Formula One 2011

[EddieG]

Your previous post, the first article you quoted has a link to a polish site, they have a pic.

[Lineker]

To be honest I posted that in a rush and never actually clicked the link. But yeah, damn, that's gruesome.

[Lineker]

Sergio Perez says he is feeling "perfectly well" ahead of the European Grand Prix, the Mexican confident he will be able to race there.

Sauber's rookie driver Perez withdrew after first Friday practice for the Canadian Grand Prix after not feeling 100 per cent following his heavy crash in Monaco.

He was replaced by McLaren reserve Pedro de la Rosa during the weekend.

The Mexican said on Friday, however, that he was now feeling ready to race again.

"I flew home from Montreal, and back in Mexico I spent the time preparing myself for the next race and trained together with our physiotherapist," said Perez in a team preview.

"I feel perfectly well and I'm very much looking forward to racing in Valencia. Without doubt it is an advantage that I know this track well. In 2009 I was on the podium after both GP2 races and last year I had pole position."

Group Lotus CEO Dany Bahar says his company's commitment to a future in Formula 1 is as strong as ever, despite the controversy of its involvement in a naming row and mixed results on track with Renault.

The British sportscar manufacturer decided to give its backing to the Renault team as part of an ambitious motorsport programme launched this year - but its hopes of challenging for victory were dealt a blow pre-season when Robert Kubica was injured in a rally accident.

Group Lotus has also faced a much-publicised court showdown with Team Lotus over the use of the name in F1 – with the appeal process set to start next week as it makes a fresh attempt to prevent its rival from using the moniker.

However, despite those difficulties, Bahar said on Friday that F1 was working well for his company and delivering exactly the kind of brand exposure that he had hoped for.

"I think for us the association with F1 is two-fold," said Bahar, when asked by AUTOSPORT for his verdict on the success of F1 for Lotus. "First of all it gives us the brand awareness that we want Lotus to get. It is the most efficient way to get it, and the quickest way to get it.

"On the other hand we have also established a technological partnership where we identify areas where we can incorporate their technology into our future cars. For us the partnership is very good, it is running very well and I hope it continues to be like that."

Although Team Lotus has been allowed to keep using the name in F1, Bahar insisted that the impact of the recent High Court decision did not detract from his company's plans in F1.

"No, not at all. It is about branding, the branding of our Lotus brand, and it is about technology transfer. The naming issue is there unfortunately, but it doesn't really affect us."

Bahar has made no secret of the fact that one option for the future is for Renault to be renamed as Lotus, but he has ruled out that happening until 2013 at the earliest.

"We enjoy a very good relationship with our partners Genii [the Renault team's owner]," he said. "We are very much involved in their business and we are happy with how it is run, and as things are run and well managed there is no reason for us to do any more.

"We are very happy with the increased branding we have had since the Barcelona Grand Prix, and we are fine. Absolutely fine, as it is."

When asked about a future name change, Bahar said: "If we decide to go for the long term then renaming would be an issue, but at the moment it is out of the question so it is not something we are pursuing."

Bahar also made it clear that the current High Court ruling would not have any impact on what Group Lotus chose to do with the Renault name.

"I think the judgement made it clear that the Lotus name in F1 belongs to us, and the Team Lotus name belongs to Team Lotus," he said. "That is a clear judgement and nothing can stop us from using our name in F1."

Bahar added was also hopeful that Renault would deliver further progress on track to rediscover the form that helped it to two podium finishes at the start of the season.

"I think it [the season so far] has been very positive. Although the first two results made hunger for more success, however, the bottom line is that we have to be very happy with what the team achieved.

"It is a pity that only one car gets into the top 10, it would be better if we had two cars, but it shows the car has potential and the team is working hard to keep the pace with the development until the end of the year."

Group Lotus plans for the Renault team to remain in its distinctive black-and-gold colour scheme in 2012, following the positive exposure that it has received this year.

Lotus' decision to become title sponsor of Renault resulted in a total rebranding of the car - with the outfit opting for the paint scheme that was made famous by Lotus Formula 1 cars throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s. Group Lotus' other motorsport programmes use the green and gold colours of the original Lotus team's earlier era, but this livery is already in use with the rival Team Lotus operation in F1.

With the High Court having recently ruled that Renault had every right to use the black-and-gold colours, Group Lotus CEO Dany Bahar said on Friday that the livery would remain on board for next season.

