic upgrades at the Hungaroring will build on that progress after team principal Martin Whitmarsh stressed the importance of ongoing development work.

"There are some more updates for Hungary," said sporting director Sam Michael. "We will definitely be bringing parts there and then to Spa.

"For Monza, we will probably just have Monza-specific parts and then [another upgrade] at Singapore. That's where we are at.

"Without question, we made a big step at Hockenheim. We saw that in FP1 and FP3 in the dry and if we can get on top of our performance in the wet then we will have the complete article.

"We had competitive race pace and super-competitive qualifying pace if it was going to be dry. I'm sure that we can be really competitive [in Hungary]."

Michael has no doubts that McLaren had the quickest car in Germany and that Jenson Button would likely have won had he qualified better

But for the wet conditions during Q3, in which both Button and Lewis Hamilton struggled for tyre temperature, he believes that a win was on the cards.

"If we had qualified better, we wouldn't have used up so much energy, particularly in the tyres, to get back to where [Fernando] Alonso and [sebastian] Vettel were. We would have been able to use our pace against them.

"If we had qualified around them and then we would not have been held up by [Michael] Schumacher and [Nico] Hulkenberg for a few laps at the beginning, which costs us the time. If we were racing next to them, there's no question we would have had the ability to race for the win."

Michael also admitted that there might not be any quick fix for McLaren's problems with tyre temperature in wet conditions, although much depends on the track characteristics.

At Silverstone, both drivers struggled on intermediate rubber, while at Hockenheim the cars were quick on those tyres, but uncompetitive on wets.

"Getting on top of wet problems is quite difficult, especially when you are inconsistent," he said. "You don't replicate the conditions anywhere.

"Then there are other factors such as load at Spa. You could have a warm-up problem at Spa, but it's such a high-load track that we could probably overcome it anyway because of the high-speed corners and long out laps."

Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali has promised to protect Felipe Massa from any pressure surrounding his tough 2012 season.

The Brazilian has endured a torrid campaign so far, languishing 14th in the standings, 131 points behind his team-mate and the world championship leader Fernando Alonso.

Massa's future has been the subject of intense speculation, which increased two weeks ago when Mark Webber admitted that he had spoken with Ferrari before deciding to renew his contract with Red Bull for 2012.

But after another race to forget for Massa in Germany, where he came home 12th after a first lap accident, Domenicali said that the team was still fully behind its number two driver.

"We want to support Felipe 100 per cent," he said. "We want to express that we are all together as a team and a family at the moment.

"In Silverstone we saw Felipe was close to Fernando, so that's why we need to believe in the fact that Felipe can do the right job for the team.

"That is why we have always said there is no pressure. We want him to realise that he is a part of us, and we will protect him in all conditions. And I am sure that he will give back what the team is giving him."

When asked if the speculation surrounding his future could be playing a part in Massa's troubled season, Domenicali said that Ferrari would not hurry to resolve the matter.

"We said from the beginning that we have no rush," he said. "It doesn't change our approach. Now is not the time to discuss the future."

Romain Grosjean believes that Lotus has been held back this year because it is getting used to working with two new drivers.

Lotus brought GP2 champion Grosjean in alongside Formula 1-returnee Kimi Raikkonen for this season, and the Franco-Swiss says that the all-new line-up has put the team at a disadvantage compared to the other major teams.

"Some teams like Red Bull, Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren have been working with their drivers for three, four or five years and they know each other," said Grosjean.

"When they go to a racetrack they know where they want to start. When we start the race weekend we start with last year's data, but it wasn't us in the car. So you need a bit of time to adapt and that means in the end you are not perfect."

He added that he hopes the team can reap the benefits of continuity next year if it keeps the same line-up.

"Hopefully if it goes well I will be with the team next season and we will be able to look at what we had this year and we can start with a better setup.

"Then we will know already what was working and what wasn't, and that will give us more free time to go and get everything perfect."

Grosjean said that he has no guarantees about his future for next year.

"At the moment I am hoping [for 2013]," he said. "I hope I will stay in F1, it was tough to lose before [in 2009]. But if we keep going like we have I think there are good chances.

"I am a perfectionist so I won't say I have done enough. I will try to get better and better, there are things I am learning and I am still improving."

Lotus team principal Eric Boullier is confident that his team will have an even stronger second half of the 2012 Formula 1 season, after its promising start to the campaign.

Kimi Raikkonen claimed Lotus's sixth podium finish of the season in Germany after Sebastian Vettel was hit with a post-race time penalty for overtaking Jenson Button off the track, but the team has yet to convert its pace into victory.

Boullier has no doubts that with the team and drivers developing an ever tighter working relationship, Lotus is on course to score more points in the second half of the year than it has in the first.

"In some ways, we are a new team," Boullier told AUTOSPORT. "This is a new Enstone, working together with both drivers.

"Our complete package, including the car and the drivers, is coming together.

"I don't see any reason why in the second half of the season we would not score more points than we have done in the first half. That is how it should be."

Boullier echoed Raikkonen's post-German Grand Prix sentiments, suggesting that the Finn had the pace to fight for victory had he started from a strong position.

Raikkonen lined up 10th after struggling with grip levels in wet conditions in Q3 but showed strong pace during the race.

"It's not frustrating, it's just racing," said Boullier of the team's lack of a breakthrough win. "If we make everything right in qualifying and are in the top five, we know that we have the pace to win. This is the target now.

"In Germany, our car had the pace to fight with Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull. It's just a question of qualifying better."

Mercedes is lacking around half a second of laptime compared to the frontrunners, and must find that performance if it is to return to winning ways.

That is the view of Mercedes-Benz motorsport boss Norbert Haug, who thinks that while the Brackley-based outfit has made considerable progress this year it is still not at the level it needs to be.

"The verdict on the first half of our season would be: 'much achieved, much still to do'," Haug said on Tuesday. "We have been the pacesetters at a number of race weekends and Nico [Rosberg] scored the first win for our new Silver Arrow works team in China, while Michael [schumacher] set the fastest time in a prestigious qualifying session in Monaco and Nico then finished second in the race. Two races later, in Valencia, Michael also scored a podium finish.

"Our team has scored over one third more points than at the same time last season, in spite of Michael suffering a run of technical retirements. The last two races have shown that we currently lack around half a second a lap to the pacesetters. This is clear to all in the team and we'll be doing our maximum to develop the car further and close the gap."

Schumacher himself is encouraged by the progress made - even though his own points tally is not what he was expecting thanks to a run of mechanical problems early in the campaign.

"If we only look at the points standings, it doesn't seem so good; but if you look a bit deeper, and at certain results, then the overall picture is much better," he said. "We have taken a clear step forward and already achieved a few highlights.

Looking to this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix, Rosberg believes the tight configuration of the Hungaroring should suit the W03, but is equally aware that the field is so competitive that nothing can be guaranteed on track.

"The layout should suit our car but you just can't make predictions this year and you never know how it will work out over the weekend. Tyre wear will again be critical for the race so we will work hard to manage that properly."

Williams believes that Formula 1 teams are having to evaluate smaller updates than usual because of the competitive nature of the sport in 2012.

This season has been dubbed one of the closest ever, with seven different winners from the first seven races of the season, and several midfield teams causing upsets as they are closer to the frontrunning teams than usual.

And after Lotus became the second team to run a double DRS concept on a grand prix weekend in Germany, trialling the system on Kimi Raikkonen's car during free practice, Williams chief operations engineer Mark Gillan said that rival outfits cannot afford to write off any new ideas, no matter how small the benefit.

"With all these things, double DRS, exhaust concepts and the like, even if you've looked at it once you never stop looking," said Gillan.

"Two years ago a tenth of a second might not have been worth putting the effort in for. But now, it's so tight you must put whatever you can on the car as soon as possible."

Gillan added that Williams will continue to monitor the potential benefits of a double DRS, having first evaluated the idea after it was revealed on the Mercedes at the start of the season.

"We look at all these things and gauge whether it's worth putting the effort in for the return that you get," he said. "There was obviously a lot of discussion about the Mercedes system at the beginning of the season, but less so now.

"As a team we have got a lot still to improve, even with the package we have got. The DRS systems, the exhausts, they're all bolt on and nice to have. We all want them, and we're all doing it, but it's getting the package to work that is the key.

"A lot of these things need a lot of investment just to get it on the car, and there are balancing acts that we're always doing. Depending on the results from the windtunnel, you decide which one you go for."

Toto Wolff is to step up his involvement at Williams after taking up an executive director role that will result in him directly assisting team principal Frank Williams.

The Austrian has been a shareholder of the team since 2009 and, following the departure of chairman Adam Parr earlier this year, was already playing a greater role with the outfit.

After evaluating his situation, it has been agreed that Wolff will now become an executive director on the board and play a more pivotal role alongside team founder Frank Williams.

Speaking about his new position, Wolff said: "It's a great honour for me to be assisting and supporting Sir Frank in his role as team principal at Williams.

"I have been a shareholder in the business since 2009 and I am really looking forward to being able to take my responsibilities to a new level. I know that together we will work tirelessly to make the group and team as successful as it can be."

Williams himself stepped down from the board earlier this year, and says that Wolff's increased responsibility will be a bonus in helping secure the team's future.

"Toto's new role, working closely alongside myself, is about Williams looking forward and managing the successful running of the company," he said. "I am looking forward to our new working relationship and I have every belief that this partnership will help take Williams F1 from strength to strength."

Force India pairing Nico Hulkenberg and Paul di Resta believe that the team must be at the top of its game to score big points in this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix.

The duo finished ninth and 11th respectively in the German Grand Prix and both were a little disappointed with the dry-weather pace of the car after qualifying strongly in wet conditions.

The team currently lies eighth in the constructors' championship and is 34 points behind the sixth place that it would need to match last year's impressive campaign.

"It was OK, two points, but it was not a huge result like Valencia," Hulkenberg told AUTOSPORT. "We had a big result there, then Silverstone was difficult and Hockenheim as well.

"It's a little bit up and down and we need to try and keep it on a high. If we pull everything together, we can be in the points. But if not, we are going to be outside.

"We need 100 per cent on everything."

Hulkenberg admitted that he was disappointed to manage only ninth in Germany after starting fourth, but confessed that it did not come as a surprise given the pace of the car.

"Obviously, it was a good starting position and you always hope for the best, but it was a tough race with a lot of defending.

"The pace was quite good enough and the tyre wear was a bit higher. At the end of the day, that allows only a P9."

Team-mate di Resta, who started ninth and finished 11th in Germany, believes that the team needs to find more pace if it is to take the fight to the teams ahead of it, like Sauber.

"We're certainly not as quick as the Lotuses and the Saubers," di Resta told AUTOSPORT. "We need to be in front of them and they certainly had a lot more pace than we had [in Germany]."

[Lineker]

Jenson Button believes that mastering Pirelli's tyres in wet and cold conditions requires an element of luck.

McLaren has suffered problems with retaining tyre temperature at times this year, with Button being affected particularly badly.

Several other drivers were caught out by issues with the wet and intermediate tyres in qualifying at Hockenheim, and Button feels that there is only so much the teams can do to master those issues.

"Last year we were great with getting tyre temperature and I think sometimes you do luck into it," said the 2009 world champion. "If you look at the Ferraris last year they were nowhere in conditions where you had low temperature.

"I don't think Ferrari designed a car for that, it just happened with the way they have designed the geometry of the car this year."

Button added that there is no way to drive around the problem of a lack of tyre temperature in wet conditions.

"I've driven F1 cars for 12 or 13 years and I know what it is like to drive in the wet," he said. "I have never felt it like this, but I have had temperature issues for most of the year. In the wet we are nowhere.

"When you can't get the tyres working, you can't stand on the brakes because you lock up, and you are driving round so slow.

"The tyre isn't working, it's just skating and you spend the whole time so fearful that it is just going to send you off into the boonies."

Button praised the efforts of McLaren after the updates it brought to Germany gave the MP4-27 a significant performance boost in dry conditions, but he said it has made little difference to the car's difficulties in wet conditions.

"We have found a lot of time in the dry with the new things we have brought here," he said. "But in the wet we still have the same issues of tyre temperature.

"We should be happy with the improvements we have made, but as soon as it started raining we knew we would struggle."

Sauber has set its sights on finishing in the top five of the constructors' championship, according to chief executive officer Monisha Kaltenborn.

The Swiss team strengthened its grip on sixth place in the standings by scoring 20 points courtesy of Kamui Kobayashi and Sergio Perez finishing fourth and sixth at Hockenheim, but Kaltenborn believes that there is the potential to do even better.

Sauber now has 80 points, 36 more than it scored on the way to seventh place last year. It trails Mercedes by only 25 points.

"Our target is to improve significantly," Kaltenborn told AUTOSPORT. "If it's just one position at the end of the season compared to last year, I would not call that significant. We can really go further up.

"But it's very early to make a call right now. We have half-a-season to go and we saw last season how much things chance. It looked like a safe sixth position but it didn't end up like that."

Kaltenborn backed the team's drivers to get the best out of the machinery in the second half of the season.

Both Perez and Kobayashi have endured weekends where they haven't made the most of the pace of the car, but Hockenheim showed that both are capable of scoring big points.

"It's a bit responsibility for them because no matter what car we provide, they have to bring the result home," she said.

"They are inexperienced drivers in a way because to be in your second or third season in F1 is nothing compared to others in their 10th season.

"We have to be careful not to put too much load on them because they have to have their time to learn as well. But they are both doing a good job."

Kaltenborn added that while the Hockenheim performance was encouraging, the team still needs to raise its game across the board in qualifying.

Neither driver reached Q3 and both have regularly had to climb the order from disappointing grid slots this year.

"This kind of result shows what we are capable of," said Kaltenborn. "But we could do far more if we were starting further up and not messing up qualifying. This is the level that we have to target, and even higher because we know that the car can do more.

"Qualifying is still one of our weaknesses which we really should focus on. Other mistakes can happen, but if you are better in qualifying, you are in a very different position going into the race. It has to be our target in the second half of the year to improve in this area."

Heikki Kovalainen is refusing to allow speculation over his Formula 1 future to distract him this year despite being a potential target for several rival teams.

The Caterham driver has impressed during his two-and-a-half seasons at Caterham after struggling during his two years at McLaren, and is known to have attracted tentative interest from teams such as Ferrari and Sauber.

But Kovalainen has played down any imminent deal to move away from the team and believes that his performances behind the wheel will do the talking when it comes to securing a deal for next year.

"What I'm focusing on is that I keep my performances as high as possible and aim to take the maximum from the car and the team," said Kovalainen.

"That would put me in the best position in case Caterham has other plans for the future. I'll try to show everyone, including my team, that I have what it takes to get the job done."

Despite not scoring a point since the 2009 Singapore Grand Prix - a run of 50 starts – Kovalainen is confident that he can still impress the right people.

He pointed to AUTOSPORT's poll of team principals at the end of last season as evidence of that.

"We haven't seriously talked to anyone so I don't know what they think," he said when asked how easy it was to impress team bosses in uncompetitive machinery.

"But the team bosses ranked me ninth in their top 10 list, which was very good and shows that they are paying attention."

Kovalainen confirmed that he had not yet had any proper talks with Caterham about next year.

But he admitted that such discussions would have to start soon, especially as he needs to be convinced that the team will be able to fight for better positions in races.

"Next year, I want to be fighting for better positions and I want to be as high up the grid as possible," he said when asked about the need for improved results by AUTOSPORT. "But I haven't really talked to Caterham about what the plans are.

"At some point we will sit down and see what the plans are, how things are looking and what their interest level is. They may have other [driver] plans, I don't know.

"Overall, I have been happy about the time that I've had here. One of the reasons why I'm regularly getting the best out of myself and the car is because I have a good relationship with the team and I am working better. What happens in the future, I don't know."

Fernando Alonso's race engineer Andrea Stella says the Spaniard stands among the best drivers in Formula 1 history.

The Ferrari driver is leading the championship after taking three wins this season despite not always having the fastest car.

Alonso said he felt he was at the peak of his form after some sensational drives in the first half of the 2012 season.

Speaking to Gazzetta dello Sport, Stella reckons there have been very few drivers as good as the two-time champion.

"Don't draw me into comparisons," said Stella when asked if Alonso was performing at seven-time champion Michael Schumacher's level.

"I just think that, when Fernando performs at these levels, there are just a few drivers in history who can stand the comparison.

"You can perhaps count them on the fingers of one hand, and it's not world titles dictating the standings."

He added: "I wouldn't use the concept of perfection, because you can always improve. But I struggle to remember drivers at this level in every condition, as we've seen in Germany. We ran in the rain, in the damp, in the dry and with every kind of tyre: he was always the best."

Stella reiterated Ferrari's belief that its car is still not the quickest, despite Alonso winning the German Grand Prix last weekend.

"We don't think we have the best car in dry conditions yet, but compared to the others we are making better use of what we have at our disposal. A lot of credit for it goes to the driver and to the team."

The Italian reckons the Maranello squad's car has improved around three seconds since pre-season testing, when the team struggled for pace.

"Compared to the first winter tests in Jerez, we have perhaps improved by some three seconds per lap," he said. "But we have more ideas yet.

"There is a continuous development programme, so the parts that get on the track today were decided one or two months ago. In F1 if you stand still it's all over."

McLaren managing director Jonathan Neale believes there is now nothing to choose between his outfit and its main title rivals Red Bull and Ferrari.

After struggling in recent races, a significant upgrade package produced marked improvements at Hockenheim, with Jenson Button able to challenge for victory.

On the back of that "significant step", Neale believes McLaren has closed the gap to the two teams ahead of it in the constructors' championship, and in the process delivered Button and Lewis Hamilton with a car capable of challenging for victory in Hungary.

Asked during a Vodafone phone-in whether he could discern any performance differences between McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull, Neale said: "Not based on the data I saw from Germany, no. I think the three top teams have very competitive cars.

"As we head into this weekend, are we expecting to lockout the front row? Expect no; hope, of course. We believe we have a competitive car.

"We have been focussing a lot on our race pace because our qualifying pace has been slightly stronger and we believe that both drivers have a good chance of being very competitive. Hopefully one of them can win this weekend."

Neale hailed the impact of the team's German updates, but said he was fully aware of the magnitude of the task it was still facing in order to try and challenge for world championship glory.

"We were very pleased with the upgrade package - everything we took on Friday that we wanted to stay on the car did. I think both drivers were [able] to contest the race, and I was delighted for Jenson that he managed to achieve second place - and for the whole team that the car made a significant step forward.

"We are under no illusions about how hard we have to work, but we also must remember there are still 400 odd points to come in this championship.

"But it's a very close grid, and not withstanding whether the teams are able to exploit the conditions and tyres, [teams] don't need to bring much to change the competitive order.

"Nobody at this stage in any team is going to be backing out and diverting to next year or the year after, so I think we are in for a very challenging race in Hungary and I suspect the rate of development will be very strong through August and September.

"Whilst it is undeniable that Fernando has driven really well this season, if you look at the point conversion rate of Red Bull they are also very strong, and we have to get in amongst that mix. There is still a lot to go though; I don't think it is static."

Formula 1 and the FIA should do all they can to avoid another lengthy debate about technical regulations in the wake of the controversy over Red Bull's engine torque maps in Germany.

That is the view of McLaren managing director Jonathan Neale, who said a swift and firm resolution would be in the interests of the teams and the sport as a whole.

Last year the ruling over blown diffusers caused protracted arguments and several contradictory decisions over the British Grand Prix weekend, before teams finally agreed to a ban on the concept.

Neale said during a Vodafone phone-in that he hopes to avoid a similar situation, pledging his support to both the FIA and its technical delegate Charlie Whiting.

"I think we have all worked really hard for the first six months of this year with the FIA and Charlie to be really clear about what is allowed and what isn't. I pledge that support again, [because] I think they have a very difficult job here," Neale said.

"I hope that we don't get into lots of re-writing of exhaust regulations like we did last year because that provided a reasonable amount of upset and difficulty.

"In terms of us as teams and the sport, consistency of regulations is good. I think we just need to put a lot more effort into enforcing the regulation, rather than continually rewriting."

Neale said he could not empirically quantify just how much performance Red Bull was gaining.

"The honest answer is I really don't know," Neale said when asked by AUTOSPORT what impact the FIA's decision to force Red Bull to change engine maps could have.

"None of us really know what it is that antagonised the FIA so much to provoke Jo Bauer into issuing the note he did on Sunday morning. It was quite unusual step - I don't think the FIA would have referred to the stewards unless they had very serious concerns.

"It's really not for us to know or tell exactly what the Renault engine is doing in the Red Bull, and therefore how much advantage they get from it because it is an integrated performance package. But I know we are not the only ones on the grid who are looking at it very carefully."

Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn is confident that his team is getting better at predicting tyre behaviour this year.

The Chinese Grand Prix-winning team has endured an inconsistent season and has at times struggled with managing the Pirelli rubber, but while Brawn accepts that the current regulations force a team to be more reactive to changing situations than in previous years, he has no doubts that the team is getting better at anticipating what will happen.

"I think it's both," he replied when asked if F1 is becoming reactive rather than predictive. "We are having to be more reactive because we are meeting situations that are very difficult to predict.

"But we are getting better at predicting what is going to happen and better at understanding what will evolve.

"Some teams seem to have been in a good position from the beginning of the season and some teams like ourselves have had to work at it and make some changes.

"So it's predictive and reactive, but we're getting better at predicting and modelling and analysing what is going on."

Brawn admitted that the team's performance in the German Grand Prix was a little disappointing, after Michael Schumacher slipped from third on the grid to seventh at the chequered flag.

Before the race, he had spoken of the effort that the team has put into trying to even out the car's performance in a range of conditions , both pertaining to the track and the fuel/tyre situation.

In Germany, he was unhappy with the pace at some, but not all, points in the race.

"It was a little bit disappointing," he told AUTOSPORT. "There was a period of the race where it was a bit flat and we couldn't get it to fall as we hoped for and other parts of the race where it was more respectable."

Sergio Perez insists he will not put pressure on Ferrari to promote him to its Formula 1 team alongside Fernando Alonso.

The Mexican, who is part of Ferrari's young driver academy, has been linked to Felipe Massa's seat on several occasions.

But despite his connections to Maranello, Perez claims that he has not had any talks with the Scuderia about his future, and he will not try to instigate any.

"No, none at all," he said when asked if replacing Massa had been discussed. "We are focusing fully on this season. It has been a very busy season so far, so it is too soon for me to think about my future.

"It's not [something] that I will push. I have to see what the options are and then I will decide. If there is an opportunity with them [Ferrari] or another team then that is the time to know."

The 22-year-old also added that has a good relationship with Alonso.

When asked if feels he could work well with the double world champion, he said: "Yes. I speak with him, I speak the same language, so I am quite OK with him."

Ferrari admitted in June that it had spoken to Perez about taming his aggression ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix, where he took his second podium finish of the season. But he is happy with the level of performance he has shown throughout the year.

"I think I have done a very good job this season and I have proved that I have the speed, and the consistency as well," he added. "If you look at my whole season it has been up and down, but not because I have been inconsistent.

"Many things come into account and we cannot forget that we are still a midfield team. So I am comfortable with the position I am in.

"My target is to keep doing very good races and then I will decide very soon what my future is going to be."

Red Bull Racing will be forced to alter the engine mapping of its Renault power units from this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix after the FIA moved to close a loophole in the regulations, as predicted by AUTOSPORT yesterday.

Although Red Bull's cars were deemed legal by the race stewards in Germany last weekend, they are believed to have been operating with engine maps that had reduced torque in the mid RPM range.

The intention of the regulation prior to its clarification was to ensure that there was a linear relationship between the throttle position and the torque demand on the engine.

As expected, the FIA has thus issued a clarification of Article 5.5.3 within F1's technical regulations to the teams ahead of this weekend's race.

And although no official statement has been made public, AUTOSPORT understands the new version of the regulation insists teams will be limited in the amount of adjustments it can make to the engine torque map race- by-race.

According to the clarification, teams will be required to nominate one engine map - as a reference - that they used during the first four events of this season, which must then be approved by the governing body.

Once passed by the FIA, the engine torque curves above 6,000rpm must not vary by more than plus or minus two per cent from that reference map.

Teams will be allowed to make specific requests for changes when races take place in 'exceptional atmospheric conditions' however.

McLaren's managing director Jonathan Neale said on Wednesday that he could not quantify the impact the clarification would have on Red Bull's performance.