"I think we need consistency," said Bahar. "We like the livery, and the black and gold is used in many road car limited editions.

"On our side it is a nice livery that is perceived well by the people, especially on the road car side, so I see no reason to change it."

McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh believes Jenson Button's Canadian Grand Prix proves the outfit's upgrade push is paying dividends.

The Woking squad is the only one to have defeated Red Bull Racing's Sebastian Vettel in a grand prix this year, and after Lewis Hamilton's comments earlier this week that he would see no reason to leave McLaren if its car was sufficiently competitive, Whitmarsh said the Montreal result was a vindication of the team's technical capability.

"Jenson's fantastic last-to-first result in Canada last weekend proved beyond doubt that, as a team, we never give up," he said.

"That victory was a great fillip for the entire organisation and shows that our tireless efforts to bring constant upgrades to the track are really paying off.

"As a team, it's particularly satisfying that our upgrade 'hit-rate' has been successful and that we've really been able to translate the results we've seen at the factory into concrete performance at the track. Again, that's the result of good teamwork, and is what will successfully carry us through this championship fight."

He added: "We're now into the heart of the season and need to ensure that we're regularly delivering performance to the car. We've shown time and time again that this is one of Vodafone McLaren Mercedes' key strengths and I'm confident we can continue to deliver. For Valencia and beyond, our aim is clear: we want to win."

Button agreed that the Canadian GP triumph was well-timed and would give the McLaren crew greater confidence going into the remainder of the season.

"I wouldn't say that winning in Montreal has given me extra motivation, because I was already totally committed, but I think it will help to sharpen the focus and conviction of everyone in the team," he suggested. "We've proved we can challenge and beat Sebastian, and we know we can fight for this world championship."

But Whitmarsh cautioned that despite events in Canada, McLaren would still go to Spain expecting Red Bull to be tough to beat.

"I think we go into the weekend feeling encouraged and motivated by our performance, but still realistic that Red Bull remains the pacesetter - particularly in qualifying," he said.

Button's team-mate Lewis Hamilton said his aim for Valencia was to get his season back on course after the disruption of his incident-packed and controversial races in Monte Carlo and Montreal.

"For me, Valencia will be a weekend of consolidation after two disappointing results in Monaco and Canada," said Hamilton, who was penalised for two collisions in Monaco and retired with damage from a collision with Button in Montreal.

"Those two races were particularly frustrating for me because we showed we had the pace to win both of them, yet I only came away with eight points.

"We've arguably had the fastest race car in the last three races, and that's really encouraging because I know that, when it's put to best use, I should be able to finish at the front."

The Hispania Racing team says it will shift its focus to the 2012 car 'very soon', but team boss Colin Kolles insists it is still setting its sights on securing 10th place in the championship.

"We will switch very soon to the 2012 car," said Kolles on the team's official website on Friday.

Kolles also revealed the team will start working in Mercedes's wind tunnel next month, as the Spanish squad ramps up its efforts to take a step forward.

The team scored its best ever result in the previous race in Canada, with Tonio Liuzzi finishing in 13th position ahead of team-mate Narain Karthikeyan.

The result equalled Team Lotus's best of the year, although Hispania is still behind in the standings because Lotus has finished 13th twice.

Kolles insisted, however, that Hispania is looking to move ahead of its rivals to secure the coveted 10th position.

"There are still a lot of races left this season. We want to improve our results and achieve our target of being 10th in the constructor's championship."

Nico Rosberg is hopeful that Mercedes GP can deliver in Valencia an even stronger performance than it put on in Canada last weekend, after team-mate Michael Schumacher just missed out on a podium finish.

With the outfit having worked hard on overcoming the tyre degradation issues that have hindered its early season progress, Schumacher gave it reason to smile in Montreal as he raced as high as second place at one point before slipping back to fourth.

On the back of that performance, the team is hoping to make further improvements to its form for next weekend's European Grand Prix - with Rosberg confident that efforts being made back at the factory will pay off.

"Valencia is always a very interesting weekend," said the German. "The track is a combination of a real circuit and a street circuit so the walls are very close to the cars, and you really have to concentrate around every one of the 25 corners.

"I really enjoy driving there, and it's a big event in a pretty cool city. I visited the factory this week to see everyone, which was nice, and it was good to see how the work is progressing.

"We're working hard for a better result in Valencia than in Canada, and I'm very confident that we can make this happen." Team principal Ross Brawn concedes that its car still needs more pace, but he sees no reason why it cannot be up there near the front again.

"The last race in Canada saw a positive weekend for the team, and whilst we still need to work on the ultimate pace of the car, it was encouraging and rewarding to be fighting for a podium finish again," he explained.

[LUKIE]

I'm glad Renault are sticking to the new colour scheme. It really is brilliant.

[Lineker]

Nick Heidfeld believes Renault has made a breakthrough in understanding its problems and beginning to improve its performance.

After being disappointingly off the pace in Monaco, Heidfeld and team-mate Vitaly Petrov returned to the top 10 in Montreal, where the German had a shot at the podium before crashing out following a touch with Kamui Kobayashi, and Petrov finished fifth.

Heidfeld said that despite retiring from the Canadian race, he had gone away encouraged by Renault's progress.

"It was important for the team to come away from Canada understanding some of the problems we encountered in Monaco, and I think we have clear proof that we did exactly that," he said.

"We now know which direction we need to take, and it is obvious the team started doing that during the two-week spell between Monaco and Montreal. These things don't magically happen overnight, but we have done a good job in analysing where we need to improve."

Team boss Eric Boullier said that now Renault was starting to regain ground, it was vital to get a few more podiums under its belt in the four races remaining before the August break.

"We need another podium or two in this time to cement our position amongst the grid's elite teams, and to remain competitive ahead of Mercedes GP, whose season has clearly improved," he said. "Retaining our position in the top four in the constructors' championship is an absolute priority for us, and we must continue to lay down the marker over the next four races."

Petrov believes that even when its car has not been on the pace, Renault has let opportunities slip away through errors and operational shortcomings.

"I think we can do much, much more," said the Russian. "I know I've said that before but I really believe we can. We've had good results, but together we can achieve greater things.

"Sometimes I've made mistakes, sometimes our pitstops could have been improved, but generally I think we can take it up a level. We need to minimise the mistakes, and the points will keep on coming."

McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh thinks the BBC would be 'unwise' not to renew its Formula 1 contract when the time comes to sort out a fresh deal, amid speculation that its grand prix coverage could get dropped from 2013.

The BBC's current five-year deal to cover F1 comes to end after next season, and a report in The Sunday Times suggested that there were no plans to renew the contract because the corporation felt that the money spent on F1 would be put to better use elsewhere.

That report has caused surprise among many in the sport, because the BBC's coverage has not only been welcomed in F1 but it has been a huge success in terms of driving a bigger audience towards grand prix racing.

Reacting to the speculation about the BBC plans, Whitmarsh claimed that it was vital F1 remained on free-to-air television - and he saw no reason why the corporation would not opt to carry on.

"It's crucial to the commercial model of Formula 1 that TV coverage should remain free-to-air, and therefore universally accessible, and therefore widely consumed and enjoyed by large numbers of viewers - and the BBC delivers that in the UK," said Whitmarsh on Monday.

"Moreover, besides the quantity of viewership, the quality of the BBC's coverage is consistently high too - which is just as important. Also important is the demographic data - which shows that F1 is now attracting an increasing number of younger and female viewers, which is also very positive.

"Formula 1 is the pinnacle of world motorsport - always has been, always will be. As such, it's appropriate that the BBC should continue to cover it.

"I think it would be very sad, and most unwise, if the BBC were to disappoint so many millions of British sports fans by axeing it, and that's why I don't believe for a moment that they'd seriously consider doing such a thing."

The BBC has enjoyed record-breaking viewing figures this year, which have been boosted by the closer racing that has been witnessed in 2011.

As well as every race enjoying higher audiences than last year's races, the recent Monaco Grand Prix recorded a 15-minute peak of 6.1 million viewers - which was the highest figure witnessed for 10 years.

AUTOSPORT recently revealed that as well as attracting a bigger audience in 2011, the behaviour of television viewers had changed to make the sport more attractive commercially.

Rather than people tuning in for just the start and the end of the race, audiences were staying for the whole of the race distance – and the grands prix were actually attracting more and more fans over their duration.

The FIA is to stick with a single detection area for the two DRS zones at this weekend's European Grand Prix, following a successful debut for the concept in Canada last weekend.

With the DRS having been used in two areas in Montreal, the FIA has confirmed that it plans to have a similar double concept again in Spain - although it will not be used along the start-finish straight.