"The honest answer is I really don't know," Neale said. "None of us really know what it is that antagonised the FIA so much to provoke Jo Bauer into issuing the note he did on Sunday morning. It was quite an unusual step - I don't think the FIA would have referred to the stewards unless they had very serious concerns.

"It's really not for us to know or tell exactly what the Renault engine is doing in the Red Bull, and therefore how much advantage they get from it because it is an integrated performance package. But I know we are not the only ones on the grid who are looking at it very carefully."

Nico Hulkenberg believes he is now showing his real potential after shaking off the 'rust' that developed during his season on the sidelines in 2011.

The German spent last year as Force India's reserve driver, having lost his Williams race seat at the end of 2010. Hulkenberg then replaced Adrian Sutil in Force India's race line-up for this season.

Asked by AUTOSPORT how he would assess his first half season racing for Force India, Hulkenberg said there had been clear highlights but that he felt the best was yet to come now he was fully up to speed.

"Like anybody, a few ups and downs. The high was fifth in Valencia," he said.

"A couple of tough races at the beginning of the season which were interrupted by things that I couldn't control, such as the clutch in Bahrain or the lap-one incident with Mark [Webber] in Melbourne - races where maybe potential points were there. So I've been unlucky in some places.

"Obviously I've done my mistakes as well. Coming back to racing, I needed some time to shine and get the rusty bits off. But since the start of the European season I feel that it's getting better and better, and I feel I'm on the right path."

Hulkenberg's 2013 plans are currently uncertain, but he said he would be happy to stay at Force India.

"I feel very comfortable in the team," said Hulkenberg. "As far as I'm concerned, the team is very happy, and there's a possibility [to stay]."

Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo says he remains "concerned" about the championship situation despite Fernando Alonso's third win of the season.

Montezemolo said after Alonso's second win of the season in Valencia that he was worried about his team's chances in the championship given the strong opposition.

Despite Alonso becoming the first three-time winner of the 2012 season at Hockenheim, opening a gap of 36 points to his closest rival, the Ferrari president says the form of his rivals is still a concern.

"I am concerned, more so than the day after Valencia," said Montezemolo. "I see very strong opponents: McLaren has made great progress, Red Bull is very strong, Sauber had a race pace that was a match for ours and Lotus is very strong at times.

"Therefore, we have to be very careful: after we had a difficult start to the season, maybe our rivals did not expect to see Ferrari capable of fighting back this strongly, but now they will redouble their efforts to beat us. Therefore, we must stay very focused and continue our efforts to improve continuously."

Di Montezemolo, however, expressed his joy at the team's performance in Germany, also praising the work done by team boss Stefano Domenicali.

"I want to tell you I am proud of you," he said. "When I watched you applauding the drivers, I was thinking that I am lucky to work with people like you, people who have known how to work without fuss, with ability and determination to redress the difficult situation at the start of the season, which was not at the level of the name Ferrari.

"I want to take this opportunity to thank Domenicali for his work. When, a few years ago, it was decided to go for a man who had grown from within the company, there were some who turned up their noses at the idea, but today I am pleased to see a true leader of a team that is doing well, which is what I want and which is worthy of the name Ferrari."

[Lineker]

Maria de Villota has been released from hospital following the Marussia Formula 1 testing accident in which she lost her right eye.

The Spaniard was admitted to the La Paz hospital in Madrid on July 20 after undergoing surgery at Addenbrooke's hospital following her crash at Duxford Airfield in England.

A statement on her behalf said de Villota, 32, had not suffered any neurological injuries.

"The patient's general conditions are good, which allowed us to release her yesterday," read the statement.

"In these six days, she has been treated by specialists of the plastic and neurological surgery services, and the ophthalmology department, who will continue to follow her, as she will need to undergo periodical checks and treatments.

"As communicated previously, the patient has lost her right eye, as a consequence of the serious trauma suffered, and she will be closely followed by the ophthalmology service. The specialists of the plastic surgery service will be responsible for following the serious injuries to her face and correcting the effects of those."

Sebastian Vettel has played down the significance of changes that his Red Bull Racing team has had to make to its engine maps, in the wake of the controversy that erupted at last weekend's German Grand Prix.

The world champion's team was summoned to see the stewards to explain the characteristics of its engine maps - which FIA technical delegate Jo Bauer did not believe complied with the regulations.

Although the stewards decided that Red Bull had not been in breach of the rules, a subsequently clarification of the situation by the FIA on Wednesday means the team will no longer be allowed to run the settings that it had in Hockenheim.

But despite that decision likely to have some effect on the competitiveness of the team, Vettel believes the differences will be minor – and he insists his engineers are not viewing the matter as seriously as those outside the outfit.

"Obviously there is a lot of talk, and there was some talk Saturday night and Sunday which was not nice for us in terms of race preparation," said Vettel ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix.

"We only knew an hour before the race what was going to happen, but we took it and obviously it was good for us to start from the grid. It was also clear that probably it was not the last action to be taken.

"But, to be honest, I think there was more of a fuss in writing and talking, than in the mapping in the car."

Vettel concedes, however, that the changes – which will limit the way in which Red Bull Racing can change torque settings to help improve the blowing of gases through its exhaust – will make a difference to the handling of the car.

"Obviously, if you look at the cars this year they are different to last year in terms of regulations, and the way you are forced to put your exhaust in a certain position," he said.

"If you look at what people tried to achieve it is similar to last year, so everyone tries to do his best. But it is not as if the car does not work now any more. I am quite confident that nothing will change.

"But obviously we had what we had in the car in Hockenheim because we believed it was quickest, so it is a little bit different for here. But it is hard to give you a figure: if it is two tenths, half a tenth, or nothing. We cannot measure."

Nico Hulkenberg is not sure whether he has done enough to secure his Formula 1 future with Force India for another season.

The 24-year-old German stepped up from his role as the team's test and reserve driver in 2011 to take a race seat alongside Paul di Resta for this season.

Hulkenberg lies 15th in the drivers' championship, two places behind his team-mate, but has scored points in three of the last five grands prix and has outqualified the Briton five times in the opening 10 races.

However, this recent form is not enough to convince Hulkenberg that he will be kept on by team boss Vijay Mallya, even if he did admit that he would like to remain at the Silverstone-based team for 2013.

When asked by AUTOSPORT if he thought he had done enough to keep his seat, the German answered: "I'm not sure. You'd have to ask Vijay.

"But I'm happy with the job I've done, I'm happy here and I can see myself staying here."

Despite Force India's fluctuating form this year, Hulkenberg sees no reason why the VJM05 cannot be just as competitive at this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix as it was in Germany, despite the Hungaroring and Hockenheim circuits providing different challenges to the cars.

"It's hard to tell [how well suited to the track the car will be," he added. "I don't actually think it makes much difference. We'll be there or thereabouts either inside the top 10 or maybe just outside it. That's the pace of the car."

Kimi Raikkonen is optimistic Lotus has hit a sweet spot in setting up the E20 and believes that if the Hungarian Grand Prix remains dry he may finally be able to fully deliver on the E20's promise this weekend.

The Finn, who has finished on the podium four times in the ten races he's started since returning to the sport in 2012, still thinks a win is possible this year if the team can get a clean race and the conditions are right.

"We haven't won any races so it [the car] is not a winner," he said at Hungary. "We have a good package but for many reasons we haven't got the best out of it, or not got the best out of it in all the races.

"We are still pretty happy but you want to do better, we want to win races, but it hasn't happened so far but hopefully we can.

"It is not easy, we know that, and we keep trying to improve things from the things we do, and we see what we can do in the second part."

Raikkonen added that rain in the build-up to the race in Hockenheim last weekend cost the team badly in the German Grand Prix. It meant that Raikkonen could finish than fourth on the road after qualifying 10th.

"We had good speed in the last weekend, apart from the rain where we could not get anything for some reason," he said, "and that really put us in a not very good position.

"But I think if I is a dry weekend we have found the place where we want to be with set-up and things like that, so hopefully we can be better than last weekend."

Sebastian Vettel still believes Lewis Hamilton's move to unlap himself in the German Grand Prix was unnecessary, but has denied calling the Briton stupid.

Hamilton decided to pass Vettel to return to the lead lap while the world champion was fighting for the lead of the race with Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, a move that was labelled as "stupid" by the Red Bull driver.

Although Vettel conceded the move was not against the rules, he still believes it was not necessary.

"If you look at the rules it is clear you are allowed to do that," said Vettel in Hungary. "I said it was unnecessary. I was hunting Fernando, it was a couple of laps to the pit stop, and it didn't help me. It probably helped Jenson, but it is racing.

"I am not complaining. I am saying it was unnecessary from a racing point of view to distract the leaders, no matter who it was."

Vettel, however, said he never accused Hamilton of being stupid.

"If I say after the race that I thought it was unnecessary, and then it gets put and quoted that I said he is stupid, then it is quite disappointing because sometimes I have a mouth, I say a couple of words, you have ears, but it seems somehow in that process mistakes happen," he said.

The Red Bull driver, who lost second place in the race after being handed a penalty for overtaking Jenson Button by going off track, said he had moved on from the incident, although he admitted he would have welcomed the FIA telling him to give his position back during the race.

"To be honest, whatever happened, happened. I am not in Hockenheim, I am in Hungary and looking forward to this race.

"But obviously it would help to get feedback from race direction as soon as possible or from the team. Getting an idea from the outside would obviously help, but for me it was fine, that is why I did it. In the end it was not fine and that is why we got the penalty."

Fernando Alonso says Ferrari cannot afford to make any mistakes in the remaining races of the season despite his advantage in the points standings.

The Spaniard became the first driver to win three races in 2012 In Germany last weekend, increasing his lead in the championship to 34 points over Red Bull's Mark Webber and 44 over Sebastian Vettel.

And while Alonso admitted he is in a good position in the championship after the halfway point of the season, but says it is too easy to lose momentum if the team makes a mistake.

"I think we are in a good position in terms of points that we have achieved in the first half of the season, but we are only halfway through," said Alonso ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix.

"There remains another 10 important races with the same possibility for everybody and the distance between the top five/top six in the championship is not impossible to recover. You just need one or two good races and you are up there.

"We need to keep the concentration, maximise what we have in our hands each weekend. Maybe it is a podium, a fifth or seventh.

"We cannot afford to make any mistakes or anything that we will regret. We need to keep some good consistency but as for championship it is way too early to think and still McLaren and Red Bull and Lotus and Mercedes - anyone is in contention at the moment."

The two-time champion said it would be a dream for him to secure his third title and emulate the late Ayrton Senna, his childhood hero.

"I think we need to wait and see. For me it is a dream in my career to win three world championships, now or in six years' time.

"The third one will be important for me, to have the same as Ayrton had, who was my idol and a reference when I was in go-karts. Three is a big number always and hopefully it will arrive."

The Spaniard said the FIA ruling on engine maps will not affect Ferrari at all, but admitted he did not know how it will impact Red Bull Racing.

"For us it doesn't change anything, we will have exactly the same car as Silverstone and Germany – for them we have no idea," he added.

Felipe Massa says he will not stay in Formula 1 next year if he cannot find a competitive drive should he lose his seat at Ferrari.

The Brazilian's future at the team has been in doubt for some time after a poor start to the season. Massa has scored 23 points in 10 races and lies 14th in the championship, 131 points behind team-mate Fernando Alonso.

Ferrari has been in talks with other drivers, including Red Bull's Mark Webber, who decided to extend his contract with the world champion team.

"What I want is to stay in F1, but I want to stay in F1 with a possibility to race, not just to participate," said Massa.

"I'm interested in racing. I think if for whatever reason I don't have the chance to stay at Ferrari I will try to find a direction to race.

"If I don't find a direction to race, because it's maybe only smalls teams available, then I'm not interested."

The Brazilian, who re-discovered some of his form after struggling with the car at the start of the year, says he only needs to be able to have clean races in order to get positive results.

"Having a clean race," he said when asked how he could help Alonso.

"I'm sure having a clean race would help a lot, and not just him, but myself and the team. That's the only thing. In the last race I had a good pace.

"Unfortunately in Q2 I couldn't do the lap straight away and then I couldn't improve because it was raining a lot. But even after the incident the pace was very good during the whole race. A clean race is what it counts in the end."

Massa admitted he is ready to play a supporting role to Alonso now that he is out of contention.

"I have no chance in the championship. I'm completely out of the fight for the championship and Fernando in in front with a good margin.

There are many races to go but the margin is good and I will do the best I can do be in front all the time, to try to win all the time, but also to try to help Fernando as best as I can to win the championship."

Romain Grosjean is optimistic of another frontrunning performance for the Lotus team at this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix.

The Frenchman believes that the twisty Hungaroring will play perfectly to the strengths of the team's E20, which has previously shown strong pace on slow circuits earlier this season.

"It can be a good weekend for us and the circuit has similar characteristics to Montreal and Monaco, where we were competing quite well," said the Frenchman.

"We are bringing some small upgrades to every race and here there are some more. It is a small amount each time, but each time a little bit plus a little bit makes a larger amount. So we have some small updates that should help us and I think we understand the Lotus quite well.

"It should be better for us and if we can have a good balance for qualifying then we can have a good race."

Grosjean had another difficult race in Germany last weekend after damaging his car at the start and finishing down in 18th position.

He said, however, that he has already put the disappointment behind him and is ready to bounce back at the Hungaroring.

"It's another race and another circuit and it is a bit different. We had a very disappointing Hockenheim race, but sometimes a race doesn't go to plan for some reason, so let's jump in the car tomorrow morning forgetting that and knowing that we have a good car so there is no reason that it should be bad.

"You learn form your mistakes and from a difficult race and improve yourself from that point."

Grosjean said that he will not be testing the double DRS system introduced by the team in Germany, and that responsibilities for doing so will rest soley with his team-mate Kimi Raikkonen.

"We had to modify the chassis on top of the air intakes and we could only do it on one car. I had the previous update first on my car and we share the things," he said. "So let's see how it goes here and if it can work even better then maybe we can bring it for the future.

"I think it would be good to work on it even more together and understand it on Friday and see what we can do to prepare it for the second half of the season."

Lewis Hamilton says he took some comfort from McLaren's improved pace at the German Grand Prix - but admits his title charge cannot afford too many more non-points finishes.

On the back of a major upgrade introduced by his Woking-based team at Hockenheim, Hamilton and team-mate Jenson Button enjoyed a step forward in pace.

However, Hamilton's hopes of matching Button's eventual podium finish were wrecked by a second lap puncture - which damaged his car and left him unable to make much progress before his late-race retirement.

But despite his personal disappointment, Hamilton says that there were some positives to take out of the weekend.

"In terms of Jenson's result it was fantastic, but for me – looking at the pace I had even with the issues I had, my diff was quite badly damaged and my left rear corner destroyed plus my floor – knowing I had lost so much downforce and was still competitive was comforting."

However, with Hamilton now 64 points adrift of championship leader Fernando Alonso in the title stakes, he knows that even with a quick car he cannot afford to fall much further adrift of the title front-runners.

Speaking about how big a dent the German GP was to his championship hopes, he said: "It was as big a dent as you could probably take. Just as Valencia was. Through a season I don't think there could be a bigger dent.

"There are only a certain amount of dents that you can take through the year, especially when the guy who is leading has finished every race in the points."

Thursday's press conference:

DRIVERS - Narain KARTHIKEYAN (HRT), Kamui KOBAYASHI (Sauber), Heikki KOVALAINEN (Caterham), Kimi RAIKKONEN (Lotus), Fernando ALONSO (Ferrari), Pastor MALDONADO (Williams)

PRESS CONFERENCE

Q. Narain, tell us how HRT has changed in the last six months. How much has it changed and developed?

Narain KARTHIKEYAN: Yeah, I think we've come a long way since Australia and the team has a permanent facility now and the factory is very impressive. Everything has come under one roof. There's a design office, we're hiring a lot of people and the car is getting slightly better. It's a positive step and hopefully this will continue throughout the season. We have some upgrades coming during the holidays and hopefully we'll start using them soon and close the gap. The car at the moment is similar to the Marussia, but we can improve still a little bit and that's what we are planning to do.

Q. It's an unfortunate fact that you do see a lot of blue flags in your position. Tell us how difficult it is from that point of view, and how much your race is compromised by that? How much do you have to race in the first quarter of the race?

NK. Yes, that part where you don't have the blue flags in the first of the race is where you try and do what you can and push. But after that, yes, once the blue starts coming you have to go offline sometimes and you pick up lots of marbles and after that it's managing the tyres and so on. It's quite difficult for us but we try to stay out of the way of the leaders.

Q. Kamui, your best performance in Hockenheim: in fact a fantastic performance from both Sauber cars. Have you sorted out the problems you had in the past few races?

Kamui KOBAYASHI: I think it's not really a big problem. It's basically that we had speed everywhere but unfortunately we missed some piece of the puzzle and we could not compete at the end of the weekend, in the race. We believe we had a really good car and had good performance but we just need to piece together all the puzzle. Yeah, I think otherwise we are not worried about our pace. For sure it's not the best of the car but for sure we can fight for good positions.

Q. Is there a problem with qualifying? If you started further up perhaps you could be a winner?

KK. Definitely. In Hockenheim I had quite good confidence in the dry but unfortunately in the wet, especially on the inter tyre in that situation in Hockenheim qualifying, we struggled a lot to warm them up. I think a lot of drivers struggled but we struggled as well and that is the point – if it had been dry I think we could quite easily have found Q3 and then I think the race would have been completely different. This is what we need. Unfortunately in the last two races we had a wet qualifying and a little bit of a difficult time. In the dry we definitely have a good car. In the wet, sometimes it's good, sometimes not good. It's difficult to say what is the clear answer [to that]. We show a really good car in the dry and we definitely we see in the factory many people are working so hard and we see really good performance in the car and so thanks to all the guys working on the car.

Q. Heikki, a lot of rumours going around the paddock at the moment about where you might be going etc. What can you tell us?

Heikki KOVALAINEN: I think it's the time of the season where you hear a lot of rumours regarding a lot of drivers, and for me nothing has changed at the moment. The only focus is improving our team and our car, and making the best out of what we've got. Then at some point we'll sit down with my management and sit down with Caterham first and then see what we'll do for the future.

Q. You're a previous winner at this circuit. What are you feelings coming into this race?

HK. Pretty similar feelings to any other grand prix. It's too long since I won here. It's just one weekend in the whole championship. Of course, as a Finn this feels a little bit like a home grand prix. We have a lot of people from Finland always turning up here. In that way it is perhaps a warmer feeling through the weekend than some of the races. But apart from that, it's business as usual.

Q. Kimi, presumably you feel the same way about the crowd, but what about the car. Is it progressing? People were talking about it as a winner earlier this season. Is it keeping up that reputation? Is it keeping that performance?

Kimi RAIKKONEN: Well, it hasn't won any races, so it's not a winner. I mean, we have a good package but for many races we probably haven't got the best out of it in all conditions at all races but that's up to us. We are still pretty happy but of course you want to do better. We wish to win races but it hasn't happened so far, so hopefully we can win some this year. It's not easy and we know that. We keep trying to improve things and learn from the things that we do and we'll see what we can do in the second part [of the season].

Q. Is fourth the best you can do at the moment and is qualifying an emphasis for you?

KR. We had a good speed last weekend, apart from the rain. We couldn't get anything in the rain for some reason. That really put us in a not very good position. If it's a dry weekend... the car has been good in the wet in Silverstone but for some reason not in qualifying in the last race. I think we're finding the place where I want to be with the car and the set-up and things like that and hopefully we can be a bit better here than we were last week.

Q. Fernando, since last weekend, you and Felipe felt the moral obligation to visit earthquake victims very close to the factory at Maranello. Can you tell us of that experience: what you found, what you saw?

Fernando ALONSO: yeah, we were visiting some of the camps that still have people there and it's not clear when they will come back home, because some of the cities are still quite damaged and most of the buildings will still need some repair. For sure, it's not an easy situation. A sad feeling a little bit. We tried to give them some support from the Ferrari factory and all the team. When the earthquake arrived everyone cares about these people and they were in the news everyday, but now after a few months or whatever, people tend to forget, so we were just visiting them to give them full support and to wish that everything will become better and better every day and that normality will arrive sooner rather than later.

Q. You've come into this race obviously having won last weekend, you won your first race here and you'll go into the break leading the Championship. Do you see yourself as favourite to win the Championship and, if not, who is?

FA. Well, I think we are in a good position in terms of points that we achieve in the first half of the season, in the first ten races, but we are, as you said, only half. We did ten and there remain another ten important races with the same possibilities for everybody. I think the distance between the top five, top six is not a distance or a gap that is impossible to recover. You just need one good race or two good races and you are up there. So, we need to keep the concentration, try to keep maximising what we have in our hands every weekend – sometimes we know that can be a podium, sometimes maybe it's a fifth position, sometimes a seventh, but we cannot afford to make any mistakes or anything that we will regret. So, we need to keep doing good – some good consistency but in terms of the Championship it's obviously way to early to think and still McLaren, Red Bull, Lotus, Mercedes – anyone is in contention at the moment.

Q. Pastor, obviously you won in Barcelona: what has changed, what has happened since then – you really haven't followed that up. What's happened since then.

Pastor MALDONADO: Yeah, I think after Barcelona, for whatever reason we didn't consolidate our results. I did a couple of mistakes and then I've been a bit unlucky as well at the same time. We've been working so hard in the team, trying to keep our performance. Maybe in qualifying we did a great job and as I mentioned, for whatever reason we haven't been very strong on races. Now in the second part of the Championship we are looking to recover the points we lost and to every time be strong and the strongest.

Q. What about this circuit? You were very quick in Monaco, there are mid-speed corners just like in Barcelona as well. Is this looking a good circuit for you?

PM. Yeah, I hope so. For sure now the gaps are very close and I hope to have a great car here. It's going to be very important to understand the tyres, to understand and to prepare the car for quali and the race – which is a compromise I think here. And yeah, I love this circuit. It's very technical, very hard mentally and physically and for sure looking forward to have a great result and to be back to the points again with the team.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q. (Dan Knutson – Honorary) Fernando, in Germany you told us how much better the car was. Could you expand a bit? Just how much has it improved since Jerez testing and what race was the biggest update?

FA. Well, definitely we did improve the car a lot. I don't know how much, or I cannot quantify it in terms of lap time because it will be difficult. I think between two and three seconds maybe but obviously it's a number that cannot be very precise. I think the biggest improvement that we introduced was in Barcelona; the biggest updates were mainly the aerodynamics of the car – but we knew that in the first three or four races, when we were in China, Bahrain, the car was not doing what we were expecting. And when we arrived in Barcelona, everything became a little bit more normal for us and from that point, all the updates it was fine-tuning. But the Barcelona one was to make everything back to work.

Q. (Péter Farkas – Autó-Motor) Kimi, we have not really heard anything about the infamous power steering lately. Have you and the team taking a step forward regarding that? And before, did you have any real life situations where you felt you couldn't achieve a better result because of the power steering?

KR. There's no point to talk about it because I mean, when we say something people try to make a massive story out of it. Like I always said, it's not perfect – it's still not – it's improved a lot since we started. But still a way to go. It's OK to race, it's not like it's somehow going to make me one second faster or half a second faster if we going to get it exactly as we want. And this is… I know that I've driven better ones and there's definitely still things that we can improve. We're working for it, but it's not the easiest thing to get right. So we have to work on those and hopefully at some point we will get it exactly as we want.

Q. (Harry Kiner – ARA Radio) Fernando, for you two questions please. In Ferrari team I heard they call you a maestro: is it true and how does it come? And managed to stay out of any trouble this year – how to you do it?

FA. In Ferrari they call me Fernando normally. But always with Ferrari as we are already repeating it was a very good reception, welcome from day one. And it's like family for me. I'm in Italy 80 per cent of my free time and I have my best friends there working also in Italy now in the factory in the road cars, so I spend free time there. Most of the time as I said I'm better in Italy even than in Spain, so this is something for sure curious.

This year it has been not easy to go out of problems or troubles in the races because the grid is so tight, so in one-tenth you have four or five cars. In the races we are more or less at the same performance, it's not like last year when there were six cars and then a different group of cars and then a different group again. This year every detail counts, every pitstop counts, the starts… so I think it's a little bit more stress on the grid or between all of us, so we've been lucky in some moments of the Championship, in some manoeuvres, in some incidents and we've been finishing all the races in the points, which obviously helps for us. We obviously need to keep doing like this and hopefully have the whole season trouble-free.

Q. (Adrian Huber - Agencia EFE) Fernando, your figures keep improving: nine years ago you won here your first race and last Sunday you won your 30th. Back nine years, did you imaging you will get all this? What were your feelings then?

FA. No, no, definitely not. When you win your first grand prix it's just a lot of emotions going on. A lot of satisfaction, proudness of the team, of yourself, or family… a lot of thoughts are coming when you win your first grand prix. You cannot imagine that you will repeat that feeling or that happiness more times or very often. So when you keep winning after some years, some different teams, different regulations that have changed a lot from 2003 obviously: V10, V8… Michelin, Bridgestone, Pirelli, refuelling, no refuelling. It has been a lot of time since 2003. If I look back obviously, for sure I never imagine to have the luck and the possibility to achieve the two World Championships and now driving for Ferrari.

Q. (Gabor Joo - Index) Kimi and Fernando; Red Bull have these new engine mapping rules for this weekend. Do you expect Red Bull to struggle a bit?

FA. I think it's a question for Red Bull.

KR. I don't know what they're doing so we will see.

Q. (Livio Oricchio - O Estado de Sao Paulo) Kimi, when you look back at the two years that you were out of Formula One, do you think they have had any influence in your performance up to now? And what happened when you were leaving Hockenheim? We saw some pictures (of him tripping over a barrier he was trying to climb over)...

KR. I almost fell down. It was close!

I was two years out (of Formula One). I was doing different things and I don't think that if I'd been driving two years in Formula I would be any different really. I maybe took a few practices, a few races to know everything exactly (when I came back). Of course it's a new team, so it took a bit to get to know everybody there and to get everything exactly as I wanted, but I think we're getting there now and it hasn't been too bad really. It's been OK.

Q. (Heikki Kulta - Turun Sanomat) Kimi, what is the maximum to be achieved with Lotus in the Constructors' and Drivers' championships and which one is more important for you?

KR. I will tell you at the end of the year. We will try to do the maximum all the time. I don't know where we're going to end up. We're doing pretty OK now. I think they didn't probably expect us to do so well as a team at the beginning of the year, and we try to improve and hopefully we will manage to do that. We're in the fight for the top three. We're now fourth in the team championship and I'm fourth in the drivers. We go race-by-race and on my side try to score as many points as I can, and try to help the team... I guess they want to be as high as they can in the team championship. For me I want to be as high as I can from my side. Both things really influence each other so we will just try to do better and hopefully manage to do that.

Q. (Ian Gordon - The Times) Fernando, it's incredible to think that it's six years since your last drivers' title. A couple of points more in those years and you could have had four or five titles at the moment instead of two. What will it mean to you to win that third title if you do so this year, for yourself and for Ferrari? It will put you in a higher band of elite drivers, the Laudas and the Prosts.

FA. Well, I think we need to wait and see when we have real possibilities of fighting for this championship. At the moment, as we said, we are happy with the points achieved in the first half but we need to keep working hard, we need to keep consistency and we need to keep doing good results. This can change very quickly, in two or three races and then we talk about very different things. Not much point to talk about the championship now. But as I said, when we finished Brazil in 2006, it was a dream for me to (even think to) win three World Championships in my career. If it's this year, in two years' time or in six years' time, I don't know but the third one will be very important for me. To have the same as Ayrton had - three World Championships - he was idol or my reference when I was in go-karts and some big names, as you said, Lauda etc so three is a pretty good number which I always dream of, and hopefully arrive sooner rather than later.

Q. (Carlos Miguel - La Gaceta) Fernando, do you believe the new map rules could be good for Ferrari, because maybe Red Bull is slower with these new rules?

FA. As we said before, it doesn't change anything for us. We will have exactly the same car as Silverstone or Germany and for them, we have no idea. I think they are having their press conference at four, so it's more a question for them.

Q. (Alexander Hoffstatter - Austrian Press Agency) The Olympics are going to start tomorrow; do you like the idea of an Olympic Formula One race or is it just not realistic?

HK. I suppose you think I'm the nice man who will give you the answer. I don't think it's realistic but why not? I have nothing against it but how do you fit a race track in an Olympic Games? I don't know. But who knows? Why not?

Q. (Adrian Huber - Agencia EFE) Fernando, at the very beginning of the year, you took the role of cheering up the people in your team. Do you have to calm them down a little bit now, or does everybody know how it's going to go?

FA. People know, certainly, what is our performance, how many points we have, how we achieve these points, how many points we have in the Constructors'. Every race, when you do the analysis after each Grand Prix the numbers never lie, so we know what we have.

Q. (Andrea Cremonesi - La Gazzetta dello Sport) Fernando, it seems that this is the best season so far for you. How can you explain this? It is not only about the car, of course, but even yourself; have you changed something? Did your Malaysia victory mean that you changed something in the season?

FA. No. Well... I think so far the results have been coming good and as I said, we've been lacking at some moments some details of the weekend and we have achieved a lot of points. I think I've had a very good season, like 2008, winning two races with Renault. 2009 with a car that normally my teammate was out in Q1, I was on the podium, things like that. In 2010, when I arrived at Ferrari, you always asked me if that was my best season, recovering until I arrived in Abu Dhabi leading the championship with that car, and last year you were saying that it was my best season with ten podiums in a car that was quite far from Red Bull and McLaren. And this year, at the moment, you are asking me good things but as I said before, if I have some or three races with some poor results, you will ask me why I'm not concentrated or something like that, so I will always try to do the best I can. I'm pretty happy with my last four or five seasons in Formula One, especially this one because at the moment we are taking care of all the details that seem to be quite important in this championship, because as I said before, the grid is so tight so you need to be close to perfection, let's say, every weekend. If not you lose more positions than in the past but apart from that, it's more or less the same performance so same approach, same preparation as the last four or five seasons.

Q. (Harry Kiner - ARA Radio) A question for all of you, except Fernando; do you think that Fernando's going to make it this year?

NK. I think Fernando is going very well, yes, he has all the support, so I think he should make it.

KK. The championship? I think Fernando is definitely the strongest this season. We can see he's really strong. I think he will do it.

HK. Fernando is definitely in the best position, but I think it's too close to call at the moment. I think it's going to be an exciting end to the season for everyone, not only for the teams, the drivers but also for the spectators.

KR. Fernando is definitely in the best position right now, but like he said himself, you have one or two bad weekends and somebody else suddenly does well in those races and it changes very quickly. There are too many races to go, still, to look into it too much but then we will see what will happen at the end of the last race.

PM. Yeah, Fernando has been really consistent and strong this year, this half season. For sure, he's in the best place. I really wish him all the best for this season. He's driving so well and all the best to him and the Ferrari team.

Q. (Harry Kiner - ARA Radio) And again, to you all, are you going to watch the Olympics?

NK. The Olympics? No, I'm going back to India.

KK. I think I'm maybe going to see a few sports but I'm no big fan of the Olympics so I will just watch some of the results.

HK. Regarding the Olympic Games, yes, absolutely, I will watching them as much as I can. We've got a good few Finnish athletes there. Probably the most interesting for myself is the mens' javelin event. We've got a few guys who are not necessarily at the top in the rankings at the moment, but hopefully the timing of their fitness and preparation is good enough, so that they can snatch a medal. That would be great.

KR. I think it's hard to miss the Olympics even if you would like to. I will look at some on TV, but it's not really sport that I'm following. For sure, there will be some TV so I will watch it.

PM. I will just be supporting the Venezuelan team in the Olympics. I'm not that great a fan of the Olympic Games but for sure I will support the Venezuelan team.

FA. Yeah, I think I will watch as much as I can, but obviously we are on holiday and if you go to the beach, you are not running to see the sport on TV. You see the replay in the evening or whatever

Q. (Pablo Gorondi - Associated Press) Fernando, considering the streak you've been on in the past couple of weeks, we now have a month's vacation coming up; are you afraid that this is going to disrupt the way things have been going for you? Or will you be able to take it up again at the end of the month?

FA. Well, we considered the August break this year to be a little bit longer than normal and a good opportunity to catch some of the quickest cars, because more time is available for us. We think that we should find some extra performance that we are missing at the moment. So being a little bit late with the development of the car at the beginning of the season, being a little bit surprised in a bad way about the performance of the car at the beginning of the season, we need time and we need solutions to make the car faster and I think to have a longer period can only be good news for us.

Q. (Dorel Tant - MSSport1.com) Heikki, would you be tempted to rally a car like Kimi Raikkonen?

HK. You are always tempted, yes, but as we saw with Kimi, it's not so easy, especially to go straight into it at World Rally level, to the top. I think the expectations would need to be zero. It would be purely for fun, it would take a long time to achieve any level of competitive performance. At the moment, all my focus is on Formula One. I feel that since a few years now, my career is more back on track. I feel better here so at the moment, not even for a hobby am I considering rallying. Every effort is now to improve the results in Formula One. Maybe when I get grey and old I will buy an Escort Mk2 and rally at home, but that's just for fun.

[Lineker]

Lewis Hamilton led Jenson Button in a McLaren one-two as the team dominated an uneventful opening practice session for the Hungarian Grand Prix at the Hungaroring.

Hamilton moved to the head of the order after 34 minutes, and was never deposed. He gradually improved his time and by the halfway point was down to a 1m22.821s, which stood as the best of the session.

Button had a few seconds in first place before Hamilton supplanted him, and then kept in touch with his team-mate to finish the morning 0.101 seconds behind.

The McLarens were just over half a second clear of the field. Fernando Alonso put his Ferrari up to third late on, shuffling the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher down to fourth and fifth, ahead of the second Ferrari of Felipe Massa.

Kimi Raikkonen continued to evaluate Lotus's 'double DRS' in seventh place, followed by team-mate Romain Grosjean.

Williams reserve driver Valtteri Bottas showed well in ninth place, while the Sauber of Sergio Perez completed the top 10. Other 'Friday drivers' in action were Force India's Jules Bianchi - who took Nico Hulkenberg's car to 18th - and HRT's Dani Clos, in for Narain Karthikeyan and 1.1s off team-mate Pedro de la Rosa in last place.

Red Bull kept a low profile, Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel only 13th and 15th.

The Hungaroring's ample asphalt run-off areas saw visits from several cars, but the closest the session came to drama was when Pastor Maldonado's Williams took a messy detour through the Turn 10 gravel trap after being caught out trying to pass Heikki Kovalainen's slower-moving Caterham.

FP1


Pos  Driver                Team                   Time               Laps

 1.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes       1m22.821             30

 2.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes       1m22.922s  + 0.101   24

 3.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari                1m23.397s  + 0.576   24

 4.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes               1m23.628s  + 0.807   29

 5.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault          1m23.633s  + 0.812   24

 6.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes               1m23.845s  + 1.024   26

 7.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari                1m23.904s  + 1.083   25

 8.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault          1m23.983s  + 1.162   24

 9.  Valtteri Bottas       Williams-Renault       1m24.152s  + 1.331   24

10.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari         1m24.268s  + 1.447   27

11.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault       1m24.300s  + 1.479   23

12.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari         1m24.394s  + 1.573   19

13.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault       1m24.546s  + 1.725   24

14.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes   1m24.559s  + 1.738   22

15.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault       1m24.608s  + 1.787   25

16.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m25.354s  + 2.533   25

17.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m25.559s  + 2.738   27

18.  Jules Bianchi         Force India-Mercedes   1m25.715s  + 2.894   26

19.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault       1m26.440s  + 3.619   27

20.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth      1m26.705s  + 3.884   23

21.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault       1m26.755s  + 3.934   28

22.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth      1m27.015s  + 4.194   24

23.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth           1m27.101s  + 4.280   21

24.  Dani Clos             HRT-Cosworth           1m28.176s  + 5.355   24


All Timing Unofficial[/code]




Lewis Hamilton repeated his morning performance to set the fastest time again in second practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix, in a session disrupted by a heavy rain shower.



The dry running was compressed into the first half of the afternoon, as although the rain was relatively brief and the temperatures remained hot, the track received too heavy a soaking for slicks to be viable thereafter.



Conditions had been hot and sunny at the start of the session, but with rain looming on the radar, teams hurried to get on track, leading to a busy start. Kimi Raikkonen was fastest for a spell in his Lotus, before the Ferraris moved ahead - Felipe Massa slightly quicker than Fernando Alonso.



The rain-conscious frontrunners then switched to the soft tyres shortly after the half-hour mark, leading to a busy period in which Jenson Button (McLaren), Alonso and then Raikkonen swapped the top spot between them.



Hamilton had to abandon one quick lap when he came across Charles Pic's Marussia in the final sector, but just before the rain began, he was able to show his speed with a 1m21.995s.



That put him 0.185 seconds clear of Raikkonen, while Bruno Senna thrust his Williams into third place, ahead of the Ferraris and Button.



Behind seventh and eighth-placed Paul di Resta (Force India) and Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull), the top 10 was completed by two drivers who met the barriers during the afternoon. Romain Grosjean had an early incident when he ran wide on the exit of the chicane and spun back across the track, taking the front wing off his Lotus on the inside barrier. He was able to get back to the pits and quickly rejoin under repairs.



Michael Schumacher was less fortunate. For the second Friday in succession, he crashed in the wet, locking up on intermediate tyres and sliding straight on into the tyres at the Turn 11 right-hander at the end of the penultimate straight.



The Mercedes driver's incident was a warning to the other drivers who were getting some wet mileage, but it did not deter many of the field from coming out on intermediates in the final half-hour, as much of the circuit dried completely while other sections remained sodden..



[code]FP2


Pos  Driver                Team                  Time              Laps

 1.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes      1m21.995            20

 2.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault         1m22.180s  + 0.185  20

 3.  Bruno Senna           Williams-Renault      1m22.253s  + 0.258  33

 4.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari               1m22.417s  + 0.422  28

 5.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari               1m22.582s  + 0.587  22

 6.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes      1m22.747s  + 0.752  17

 7.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes  1m22.794s  + 0.799  23

 8.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault      1m22.824s  + 0.829  18

 9.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault         1m22.922s  + 0.927  12

10.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes              1m23.160s  + 1.165  19

11.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes              1m23.164s  + 1.169  28

12.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault      1m23.337s  + 1.342  26

13.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes  1m23.713s  + 1.718  25

14.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault      1m23.814s  + 1.819  17

15.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari        1m23.841s  + 1.846  28

16.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m24.328s  + 2.333  23

17.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m24.345s  + 2.350  27

18.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari        1m24.623s  + 2.628  22

19.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault      1m24.823s  + 2.828  28

20.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault      1m25.220s  + 3.225  28

21.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth     1m27.104s  + 5.109  27

22.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth          1m27.106s  + 5.111  18

23.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth     1m27.185s  + 5.190  22

24.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth          1m27.822s  + 5.827  20


All Timing Unofficial

Jenson Button believes McLaren is now pretty much a match for main title rivals Red Bull Racing and Ferrari in dry conditions - but concedes it is still well behind in the wet.

With an upgrade that his Woking-based team brought to the German Grand Prix having helped deliver a boost in performance, Button thinks that there is now little to choose between the three frontrunning teams when it is not raining.

"Our wet problems are still there, which we've had for a few races and it's really hurt us in qualifying over the last two races," he said ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix.

"The dry is much better; there's still some areas where I feel we're weak compared to the Ferrari and the Red Bull, because I got to look at those cars quite a lot at Hockenheim. But there are areas where we are stronger also.

"We've got to the point where that car's a little bit quicker there, and we're a little bit quicker here, so it's a much better position for us to be in."

As well as the progress that McLaren has made with its overall car performance, Button says he has got over the set-up issues that blighted his form earlier in the campaign.

"If you don't get the tyre working; you damage the tyre more because you're sliding more," he said.

"It's just a very unusual situation. I've never felt that in Formula 1 before. I think we understand it a lot more now, which is nice, but I find them very difficult to understand.

"That's why we tried a few new things this year in Canada and Monaco and places like that, because I felt I needed to find a bit more direction with the tyres, and what we tried definitely didn't work.

"So we went back to what we had at the start of the year at Valencia, and that's when we started being more competitive in terms of me within the team being more competitive, not compared to Ferrari and Mercedes and Red Bull but compared to Lewis.

"For me, the last race was better because I feel the parts we put on the car worked for us. I think maybe they're getting the tyres to work more in the dry conditions, getting them in their working range, and then you play with them more like a normal race tyre."

Ross Brawn believes the battle for the Formula 1 world championship could still be turned on its head - despite Fernando Alonso opening up a gap in the points standings.

Alonso's victory in the German Grand Prix has helped him to a 34-points lead over Mark Webber ahead of this weekend's race in Hungary.

But despite Alonso's recent impressive strong form, Brawn still believes that there is a chance the formbook could yet change over the second half of the campaign.

"This is a year that I think is changing quite a bit, and we are only halfway through the year," said the Mercedes team principal.

"Fernando has done an excellent job this year because the important thing is that he was scoring points when the car was not good. And now the car is good he is also maximising the points.

"If we have had a failing this year, particularly with Michael [schumacher], it is that we have lost a lot of points with reliability problems and that is something that we have addressed.

"You never solve reliability problems because these cars are highly complex and fragile, and occasionally something will happen, but we have lost 50-60 points with Michael this year that we should have scored.

"Fernando has scored all the time, even when the car was not great, and that has given him the foundation for what he has got now when the car is good. But the cars are moving quite quickly in terms of performance.

"You saw what happened with McLaren in the last race to this race, and the previous two races. So ourselves and other teams are working hard on upgrades and it could all change. I am certainly optimistic from our perspective that we can have a stronger second half to the year."

Brawn believes Mercedes is lacking around half a second of performance per lap to get on the pace of the front runners – something which he thinks his outfit can find.

"It is a big upgrade, but it is achievable," he said. "Of course everything else is a moving target – but that sort of upgrade would be very handy."

Lewis Hamilton is unmoved by comments from Ron Dennis that it is McLaren and not himself who holds the key to a fresh deal for next year.

Hamilton has little option but to recommit to McLaren for at least one more year, with options elsewhere appearing to be drying up now that Mark Webber has signed for another season at Red Bull Racing.

That situation has weakened Hamilton's bargaining position in trying to secure a big-money deal, especially with McLaren openly admitting that the current worldwide financial situation means his new contract will not be as lucrative as the last one.

Dennis, who is now chairman of the McLaren Group, told BBC Radio 5 Live ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix that he expected Hamilton to stay for 2013 - and suggested that McLaren would ultimately decide the terms of any deal.

"There is no reason Lewis won't be driving our cars in the future," he said. "I think people get a little wrong impression. When I last looked at the contract, I was paying him.

"So it is a question of whether we employ him not the other way around. If things pan out the way I expect them to, I am pretty sure he will be sat in a McLaren next year."

Hamilton had little reaction to Dennis' comments however, suggesting that he was happy to bide his time and that any talks he had would be with McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh.

"I don't even know what Ron has been saying so I don't know what questions he has been asked," he told the British media.

"It's not really for me to comment on. It has nothing to do with me particularly what he says. Martin is my boss. I'm relaxed. At some stage we'll talk.'

Sergio Perez believes all that Sauber has been missing this season is a bit of luck - as the Swiss outfit sets it sights on another good result in this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix.

The Hinwil-based team delivered its biggest points haul of the season in Germany last weekend, with Kamui Kobayashi finishing fourth and Perez a further two places back – with it now targeting a top five place in the constructors' championship.

Perez is bullish that it can repeat the kind of form it showed in Germany – but that its chances will depend on it delivering a weekend where it does not slip up.

"I think the problem we were having was with luck, basically," explained Perez when asked by AUTOSPORT about the lack of consistent results this season.

"The team and myself, we've been consistent, but we've had bad luck. For example, in Shanghai where we had a problem with the front wing, when I was fighting for a podium after Malaysia, and then in Barcelona I was P4 and then we had a puncture right at the start.

"In Monaco, we were really strong in qualifying. I think we could fight for a top-five in qualifying, and I had a problem with the steering wheel and I went straight into the wall. I started last, but I finished 11th.

"I think the season has been very up and down because of that, but not because we have done mistakes. Lately in the last two qualifying we already made a mistake and did not get the maximum out of the car, but then in the race we got them back.

"Now, I think it's time to really put everything together and fight for really strong points."

Perez believes the fact he was able to charge through from 17th on the grid in Germany to finish sixth showed he had the pace to battle for the win if he was at the front of the grid – which makes it more vital than ever the team gets qualifying sorted.

"I think the last two weekends, in the qualifying, it has been the wrong calls at crucial moments," he said.

"At Silverstone I was P1 in Q2 with six minutes remaining, and we made the wrong call and went for inters. Then in Hockenheim, I went out a bit late and I was behind all the backmarkers.

"So I think it's not luck, it's a matter of making the right calls together with the team and then I think we will be OK in any conditions."

McLaren sporting director Sam Michael says he is intrigued about how strict the FIA will be in dealing with drivers who run off track during qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

With a fresh focus on drivers gaining an advantage after leaving the confines of the circuit, following Sebastian Vettel's German GP penalty for overtaking Jenson Button, Michael believes the matter could come up again over the Hungaroring weekend.

With a lot of asphalt run off areas around the circuit which offer drivers the opportunity to run wide if they go through a corner too fast, Michael says it will be interesting to see how the governing body deals with any indiscretions.

"Maybe people are focusing on it more considering what happened at the last race, but there are at least four places here where you can [run] off," he explained.

"So it will be interesting to see how strict that will be applied, especially during qualifying. In days gone by there was gravel, and then we went through a process of 'grasscrete' that was very slippery, and now it is just concrete - which does actually have grip."

With FIA's regulations this year stating no driver can gain an advantage when all four wheels are off track, Michael says the FIA has no choice but to keep a close eye on what drivers are doing.

"They have to police it, because you have the track defined. You have to stick to the track. But the issue is, should the surface off the track have so much grip? That is the bigger issue, because you want to have a surface that allows you to survive and get back on track, but definitely you don't want a surface that allows you to take advantage."

Reflecting on what happened to Vettel in Germany in his incident with Button, Michael said that if the positions had been reversed, then he would have ordered his driver to give back the position.

"Absolutely, without question," he said. "Our position would be, if you take advantage when you go off track then you have to give it back immediately. There is no point having a discussion about it, if it is as clear as that."

Sebastian Vettel says the new engine-mapping ruling is not making any difference to his Red Bull following practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Red Bull was forced to alter the engine maps of its Renault engines following a rule clarification from the FIA after Hockenheim.

Vettel, however, said he had not noticed any performance changes after finishing eighth quickest in second practice in Hungary.

"No," he said when asked if he felt anything different. "There is a lot of talk but if you would know what is going on in the background then you would not be too interested in all the talking and stuff that has been printed in the last few days.

"Fortunately tomorrow there is a new newspaper, and after tomorrow again, and specially on Monday, so we focus on the race here and then try to make some good news for Monday's newspaper."

But the German admitted that he would revert to the Hockenheim mapping if he was given the choice.

"It is much less than what people expect. Surely if we would have the choice then we would go back to what we had in Hockenheim but it is difficult for us to measure, like I said yesterday."

Friday's second practice was hit by rain, and Vettel conceded that made it hard to judge the performance of the tyres this weekend.

"It is difficult to judge because we didn't get a crack on the soft tyres, therefore it's difficult to compare in terms of competitiveness. So it was a normal Friday.

"I think there is still a lot of room for improvement for us. I think we need to do a little bit better for the rest of the weekend and we'll see where we are. Unfortunately the weather caught us out like everyone in the end but we'll see what we get tomorrow."

Michael Schumacher shrugged off his crash during second practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix, saying he had simply run out of track.

The Mercedes crashed into the tyre barriers after his car careered off track in the wet conditions, having locked his front tyres. Schumacher's car suffered damage to the front end.

The German said it had been a strange accident, but played down its significance.

"I just ran out of road. I locked up and I couldn't stop the car anymore," said Schumacher, 10th quickest in the session. "I don't think it was aquaplaning.

"It's a bit strange, but nevertheless, you have to put a cross on it and forget about it," added the Mercedes driver, who had also crashed during practice last weekend in Germany.

Schumacher admitted he would welcome the rain in the race, as he reckons it would mean a better chance of doing well for his team.

"I think the rain might be an opportunity as we have seen at Silverstone, so let's see what happens."

Team-mate Nico Rosberg was 11th fastest, and the German conceded his car was not as strong as he was hoping ahead of the start of the weekend.

"It was a decent day of testing," he said. "Not a very promising day for us. I expected to be stronger. We tried some major things, especially on my car but it didn't really work out."

Lewis Hamilton declared himself delighted with McLaren's potential at the Hungaroring after going quickest in both Friday practice sessions at the Budapest track.