The first zone in Valencia will run from 285 metres after Turn 10, with the second zone starting 35 metres after Turn 14. The single detection area will be 130 metres before Turn 8.

The use of a single detection zone means that a driver who is behind a rival in the detection zone can use his DRS both to overtake in the first activation zone and then to pull out a gap at the second.

Although that policy caused some controversy in Canada, Renault's Nick Heidfeld was one of several drivers who backed the experiment by the FIA.

"You could argue that it is probably too much to have two DRS zones, but it is a good idea to at least try it once and then afterwards we will know," he told AUTOSPORT.

"We might not go back to it, we might. I think one would have been enough – but why not try?"

Williams is hoping that further adjustments to its diffuser design for this weekend's European Grand Prix in Valencia will allow it to continue its recent points-scoring run.

After a very tough start to the season, the Grove squad has started to regain ground in recent races following a raft of upgrades.

Technical director Sam Michael said the main developments for Valencia were focused on the diffuser.

"We have some further upgrades to our diffuser and our target is to be in the points with both our cars," he said.

Having failed to score points in the opening five rounds, Williams took ninth place finishes with Rubens Barrichello in both Monte Carlo and Montreal to open its account for 2011.

Jenson Button is set to be handed a fresh McLaren deal in the next few weeks, AUTOSPORT has learned, with the team ready to offer improved terms to keep the Briton on board.

On the back of mounting speculation that Ferrari is interested in tempting Button to Maranello to help bolster its own title challenge in the longer term, it is understood that McLaren is prepared to move quickly to tie Button's future down.

Button is currently only under option at McLaren for next year, with the activation clause on the team's side. That situation means that even if Button had tempting offers from elsewhere, he would be unable to move if McLaren wanted him to stay.

A simple take-up of that option is unlikely, though, with Button currently in brilliant form and both team and driver thinking of nothing other than a future together.

AUTOSPORT understands that McLaren is prepared to improve the terms of the original deal to keep the 2009 world champion happy.

Any likely improvement in the contract that Button gets as part of a fresh deal would likely be done in exchange for a lengthier deal - so there is a chance that he could commit his future at McLaren well beyond the end of 2012.

While Button appears to be edging closer to securing his place at McLaren, the future of Lewis Hamilton remains uncertain – with talks about his own contract not likely to start for several months yet.

Hamilton has made it clear several times this year that he will be happy to stay at McLaren as long as it provides him with a competitive car.

However, AUTOSPORT revealed last week that Hamilton's frustration with the performance of his McLaren in qualifying in Canada – at a race where he had been expected to be on pole position – resulting in him making a surprise visit to Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner on Saturday night for private talks.

Although there is no suggestion that was the start of contract discussions, the visit showed that Hamilton may be willing to consider options outside of McLaren if the team cannot provide him with a car that is capable of fighting for the title.

But despite his feelings on Saturday in Montreal, Hamilton may be more open to a future at McLaren after seeing team-mate Button win in Canada – and witnessing further evidence that while Red Bull Racing has a qualifying advantage, it may be McLaren that has the fastest car in the races.

Of the current top teams, only Fernando Alonso at Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel at Red Bull Racing have committed themselves to their present squads for the long term.

Team Lotus boss Tony Fernandes says the squad must learn from the Montreal mistakes that saw it squander a chance to snatch an upset result in the mixed conditions a week ago.

Although wet weather often allows underdog teams a chance to shine, rather than attacking those in front, Lotus found itself behind Hispania and Virgin at the end of the Canadian Grand Prix, following strategic misjudgements, an errant pitstop by Heikki Kovalainen, and problems with both cars. Kovalainen ultimately had to retire, while Jarno Trulli came home 16th.

Fernandes was encouraged that his cars got within half a second of Jaime Alguersuari's Toro Rosso in qualifying, but said Lotus could not afford to let opportunities slip away in similarly crazy races in the future.

"The Canada weekend was definitely one of highs and lows," he said. "Our performance in qualifying was especially pleasing and the aim is to build on that again in Valencia and throughout the season, but the race was obviously a missed opportunity.

"It is important that we learn from that experience, cut out the same mistakes again and make sure we are in the right place to take advantage of such extraordinary circumstances in the future. It is all part of the learning curve and you have to have the lows to truly appreciate the highs."

He said the aim for Valencia this weekend was to continue making progress in qualifying and get both cars to the finish. Last year the European Grand Prix was the scene of the famous accident between Kovalainen and Mark Webber which saw the Red Bull fly over the back of the Lotus.

"On track the goals are clear - repeat the qualifying performance from Canada and keep up our much improved reliability record to bring both cars home on Sunday," said Fernandes.

"It would also be good if the other drivers on the grid could avoid using either of our cars as launch ramps this year..."

Kovalainen added that his initial ambition for the weekend was to get into Q2 again, and then try to use strategy wisely in the race.

"We've been easy on the tyres all season so hopefully that will be the case again in Valencia, giving us strategic options that we've used well all season - Q2 is still the goal for qualifying and then let's see what happens on Sunday," he said.

[Lineker]

Red Bull could be severely impaired by this going forwards. Knowing Adrian Newey though, he'll get around it somehow, ingeniously.

Formula 1 teams are to face a further clampdown on engine mapping use from this weekend's European Grand Prix, AUTOSPORT has learned, with the FIA moving to eradicate special qualifying-only settings

Ahead of the effective ban on the off-throttle use of blown diffusers from next month's British Grand Prix, motor racing's governing body has shown it is determined to prevent teams from using any form of clever engine use to help aerodynamic performance.

In a note sent from F1 technical delegate Charlie Whiting to the teams, he made it clear that with immediate effect teams will no longer be allowed to change engine maps between qualifying and the race.

Such a move will effectively prevent teams from running an extreme engine map for qualifying - such as one that produces more exhaust blowing or burns more fuel – and then reverting to a safer setting for the grand prix itself.

One theory surrounding Red Bull Racing's qualifying dominance this year, compared to the fact it has not been so fast in the race, is that the team has been using extreme engine maps in qualifying to boost performance for a single lap.

McLaren's principal race engineer Phil Prew said about his team's theory on Red Bull Racing's form earlier this year: "I think tyre optimisation may be one area, and the use of elaborate engine modes may be another - with the generation of downforce being quite highly influenced with the exhaust flows."

The new directive from the FIA means that any engine mapping setting used in qualifying has to now be used for the start of the race – with the first opportunity to change it now only possible at the first pitstop when a computer could in theory be plugged into the car.

However, such a move would be hugely impractical because of the speed of modern pitstops.

The extreme engine maps that some teams may be using for qualifying would be unusable in the race – because they risk reliability of engines over longer distances and could burn too much fuel.

Although the changes to the regulations coming into force over the next two races will affect all teams, the main focus will be in terms of what impact it has on pace-setters Red Bull Racing.

Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali said at the Canadian Grand Prix that he believed Silverstone could mark the start of a totally new picture in terms of the world title fight.

"We need to see in Silverstone, what is the real effect of this change in the regulations with regard to the effect of the exhaust," he said.

"Then, we will see really where is the second championship in terms of the level of performance above all in higher downforce tracks."

Renault's technical director James Allison says all Formula 1 teams will be forced to change their operation following the news that FIA is to clamp down on engine mapping use from the European Grand Prix.

As reported by AUTOSPORT earlier today, F1 technical delegate Charlie Whiting wrote to all teams to inform them they will no longer be allowed to change engine maps between qualifying and the race from this weekend's grand prix at Valencia.

The move is aimed at stopping teams from running an extreme engine map for qualifying.

That follows on from the announcement that an effective ban on off-throttle use of blown diffusers will be introduced from next month's British Grand Prix.

Although there are suggestions that the changes are aimed particularly at slowing Red Bull Racing down, Allison said on Tuesday that it will affect all teams.

"The FIA's note will cause all teams, whether or not they use a blown floor, to change their operation," said Allison.

"The headline changes for the Silverstone GP are as follows: when the driver lifts his foot fully off the throttle pedal, then the ECU maps must be set up so that the engine [to all intents and purposes] closes the throttle - previously it was possible to configure the engine maps to leave the throttle open and reduce the engine power by other means.

"Furthermore, when the driver lifts fully off the throttle, the ECU maps must be configured to cut off the fuel supply to the engine – this is intended to prevent so called 'hot blowing' where the energy of the exhaust gas is increased by combustion."

Allison, whose team pioneered the radical forward-exit exhausts this year, conceded it was difficult to know how the changes will affect the performance of its car.

"It is not easy to judge the effect of this change on our competitiveness. The loss for each blown floor car will come from two separate effects – how much downforce will you lose and, in addition, how much will the loss of this downforce upset the balance of the car.