Hamilton said he had "absolutely no problems" as he led team-mate Jenson Button in a McLaren one-two in the morning, and was then fastest again before rain hit the afternoon session.

"It's been a really positive day. I'm very, very happy," said Hamilton. "We made some good changes to the car to get it dialled in, and we're on the right path, but we've still got some work to do. The Red Bull looks very quick, so does the Lotus, and obviously the Ferrari as well. So we're by no means feeling comfortable."

He expects several rivals to show much stronger form in Saturday's qualifying session than they did in practice: "I feel good in the car but practice is completely different to qualifying.

"Tomorrow when we get into qualifying I have no doubts that Fernando [Alonso] will all of a sudden find half a second and the Red Bulls will have of a sudden find a chunk of time. I think we're not in a bad position."

Hamilton has only scored four points in the three races since his Canadian Grand Prix win, but feels he is in excellent form going into this weekend's Hungarian race.

"I'm on it and I'm happy to be on it," he said. "I feel like I've been on it all year, but I feel a lot of support from the fans, the car feels great - as it did in the last race - and it's all in one piece at the moment. I'm just focusing on trying to maximise every lap and every opportunity I get out there."

Jenson Button believes Lotus could prove to be the team to beat as the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend unfolds, despite his own McLaren team's strong showing in Friday's practice sessions.

Although his McLaren team-mate Lewis Hamilton topped the timesheets in both practice sessions, with Button placing second and sixth respectively, the 2009 world champion predicted a number of rival outfits, chief among them Lotus, will be more competitive than their Friday times suggest.

"I think the Lotus is quick," Button said. "I don't think Kimi [Raikkonen] really got a lap together but he was still second in FP2.

"I think on a hotter track you really see the Lotuses come to the front, which has been the case all year - if you look at Bahrain that's where they were very strong."

Button felt his car's balance in the first practice session was good, although changes in the second session turned out to not be beneficial

"This afternoon we tried a few new things with the car which I don't think worked, so we're going to go back on them," he said.

"We should be up there, but I don't think just because we were quick today we'll definitely be on the front row. I think we're all going to be very close in both qualifying and the race - it's all about finding the perfect balance, and I had that in FP1."

Despite the Hungaroring's reputation as a track where overtaking is difficult, Button does not expect Sunday's race to be processional.

"There are worse circuits for overtaking," he said. "I still think we'll see people overtaking, especially in the DRS zone down the pit straight.

"Qualifying is important, but it isn't the end of it."

Kimi Raikkonen believes he has now found what was 'missing' to enable him to get the most out of the Lotus and can translate that into a stronger second half of the 2012 Formula 1 season.

Although Raikkonen has enjoyed an impressive comeback campaign so far and goes into this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix fourth in the world championship, having claimed four podium finishes, the 2007 title-winner says he has only recently become comfortable with the Lotus E20.

"I guess you always learn with the car and try to set it up as you like it," said Raikkonen.

"At the last few races we've been finding our way. We weren't so happy at the beginning of the year - or we were happy but I felt that there was something that was missing, and then we found some reasons why we probably weren't so happy.

"In the last races we've found pretty much what I have been looking for. So hopefully it means we've finally found the area where we can improve."

Asked if the improvements related to how the car used the Pirelli tyres, Raikkonen replied: "No, it's more making me able to drive more like I want."

Raikkonen was second quickest in Friday practice at the Hungaroring, but remained cautious about his chances over the rest of the weekend.

"We don't know if we're going to be fast tomorrow because of today because we have no idea what the others are doing, but so far it's not too bad," he said.

Romain Grosjean is hopeful he will be able to get his confidence in his Lotus car back by reverting to an older set-up after struggling in Germany and during practice in Hungary.

The Frenchman said a new set-up direction meant he was not fully comfortable with his car at Hockenheim, where he finished in 18th position after an incident on the opening lap.

Grosjean says he needs to regain the confidence that made him shine in the first half of the season, and he is optimistic he and the team have understood his problems and will be able to solve them for Saturday.

"It's the same as was the case at Hockenheim. The good thing is that we sat with the engineers and we understand a few things about why we struggle," said Grosjean of his car's handling.

"Tomorrow we are going back to do some set-up changes we made in the past to help me, and if I get my confidence back in the car and back to my driving style then I can get the best out of the Lotus, then we should be able to fight in front.

"I just want to get back the confidence, the set-up I like from the past and not struggling as it was the case at Hockenheim."

The Lotus driver said he had been trying to drive around the problem he is having, but admitted that had not worked for him.

"As a driver there a few problems with the car that you can solve with your driving style, but there are others you can't, and this is what's happening," he said.

Grosjean finished the day ninth quickest after a spin that cost him a front wing.

"I made a mistake. I was a bit optimistic. I was a bit on the grass at Turn 7 and lost the car. Sorry for the guys that made the front wing, but hopefully we can have a new one."

Craig Pollock's PURE company has been forced to suspend development of its engine for 2014, AUTOSPORT can reveal, on the back of an issue with its investors.

The Cologne-based operation is hoping to provide a supply of customer power units for the new 1.6-litre turbo engine V6 era, but it has been forced to cease work due to a funding issue.

Pollock, who set up the company, told AUTOSPORT on Friday that he hoped the matter would be resolved in the next few days - but that there was no possibility for it to continue its operations right now.

"The situation is very simple," he said. "The investor is US-based, but the bridging finance must come out of the EU as Swiss authorities are insisting upon that because of the tax situation.

"We expect bridging finance to be in place by the end of the month (July) and it will come from the EU."

Pollock said work had been quite advanced on the new engines, which were being assembled at facilities that were formerly used by the Toyota F1 team.

"We have been manufacturing the parts and putting engines together in Cologne, but that has ceased as of today."

PURE's technical director Gilles Simon sent an email to suppliers apologising for the situation, but said that it was vital that the team had the right funding in place if it was to continue.

In the email, a copy of which has been seen by AUTOSPORT, Simon said: "I would like to warn my colleagues working in Cologne that we are obliged to suspend our activities from August 1.

"In effect, the funds that we were expecting from our investors are not available and that will not allow us to begin this project on the correct footing.

"We hope that this situation will be resolved quickly but I have no idea when that might be possible or when we might be able to get the project up and running again. I apologise for this situation which is out of our control."

PURE was launched last year with the full backing of FIA president Jean Todt, and originally had hoped to be supply its engines for 2013. However, a delay in the introduction of the new V6s meant it had to revise its plans.

Friday's press conference:

TEAM REPRESENTATIVES - Andrew GREEN (Force India), Rémi TAFFIN (Renault Sport), Martin WHITMARSH (McLaren), Toto WOLFF (Williams), Luiz Pérez Sala (HRT).

Q. Andrew, if I can start with you. First of all, who does Force India see as its rivals and where do you hope to be at the end of the season? What position? What are you targets?

Andrew GREEN: Ultimately, everybody on the track is our rival. At the moment we would be targeting sixth position, that would be a realistic target for us. It's going to be difficult. The cars in front of us are all very, very competitive. So it's going to be a big ask and we'll have to dig deep, as we always do, and we'll be pushing like crazy right until the end. That'll be the plan and we'll see where we finishing. So far we're in a position where we're better than we were last year with respect to points and we're reasonably happy with that. If every we score more and more points then ultimately we're going to go up, so happy with that. But there are just some teams in front of us who have scored some big results and got on the podium and that's put us behind them. It's just a matter of chipping away at them and hopefully by the time we get to the end we'll be just in front. That'll be the plan.

Q. What about developments? What sort of developments can you envisage coming through?

AG: It's a tricky time. We brought our last big development to Silverstone. We didn't really get a chance to evaluate it in the wet conditions. Beyond that it's about optimising what we have and getting to know what we have and getting it to run at its peak. Development now really is turning to next year. For a team of our size we can't afford to develop a car much beyond this point in the season. It's really a case of trying to optimise what we have.

Q. That was going to be the next question, when does development shift to next year?

AG: It started a while ago.

Q. So most thoughts from the design team are on that?

AG: From about this time, yes, it has switched over.

Q. Rémi, first of all tell us about your role within Renault F1?

Rémi TAFFIN: Basically, I'm just working on the track as Head of Operations, so whatever we deal with on engines on track I'm responsible for. Basically we have four teams we supply engines to, as you know, and I will make sure through a race weekend that we've got let's say a crossover in between these teams to make sure the Renault engines are well used in any car but trying to keep the confidentiality that we must have.

Q. Obviously the great subject here is all about mapping. Can you explain to us what that means and when you change that how big a change is that? And how it is done.

RT: We're not talking about big changes. We're talking about an ongoing process, which is obviously race after race you try to optimise your package and engine maps are part of that and that's what we've been trying to do since the beginning of the year. When you talk about engine maps it's something that is done by everyone in the pitlane. So that's not something unusual.

Q. When we talking about it, we're talking about software... someone has referred to it as a 'gizmo'. Can we explain that?

RT: Let's take the example of the engine map we've been talking about. It's basically what the engine is able to produce as torque during the weekend, for example here. And that's where is the bulk of the part to play with in Renault engines. That's what shape... what we have got as torque in the car.

Q. And when it comes to Red Bull - how much of a change in performance would that have been, that was caused by that change.

RT: It's very difficult to quantify, but let's have, say, a scale: we're talking about hundredths and not at all about seconds or tenths. We all know that every bit on the car we're going to be working [on it] to get the hundredth out, so that's part of the job.

Q. Martin, obviously you've had an update recently but how much has that been affected by the weather. We've had a wet Silverstone, a wet Hockenheim and now we have we weather here. How much has development been affected?

Martin WHITMARSH: Well, it's certainly difficult now that we don't test. If you bring a whole package of upgrades to the car, on Friday morning P1 typically we have our only test session and if it's wet then it rather handicaps that test. It's been difficult. I think we've made some progress and we will continue to do so. We had a reasonably big package of upgrades in Germany and we have a few bits and pieces here as well. You'll do what you can. We've had a remarkable run of run of rain in the practice sessions so far this year. It would be nice to get some steady, dry conditions where the engineers can work more easily. But it's the same for everyone. Everyone, to varying degrees, is trying to develop and improve the car and that's part of the challenge. Sometimes you've got a great data set and you can go forward with confidence and other times you have to make a decision on a limited data set and in some ways that's more interesting. The engineers don't like it but it's more interesting when you have to take a bit of a flyer.

Q. You must have been really pleased with the way those worked in Germany for Button particularly in the race but obviously Lewis a little bit as well and Lewis fastest in both sessions today?

MW: Yeah, you're not pleased until you're scoring maximum points. I think we've made some progress. But this year has been a very difficult to predict championship, it's been tyre dominated. Those who work the tyres… you can work very hard on your car but if you can't turn the tyres on then you're in trouble. We've seen that a few times on our car – too often – and we've seen it on a few other cars. That's a great challenge for everyone. I think it's going to be a very exciting championship. You've got to say Fernando and Ferrari have done a great job to be where they are, but there are still 430 on the board, to be taken, and I'm sure ourselves, Red Bull, all these teams here will be trying our best to pull back that advantage.

Q. Jenson's had a bit of a difficult time recently – you must have been really pleased with the way he bounced back in Germany?

MW: Yes, of course. If you are a racing driver and a racing driver in a team like McLaren or Ferrari, you're going to come under quite a lot of scrutiny. It's very different, you can turn up as a rookie in some other teams and there's pressure because you're in Formula One but I think if you're in McLaren, whoever you are, same if you're in Ferrari, year in, year out, if you're not qualifying on the front two rows of the grid then there's quite a large enquiry afterwards and all sorts of pressure ensues. I think Jenson hasn't lost his skills, he's had one great win this year, he's very, very fit and very, very committed and I was delighted for him that he's back on form and I'm sure he'll be strong this weekend.

Q. Toto, first of all, you have a new position within the Williams team, what does that involve?

Toto WOLFF: Formally, I have a new title. Actually the position is not quite new, I have been doing the same job for a couple of months already after Adam's departure. It involves basically helping Frank in the daily job running the team.

Q. You're an investor in the team as well as holding this new position. Where do you see the team in five years' time? What's your plan to take it forward?

TW: My approach, kind of changed. I was an investor before, which is the easier part – you can criticise and stick your nose in everywhere. Now formally I'm an official employee of the company – at least I work for the company – so I have to deliver as well, I'm part of the team. Where do I see the team? When I joined in 2009 I gave myself a five year period to progress. Now this is a random period, it just sounded OK for me. We have won a race this year, which came quite early, maybe earlier than expected, but I think the team is on-track technically and on- track setting all the other commercial departments as well.

Q. And to have this commitment, you must have a vision for the sport as a whole as well. How do you see the sport progressing?

TW: The sport, Formula One, is still the biggest or largest global sports platform in the world and it's growing, it growing healthy and successfully. Obviously you can always try to change and optimise things but it's a fantastic platform worldwide and this was the basic concept behind getting involved in a Formula One team.

Q. Luis, the team seems to have made some improvements – how do you see that progress?

Luis PÉREZ-SALA: We are quite happy, I am quite pleased because the start of the season was very, very difficult; to have the car ready was almost a goal. And then, from the first race where we did not qualify, we have been improving the team. We have new headquarters since April 1st in Madrid. The race team is already working on, I will say, getting used to the races and we still need to grow the team on the design and the aero side.

Q. How is that expansion coming on from the team point of view? And also, from an economic point of view how easy is it to expand the team in that area?

LP-S: The problem is when you are short in economic… no, in the budget – we have maybe the lowest budget of any Formula One team – you need more time to grow because you cannot do whatever you want. You have to be careful – but I think we have enough to make a good team and to stay. That's why we are here. We try to improve but we have to be realistic. And it is going to take time for us.

Q. Is recruitment fairly easy for you? Are you looking worldwide for recruitment, for engineers, for design people? How easy is it to get people to come to work in Madrid?

LP-S: It's not difficult, it's one of the advantages of the crisis I would say: you have more people on the market and we can find them. The problem is that it's not easy to find the good people to work for HRT. Sometimes it's not easy to find who are just the key persons. But we are there, we are having a lot of interviews and slowly, slowly we are growing. We are hiring people. And even if we want to keep it as a small team, I think if we optimise our research, we can improve our performance and be closer to the front rows.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q. (Heinz Pruller - Honorary) Toto, we know you were a great racing driver yourself. Is there any plan for you to drive the Formula One Williams for fun, off-season or somewhen?

TW: As you know, I was more ambitious than talented and there is no ambition to drive a Formula One car because it would just look ridiculous, I think.

Q. (Heinz Pruller - Honorary) Because Walter Wolf, who once bought the Williams team, he tried himself and it was a kind of a disaster.

Q. (Heinz Pruller - Honorary) Martin, we know you wanted to become an aeronautist once, a while ago. Now we have an Austrian guy, Felix Baumgartner who wants to break the (extreme sky diving) world record. Have you heard about him?

MW: Yes. Firstly, it was a long time ago that I was involved in aeronautics. I think they've moved on since the bi-plane! I think any challenge that you set yourself in sports, in technology, I think are always exciting. I think anyone who is brave enough to try and do these things are often considered nutty by many but I think that that's the sort of thing that drives humans on, that feeling of endeavour and that passion to try and do something that's not been done before.

Q. (Dieter Rencken - The Citizen) Luis, in the previous press conference in Hockenheim, Norbert Haug and John Booth admitted that their teams hadn't yet signed any form of Concorde or commercial agreement for 2013 onwards. Where does your team stand in that regard at the moment?

LPS: We have not already signed anything.

Q. (Dieter Rencken - The Citizen) Remi, as you said earlier on, you supply four teams with engines, yet only one was called in by the stewards last Sunday. This sort of implies that the other three were left out of the gizmo, if I can call it that. What is your customer policy regarding these sort of devices or technical developments?

RT: I think we can make this simple. We've got our engine with this map in a certain way. We've got an area in which to play which we call the ballpark and each of our four teams is able to chose between these things so they are free to play with our engine as they wish, let's say, and that's the way they do and they did, so maybe that's why we got one team that has gone to that in Hockenheim and there could have been another one one race after.

Q. (Joe Saward - GP Special) You're all movers and shakers to a certain extent in Formula One, but all of you have to answer to bosses. Can you explain how frustrating that is sometimes when you're there running racing teams and you have to answer to people who perhaps don't have as good a grasp as you do?

MW: Well, certainly my chairman has a phenomenal grasp of this sport. He's been around in it for a while. I have to report to the board from time to time but I don't find it frustrating. I think it's good. If your owners don't have any interest, initially that's fun but it becomes a bit disheartening if they don't have a passion to speak their mind and express an opinion. We don't always agree with them but that's part of the fun.

TW: Are you sure you would like me to comment? My only boss is my wife! My partner is Frank (Williams) so I can live with that situation.

LPS: For me that's very easy: I ask and they don't give! No, we are close, we are quite close. We know that it's a long term commitment and we know that we need time and they understand that, even if we sometimes only take one place - like in Hockenheim, we overtook one car. For us it makes all the team happy. Sometimes it's very easy, it's even better than for some other teams to get third position or fourth position.

Q. (Christian Nimmervoll - Motorsport - Total.com) Martin and Toto, in recent years it has become more and more difficult to predict driver performance on a long term basis because of tyres, because of regulation changes and so on, yet there is a trend that driver contracts are signed more and more long term. Isn't there a contradiction in that?

MW: I think that if you don't sign long term contracts with drivers it becomes a big point of discussion and distraction for most of the season. I think the driver is still an important component fortunately in this sport and I think people like to have some stability there. I don't think there's a contradiction. I think that the drivers have to manage tyres, probably much more so than they have done for a long period of time. They've got to work in the team, they've got to work with the drivers, they've got to motivate those people around them. They make a big contribution. We don't always tell them that when we're negotiating with them but that happens to be the case.

TW: The driver is an essential part, I think, today, probably you can't really see the performance of the car because of the driver. If you look at junior formulae on equal formats there's big differences and the development we have seen in Formula One, with economics playing a larger role, we are probably having a similar situation, so it's all about developing your own drivers and trying to keep the ones who are good in your car, so it's as challenging as building a good car and getting a good engine to keep a good driver in the car, and build the best ones for the future.

Q. (Matt Coch - pitpass.com) Martin, there's been this Tooned cartoon happening. Has there been a measurable difference; are you deliberately going after the younger demographic with that one? I know it's Ron's baby.

MW: Again, I think McLaren has changed a little bit over the last few years and I'm sure some things are not so good and hopefully we do some other things... I think Formula One is, as Toto said... there are two great world sports: soccer and Formula One. We are investing in the future. We see that it's important to try and bring younger demographics, as you put it; I think also for McLaren to demonstrate that we're not taking ourselves so seriously. We're still very serious about motor racing, we still want to win and we do everything we can, but I think you also have to show a slightly lighter side. We've shown two episodes, as you may know, there's going to be an episode accompanying every Grand Prix this year and hopefully people enjoy it, it's a little bit of a light-hearted moment for three minutes before each Grand Prix and I think we've had a tremendously positive response to it. I think the followers, after only two episodes have exceeded our expectations. I think it's not just good for McLaren, it's good for the sport. I think it just lightens it up, makes it something that... We've got to buy more people into the sport. This sport is fundamentally a great great sport. The more you understand, the more you get involved in it, the greater it is. We've got to now try and sell that proposition to as broad an audience as we can and Tooned, the McLaren animation, is part of that process.

Q. (Dieter Rencken - The Citizen) According to the sporting regulations, the closing date for entries to the 2013 championship was the 30th of June. Did your teams all enter? And what happened to those entries?

MW: I believe all teams entered but the FIA has re-defined the entry time at the moment, so I presume all of the teams will re-enter within the new time frame.

LPS: The same.

TW: We entered.

Q. (Vanessa Ruiz - ESPN Radio) Toto, as soon as your position was confirmed or you got your new title at Williams, speculation started about the driver line- up because of your work with Valtteri Bottas. How do you see his situation at the moment - also because we are approaching August, so do you understand that he's ready to occupy a seat at Williams or is it not yet time. And also, do you see a conflict of interest because of your new title and the fact that you work with him as a manager?

TW: Very interesting question. It's definitely a conflict of interest; this is why, at the beginning of the year - actually last year already - I have refrained from interfering in any kind of negotiations or discussions between the team and Valtteri's management group, so my role is a pure financial investor behind Valtteri. He's managed by Didier Coton who is doing the day-to-day job and we're having - to use banking language - Chinese walls. Emotionally, of course, I saw Valtteri for the first time in Formula Renault 2000 here at the Hungaroring in 2008 so he's a boy I have followed for quite a long time and he's a friend, as is Pastor, and as is Bruno. Luckily I'm a shareholder in the team and I have a five percent commission on Valtteri's contract so I think that shows how the balance would go if it was only about the economics. So the point is that it's very clear that the team is going to take decisions on the best package of driver and hopefully it's all going in a direction that we can have the quickest in the car.

Q. (Christian Nimmervoll - Motorsport - Total.com) Following up on Dieter's question regarding the deadline, does that mean that the entries were rejected or what's been the formal answer from the FIA?

MW: The FIA has asked us to re-submit our entries at a later date.

Q. (Joe Saward - Grand Prix Special) Toto, in your new position, obviously there's more responsibility on a day-to-day basis. Does that mean we're going to see you moving to England and going into the office every day and taking over Adam (Parr's) chair?

TW: Yeah, that has been quite an issue actually, to discuss that. We have been negotiating on how many days per week I have to spend in England, but it's very easy. I like England a lot, staying in Oxford which keeps me young, it's a student city. I must be careful now about putting myself in shit! Obviously my wife is Scottish so she enjoys being there as well. The answer is yes, I'm going to spend more days at the factory and I enjoy it, it's what I want to do now.

Q. (Michael Schmidt - Auto, Motor und Sport) Toto, as Remy Taffin was explaining, there are many mapping possibilities in the Renault shop which you could take. Why didn't you take the one which Red Bull has chosen in Germany, because it looks like it's a quite interesting one?

TW: First of all, flattening out torque curves is something that every team looks at, obviously, and the reason why we have not been taking up that solution is because we didn't make it work as Red Bull have. We have no coanda exhaust and this is why it's not as beneficial for us as maybe for others.

Hungary Friday quotes: Force India

[Lineker]

Mark Webber ended Lewis Hamilton's run of fastest times in Hungarian Grand Prix practice as he beat the McLaren driver by 0.093 seconds on Saturday morning at the Hungaroring.

Hamilton denied Red Bull a one-two by squeezing in between Webber and his third-placed team-mate Sebastian Vettel.

The first half of the session, when the field was still working with medium tyres, saw the Red Bulls leading the way for a spell early on, before Raikkonen went in front for Lotus and then Hamilton got in a 1m21.706s to put himself over half a second clear of the field just before the midway point.

Hamilton squeezed that lap in just before the soft tyre times started to flow, with Vettel lapping in 1m21.671s to go quickest. He stayed there until team-mate Webber edged ahead by 0.121s five minutes later.

Unusually for a Saturday morning, that time stood until the end, with the only major late change being Hamilton's appearance in second place.

Bruno Senna suggested his promising Friday afternoon performance was no fluke by taking a very strong fourth for Williams.

Ferrari took its time joining the fray, then sealed fifth and eighth with Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa. The pair sandwiched the two Lotus drivers, Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean taking sixth and seventh.

Paul di Resta was ninth for Force India, with Jenson Button rounding out the top 10 in the second McLaren.

Mercedes seemed to be working more on heavy fuel runs. Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg did not feature in the top half of the times and ended up 17th and 18th.

FP3


Pos  Driver                Team                  Time              Laps

 1.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault      1m21.550s           27

 2.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes      1m21.643   + 0.093  17

 3.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault      1m21.671s  + 0.121  29

 4.  Bruno Senna           Williams-Renault      1m21.876s  + 0.326  22

 5.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari               1m21.884s  + 0.334  13

 6.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault         1m21.953s  + 0.403  20

 7.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault         1m22.110s  + 0.560  24

 8.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari               1m22.136s  + 0.586  15

 9.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes  1m22.191s  + 0.641  20

10.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes      1m22.233s  + 0.683  24

11.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault      1m22.381s  + 0.831  21

12.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari        1m22.387s  + 0.837  20

13.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m22.492s  + 0.942  26

14.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes  1m22.530s  + 0.980  25

15.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari        1m22.597s  + 1.047  23

16.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m22.716s  + 1.166  24

17.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes              1m22.868s  + 1.318  30

18.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes              1m22.931s  + 1.381  30

19.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault      1m24.036s  + 2.486  20

20.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault      1m24.547s  + 2.997  18

21.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth     1m25.224s  + 3.674  22

22.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth     1m25.497s  + 3.947  21

23.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth          1m26.785s  + 5.235  20

24.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth          1m26.898s  + 5.348  26


All Timing Unofficial[/code]




Lewis Hamilton secured McLaren's 150th pole position in F1 and will start in front for the first time since the Malaysian Grand Prix after a dominant performance in qualifying at the Hungaroring.



The Briton, fastest throughout, set two laps good enough for pole position as he underlined his control of proceedings by dipping into the 1m20s on his final Q3 lap.



That was easily enough to earn him a third pole of the year, with Lotus' Romain Grosjean - setting his fastest time at the flag - more than four tenths down in second.



Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel threatened to disrupt Hamilton's momentum late on in Q3, only to lose time in the final sector. He will nevertheless start from third, alongside Jenson Button in the second McLaren.



Kimi Raikkonen will start from fifth alongside championship leader Fernando Alonso, with Felipe Massa fractions away from out-qualifying his team-mate for the first time this season.



Williams Pastor Maldonado, who appeared to be held up slightly behind Hamilton in the final session, was the last man to get within one second of the Briton's time, leaving him eighth.



On his first appearance in Q3, Bruno Senna sealed ninth, with Force India's Nico Hulkenberg 10th.



Senna just snuck into the final session, eliminating the second Red Bull of Mark Webber in the process.



Webber was left vulnerable when he failed to improve on his final Q2 lap, leaving him ninth with one minute of the session to run. That became 10th when Force India's Nico Hulkenberg came round, before Bruno Senna consigned Webber to an early exit as the flag fell.



Mercedes also endured a torrid qualifying, failing to break into Q3 with either car for the first time in 2012. Michael Schumacher couldn't recover from several wild moments and will start from 17th, with Nico Rosberg four places ahead of him in 13th.



The pair were separated by the Sauber duo of Sergio Perez and Kamui Kobayashi and Toro Rosso's Jean-Eric Vergne.



The latter had sparked a mad Q1 scramble when he switched onto soft rubber and jumped up to fourth, forcing most of the field to follow suit.



As the laps played out Red Bull appeared to be in trouble but the team was ultimately able to tell both drivers to ease off as the scrap for the final Q2 place boiled down to Kobayashi and the second Toro Rosso of Daniel Ricciardo - the Australian eventually losing out.



He will start ahead of the Caterhams of Heikki Kovalainen and Vitaly Petrov, with the Finn almost six tenths clear of his team-mate.



A further second down the road Marussia's Charles Pic got the best of team-mate Timo Glock, the duo starting ahead of the HRTs of Pedro de la Rosa and Narain Karthikeyan.



[code]Qualifying


Pos  Driver                Team                 Time          Gap   

 1.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes     1m20.953s        

 2.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault        1m21.366s + 0.413

 3.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault     1m21.416s + 0.463

 4.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes     1m21.583s + 0.630

 5.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault        1m21.730s + 0.777

 6.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari              1m21.844s + 0.891

 7.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari              1m21.900s + 0.947

 8.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault     1m21.939s + 0.986

 9.  Bruno Senna           Williams-Renault     1m22.343s + 1.390

10.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes 1m22.847s + 1.894

Q2 cut-off time: 1m21.697s                                 Gap *

11.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault     1m21.715s  + 0.655

12.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes 1m21.813s  + 0.753

13.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes             1m21.895s  + 0.835

14.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari       1m21.895s  + 0.835

15.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari       1m22.300s  + 1.240

16.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m22.380s  + 1.320

17.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes             1m22.723s  + 1.663

Q1 cut-off time: 1m22.948s                                 Gap *

18.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m23.250s  + 1.456

19.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault     1m23.576s  + 1.782

20.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault     1m24.167s  + 2.373

21.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth    1m25.244s  + 3.450

22.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth    1m25.476s  + 3.682

23.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth         1m25.916s  + 4.122

24.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth         1m26.178s  + 4.384


107% time: 1m27.519s


* Gap to quickest in Q1


** Gap to quickest in Q2

Ferrari's tyre chief Hirohide Hamashima has praised the role that Fernando Alonso has played so far this season - in both his driving and the way he has motivated the team.

Alonso currently holds a 34 point lead over Mark Webber in the title standings in a campaign where he has not enjoyed having the fastest car.

And although improvements that Ferrari made to its F2012 after a difficult start have played a role in it grabbing control of the title battle, Hamashima believes that Alonso's efforts should not be downplayed.

"I think the main reason why Fernando is leading the championship, is Fernando himself," explained Hamashima, who was drafted in at Ferrari earlier this season from his previous role at Bridgestone

"I believe his mentality helps all of our Ferrari staff, so he believes in it [the championship] very well. Of course there will be difficult competition during the year, but if we keep motivated for the remainder of the season then the results will come."

When asked for a comparison between Michael Schumacher and Alonso, having worked with both drivers, Hamashima said: "Both of the drivers are very, very similar I feel. Both of the drivers never ever give up the championship or the win, but I feel Fernando is relatively quiet, while Michael is a little bit aggressive. That is a different point.

"I get that feeling in meetings. Fernando is quiet, but he acts very correctly. He gives good comment but the expression is a bit different."

Sergio Perez says he has now settled his differences with Pastor Maldonado - following their collision at the British Grand Prix.

The Sauber driver was furious after a collision with his Williams rival put him out at Silverstone – and he called on the FIA to take action against the Venezuelan.

On the back of that outburst, Perez says he spoke to Maldonado at Hockenheim last week to try and draw a line under the matter.

"I have nothing against him," said Perez. "Many others say bad things about other drivers, but mainly, I was angry at the time.

"I think I was very frustrated that weekend because of what happened, first of all on Saturday with the wrong call that we did. Then I wanted to really have a good result for my team for all the people who were giving everything at the factory, working day and night for such a good car.

"The move that Pastor did at Silverstone was, for me, not right and that's why I was angry at him – I have nothing against him. We talked after Silverstone and we talked again at Hockenheim and all was cleared up."

Perez said that he expected there to be no similar problems if they ended up battling against for position.

"We discussed and cleared up everything, and now everything is sorted out between me and him," he explained. "We respect each other as much as we respect all the other drivers, and definitely we're not going to give more room than needed, but we'll give them room."

Formula 1 will stick to 20 races next season, the sport's commercial boss Bernie Ecclestone confirmed on Saturday.

Although there has been speculation that Ecclestone may look to expand the schedule for 2013, he says he has drafted a calendar that is very similar to this year.

Despite not confirming specific dates, it is expected that the campaign will kick off in Australia on March 17 and have its finale in Brazil. This comes despite speculation that the race in Austin could be moved to the end of the campaign.

Ecclestone said that Valencia was being dropped, as part of its race-share deal with Barcelona, while the New Jersey race was pencilled in - despite him having questioned its future recently.

"It's 20 races," said Ecclestone. "All the same more or less."

When asked if New Jersey was going to be part of the 2013 schedule, he responded: "It is supposed to be."

Ecclestone said that talks were ongoing with Nurburgring chiefs to try and resolve the financial issues that have hit the track – but he ruled out any talk of buying the circuit outright.

"We are talking to them, so will see," he said. "We need to keep the German race – so we have to do the best we can.

"We will try and save it – but I don't think the property is for sale."

When asked what would happen if the Nurburgring's difficulties meant the 2013 race could not go ahead, Ecclestone said: "We will be at Hockenheim."

Red Bull boss Christian Horner insists his team never made illegal changes to its car in parc ferme, despite a fresh controversy erupting over a ride-height adjuster at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Fresh from the reigning champions being involved in a row over engine maps in Germany last week, it emerged in Hungary that back at the Canadian GP the team was asked by the FIA to change a mechanism that gave it the possibility to alter front suspension settings manually.

Teams are supposed to only use tools to make such adjustments, and the FIA was not happy with the ease by which Red Bull could change its suspension - and therefore alter the ride height. It was asked to modify the system so that tools needed to be used.

The regulations state that teams cannot change suspension settings between qualifying and the race - and in order to ensure compliance tools must be used to make such alternations.

Article 34.5 of the Sporting Regulations states: "In order that the scrutineers may be completely satisfied that no alterations have been made to the suspension systems or aerodynamic configuration of the car (with the exception of the front wing) whilst in post qualifying parc ferme, it must be clear from physical inspection that changes cannot be made without the use of tools."

The benefit of having an easily adjusted suspension setting would be in allowing changes to be made to the car before the race without raising the suspicion of scrutineers - but Horner is adamant that his outfit never exploited that possibility.

"It was something that could either be changed by hand or by tool, but the FIA said they preferred it was a tool that was used," Horner told AUTOSPORT.

"We never changed the ride height in parc ferme or anything like that. It really is a non-issue."

When asked why, if the regulations state that tools must be used, the team had a system that allowed settings to be changed manually, Horner said: "There are a lot of parts that are changed manually on the car, but a tool is used. The suspension has never been changed in parc ferme. Never.

"Basically what was on the car on Canada has been on the car at other races as well, but at no point has it been adjusted in parc ferme. It is question of whether you do it with a tool or manually, and it is done with a tool."

The right-height issue is the latest in a string of technical controversies that Red Bull has been involved in this season – with it having to change its floor after Monaco because of holes, refine its wheel hub design in Canada and revise its engine map settings after Germany.

Horner says that the string of issues is simply the end result of his outfit producing another quick car.

"I think it is the consequence of being competitive," he said. "When others are complaining the reason the car is quick, and that is the case here."

Romain Grosjean was a delighted man after bouncing back from a disastrous weekend at Hockenheim to secure his best ever starting position ahead of the Hungarian GP.

Grosjean struggled in Germany and continued to be unable to match the pace he shown in the first part of the season in practice in Hungary.

However, overnight set-up changes meant the Frenchman returned to form in qualifying, securing second place on the grid ahead of tomorrow's race.

"We started the weekend coming back from the German GP, which was a bit of disaster," said Grosjean. "We worked hard, and analysed what went wrong, why I couldn't get the feeling I had at the start of year.

"In final practice it was getting better, and then we found the speed, got back into the car and tried to understand what was wrong with it.

"Starting from the front row is special. We know overtaking is difficult so the first job is done. Hopefully tomorrow we will keep our race pace and be able to save our tyres as much as we want and get some good battles with the guy at the front."

He added: "I think it was a lot of things together. I think in the last two races we were not where we had to be. We had some signs that things were not going as we wanted. The car was not handling as it should. So I think being second is a bit of a surprise after we struggled, but we improved lap after lap and I think this helped us."

The Lotus driver, whose previous best qualifying effort was a third place, is optimistic his race pace will be even stronger than today.

"Normally it is better on high fuel than low fuel so it's pretty good to be on the front row. We have been working a bit more on qualifying because it is a big key to the race. Hopefully the car will be good in the race. We have saved tyres and hopefully we have a good pace."

Team-mate Kimi Raikkonen qualified in fifth position.

Kamui Kobayashi admitted he was baffled as to why his Sauber team struggled to get its tyres working in qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Kobayashi, who finished in fourth position in the previous race in Germany, was knocked out in Q2 after Sauber continued to struggle for pace at the Hungaroring.

The Japanese driver, who said it would have taken a miracle for him to move into Q3, said he was not surprised to have finished in 15th position.

"Well, after we have been struggling in all free practice sessions since we got here the qualifying result doesn't come as a complete surprise," he said. "To me getting through to Q3 would have been a miracle today.

"We don't understand why we can't manage to get the tyres to work at this track, and this goes for both compounds as I can't find the grip I need.

"Perhaps it is track related and has to do with bumps or dust or even something else. It will be another tough race for us because overtaking is particularly difficult here, but certainly we won't give up and will try our best tomorrow."

His team-mate Sergio Perez completed a low-key day for Sauber, the Mexican winding up 14th, which he believes is the maximum he could have hoped for.

"Basically this was all that was possible for us today," he said. "For some reason all weekend we have been struggling with the balance of the car and how to understand how the tyres work on this track.

"I feel on my car we made a big step forward in regard to the balance between free practice this morning and qualifying. Q1 actually didn't look bad at all, but the car still behaved inconsistently and in Q2 it was so difficult to put a perfect lap together that I didn't make it into Q3."

Lewis Hamilton hopes the upgrade package McLaren introduced at the German Grand Prix will help the team cope with the long-run pace of Lotus and Red Bull.

While the Briton's own race at Hockenheim was spoiled by a puncture, the team showed impressive race pace in the form of Jenson Button's charge to second.

Hamilton says such improvements will be vital in order to hold off Lotus and Red Bull, both of which have a reputation for being kind to the tyres, on the abrasive surface of the Hungaroring.

Lotus's Romain Grosjean will start alongside Hamilton.

"There is no real secret [to Sunday's race], it is the same as anyone else," Hamilton said. "You have to keep your head cool and make sure you look after your tyres. Tyre strategy will be important tomorrow, and degradation will be interesting.

"I didn't do any long runs this morning, I did mine yesterday [and] they were pretty good. The track was a little bit greener yesterday so its difficult to compare. We know Lotus is long through long runs and so is the Red Bull, so we just need to focus on us.

"Jenson showed those [German GP] upgrades are an improvement and hopefully I can show the same thing tomorrow. We have a long race tomorrow so lots can happen, but we need to keep cool."

Hamilton said the upgrades allowed him to push harder than he has been able to in recent grands prix, 'empowering' him throughout qualifying.

"It has been a really positive weekend so far, [we can] finally see the upgrades working this weekend, being able to put car in places I previously wasn't able to," he reported.

"I am always striving for the perfect lap, and to get that is intense and exciting and if you get it right it is incredibly empowering. This weekend we have obviously had pace, we knew it was possible but it was just a case of doing it.

"Considering we have had pace all weekend, [missing pole] would have been disappointing, so I am happy I have done it.

"This is motor racing - we are not saying we are relaxed about it, we know we have a lot of work to do. We [need to] make sure we start that work this weekend."

Sebastian Vettel does not believe that its revised engine mapping was the deciding factor in his failure to take pole position for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Red Bull was forced to alter its engine mapping after the FIA clarified on Thursday that the team's interpretation of torque curve rules in recent races had been incorrect.

The double world champion, who had been inside the top two in each of the last three dry qualifying sessions, will begin Sunday's race from third place on the grid after setting a Q3 time over 0.4 seconds slower than polesitter Lewis Hamilton.

Vettel said, however, that it was not his new engine map, but a poor balance from his Red Bull RB8 that had been the key factor in his performance.

"I don't think the engine map really affected us as much as people think," the German said. "We were struggling a little to find the balance through the weekend but it has nothing to do with the mapping.

"We seem to have lost a little something compared to yesterday, so we've come into qualifying and failed to improve session-by-session."

However, he is still hopeful of challenging for victory, despite having Romain Grosjean's Lotus between himself and Hamilton's McLaren on the grid.

"Romain was in reach today, but not Lewis. He was too fast," he added. "But I still think we'll have good race pace tomorrow because the pace with fuel in the car is better than the pace with no fuel."

Nico Hulkenberg and Paul di Resta both felt they were unable to maximise Force India's potential in qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

While Hulkenberg did make it into Q3, he said he was not satisfied with his final effort after a self-inflicted mistake ruined his run.

Di Resta meanwhile said trying to secure decent track position forced him to push too early and spoiled his chances.

"I'm happy to be in the top ten but not satisfied with my quick lap in Q3," Hulkenberg explained. "I tried too hard and made a mistake, got some dirt on my tyres and couldn't recover the lap.

"It's a bit frustrating because my laptime from Q2 would have been good enough for sixth on the grid.

"So I'm a bit disappointed, but at the same time I'm focussing on the positives because we looked competitive during the session. Now we need to do the same in the race and pick up points."

Di Resta echoed the German's sentiments, adding: "I think there was more potential in the car today, but I couldn't get the laptime when it counted during Q2.

"The main issue was trying to find track position and I had to push very hard on my out lap to make some space, which probably took too much out of the tyres. It's a shame because we were very quick in Q1 and the car has been working well here.

"We can still have a good race, but it won't be easy with the high temperatures and the fact that it's never easy to overtake here."

Team principal Vijay Mallya admitted both drivers hadn't quite got the maximum out of the car during qualifying.

"We showed good pace today, but we didn't quite maximise our performance when it mattered," he said. "The good news is that we've shown that we have a quick car here in Budapest and hopefully we can demonstrate that again tomorrow when it really counts."

Michael Schumacher said that Mercedes just has to accept that it will not be competitive in the Hungarian Grand Prix, after the team's worst showing of the season in qualifying.

Schumacher will start down in 17th position, four places behind his team-mate Nico Rosberg. Schumacher's flying lap was compromised by dust left on track by Williams driver Pastor Maldonado, but the seven-time world champion said that he? was unlikely to have done much better.

"It was quite a tough and difficult day for us," said Schumacher. "We have to clearly see that we did not have the pace to be in the front. I could have done a faster lap probably, without the dust having been brought to the track by Maldonado, but then I still do not think it would have brought me into Q3.

"I don't think we could have done much more. This morning we practiced for long runs as yesterday we could not do that due to the rain, but I don't think it compromised our performance.

"You have to accept the gap is quite big. We know the combination of track layout and temperature does not suit us too much, and we will try to make the best out of it tomorrow."

His team-mate Rosberg said that the team needs to look at why the pair of F1 W03s have been so slow, and is hopeful that prioritising his race set-up during qualifying will help him have a stronger Sunday.

"That was a difficult qualifying for us today, and we need to analyse why it turned out like that," said Rosberg.

"Qualifying is always a compromise and I was focused on finding a good race set-up for tomorrow as we may have more tyre degradation on our car than others, but it is still disappointing not to make Q3 by two tenths."

Bruno Senna was elated after making it into the top 10 for the first time year in qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

The Brazilian had not been part of the Q3 shootout since last year's Brazilian Grand Prix, and had not qualified higher than 13th so far in 2012. But the Williams driver is now hoping to build on his position to score a strong result at the Hungaroring on Sunday.

"It's been a good weekend so far and I'm really happy to be in the top 10 for the first time this season," said Senna. "Q2 was extremely close, but we were able to get through. I could have done a better lap in Q3, but I'm pleased with the result and having both cars in Q3 is great for the team.

"The car has felt consistent and our long-run pace is looking good. We're in a strong position for the start of the race, so from here? I'll be pushing to bring home some good points for the team."

His team-mate Pastor Maldonado will start from eighth position, but the Venezuelan felt that he could have done a better job had he not encountered so much traffic during the session.

"My qualifying performance was quite good, especially in Q2, but then in Q3 I came across traffic twice. I am happy for the team as we both did a good job to put the team near the front so it's looking positive," Maldonado said.

"It's going to be a tough race here but an important one as getting points is our priority. The gaps are very close but we are both in the top 10 and now we need to push for a better position in the race. We have the car and qualifying place for a good finish tomorrow."

Fernando Alonso has ruled out fighting for a place on the podium if the Hungarian Grand Prix takes place in the dry.

The Spanish driver, the leader of the championship and the winner of the previous race in Germany, was unable to fight for pole position in qualifying on Saturday.

Alonso will start from sixth position after finishing nearly a second off the time set by McLaren's Lewis Hamilton.

The Ferrari driver reckons a top four is the best he can hope for in the race unless rain hits the circuit.

"In the dry, we are not yet able to fight for the very top places, and we are well aware of that," said Alonso. "Usually, in the race, the situation improves and so we hope we can finish in the top four or five when it's time for the chequered flag.

"Our aim will be to mark our closest rival in the drivers' classification and today we know we will be starting ahead of him. Let's see what the situation will be tomorrow evening."

The two-time champion admitted the result had not come as a surprise to him give his car's form in practice.

"We were expecting a very difficult qualifying and so it was," he added. "We saw at least eight cars - two McLarens, two Force Indias, two Red Bulls and Lotus, running very competitively and therefore just getting to Q3 was in itself a difficult target to reach," said Alonso.

"We did it and we also managed to slightly improve the handling of the car in the final part, working on the tyre pressures and the front wing. We definitely didn't get a perfect lap: we lost a handful of tenths in a few corners."

Alonso warned, however, that if the rain hits the Hungaroring then his prospects will change completely.

"We will have to be super concentrated, especially in how we manage the tyres. It's true that overtaking is definitely not easy here, but tomorrow, it might yet rain and we know that can change everything."

Team-mate Felipe Massa will start from seventh position.

Kimi Raikkonen sees no reason why he cannot still deliver a good result in the Hungarian Grand Prix - despite failing to capitalise on the speed of his Lotus in Q3.

The Finn ended up fifth on the grid at the Hungaroring, with team-mate Romain Grosjean securing a spot on the front row, after finding himself unable to extract the maximum performance from his car in the final qualifying session

"We expected a bit more, the car has been good all weekend, but it was a bit more difficult in the last qualifying," explained Raikkonen. "I would rather be higher up, but that is how it goes."

Despite having hoped to be higher up the grid, Raikkonen thinks Lotus' history of delivering good race pace means he can still produce a decent result in the race.

"Usually our pace on Sunday is good, and I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be here," he said.

"It was not a perfect qualifying but it is still a good place to start the race. You make your life a bit more difficult when you don't make a good qualifying."

Post-qualifying press conference:

TV UNILATERAL

Q. Lewis you looked like that was fully under control at all times, apart maybe from that first run in Q3?

Lewis HAMILTON: Yeah, it's been a really positive weekend so far. The guys have done an incredible job this weekend as always, preparing the car. To finally see the upgrades working this weekend, I've been able to put the car in places that I previously wasn't able to do. So, generally every lap has been quite good throughout practice and qualifying, apart from the first run in Q3.

Q. Romain, obviously this is what you and the team needed, a strong qualifying performance, because you've shown in recent races that you've got a very good race car under you?

Romain GROSJEAN: Yeah, we normally have a good race pace, it's good to be back at the front. We had a difficult German Grand Prix and a difficult start here in Hungary. But the guys did a fantastic job trying to help me set up the car, trying to find out what was wrong and [we're] back to the top and it's good. I think the race tomorrow will be interesting.

Q. Sebastian, you only did the one run in Q3 because you used up tyres before that. Tell us how difficult it was to get the tyres working today?

Sebastian VETTEL: Yeah, I think for us it more a difficulty of getting everything to work properly. I think the speed is there but yeah it seems extremely difficult once you lose the balance a little bit. So I think we were struggling a little bit with that in qualifying. Throughout qualifying I think it got better. We shot through all the tyres, more or less. I knew I only had one set in Q3. I'm not entirely happy with the lap I had. I think Grosjean, sorry, Romain, was in reach. I think Lewis was probably a bit too far away today. But I think with the progress we made this morning and through qualifying we should be in a good position tomorrow for the race.

Q. Lewis if you look at the points you've scored in the past few races and the points scored by Fernando Alonso, the championship leader, there's obviously a massive difference. How important is a win tomorrow for you and for your championship hope?

LH: Well, thanks for reminding me! This is motor racing, you know. We're not saying we're relaxed about it but we know that we've got a lot of work to do and we're trying to make sure that we start that work from this weekend

PRESS CONFERENCE

Q. Lewis, you seem to have hit the ground running from the road here almost - you were fastest in both sessions yesterday; fastest in all the qualifying sessions as well and you love the circuit, you must be so pleased with pole position now as well?

LH: I am, absolutely. I'm really happy with the work the guys have done. Obviously Jenson showed the pace of the car in the last race but to be able to put that to work through qualifying feels fantastic. This is a good boost to the team. Still we have a very long race tomorrow. Lots can happen and we just need to keep our cool. The weather's fantastic here, the city's beautiful and the fans, well what a great turn out for a Saturday.

Q. Well, you've been on pole here before and you've won here twice as well, so you know how to win here. Is there a secret to tomorrow?

LH: There's no real secret, no. It's the same as everyone when they win races. You just have to keep your head cool and look after your tyres. Tyre strategy will be important tomorrow. Degradation will be interesting. I just hope for once we have a good start. That's what I hope for the beginning.

Q. How were the long runs this morning. Obviously you weren't able to do long runs yesterday and everybody crammed in their long runs this morning.

LH: I didn't do any long runs this morning. I did mine yesterday. It was pretty good. So you were happy with that?

LH: Yeah, I mean, the track was a little bit greener yesterday so it's difficult to compare it to today, but for us it was not such a problem. I think we know the Lotus is very, very strong on long runs and so is the Red Bull, so we just need to focus on us and really hope we can improve this weekend with those upgrade. Jenson showed in the last race that it is an improvement so hopefully I can show the same thing tomorrow.