"All blown floor cars will lose downforce under braking as a result of these new restrictions. Some teams will lose more and some teams less; it is hard to know exactly what relative loss LRGP will suffer.

"However, it is possible that we will suffer less on the balance shift side of the equation because our forward exit exhausts produce their effect quite near the middle of the car. This means that as the exhaust blow waxes and wanes, it does not really disturb the aero balance of the car too much.

"With a rearward blower, the downforce from the exhaust is all generated at the rear axle. As the new rules reduce the blowing effect on corner entry much more than corner exit, it is possible that the rearward blowers will tend to suffer more nervousness under braking and more understeer on exit as a result of the new restrictions. We will find out in Silverstone."

He also made it clear his team is against changing the rules during the season.

"We would have preferred the status quo to remain for the rest of the season," Allison added.

Pirelli's new medium tyre compound will make its racing debut in this weekend's European GP following a successful test in Canada.

The rubber, which was tested during practice in Montreal, will be the 'prime' tyre in Valencia, with the soft to be used as 'option'.

The PZero White medium tyre is not quite as durable as the hards, but "it is quicker while still representing a significant step in range over the option tyre," according to Pirelli.

"We've seen some fantastic street races so far this season, with the last grand prix in Canada being one of the highlights of the year, so we hope that Valencia will continue this pattern although it's notoriously difficult to overtake there," said Pirelli's Paul Hembery.

"Tyre wear on this circuit is likely to be quite high because of the track layout, the nature of the surface, and also the weather conditions, which should be very warm.

"For all these reasons, we've selected the medium and soft tyres, which should provide the teams with a good level of resistance, plenty of different opportunities for strategy and about a second per lap difference between the compounds.

"The PZero White tyres have been adjusted slightly from our original specification to make them a bit more durable, along the lines of the tweak we made to the PZero Silver hard tyre in Spain, and this was the compound that the teams tested during Friday's free practice in Canada, giving us plenty of useful data."

Fernando Alonso sees no reason why Ferrari should not be as strong as in the previous two races in this weekend's European Grand Prix.

The Spanish driver fought for victory in Monaco and was set to fight for the top place again in Canada before he was taken out of the race by McLaren's Jenson Button.

Alonso reckons the Valencia circuit should offer his team the chance to fight for its first win of the season again.

"I know that our fans are eagerly awaiting our first win of the season and I can assure you that the same goes for us," Alonso wrote on Ferrari's website.

"At the last two races, we showed we were clearly capable of winning and, especially in Monaco, we came pretty close, although I believe that even in Canada I could have fought for it all the way to the end, given what we had seen in qualifying.

"Now we go to a track with reasonably similar characteristics to Montreal and there is no obvious reason why we should not be competitive here too."

The two-time champion is also hoping for a change of luck following a difficult start to the season.

"I always believe that luck and bad luck balance out by the end of the season and maybe this unwritten rule also applies to race tracks," he said.

"If that's the case, I would be more than happy if last year's misfortune was paid back now! In fact, it seems that in general so far this season, luck has not come our way: in the race in Montreal, not one damned thing went right."

Michael Schumacher admits the start to the 2011 season has not met the expectations set by his Mercedes GP team.

Although the German squad was bullish about its chances of fighting for victories this year, it is yet to finish on the podium after seven grands prix.

The seven-time champion concedes the season has so far been disappointing for his team.

"Overall, it's clear that the season up to now has gone worse than all of us had hoped," Schumacher told Autosprint magazine.

"In fact, considering the good conclusion to winter testing, it's worse than we had actually expected."

Schumacher also reckons the team's performance has been hurt by having to work on solving too many issues at the same time.

"The fact that on the car we have several areas of work in progress," Schumacher said when asked what had gone wrong. "As long as we worry about solving those, the development of the project suffers at times.

"The positive thing about it is that this time we are able to take all these experiences and this knowledge towards next year. In fact I'm confident that we'll take good steps forward during the rest of this year. We have plenty of work to do, but we are prepared.

"All our attention is focused on building the team. That's what we focus on at the moment, with no exception nor limitation."

Schumacher has scored 26 points in the first seven races of the season, with his fourth place in Canada as his best result yet.

French prime minister Francois Fillon has created a taskforce charged with resurrecting the French Grand Prix.