Q. Romain, on the front row for the first time – how much satisfaction does that give you?

RG: Pretty high, I have to say. We started the weekend coming back from the German Grand Prix which was a bit of a disaster for ourselves, and it didn't start in the best way. But then we worked hard, tried to analyse what was wrong on the car and why I couldn't get the feeling that I had at the start of the year. P3 was getting better and then the start of qualifying was very difficult, with the first one getting a nightmare. But then we found back the speed, improved the car, tried to understand what was wrong with it, and being here on the front row is something special – especially here at the Hungarian Grand Prix where we know overtaking is very difficult. We need to start from the front, we said that since a long time – so first job done. Hopefully tomorrow we keep our race pace from usually, we able to save our tyres as much as we want and be able to get some good battles with the guy at the front.

Q. The performance of the car you've improved – do you think that's going to be OK for the race itself on full fuel tanks etc?

RG: Normally it's better on high fuel than on low fuel, so it's pretty good to be on the front row. We have been maybe working a bit more this week on qualifying because we know it's a big key for the race. So, hopefully tomorrow the car will feel pretty well with the tank fuelled and the setup we normally run for the race. Hopefully that's the case. Hopefully we manage to save our tyres as much as we want, as much as we can, and then we have good pace.

Q. We've seen quite a few people going off the circuit at many, many corners, to turn this into a podium tomorrow, how are you going to do that?

RG: Well, the key is to stay on track, that's for sure. Let's have a good start, let's see where we are at the beginning of the race and how the car feels. Hopefully it's going to feel alright, as it did in Bahrain or Canada, and if we have this, then I think we have everything in our pocket to fight for a good result.

Q. Sebastian, we've seen the performance, or seem to have seen the performance up and down the whole weekend – not just from you but from your team-mate as well.

SV: Yeah, a bit difficult for us this weekend to really get the balance right. I think the car is quick – and sometimes really quick – but it's a bit difficult to get it out of the car all the time. So, I think yesterday afternoon we were quite happy, this morning we weren't that happy and in qualifying it seemed to get better again. So, we'll see. I think it should be a good race tomorrow. I think the pace with fuel in the car is probably a little bit better than without fuel, so we'll see what we can do.

Q. You said 'room for improvement' after yesterday – but that didn't come this morning then?

SV: No, not really. I think it wasn't that bad yesterday but this morning initially it wasn't as good as it was yesterday – so we seem to have lost that little bit. But, I think just before qualifying we managed to come back and I think in qualifying I think we were able to improve session by session. Obviously we had to use a couple of sets that... or one more set than as per plan, which was not great. That's why we had only one run in Q3. But in the end we used as many tyres as everyone else. We'll see what we can do in the race. I think Lewis was out of reach today, they always seemed to be very quick. It's probably not too bad to start third here, it's on the clean side and it's a long way to Turn One.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q. (Leonid Novozhilov - F1 Life, Russia) Lewis, are you surprised? This is your 23rd pole position.

LH: Privet. (Hello in Russian). I learned that in Moscow! Surprised? I think every time I remember my first pole position and I pretty much remember every pole position that I've ever had. I'm always striving for perfection and that lap and the pressure that we're all under to get that perfect lap is intense, yet exciting. If you get it right, it's incredibly empowering. This weekend we've obviously had the pace so I knew that it was possible, it was just a case of doing it and if I didn't, I would be quite disappointed considering I've had the pace all weekend but fortunately I did it.

Q. (Peter Vamosi - Vas Nepe) Romain, if you can manage to win the race tomorrow, you will be the next driver after Ayrton Senna in the history of Lotus heritage. How do you feel about this, have you got extra pressure because of that?

RG: Well, I don't think it's an extra pressure. I think Formula One is already full of pressure. If I win the race tomorrow then it would be fantastic for the guys in the team, at the factory, for everything we've been doing since the beginning of the year and what we've achieved. And if I'm the next driver after Ayrton Senna to win a race with Lotus, it Page 3 of 6 would be something to add to all the processes and all the happiness that we can get in these circumstances. It would be an extra pleasure.

Q. (Julien Febreau - L'Equipe) Two questions for Romain: your position on the grid today, what does it mean to you? Do you fully understand what was wrong with the car since Germany? And the second question is: if you had the possibility to switch positions with Sebastian, would you accept?

RG: What is wrong? I think it's a lot of things together. We have seen that this year working with the tyres can be good, can be difficult. I think we were just, in the last two races, where we had to be. We had some signs on the car that things were not going as we wanted. the car was not handling as it should and we were not working the tyres properly, so we have been working in that direction, trying to get back to a normal set-up, to try to avoid every other aspect that could influence this. I think being second today is a bit of a surprise after we struggled but we improved lap after lap and that's good and the track rubbered in and I think that helped us. And if I had to change position: no, because I was already third once in qualifying and now I'm second, and hopefully one day I can get pole position. The more ahead you are, the better it is. We know there is dirt and dust on the side, but if you look at Barcelona where there's supposed to be a good side and a bad side, the drivers in second and fourth positions happened to be first and third at the first corner and the first and third finished second and fourth so hopefully I can do the same.

Q. (Geza Suranyi - Heves Megyei Hirlap) Romain, you told us on Thursday that you need to be on the front row in order to fight for a win. Now you're second, do you feel that the time has come to score your first win?

RG: Good question. I think the time has come since you're racing for winning. As we say, qualifying is a good exercise as you're looking for the perfect lap, and if you just manage your car to do whatever you want with it, it's quite a good feeling when you manage that and then in the race, the idea is to win a race. If one of us told you that he arrives on a race weekend not thinking about a win he wouldn't be saying the truth, so for sure tomorrow we will think about it but before winning the race we need to get everything in order so qualifying is job done, now we need to have a good start as we are now doing it, take off our tyres, have good pit stops and a good pace in the race.

Q. (Livio Oricchio - O Estado de Sao Paulo) Romain, considering the bad experiences you have had in previous races on the first lap, will you use this experience to avoid anything different again?

RG: I use all the experience I get in Formula One to improve myself, lap after lap, race after race.

Q. (Peter Farkas - Auto-Motor) A question to all three of you: the last corner has been re-surfaced for this year. How do you feel about it, is it a clear improvement compared to before and where is the track now worse regarding the track surface at the moment?

LH: The track is fantastic in the last corner. It's much, much better. They did a really great job and now the track, altogether, is just very consistent, grip-wise.

RG: The last corner is easier than in GP2.

Q. (Dorel Sant - MSSport1.com) Romain, did you have a perfect lap in qualifying, because Sebastian Vettel said that his lap could have been better and maybe he could have attacked your position, so what do you say?

RG: To be 100 percent honest, it was not the perfect lap. You have few times in your career when you just finish the lap and say how was it from the car? I think we could have improved in a few small areas. I think it's quite hard here to get the perfect lap and to get Page 4 of 6 the car all together for the lap, so it was not the best ever. I think if I compared to Kimi, then I'm sure I lost a bit of time into turn one but then the rest was pretty OK.

Q. (Dan Knutson - National SpeedSport News) Seb, to get the move out of the tyres, not only here but over the whole season, is it more a question of bringing upgrades to the car or maybe just adjusting your driving style?

SV: To get the best out of the tyres? Well, I think we've seen... it's a complicated question. At least I could give you a complicated answer but I think we've seen this year that everyone seems to struggle more than in the past to not bring updates but to improve the car through the upgrades. That's for Lotus; I think in China they had an upgrade which they then decided to go back. McLaren, I think had upgrades and decided to go back. For us, we had some stuff and decided to go back. Why is that? Because you realise that it's not quicker. I think it's quite complex this year to understand the cars. Obviously in combination with the tyres, I think one thing you need to know is that everyone has less downforce this year. Generally if you have more downforce it also helps to switch on the tyres, to work with the tyres more consistently but as everyone has less downforce this year, I think the window is extremely narrow and it's very difficult to get it right every time, so that's why I think we probably see a little bit more inconsistency this year.

Q. (Kate Walker - Girl Racer) For all three of you: we're about to head into the summer shutdown in what is the longest season in F1 history. Is it a welcome opportunity for you to relax and re-charge your batteries or are you concerned that you will lose momentum going into Spa?

RG: Personally I think it's time for a honeymoon.

SV: Yes, that's not the case for us. It's a long season. If you compare it to a lot of other sports, it's one of the longest seasons we have. I think it's important, even if sometimes you would like to carry on, I think you need the break, so it's important to make use of it.

LH: It's most important for the team. The team is travelling non-stop and they work incredibly long hours so the guys back in the factory... Time with your family is most important and they are away from their families all that time so it's an important time for them to go away and relax and refresh and get ready for the second half of the season which is going to be the most intense.

Q. (Marco degl'Innocenti - La Gazzeta dello Sport) Sebastian, maybe this question could be boring for you again, but again, I would like to know if this lack of performance from your car could be because of this famous change of engine mapping?

SV: No, I don't think it really affected us as much as people think. As I said, we were struggling a little bit generally to find a balance throughout the weekend and qualifying but it has nothing to do with the mapping.

Q. (Jool Gabor - Index) Romain, simple question: do you believe in second chances?

RG: I think yes, to have the chance to have this second chance. As I say, I'm happy to be in Formula One again, even if it's more difficult. When you lose something that you really like, you realise how much it counts to you and today I'm proud to be back, proud to be part of the Lotus F1 team. I think we are growing up together, so far having a very good season so I'm very happy to be here and fitting in well to the Formula One world.

Q. (Peter Farkas - Auto-Motor) As far as I understand, there could be some rain tomorrow. Did you take that into consideration in terms of set-up?

SV: No. I think the impact in terms of set-up that we see these days is way less than compared to the past, so something like a real rain set-up doesn't exist any more these days.

Q. (Livio Oricchio - O Estado de Sao Paulo) Considering the difficulty of overtaking here, the number of laps you are able to do with these supersoft tyres in the first stint will maybe be the key to victory or a good finishing position?

RG: We haven't got supersofts so you may mean with the soft. I think the key is part of the strategy. I think if you they can go longer than the others then you may stop earlier, if you think that you may be in difficulty at the end of the race as we have seen some cars then you don't have them. It will be a good question for the guys doing the strategy and then we try to make the target happening as good as we can.

[Lineker]

Tremendous start from Webber. Will be interesting to see what he can do on the supposedly better harder medium tyre. No idea what Shumacher is playng at though!

Kimi Raikkonen has emerged as a surprise contender to line up alongside Fernando Alonso at Ferrari next year, even though the Finn is closing in on a deal to remain at Lotus.

Ferrari is considering its driver options for 2013, with the team well aware it needs a team-mate to Alonso who can help contribute significantly to its constructors' championship ambitions.

Felipe Massa has not yet delivered strong enough form this year to guarantee his seat, which has left Ferrari evaluating whether to hope his current upswing in form will continue into 2013 or whether it needs to look at other options.

A number of young drivers are on Ferrari's radar - with Nico Hulkenberg, Paul di Resta, Sergio Perez and Romain Grosjean all on the short-list of candidates for the drive.

However, Ferrari sources insist that the team has not seen enough from any of those drivers to be sure that they will be a definite step forward over Massa - which has resulted in Raikkonen emerging as a dark horse contender.

Although Raikkonen was dropped by Ferrari at the end of 2009, Ferrari sources suggest that senior figures inside the team believe he would be the perfect fit for next year – because of his speed, availability and likelihood that he would not cause any political problems.

However, the biggest stumbling block at any deal happening is believed to be the strained relationship between Raikkonen and Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo, who parted their previous working partnership on far from good terms.

Insiders suggest that di Montezemolo is not convinced about the Raikkonen route – while the driver himself has said in private that he too would be reluctant to work with his former boss again.

Ferrari will have to make a final call on Raikkonen soon if it is to have any hope of doing a deal, because he is getting close to confirming another season with Lotus.

AUTOSPORT understands that Raikkonen has already held technical meetings about the 2013 car at the Lotus factory, and there is every indication from him and the team that they intend to carry on together for at least one more year.

Raikkonen's team-mate Grosjean is out of contract at the end of this year too, but his current strong form for Lotus makes it a no brainer for it to keep the Frenchman for another season.

Lewis Hamilton should ignore any other options he has on the grid and recommit his future to McLaren.

That is the view of his current team-mate Jenson Button, who believes that Hamilton would be better off staying at McLaren rather than believing he has a better chance of success elsewhere.

Hamilton's future has become a major talking point this season, with the Briton stating recently that he hoped to sort out his future plans over the summer break with his current McLaren contract coming to an end later this year.

And although his options are narrowing, with Mark Webber's new Red Bull contract ending any hopes he had of a switch to the reigning constructors' champion, other leading seats - including at Mercedes and Lotus – are not yet officially tied up.

Speaking ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix, Button said that he would be keen for Hamilton to remain on board – and reckons such a situation would be in the best interests of both of them.

When asked if he wanted Hamilton to stay, Button said: "Yes. It is pretty simple. You want to do a better job than your team-mate over a race weekend, that is what we all want to do, but you have got to have a competitive team-mate as well. That is the way the sport is, and when you are at a top team you are always going to have a very competitive team-mate.

"Lewis is the one of who has got the option of moving or not – although I heard Ron [Dennis] say some interesting comments this week – but this place is like home to Lewis.

"He has been here since the start of his career and it is a massive change to go somewhere else. I have done it a couple of times. Sometimes it is good for you to make that change, and it is up to Lewis, but from my point of view, it doesn't seem like it would be the right thing to do."

Button suggests that Hamilton is the fastest team-mate that he has had his career – and that he has enjoyed their working relationships.

"He is definitely the quickest team-mate I have had," he explained. "I have raced some pretty good team-mates. I have raced with two world champions now, but they are quite different in their demeanour and the way they work with the team, but I think the last three years have been great.

"It is good to have good competition. The days you get beaten by your team-mate, you have to say congratulations because it was a great job – but the days you do beat your team-mate when he is that competitive, it does give you an extra smile after the race and that extra good feeling. So it is important to have a competitive team-mate."

Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn says rival teams have to simply trust that the FIA is policing Formula 1 in the proper way, on the back of another Red Bull technical controversy in Hungary.

Just a week after an issue with Red Bull's engine maps in Hockenheim, it emerged in Hungary that the Milton Keynes-based outfit had been asked at the Canadian GP to modify a device that could have allowed the team to alter suspension settings manually - something that is against the regulations.

The latest row, which comes after issues with Red Bull's floor in Monaco and its wheel hubs in Canada, has further increased scrutiny on the team and led to questions about whether or not it is pushing the regulations too much.

But Brawn, whose own outfit was subject to an official protest by Lotus about the legality of its double DRS system earlier this year, says that teams like his have to simply rely on the FIA to ensure that nothing untoward is going on.

When asked ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix if there were any designs out there that concerned him, he said: "Not that we are aware of.

"Obviously something has arisen that the FIA has had to deal with, and that is something the FIA needs to do.

"We are in their capable hands to make sure that the sport is regulated properly, but I don't know any of the details beyond what I have read on some of the websites. So it is really up to the FIA and the competitor to resolve."

Red Bull boss Christian Horner insisted on Saturday that his outfit had never made changes to its car's suspension manually, and had always used a tool as required by the rules.

Mercedes has blamed a lack of performance in the long corners at the Hungaroring as the main cause of its struggles over the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend.

Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg delivered the team's worst qualifying performance of the year with neither driver making it in to Q3 - and their difficulties have left the outfit downbeat about its chances for the race.

Team principal Ross Brawn said neither driver could get their cars handling right for the five 180-degree corners on the Hungaroring.

"We can see the areas of the track where we were struggling was in the 180 degree corners, while on other parts of the track we were OK," explained Brawn.

"We had a balance that made it difficult for the drivers, but they are such long corners and such important corners that they were losing time. And that is the problem we have had all weekend."

He added: "It is a characteristic of the car we have got. We have seen that the car is perhaps strong in slow/medium speed corners generally, but here they are so long that the drivers get to the stage where they get understeer in the car and then have to wait. It is a trend we have seen, and we have to find a better solution."

The handling problems that Schumacher and Rosberg have suffered means that there is little hope the car will be much better in the race.

"If you have a balance that doesn't help the tyres, then if you have a bad qualifying it may not be better in the race. If you have a car that cannot switch on its tyres and is looking after the rears, then it is logical to suggest that you could be in better shape for the race. I am not sure that will be the case for us.

"But I think people are going to run out of tyres at some stage, and it depends what the weather does."

Lotus boss Eric Boullier believes his team's best hope of beating Lewis Hamilton to victory in the Hungarian Grand Prix will depend on its tyre management - because its car does not have the outright pace to edge clear of McLaren.

Hamilton has been in dominant form over the Hungaroring weekend, and ended up four tenths clear of Romain Grosjean to secure his first pole position since the Malaysian Grand Prix.

That form has left Boullier in no doubt about where his team's car stacks up against McLaren – but that opportunities do still exist for it to triumph.

When asked by AUTOSPORT if he felt the team had the speed to beat Hamilton, Boullier said: "The pace not, no. The only expectation we can have is obviously our car having better tyre degradation than McLaren.

"So if we can keep contact with him, or even make a better start, then with strategy at least we can pass him. But it will be difficult."

Boullier has praised the job that both Grosjean and his team did in addressing the set-up issues that had left the Frenchman struggling for pace in the last two races.

"After a difficult weekend in Hockenheim and a difficult start to the weekend here, we spent a lot of time last week in Paris to talk about a lack of performance.

"We sat down on Friday night and looked at the different scenarios, and tried to work out why it could go one way or why not. And we found out that maybe we had to strip down a little bit and go back on some technical choices to make the car suit him better. And it looks like it worked.

"So I am happy with the group, the team, and that we all worked constructively together."

Lewis Hamilton says his biggest concern for the Hungarian Grand Prix is getting a good start - with him confident about the ultimate potential of his McLaren.

Having delivered a brilliant pole position to edge out Romain Grosjean by four tenths of a second, Hamilton is well aware that he still faces a tough battle to overcome his rivals on Sunday.

Talking about his chances for the race, Hamilton said: "I think if you were to line up the cars and draw a line on a graph of how long each of those cars could go, I definitely do not believe that our car can go the longest on a stint. But we can still be strong in the length we can go, and it is longer than what we had previously had, as Jenson [button] showed in the last race.

"We had the race pace in the last race, so we should have it now as well. Then it is down to good strategy, good pit stops and making the tyres last when we need them to, and make sure we attack when we need to.

"That is what we have done all year but every time you come to a race you want to do it better than you did at the race before.

"For me, if there is any concern, it is only the start – I want to make sure that I get a good start because there are a few starts where I have not got off the line and lost ground. So the target is to get a good start. From there you can have a positive race."

Hamilton said that he was not surprised to have returned to pace-setting form in Hungary, on the back of a productive weekend in exploiting the new update package from McLaren.

"I just hooked up lots of good laps from the beginning of this weekend. I dialled in the set-up I wanted on the simulator, and when we came here we had to adjust a few things to make the set-up right, but after that I have been very, very comfortable in the car."

Paul di Resta believes making a strong start will be critical to his fortunes in the Hungarian Grand Prix.

The Scot will line up 12th on the grid, on the 'dirty side' of the Hungaroring circuit, after traffic issues contributed to him narrowly missing out on progressing into Q3.

While he played down the potential effect of the dirty track, di Resta admitted that getting a good start at Hungary was even more important than at Monaco, which is renowned for its lack of overtaking opportunities.

"The launch needs to be spot on, that is key - more key than Monaco I would say," di Resta explained. "It is such a short run that it influences the rest of the race.

"As long as it stays nice and dry for our cars to lay some nice thick rubber down, [the dirty side] shouldn't be too much of a disadvantage.

"On the clean side at Hockenheim I got blasted out of sight by [Kimi] Raikkonen so I think it is about the procedure and understanding your clutch."

Di Resta predicted that high tyre degradation could also play into his team's hands by helping to overcome the Hungaroring's reputation for making overtaking difficult.

"It is not the longest of straights but there is a lot of tyre degradation so never say never - look at Valencia," added the Scot.

"I think potentially we could see [cars falling off a cliff], we have seen it in GP2 as the last two corners require a lot of downforce.

"From what we saw, our tyres seem to be holding on but I haven't done a heavy fuel load. I would say in recent races we have had more of a problem at the beginning of the races on high fuel compared to others and I think we will have a fight on our hands compared to Sauber."

Bruno Senna is confident of replicating his strong qualifying performance at the Hungaroring across the second half of the 2012 F1 season.

The Brazilian made it into Q3 for the first time on Saturday before eventually sealing ninth on the grid for Sunday's race.

He said such gains were down to solving front-end grip issues and also from racing on tracks he has previous experience on - both of which bode well for the championship's run-in.

"We have cracked one thing, which is the good feeling from the front end of the car," Senna reported. "We have a new front brake duct that is heating the front tyres so suddenly I have got the feeling and I think that we had a pretty good experience this weekend with the rhythm of the car.

"Overall, I'm very happy to be where I am in qualifying because it's good progress compared to where I have been. The last two races have been so frustrating because we had decent pace to be further up on the grid and finally we got a normal qualifying session."

Asked whether his previous experience of the Hungaroring was also an advantage, Senna replied: "I think so. I arrived at the track yesterday and when I did my first lap I had much more confidence. The references were much closer to the ideal and then on my second run I was on it.

"It's very different when you miss a session because everybody has the session before me and they have the knowledge of the setup of the car. These things move them forward and I'm just starting. You have a few laps to nail it. If you had more durable tyres, it would be less of a loss, but on the Pirelli tyres you are in trouble if you don't nail the first lap."

Senna said he was optimistic of maintaining his Hungaroring form, even if he also expects the competition to continually close in what has already been a remarkably tight season.

"It's easy to say yes [to the idea of performing well in the second half of the year] but it's not like everybody else is staying in the same place, everybody else is progressing as well," added the Brazilian.

"I don't see the grid becoming any less close than it's been. It's going to get closer and closer and we need to keep pushing to develop the car.

"It's hard to know exactly what is going to happen but we know that with the lower track temperatures that we had yesterday, the car was very strong. We go from here to places where the track temperature is bound to be lower, so let's hope that we can be strong again and be in the top 10 more often."

[Katsuya]

WTF, Webber making good starts?

[Lineker]

Lotus' clash!

[Sam]

Team GB win gold

[Lineker]

Lewis Hamilton fended off Kimi Raikkonen to claim victory in the Hungarian Grand Prix and revitalise a title campaign that had begun to drift since McLaren's last win in Canada.

Hamilton led the majority of the race, but had a Lotus on his tail nearly all of the way.

Initially it was Romain Grosjean, who dismissed a strong challenge from Sebastian Vettel at the first corner, which allowed Jenson Button to then demote the Red Bull to fourth through Turns 2 and 3.

Button (McLaren) could not match Hamilton and Grosjean's early pace, so the McLaren and Lotus pulled away in a two-car lead fight.

Hamilton had it under control, although Grosjean did ramp up the pressure for a while in the middle stint of their two-stop strategies when he was on softs and the Briton had medium Pirellis.

When Button made an early second of three stops, Vettel was free to start catching the leaders too, but in the end it was Raikkonen who emerged almost from nowhere to become Hamilton's main challenger.

Raikkonen had been sixth in the opening stint, then passed Fernando Alonso's Ferrari in the first stops. His strong late-stint pace on a long run on softs in his next stint then allowed him to lead for a spell and vault from fifth to second, firmly resisting team-mate Grosjean as he emerged from his final stop.

Hamilton and Raikkonen were then tied together until the flag, but there was nothing the Lotus could do to pass the McLaren.

Grosjean held on to third ahead of Vettel, who made a third pitstop without losing a place and charged back to attack the Lotus on fresh softs, to no avail.

Alonso calmly protected his championship lead on a tough day for Ferrari, finishing fifth. For a while it looked like main title rival Mark Webber would trim a little from Alonso's cushion. The Australian jumped from 11th to seventh on lap one, then got ahead of Alonso at the second stops. But making a third tyre stop cost Webber and he fell to eighth.

Button's three-stop plan was also unsuccessful, as his second stop left him trapped behind Bruno Senna for a spell. He got back in front of the Brazilian in the final tyre changes then chased Alonso home in sixth.

Senna resisted Webber for seventh, delivering one of his best drives of the season on a day when his Williams team-mate Pastor Maldonado lost ground at the start then received a drive-through penalty for barging Paul di Resta's Force India aside in one of the race's few concerted passing attempts.

Felipe Massa was ninth - four places but just a few seconds behind team-mate Alonso. Nico Rosberg salvaged a point for Mercedes as his team-mate Michael Schumacher endured one of his most depressing races in Formula 1. The seven-time champion was left on the grid in an aborted initial start, joined the race from the pits, received a pitlane speeding penalty, then retired from 18th late on.

PROVISIONAL RACE RESULTS


The Hungarian Grand Prix

Hungaroring, Hungary;

70 laps; 306.630km;

Weather: Sunny.


Classified:


Pos  Driver        Team                       Time

 1.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes           1h41:05.503

 2.  Raikkonen     Lotus-Renault              +     1.032

 3.  Grosjean      Lotus-Renault              +    10.518

 4.  Vettel        Red Bull-Renault           +    11.614

 5.  Alonso        Ferrari                    +    26.653

 6.  Button        McLaren-Mercedes           +    30.243

 7.  Senna         Williams-Renault           +    33.899

 8.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault           +    34.458

 9.  Massa         Ferrari                    +    38.350

10.  Rosberg       Mercedes                   +    51.234

11.  Hulkenberg    Force India-Mercedes       +    57.283

12.  Di Resta      Force India-Mercedes       +  1:02.887

13.  Maldonado     Williams-Renault           +  1:03.606

14.  Perez         Sauber-Ferrari             +  1:04.494

15.  Ricciardo     Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +     1 lap

16.  Vergne        Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +     1 lap

17.  Kovalainen    Caterham-Renault           +     1 lap

18.  Kobayashi     Sauber-Ferrari             +    2 laps

19.  Petrov        Caterham-Renault           +    2 laps

20.  Pic           Marussia-Cosworth          +    2 laps

21.  Glock         Marussia-Cosworth          +    3 laps

22.  De la Rosa    HRT-Cosworth               +    3 laps


Fastest lap: Vettel, 1:24.136


Not classified/retirements:


Driver        Team                         On lap

Karthikeyan   HRT-Cosworth                 63

Schumacher    Mercedes                     61



World Championship standings, round 11:                


Drivers:                    Constructors:             

 1.  Alonso       164        1.  Red Bull-Renault          246

 2.  Webber       124        2.  McLaren-Mercedes          193

 3.  Vettel       122        3.  Lotus-Renault             192

 4.  Hamilton     117        4.  Ferrari                   189

 5.  Raikkonen    116        5.  Mercedes                  106

 6.  Rosberg       77        6.  Sauber-Ferrari             80

 7.  Grosjean      76        7.  Williams-Renault           53

 8.  Button        76        8.  Force India-Mercedes       46

 9.  Perez         47        9.  Toro Rosso-Ferrari          6

10.  Kobayashi     33       

11.  Maldonado     29       

12.  Schumacher    29       

13.  Di Resta      27       

14.  Massa         25       

15.  Senna         24       

16.  Hulkenberg    19       

17.  Vergne         4       

18.  Ricciardo      2       


All timing unofficial[/code]


Lewis Hamilton says his Hungarian Grand Prix victory shows it is still possible for him to win the 2012 Formula 1 world title, despite remaining 47 points behind leader Fernando Alonso.


Hamilton's second win of the season came after a run of three races in which he had scored just four points, but triumphing at the Hungaroring reduced his championship deficit from 62 to 47 points.


The McLaren driver is now fourth in the standings.


"This weekend shows it is all to play for still," said Hamilton. "Not enough points taken for Fernando. If we can continue this kind of performance we can catch up.


"We need consistency and we need to improve the car still in many areas and I am sure we will do that."


He admitted it was psychologically important to get back on the top step of the podium before the summer break.


"It is nice to go into the break knowing that we have had a win," said Hamilton. "It is a great feeling. It is very, very important how I manage the summer break.


"We have clearly still got a lot of work to do. We should take from this a good pat on the back, but we should know we have a lot of work to do."


Hamilton reckons he was only able to beat chasing Lotus duo Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean in Hungary because he had started in front.


"These guys were rapid," he said. "If they had qualified at the front it would have been impossible to get past them."


He said that winning under constant pressure made this victory particularly satisfying, and that he was pleased with how he had been able to manage the situation.


"When you win like this when under intense pressure from great drivers like Romain and Kimi, this is the kind of day when you have to have your mind 100 per cent," Hamilton said. "I feel great, because the team didn't flinch and neither did I."


Hamilton added: "It was never really close. I allowed them to close up in certain corners so that he may have problems with his tyres. I just made sure I saved my speed for the last sector so I had a big enough gap in the last three corners."


Kimi Raikkonen insists Lotus needs to improve its qualifying form if it is to finally clinch an elusive first victory this season.


The Finn finished in second place in the Hungarian Grand Prix after charging from fifth place on the grid. He crossed the line just a second behind race winner Lewis Hamilton despite starting four places behind the Briton.


Raikkonen admitted he needs to do a better job on Saturday in order to have a clear shot at winning.


"We always try to win and sometimes you get close and it is a bit disappointing that we cannot," said Raikkonen. "We know the reason: we are not so strong in qualifying and make it hard for ourselves on Sunday.


"We should be able to put ourselves in a good position and get good points, but it is a long season. We are improving all the time, and if it comes, great, if not we keep trying.


"I have been in this business long enough to not worry about things too much."


Raikkonen, who endured KERS issues during the race, said he was not worrying about not managing to win in Hungary.


"I didn't [win], so there's no point to worry about it. I had an OK start but we had some issue with KERS and I could only use 50 per cent so I lost a position to Fernando [Alonso]. The first few laps were not good as we tried to get the KERS working.


"It makes no difference if you don't get past. We were second and third today. It's good for the team but we keep trying to win and hopefully it will come soon."


Raikkonen came close to making contact with team-mate Romain Grosjean when he returned to the track after his second pitstop.


The Finn said he had made an error that cost him time when he pushed the speed limiter button too late.


"The team told me it would be very close and I made a mistake with the speed limiter, maybe five metres after the line I was still on it, so I think I didn't do a good enough job out there. We went side by side for the first corner but I could keep the position quite easily."


Kimi Raikkonen says he would not close the door completely on a return to Ferrari, amid rumours linking him to the second seat alongside Fernando Alonso in 2013.


Raikkonen drove for Ferrari from 2007 to '09, winning the world championship in his first season with the Italian team. He has returned to Formula 1 with Lotus this year after a two-season sojourn in the World Rally Championship, and is currently fifth in the points with five podium finishes to his name.


Ferrari is considering potential replacements for Felipe Massa next season, and it emerged in Hungary that Raikkonen's impressive form in 2012 had made him a dark horse contender for a drive.


The major stumbling block would be a difficult relationship between Raikkonen and Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo.


Asked if he would consider a Ferrari return, Raikkonen replied: "I always said that I have no bad feelings and I had a good time with the team. I won one championship there."


But while not ruling out a potential Ferrari future, Raikkonen emphasised that he was very content with life at Lotus.


"You never know what happens in the future," he said. "I am happy where I am right now. Things going pretty nicely.


"You never know what happens in the future and I am happy where I am."


Romain Grosjean says he bears no grudge towards Lotus team-mate Kimi Raikkonen after the pair went wheel to wheel in a battle for second in the late stages of the Hungarian Grand Prix.


Grosjean had been running second when he made his final stop, but a combination of traffic and a searing pace from Raikkonen meant he emerged alongside the Finn heading down to Turn 1.


Neither wanted to cede ground and the pair seemed to kiss wheels before Raikkonen eventually forced Grosjean onto the marbles on the outside to steal second.


Despite the aggression Grosjean said it was a case of both drivers looking after their own interests, comparing the incident to his own defence of the inside when Sebastian Vettel attacked away from the start.


"It was close with Kimi, he did what he had to do," Grosjean said. "I got marbles on my tyres and struggled to recover, but it is what it is.


"It was the same story with Kimi [as with Vettel] - I was inside of Seb so it was alright."


Grosjean was less relaxed about other incidents in the race however, after traffic held him up and ultimately allowed Raikkonen to close.


"It just happened - unfortunately I got stuck behind another car and it wouldn't let me past and I lost 1.5 seconds... I wasn't happy at that stage as I was fighting for win and suddenly I got stuck with something you cannot manage," he added.


"We were close to fight for the win, so we are a little bit [disappointed] today. But I got stuck behind another car on that blue flag and it didn't really respect it."


The Frenchman said part of his troubles were related to the difficulty in following Lewis Hamilton closely - a phenomenon Raikkonen also experienced late on.


"It is really difficult for the car here to be close and not make mistakes," he reported.


"When following Lewis I was losing a bit of grip, then our first pitstop was a disaster. The second one was OK, but I didn't get chance to jump in pitstops and strategy and that was key today because overtaking was too difficult. You started sliding more, losing temperature, so it was very difficult to follow."


Mark Webber admitted that Red Bull was expecting its rivals to suffer higher tyre wear when it opted for a three-stop strategy in the Hungarian Grand Prix.


Webber had made it through from 11th on the grid to fifth but his final stop dropped him back to eighth. The majority of the other frontrunners pitted only twice, and Webber conceded Red Bull's tactics were wrong.


"I think we were hoping people would be in a bit more trouble at the end with the tyres. That's where we lost the three positions. Fifth place was there," said Webber.


"I was thinking of staying out. Obviously we had a nice cushion and laptimes were going pretty well, but it's always hard to know.


"We've had plenty of incidents this year where people drop off the cliff [of tyre performance]. In the end, the strategy didn't really work out. We lost three places through trying something different.


"Also overtaking's very difficult, so you need bad tyres for the other guys and a good run in the last sector. I was quicker but couldn't get the job done."


Webber's team-mate Sebastian Vettel also pitted three times, but it did not affect his race result as he had a sufficient gap behind to retain fourth place when he stopped for the final tyre change.


"I was just following Romain [Grosjean] around and trying to do something different in the end, I think, was the right thing," said Vettel.


"It was marginal coming out ahead of Fernando [Alonso], but it was good. It could've been a different story. Their tyres could have gone off. We did everything we could."


The result leaves Webber 40 points behind championship leader Alonso, with Vettel two points further adrift.


"We've got work to do," Webber admitted. "We've had a little bit of friendly fire with ourselves. Yesterday was down to me. But we still have good points and it's still open for the rest of the year.


"Obviously Fernando grabbed a few more today. It was a disappointing grand prix. I risked quite a bit on the first lap and managed to get some things back, but in the end it didn't quite work out for us today."


Vettel reckoned his race was ruined when he lost out to Jenson Button on the first lap, and said while he had no doubts about Red Bull's pace, it needed to maximise its potential better.


"I think the car is not so bad in the race, but we need to have better starts and better first laps," he said.


Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said his team had no option but to put Mark Webber on to a three-stop strategy, because a differential problem with the car meant his tyre wear increased dramatically.


Webber's hopes of challenging higher up were dashed when he was hit with the differential failure late in the race - and that problem resulted in more wheelspin which increased his tyre degradation.


That led to the team electing to give him a late stop for tyres - even though in theory the better strategy was to stick to a two-stopper.


"In the end, we had to stop," explained Horner. "With the differential issue and the tyres, you have a lot of wheelspin on the inside tyre and there is no way those tyres will get to the finish so we had to stop."


Horner said that early on it appeared as though Webber had done enough to get himself in to a good position for the closing stages of the race.


"We thought that starting on the prime would give us more options," he explained. "He made a good start and a good first couple of corners, and came around seventh.


"From there on, he was going very well on the primes and we thought we would save the options for later on. He then mirrors [Fernando] Alonso, but we knew at that stage that we didn't feel it was likely to get to the end on a set of softs.


"So to put him into fresh air, and really make that new set of tyres work, would be the best chance for him. Unfortunately on lap 45 we had a differential issue that was not behaving quite as well as we liked, and that cost him a bit of time."


The start of the Hungarian Grand Prix was originally aborted because Michael Schumacher stopped out of position, the FIA has confirmed.


After completing the customary warm-up lap, the field was then kept waiting on the grid as yellow lights flashed, before eventually being sent on a second preparatory tour of the Hungaroring.


As that happened, Schumacher was wheeled into the pitlane, the German having elected to switch off his engine due to a misunderstanding about the delay.


That led to some confusion about what had originally caused the aborted start, but the FIA has moved to clarify the issue by confirming that Schumacher had not originally parked inside his designated grid spot.


It was the first of a series of upsets the seven-time champion suffered, with a puncture and pitlane penalty leaving him 18th before he eventually retired.


Michael Schumacher said he turned his own engine off at the beginning of the Hungarian Grand Prix in a misunderstanding over the delayed start.


The Hungaroring race start was delayed for reasons not yet clear, with the yellow lights flashing as cars formed up on the grid.


The usual procedure is for cars to continue running and immediately do another formation lap, but Schumacher shut his Mercedes down and consequently had to start from the pitlane.


"We had the yellow lights and pretty high engine temperatures, and I decided to switch off the engine as we were waiting so long," he admitted.


The German's race then got worse still, with a puncture, a pitlane speeding penalty and ultimately a late retirement from 18th place.


"We had a puncture - I don't know how and what happened. There was obviously no contact, I was alone and by myself," said Schumacher.


"Then we even had a drive-through because maybe the pitlane limiter or something didn't work properly during the puncture phase.


"That was the race decided. It was just trying to hang out and see if maybe something unusual would happen that we could take benefit from.


"In the end, because we'd had these engine temperatures and we had some telemetry issues, we decided to stop the car."


Jenson Button says he does not understand McLaren's strategy switch, particularly after twice being asked to pit early and exiting into traffic as a consequence in Hungary.


McLaren opted to switch the Briton onto a three-stop strategy partway through the race as he was running a close third behind team-mate Lewis Hamilton and Lotus's Romain Grosjean.


Exiting into traffic killed the Briton's hopes however and ultimately caused him to slide down to sixth at the chequered flag.


Button said his tyres were still in working condition when he made his last two stops, and therefore couldn't understand the team's strategy call.


"I don't know what was going on there really," Button admitted. "The weird thing was after the first stop I could still see the leaders so it was close, but we decided to go for a three stop and we were stopping early, and both times I came out in traffic and wondered why.


"The tyres were still in good condition and I think they were trying to jump the cars in front but we went straight back into traffic and that was it. Normally you pit and come out into clean air.


"Then we did that again later on in the race, so not a great race. Hopefully we will learn from this because it happened twice - I don't think we looked too good on strategy today."


Button said his confusion was compounded by the fact he was not struggling for tyre wear but was still asked to pit early.


"I don't know why we pitted so early each time when the tyres were still in good condition," he explained. "I said to the guys 'Is this traffic quicker than the guys we are racing?', and they said 'no'...


"I didn't really think it was [a tough race on tyres] but the team obviously did. I wasn't going slow but we pitted early twice and it put me straight into traffic, which made it very difficult to race those guys. Obviously it was a slight misunderstanding of positioning on circuit. Every time I stopped it just got worse and worse."


Fernando Alonso labelled his Hungarian Grand Prix weekend as incredible after managing to extend his lead in the championship despite Ferrari's lack of form.


The Italian squad was unable to repeat the kind of performance that allowed Alonso to score his third win of the year last weekend in Germany.


Alonso had to settle for a distant fifth position in the race, but the result meant he still managed to increase his lead in the standings from 34 to 40 points over Mark Webber, who finished eighth.


The Spaniard admitted the weekend had gone much better than expected.


"Incredible again. Another very, very good Sunday for the championship," he said. "I don't think we have been quick on Saturday or Sunday or on Friday and we still finished ahead of our main rivals, so it's been another Sunday that was better than expected.


"I think no one here thinks it's normal to finish ahead of a McLaren or a Red Bull, but we finished ahead of one of each, so it was better than expected, especially thanks to the strategy, because the cars that finished behind us made three stops. We made two and this time it was the right call and it turned out well."


Alonso made it clear Ferrari is not hiding the fact that it needs to improve after finishing over 25 seconds behind race winner Lewis Hamilton.


"We've been saying that all the time," said Alonso about Ferrari's need to improve. "We finished Canada and said we needed to improve. We finished Valencia and said we needed to improve. At Silverstone we had to improve, and here we have to improve again.


"Because we won a couple of races it seemed that everything was on the right path, but we have never said anything else. This weekend, with dry running on Friday, Saturday and Sunday you can see more clearly, but Lotus, McLaren and Red Bull have been ahead of us for the whole championship.


"It's just that at the start of the year it was 1.5 seconds, then eight tenths, then four, then six. That's the great merit of the team, that with all that, we are 40 points ahead, which is completely abnormal."


Bruno Senna is confident his seventh place in the Hungarian Grand Prix will be a turning point for his 2012 season.


The Brazilian has struggled to match the performances of Williams team-mate Pastor Maldonado, but scored his second best result of the year on Sunday, having started from ninth place.


Senna, who made it to Q3 for the first time this season on Saturday, believes the Hungaroring weekend could be the turning point that sees him enjoy a stronger second half of the year.


"Today was a nice race," said Senna. "We pushed very hard on the strategy to make it work especially as the track conditions and the weather were very different from what we were expecting, so I'm happy with the team and I hope we can carry this momentum on.


"There were a lot of battles for me and it was hard to keep the tyres alive because the temperatures were so high, but it's good to start in ninth place and finish in seventh. I think this is a turning point for us.


"The race was good, it was a fun weekend, the team are happy and the break is now welcome as it will be a chance to rest before we continue to push in the second part of the season."


Team-mate Maldonado finished in 13th position after having to serve a drive-through penalty for a clash with Force India's Paul di Resta which the Venezuelan described as "light contact".


"It was a difficult race today," he said. "I had a bad start and lost a lot of positions which compromised our race from the beginning. It was hard to keep good pace in the traffic and then we also had to serve a drive-through penalty. I was on the limit racing Di Resta when I locked the brakes and lost some grip, but I was on the inside of the corner and so there was some light contact.


"We had to concentrate on tyre management today and we gathered a lot of information for the future. We weren't as competitive as we have been, but we now need to work hard to focus on the second part of the season after the summer break."


Pastor Maldonado has "no idea" why the Hungarian Grand Prix stewards hit him with a drive-through penalty for his clash with Paul di Resta.


The Williams driver hit the Force India's sidepod with his front-left wheel while running side-by-side with him through Turn 12. This pushed di Resta onto the run-off while Maldonado made up a place.


He is adamant that it was a legitimate overtaking manoeuvre and was unsure as to whether his recent record, which includes penalties in the European and British Grands Prix for contact, played a part in the decision.


"I have no idea why I got the penalty this time," he said when asked about the penalty by AUTOSPORT. "It was a good overtaking manoeuvre.


"There was a small contact, but this is racing. I saw [Kimi] Raikkonen and [Romain] Grosjean [battling] and it was more or less the same."


Maldonado admitted that the contact happened because he had to correct a small slide.


But he insists that the contact was not enough to justify the penalty that he got.


"The contact was so small," he said. "He decided to run wide because there was a lot of space off the track. There was nothing big from my point of view. It was a good move."


Chief operations engineer Mark Gillan backed his driver. He believes that the move was "reasonable" and that the penalty was disappointing.


"Looking at it, it seems a reasonable manoeuvre. He went to overtake di Resta, had a slight moment going in. Di Resta gave him a bit of space and Pastor took it.


"We weren't expecting it but we take it on the chin and move on. Maybe it wouldn't have made any difference to his final result, but it's still disappointing."


Maldonado, who finished 13th, believes that the penalty decision cost him a shot at 10th place.


"It cost the possibility of a point," he said. "We don't know, but my pace was good.


"I had a hard race, especially because of the start. We had the pace to fight for P10 as I was quicker than the Force Indias and even [Nico] Rosberg. But with the penalty, the chance was gone."

Post-race press conference:


[spoiler]PRESS CONFERENCE


Q. Lewis, a fantastic race for you, absolutely fantastic, under pressure all the time it seemed.


Lewis HAMILTON: Yeah, these are the kind of grands prix, the races you win like this, where you're under intense pressure from great drivers like Romain and Kimi - for me it's a great reminder of the old days with Kimi – and this is the kind of day when you have to have your mind 100 per cent and I feel great because the team didn't flinch and neither did I.


Q. Great pitstops as well.


LH: The first one wasn't spectacular but the last one was very, very quick. We had a problem in the first pit stop, I think with the left rear, but otherwise we didn't lose too much time there. But the second pit stop was fantastic.


Q. Was there any temptation to go for a third stop?


LH: The team were talking about it. The plan was to do a two-stop but, you know, I had my target laps and the team weren't confident that I was going to make it to those laps but I knew I would. In my second stint I could have gone longer but they wanted to cover the guys behind which was probably the right thing to do. So, as we did that, then it was just trying to make those tyres last a long time while keeping this guy [Räikkönen] behind. Which as you know, they are absolutely rapid, these guys. So, you know, if we were on another track where overtaking was much easier I think perhaps the result would have been different.


Q. They seemed to catch and then drop back. How close was anyone ever coming to overtaking?


LH: He was never really close enough. I purposely allowed him to close up in certain corners, so that he may have problems with his tyres eventually – but it didn't look like it was going to happen. But I had to make sure I saved my speed for the last sector and made sure I drew a big enough gap in the last three corners and I did that every lap. I could see it was very difficult for them to follow, particularly through those areas, so it was important to make sure you maximise, especially with the DRS.


Did you have a chance Kimi, with the DRS?


Kimi RÄIKKÖNEN: Ah, no. It was not so bad to follow through the last corner but you're, I don't know, one second later on the power every time so they just pull too far away and the straight is not long enough and the others are too fast. So it didn't really give you any chance. My only chance was that they would run out of the tyres and then you will have a chance – but that never happened, so we probably should have had 20 more laps – and then it would have happened.


Q. So, are you happy with second place or did you feel you could have won it?


KR: I didn't, so there's no point to worry about it. I had an OK start but then we had an issue with the KERS and I only could use 50 per cent and I lost one position to Fernando, so the first few laps were not really good because we were trying to get the KERS working. After that it was OK but the same situation with Alonso, I was stuck behind him and just tried to save my tyres and push once we got the clear circuit. It seemed to work both times and we gained a lot of time on those few laps.


Q. And what about the time you came out of the pits and found yourself alongside Romain?


KR: Yeah. The team told me it's going to be very close and I made a mistake with the pit lane speed limiter so it meant maybe five metres after the line I was still on it, so I thought that I really didn't do a very good job out of there – but luckily it was enough gap and we were side-by-side in the first corner, but I could keep my position quite easily at that point. But it was one of those things: we had a lot of speed but just couldn't use it in all the race.


Q. How was that moment for you Romain?


Romain GROSJEAN: It just happens. Unfortunately, I got stuck behind another car, which had been [blue] flagged but didn't let me past in this lap. I lost 1.5 seconds. I wasn't very happy at that stage to be honest because I had been fighting for the win the whole race with Lewis and suddenly you get stopped by something you cannot really manage. Basically it was close with Kimi. He did what he had to do to not let me pass. I went a little bit on the outside and got the marbles on the tyres and then I struggled to recover. It is what it is. And it was pretty close with Sebastian in the first corner of the first lap as well?


RG: Yeah, it was the same story as with Kimi. Kimi was inside of my [car] and I was inside of Sebastian. So it was all right.


Q. How close were you? The gap seemed to go out and come back when you were behind Lewis.


RG: It's really difficult to follow another car here, to be close and not do any mistakes. When I was following Lewis sometimes I was losing a little bit the grip of my tyres. Then I had to recover a little bit. Our first pit stop was a disaster. The second one was OK. We didn't get the chance to jump in on the pit stop strategy. I think that was the only key today because overtaking is really too difficult. You can feel that you're sliding tyres, losing the grip, sliding more and it gets worse and worse. So it's very difficult to follow,


Q. So a little bit disappointed with third place?


RG: Yeah a little bit today I think. We were really close to fighting for the win. But as I said I got stuck behind another car under blue flags that didn't really respect it.


QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR


Q. (Heikki Kulta - Turun Sanomat) Kimi, you have been second three times when Lewis has won here. Have you ever been close to overtake him?


KR: I don't know. It was a long time ago to remember the past. Today it wasn't - it was many years. It makes no difference if you don't get past. We were second best today and third. I think it was good for the team but of course we will keep trying to win and hopefully it will come soon.


Q. (Niklas Jakobbson - Budapest Times) Lewis how frustrating is it for you, going into the long summer break now that it seems that your car has picked up pace and both you and Jenson seem to be fighting for the win again?


LH: It's not frustrating at all. It's quite nice to go into the break knowing that we had a win. Every year that we've done that it's been a great feeling. I think it's very very very important how we manage the summer break, mentally and physically, but we've clearly still got a lot of work to do. We should obviously take from this a pat on the back for a great job from everyone but we must know that we still have a lot of work to do. These guys were absolutely rapid in the race. If we're going to stay ahead of these... if they were to have qualified at the front, it would have been impossible to have got past them. So we need to remain focused and of course enjoy the break. This will carry on and the guys will carry this for the next week or so, I'm sure, back at the factory. Guys were wearing their team tops and hopefully we still have good pace and hopefully even more when we come back.


Q. (Joo Gabor - Index) Kimi, it is your fourth second place this year, I think. Aren't you getting a bit annoyed about this? Spa is coming up, are you confident that you can break it?


KR: I think I've only been second twice, not three times, I don't know. Anyhow, we always try to win; some days you get close to it and it's a bit disappointing that we cannot and we know the reason: we have not been so strong in qualifying and we keep making it very hard for ourselves on Sundays but it's not annoying. We still keep putting ourselves in a good position to at least have a chance to win and get good results, good points for the team. Yeah, you would rather win than come second or third but it's a long season and I think we're improving all the time. If it comes it's great, if not, we keep trying. I've been in the business long enough that I don't really worry about things too much. We improved our position, our situation in the championship for myself and for the team. Maybe we are one place behind right now but we are closer to the front. As long as we keep doing that and hopefully the wins will come, then we will give myself and the team a good chance.


Q. (Sylvia Arias - Parabrisas) Lewis, each win is important of course, but is this more important after all this stuff about your private life, when you said I'm in the best moment so let's party to enjoy this?


LH: I definitely think it's always good when you come away with a win. There always seems to be a lot of talk about me and my private life. Hopefully this will answer lots of the things Page 3 of 5 that have been said. I am 100 percent focused this year, regardless of what people think. I've been on it all year, I've never been so committed but of course, I'm still in my twenties, I do want to enjoy my last bit of my twenties, because I've heard it's downhill from then on. I've got to strike a nice balance and I think I am.


Q. (Dorel Tant - MSport1.com) Kimi, on the podium, did you hear the tremendous following you have here in Hungary, a lot of fans. Does that give you some kind of moral boost for the next races, let's say?


KR: Yes, it was great to hear all the people shouting and cheering. It's good for us, but unfortunately it doesn't make us any faster. I was pushing as hard as I could in this race so we keep trying to do the same in the next race again, but it's always been great here with a lot of Finnish flags and a lot of fans here so it's a great place to come.


Q. (Peter Vamosi - Vas Nepe) It's Alonso's birthday today, what are your messages to him?


RG: Happy Birthday. Fernando is a good friend so I wish him all the best for this year and hopefully we can keep fighting with him in the championship.


LH: I've already tweeted happy birthday to him.


KR: We spoke before already.


LH: Romain says he wants to sing it.


RG: No, no. I don't want it to rain straight away!


Q. (Marco Del'Innocenti - La Gazzeta dello Sport) Kimi, there have been some rumours today in the press about a possible comeback to Ferrari for you. Rumours apart, would you consider coming back to Ferrari?


KR: I always said that I didn't have bad feelings against them. I had a good time with the team. I won my championship there but things probably could have gone a nicer way in the end. Life goes on and you never know what happens in the future but I'm happy where I am now and things are going pretty nicely. Like I said, you never know what can happen in the future but I'm happy where I am. I don't come up with the rumours, so perhaps you have to ask the people who write them.


Q. (Heikki Kulta - Turun Sanomat) Lewis, as an Englishman, how does it feel to win this so-called Grand Prix of Finland every year from Kimi?


LH: Grand Prix of Finland?


Q. (Heikki Kulta - Turun Sanomat) There are so many Finns.


LH: There are a lot of Finns here but you know what? For me it's great to see Kimi up here with me. I think he's done... you know I've got a huge amount of respect for him. I remember racing... I remember watching him on TV before I even got to Formula One and you know, when I used to play the computer games I would always play as him. It wasn't Juan Pablo, unfortunately, and to think that we've had some great races in the past together and now another great race. Hopefully in the future we will have lots more races but Hungary has been good to me, really has been good to me. I really really love the fans here, I love the city. We always have such a great turn-out here but the track is awesome. I don't know how the other drivers feel but it's such a classic, so I really can't wait to come back here again next year and hope to repeat it.


Q. (Livio Oricchio - O Estado de Sao Paulo) Lewis, you took good points from Alonso. You are both to the lead of the championship. What does this victory mean in terms of fighting for the title?


LH: This weekend shows that it's all to play for still, not enough points taken from Fernando as he still got ten points but bit by bit, if we can continue with this kind of performance then we can slowly catch him but we know we need consistency and we need to improve the car still in many areas, and that, I'm sure, we will do. The team is doing a fantastic job. We've now got the quickest pit stops or usually the quickest pit stops. Today I got the best start I've had all year, I was really surprised by it. This is a really good stepping stone for us, especially after the difficult races we've had over the last three tough races, it's great to come and end the summer on this high.


Q. (Garry Meenaghan - The National) Lewis, it's been a momentous weekend back home with the Olympic Games starting. I was just wondering if, as a British driver with a British team, winning here must feel extra special? I saw you had the circles on your helmet.


LH: Yeah, it does feel extra special because obviously with the Olympic ceremony and the Olympics starting and obviously wishing all the teams the best, I can't wait to at least watch it on TV, but to be able to have it back in the UK I think is great for Great Britain. Yeah, I carried the flag on top of the helmet today. I hope that it was visible. I feel that I've done my part, even though we're not in the Olympics. I feel like I've done my little bit today, this weekend, as has the team for the Olympics. [/spoiler]

[LUKIE]

Maldonado legitimately hits another car, and he calls it a great over-taking manouever?

Maldonado is fantastic.

[Lineker]

McLaren believes that the key to its success in the Hungarian Grand Prix was its qualifying position and the swift pitstops that helped Lewis Hamilton hold track position for the whole race.

Hamilton fought to keep both Romain Grosjean and Kimi Raikkonen at bay for various stages of the Hungaroring encounter, on an afternoon when Lotus appeared to have the fastest car.

Sam Michael, McLaren's sporting director, concedes that it was only the fact that Hamilton was able to control his rivals that allowed it to win the final grand prix before the summer break.

"Lotus were definitely on us for the whole race," Michael told AUTOSPORT. "I think they really have a good race car and we basically only beat them because of qualifying and the fact that we beat them in the pits.

"If they had qualified well and qualified in front of us then, because it is difficult to overtake here, I think you would really struggle to beat them."

One of Lotus' best chances to overhaul McLaren was at either of the pitstops, but Michael reckoned its rival would always try and use its car's better tyre degradation characteristics in the fight for victory.

"We felt they would always go long because that is where their advantage is," he said. "Their advantage is in long run pace and having lower deg.

"They probably knew that we could beat them in the pits, so it worked well. But definitely we thought they would be pretty hard work in the last stint, and Lewis drove very well to keep Kimi off him."

Lotus expects Kimi Raikkonen to commit himself to another year with the team, despite the Finn being linked with Ferrari.

It emerged over the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend that Raikkonen is on the list of contenders at Ferrari if the team elects to replace Felipe Massa in 2013, despite a strained relationship between the 2007 world champion and Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo.

Neither Raikkonen nor Ferrari moved to totally dismiss the idea at the Hungaroring, but Lotus team principal Eric Boullier says he is not worried because he sees no better option for his driver than staying where he is.

"It is nice that Ferrari is in the newspapers, but I don't know that Kimi has plans to go back to Ferrari," explained Boullier, who saw Raikkonen challenge for victory at the Hungaroring.

When asked if he expected to keep both Raikkonen and team-mate Romain Grosjean next year, Boullier said: "Definitely. There is no reason for them to leave."

Ferrari insists it is still happy to bide its time over choosing its second driver for 2012, even though that may mean losing an outside chance it could have of luring Raikkonen away.

Team principal Stefano Domenicali said: "Kimi was a world champion with us and I saw the speculation in the media but nothing more than that.

"I can confirm what I said to you last week; basically we are not in a rush to make a decision or announce anything because we want to take our time.

"We are aligned with Felipe and we want to protect him, and it is important for this championship. So there is nothing new to report."

When asked to categorically rule out interest in either Raikkonen or Jenson Button, who was linked with the team in reports in the Italian media, Domenicali said: "There is no rush on our decision and no information I can give you now, but I think the drivers you mentioned have contracts with other teams and we are not in a rush."

Kimi Raikkonen and Lotus should now be considered as genuine contenders for the world championship, according to the other top teams in Formula 1.

Lotus's main rivals believe that the growing competitiveness of the Enstone-based outfit suggests a trend of form that could see it become even stronger in the second half of the campaign.

Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali feels that Lotus has not made the most of opportunities it had at the beginning of the year, which makes it potentially able to deliver even more in the remaining races.

"I was not surprised by Kimi because I have always thought Kimi is a very good driver and a world champion - which you don't do unless you have something special," he said.

"I think that Lotus didn't collect the points that they were able to collect. They have had a good car since the beginning, so they could have more points.

"They seem to be very gentle on the tyres too, and they will be a very good team in the second half of the season."

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said: "Their car has been quick all year, and they have two good drivers, so Kimi is a factor in the drivers' championship.

"He is only one point behind Lewis [Hamilton], so it would be foolish to underestimate any of our rivals at the moment and there is still a long way to go."

McLaren sporting director Sam Michael added: "Yeah they are fast, but worrying about them doesn't do anything. You have to make the car faster."

Lotus boss Eric Boullier says his outfit has no reason to be disappointed at failing to win the Hungarian Grand Prix.

After another weekend when Lotus appeared to have the pace to triumph, Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean could not find a way past eventual winner Lewis Hamilton as they finished second and third for the second time this season.

But rather than rue the missed opportunity, Boullier says he is overjoyed with the job his outfit is doing, adding that the Hungary performance was better for his team than Bahrain.

"Both cars on the podium on a twisty circuit like this is good for the team and it is better than Bahrain, because we had a bad weekend at Hockenheim with Romain," he said.

"The drivers had a good race and tried to catch the leader, but we knew this track would be very difficult to overtake.

"We are happy with qualifying, as we prepared differently for it, and it worked. So both cars were in the top five. If we can produce this for the rest of the season then we will be in the position to fight for the win."

Although delighted with the points haul that has moved Lotus ahead of Ferrari in the constructors' championship, Boullier does admit that there will be some frustration for his team if it does not deliver a win at some point this season.

"Obviously if we were second and third every weekend I would be happy, but in some ways it would be frustrating to miss something and not win a race. If we can qualify well we will be in a position to win."

And although rival teams are now tipping Lotus to become a force in the championship battle, Boullier says that his outfit has not yet changed its target of simply improving on the fifth place it finished in last year's world championship.

"Our ambition is the same: to be better than last year," he said. "But if we have this pace every race then maybe we will revise our ambition."

Red Bull has hit back at critics after being involved in yet another technical controversy, insisting it should be praised rather than slammed for being 'creative' with its car design.

Just a week after the engine mapping row at the German GP, Red Bull found itself engulfed in more intrigue after it emerged the team had to change a device on its car in Canada that allowed manual adjustment of its suspension.

Even though Red Bull strongly denied that it ever used the device to illegally change suspension settings while in parc ferme for improved ride height, having something on the car that could be altered by hand is against the regulations.

Team principal Christian Horner says the fact that his outfit has faced no penalties this season shows that it is playing things straight, and he does not understand why Red Bull's stance in pushing regulations to the limit should be criticised.

"The bottom line is that the result sheet comes out at the end of qualifying and the end of the race, and the car complies with the regulations," he said after the Hungarian Grand Prix. "All the rest is all bullshit.

"At the end of the day it is down to the FIA and the stewards to decide whether the car is legal or not. Every single time our car has been questioned by other teams, it has always complied with the rules."

As well as the engine mapping and ride height adjustment issues, Red Bull has also had to make changes to its floor design and wheel hubs this year following intervention from the FIA at various races.

Red Bull is no stranger to being in the firing line of other teams. The outfit was repeatedly dogged through its title winning 2010 and 2011 campaigns by suggestions its flexi-wing technology was a breach of the rules.

Horner added: "Of course the nature of F1 is that it is competitive, but the regulations are written in such a way that they are open to interpretation.

"From HRT to Red Bull, every single team interprets the rules, otherwise every single car would look the same. Part of our strength is our ingenuity and I don't think we should be criticised for being creative."

Red Bull is predicting a 'full-on' battle for the world championship, with McLaren and Lotus having been in such good form in the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Lewis Hamilton's victory and the strong form of both Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean at the Hungaroring has shown that the title fight is far from distilling down in to a straight two-way fight between Ferrari and Red Bull.

And although it is Red Bull that holds a comfortable advantage in the constructors' championship - 53 points ahead of McLaren - both its drivers are more than 40 adrift of Fernando Alonso, with Hamilton and Raikkonen breathing down their neck.

Team principal Christian Horner said: "We go into the summer break 53 points in the lead in the constructors' championship, and our drivers are second and third in the drivers' championship.

"There are 225 points still available, with nine races to go, and it is going to be full-on.

"So we will use this week before the [enforced summer] shut down to good effect. Then, it is a good opportunity for everybody in the company to recharge their batteries before a manic three months."

Red Bull only showed flashes of strong pace over the Hungarian GP weekend, as it failed to rediscover the form that had helped it become so competitive in recent races.

Horner sees no reason for panic though, and believes circuit characteristics contributed to what happened.

"I think the circuit is quite unique," he said, suggesting Vettel's form was hindered badly by getting so stuck behind Jenson Button for much of the afternoon.

"The encouraging thing is that we had good race pace, but Sebastian spent 90 per cent of the race looking at the back of someone's gearbox. Once he got in free air he was very quick.

"We struggled on the hard tyre. But it is difficult to understand why, so obviously there is a bit of data that we need to look at. It is a specific type of circuit and McLaren looked very strong 12 months ago here. Hopefully we have learned an awful lot this weekend, and hopefully we can apply that to races coming up – none of which are similar to this one."

Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali wants his team to go on the attack with an aggressive development push for its car, despite Fernando Alonso increasing his championship lead at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Alonso is now 40 points clear of Mark Webber in the drivers' championship but, after a weekend when Ferrari was outperformed on track, Domenicali is aware of the challenges that lie ahead.

"It is very difficult because at the moment we have seen that there are cars that are faster than us," he explained.

"We need to improve the level of performance and be cool on that, because last weekend [at Hockenheim] we were the quickest in all conditions and in Hungary we were not.

"We need to keep on developing because otherwise the others will improve and it will be more difficult to be in defensive mode. So the key of the season is to keep pushing and, when we have a situation like in Hungary, to gain points."

Domenicali says that Alonso did an impressive job in Hungary to extend his lead on an afternoon when the team was struggling for pace.

"Fernando did a great race and we knew we were in defensive mode, so to be in front of two cars of [Jenson] Button and [Mark] Webber, who were faster than us is very important.

"We came here knowing it was a difficult grand prix for us, but going home having increased the points gap is very good. I think that Fernando can go on holiday and relax because he has had a fantastic first part of the season."

Nico Rosberg is convinced his Mercedes team can "turn the corner" after a difficult series of races in the build-up to the summer break.

Rosberg, the winner of the Chinese Grand Prix earlier this year, has scored just two points in the last three races and has not finished higher than sixth since the Monaco Grand Prix.

The German had another difficult weekend in Hungary, where he managed just one point from 10th position.

The Mercedes driver is hopeful, however, that his team will take a step forward after the summer break.

"A difficult period for us, but I'm convinced that we can turn the corner," said Rosberg in his post-race video blog. "There's stuff coming, upgrades and things, so I think over the next coming weeks we'll be able to take a step forward.

"Although again, it's difficult to know because the tracks are quite unusual. It's so difficult to predict, but I'm optimistic that we can do a lot better."

Rosberg admitted the Hungarian Grand Prix had been tougher than expected, as he thought Mercedes would be more competitive.

"It didn't really go to plan," he added. "I expected us to be quite quick but we were just not quick enough. 13th in qualifying, it really was quite bad.

"At least I got one point. I thought I could maybe race Massa and try to beat him but then my pace dropped off so there was no chance."

Also, German papers are reporting that Michael Schumacher has been signed up for another season at Mercedes for 2013 - but on a much less lucrative deal. We'll wait and see.

[Lineker]

Double DRS will be banned for 2013, AUTOSPORT has learned, after Formula 1 teams agreed to a change of rules that will outlaw the concept for next year.

Mercedes led the way at the start of this season with a radical design that feeds air via a hole in the rear wing endplate, all the way through the car and out the front wing - which is then stalled when DRS is activated. This helps provide a straight line speed boost.

Rival team Lotus lodged a protest against the concept at the Chinese Grand Prix, but it was rejected by the race stewards who were adamant that channelling air through a hole that is opened when DRS is activated was not against the regulations.

Despite being disappointed at the time about the failure of the protest, Lotus duly set about developing its own version of double DRS, which it tested at the German GP and is set to race in Belgium next month.

Other teams have not pursued the idea yet, and there have been concerns among some of them that work on double DRS could become the subject of an expensive development race.

Following discussions at F1 rules think-tank, the Technical Working Group, sources have revealed that a majority of teams agreed for a change in regulations that will ensure they cannot incorporate double DRS into their cars for 2013.

Although Mercedes did not support the change in rules, because it had made such a headstart in the area, it could not stop the ban going through as it only needed a majority of teams to agree.

It is understood the changes to the rules will be made official by the FIA's World Motor Sport Council later this year.

Despite rivals claiming that double DRS was an expensive avenue of development, Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn was always adamant that it was cost-effective.

Speaking earlier this year he said: "People talk about the huge cost, but there isn't really a huge cost. You all know that there are a couple of carbon pipes running down the car, and the man on the street will tell you that they cost a few thousands pounds – they are not millions of pounds."

Lotus still believes it is worth developing its double DRS design for the remainder of the season, even though rule changes will make the concept illegal for next year.

The Enstone-based outfit is hoping to race its DRS concept for the first time at the Belgian Grand Prix, following successful tests in Germany and Hungary.

Unlike the Mercedes system, which provides a straightline speed boost when DRS is activated, it is understood that the Lotus design delivers its biggest benefit when the wing is closed. That could ensure a big performance gain at tracks like Spa, which feature long straights.

Lotus technical director James Allison told AUTOSPORT that although any improvements to its DRS cannot be carried over to 2013, there was still good reason to keep pushing on with work on it for the remainder of this season.

"There are changes to the rules to outlaw the double DRS things, yes," he explained. "But there is benefit to he had.

"We are only halfway through a 20-race season, just over halfway through. It's not like we are near the end, so there is plenty of merit to having something like this."

Lotus team principal Eric Boullier said in Hungary that he was happy with the progress being made with its DRS work.

"I think the pace is reasonably positive," he explained. "We took it step-by-step because we don't see a drastic gain.

"If there is a gain to find, we need to bring it to the car. I think there is still some work to be done on it but, in one of the next races, it will be on both cars."

Formula 1 teams have abandoned the idea of a extra mid-season test in 2013, after agreeing plans for just three pre-season tests next year.

Technical chiefs learned that the three tests before the start of the 2012 campaign gave them enough mileage to be prepared for the first race, so teams have decided that there is no need for a fourth week of running as had happened previously.

With the opening race of the 2013 season pencilled in for March 17 in Australia, teams are ready to commit to beginning their on-track efforts with a four-day test that begins at Jerez in Spain on February 5.

Following that, there will be two further tests at Barcelona. The first will run from February 19-22, while the second will take place from February 28 to March 3.

Should the season opener take place any earlier than March 17, then the tests will have to be reshuffled.

This year, as well as the three pre-season tests, teams also had the opportunity for a mid-season test, which took place at Mugello after the first flyaway races.

However, as part of a cost-saving package agreed between the teams, it was decided that the expenditure needed for that event was too high considering the limited benefits it actually delivered, so the idea of a repeat has been dropped.

Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali hopes that progress can be made on finalising a Resource Restriction Agreement deal with the FIA before the next Formula 1 race at Spa, as talks continue to secure cost-saving measures.

AUTOSPORT understands that FIA president Jean Todt is making another push to try and get agreement from teams on a way for the RRA to be policed by the governing body.

Efforts so far have not been successful, with Red Bull and Toro Rosso both against moves to limit chassis spending while engine expenditure is effectively left free.

The FIA has already delayed the 2013 entry deadline until the end of September to try and get an RRA framework in the sporting regulations by then, and talks are expected to ramp up again after the summer break.

Domenicali said teams were awaiting final documents from the FIA on the matter, and was hopeful that something could be sorted by the Belgian Grand Prix at the beginning of September. One scenario being talked about is for the RRA to form part of an appendix to the sporting regulations.

"We are waiting," explained Domenicali. "As you know, we have done many meetings with the federation and the teams, and I think that we will receive the final document for the final approval [soon].

"I don't know what will happen during the break because some of the teams will go on holiday now and some not, so I hope to be more precise in Spa."

Lewis Hamilton says that being able to keep his race trophies will be a key point in his imminent contract talks with McLaren.

The Hungarian Grand Prix winner is expected to resolve his future over the summer break, with it now appearing almost certain that he will remain at the Woking-based team.

But speaking in the wake of his latest triumph, he has revealed that a 'push point' in the talks with be about trophies, with McLaren having historically always kept its drivers' winning silverware.

"Ron [Dennis] and the team have all the trophies in the cabinet and the drivers get replicas," Hamilton told the British media.

"In a lot of other teams, the drivers get their original trophies. As a racing driver, what you work for and what you want to take home are two things; one is your crash helmet and the other is your trophy. For me, they are priceless.

"I don't care if they don't give me a car [to keep], but those two things are what you put your blood and sweat into, and the team keep those at the moment. So whatever contract I'm having next, that is going to be a push point.

"I don't feel I have a tough decision to make. It is my career I'm talking about however - the last part of my [professional] life. It's the first time I've been in this position, so I guess it still remains an important decision."

McLaren has been aware of Hamilton's demands over the trophies for several weeks, and team principal Martin Whitmarsh told AUTOSPORT earlier this month that he was confident the matter would not get blown out of proportion.

"I've known Lewis a long time and I think we have a very good understanding on one another," he said. "I think there is a lot of mutual trust and respect - I hope and believe both ways. So I don't see that [the trophies] as a big issue. We will see."

Williams chief operations engineer Mark Gillan sees no reason for his team to feel disappointed by the lows of its up-and-down season.

The Grove-based outfit had been briefly touted as a dark horse for the championship after Pastor Maldonado's victory at Barcelona, but since then the team has had a disappointing time which has yielded just 10 points in six races.

Although conceding that it has let good opportunities slip through its grasp, Gillan thinks that Williams needs to put its performances this year in the context of its worst ever Formula 1 campaign in 2011.

"It has been a bit of a rollercoaster season, hasn't it?" Gillan told AUTOSPORT. "But I have to go back to where we were last year, because none of us should forget that and certainly in the team we don't.

"We currently have ten times the points we had at the end of last year and, as a team, we know that we should be always aiming to finish in the points - which means qualifying in the top 10. There is no reason why we cannot do that.

"If we don't do that, then it is disappointing. We got both cars in to Q3 for the first time in Hungary, even though we were a little bit disappointed as we felt that there was maybe more to be had.

"Bruno [senna] did a really good job all weekend, and Pastor will be as disappointed as we are. But we still are very pleased with the results this season and how the team is doing. We had our fastest pitstop ever too - sub three seconds – so the guys have done a very good job and it is a great boost for them."

Although Maldonado's race in Hungary was wrecked by a poor start and a drive-through penalty for colliding with Paul di Resta, team-mate Senna delivered what Gillan believes was his best weekend of the year so far.

"Bruno had his strongest weekend by a long way," he explained. "Even before the race he was very strong through free practice. In qualifying, maybe he didn't quite get the lap that he was hoping for in Q3, but in the race he made a good start, he had a very strong pace and did a very good job at the end defending his position. For us, we are really pleased."

Pirelli has announced its tyre compound choice for the next three Formula 1 races, with the tyre firm electing to take its hardest selection to the Belgian and Italian Grands Prix.

With the company's 2012 rubber being more aggressive than last year's, Pirelli has elected to use the medium and hard tyres for the events at Spa-Francorchamps and Monza.

Both high-speed tracks are demanding on the tyres, and last year's Belgian GP is remembered for the camber controversy that surrounded Red Bull.

Pirelli will bring its super soft and soft tyres to the Singapore GP, with the track layout of the street circuit perfect for that range of rubber.