The group includes Paul Ricard circuit director Gerard Neveu, which suggests that the track that hosted the race 14 times between 1971 and 1990 is the most likely venue. As an active circuit, it could allow the French Grand Prix to return to the calendar as early as 2013 if a promoter were to be able to strike a deal for a world championship race.

Any such plan would be dependent on raising the required funding, which has been the stumbling block for many of the stillborn projects to revive the event over the past three years.

"It is true that I have put in place a team," Fillon is quoted as saying by French regional daily newspaper Var-Matin, adding that it has been created to "attempt to create a proposition that will allow the organisation of a new grand prix in France".

Fillon, who was born in Le Mans and who has participated in the circuit's classic race, confirmed that the taskforce included ex-cabinet minister Gilles Dufeigneaux, Renault team principal Eric Boullier and Neveu.

Magny-Cours dropped off the Formula 1 calendar after the 2008 race amid financial problems and has not been held since. The Federation Francaise du Sport Automobile (FFSA) had run the event from 2004 following the loss of its previous promoter, but seven-figure losses made it impossible to continue into 2009.

Numerous plans to bring back the race have been discussed since then involving a number of new venues, including a possible Disneyland-run race at the mooted Paris val d'Europe track as well as a potential return to Magny-Cours.

Following the struggles to bring back the race, Fillon confirmed that a scheme allowing the French GP to share a slot on the calendar with the Belgian GP is a possibility. This could solve the problem of France struggling to gain a position in a crowded F1 calendar, as well as helping to safeguard's Spa's F1 future.

Fuck off sharing a date with Belgium. Spa is one of the those races which simply must be on the calender every year, no matter what.

[Lineker]

New decision made on engines.

Formula 1 chiefs have agreed to delay the introduction of new engine regulations until 2014, in a move that will see the sport switch to 1.6-litre V6 turbo engines.

As AUTOSPORT revealed earlier today, F1's manufacturers tabled a proposal at Wednesday's meeting of the Formula 1 Commission to move away from the plans to have four-cylinder turbo engines from 2013.

That four-cylinder concept had divided opinions among the car makers and, after intense efforts between them and the teams, a proposal was put together for V6s to be introduced from 2014 - with them still featuring the 'green' hybrid systems that the FIA is so keen to see.

The manufacturers' proposal received the necessary agreement in the F1 Commission, which is made up of the teams and other representatives from the sport, and it will now go to a fax vote of the FIA's World Motor Sport Council.

With the WMSC having made it clear it was willing to consider a delay to the original 2013 plans if there was a push from the sport's competitors, getting the official sign off is likely to be a formality.

The late effort to find a deal on future engine regulations comes after an intense debate over the past few weeks about a way forward for the sport.

Ferrari was against the idea of four-cylinder engines, while Mercedes-Benz and Cosworth had expressed reservations about the costs involved of developing the new designs.

Only Renault was in favour of the move, and its managing director Jean-Francois Caubet had warned that the future of the French car manufacturer in F1 depended on the engine regulations changing.

"I told Bernie and Jean Todt that today we are in the 'red zone' because we have no idea what will be the future for Renault," he told AUTOSPORT in Canada.

However, keen to help do what was best for the sport, Renault also agreed to the V6 concept that now looks set to be incorporated into the regulations.

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The Formula 1 Commission is set to be asked to consider switching the sport's future engines to 1.6-litre V6 turbos in a bid to end the ongoing stalemate about future regulations, AUTOSPORT has learned.

Ahead of a crunch meeting in London today to discuss engine regulations for 2013, amid disagreement between manufacturers over plans to move to 1.6-litre four-cylinder engines, it is understood that a final push has been made by the car makers to find a solution that is acceptable to all the sport's stakeholders.

Sources have revealed that those behind-the-scenes discussions between the engine manufacturers have resulted in a plan for the four-cylinder plans to be dropped and instead 1.6-litre V6s to come into force from 2014 - one year later than the current change in regulations is planned to come into force.

With the support of all the car makers, there is no reason why the teams would be against such a tweak to the engine regulations - especially as it would guarantee all the current manufacturers staying in the sport.

And crucially for the FIA and its president Jean Todt, who has been adamant that F1 has to move to more environmentally-friendly rules, the plan includes sticking to the 'green' KERS technologies that were originally planned for the four-cylinder power units.

The FIA said earlier this month that it would be willing to hold off the switch the four-cylinder engines if there was unanimous support of the competitors.

If the V6 plan is received positively by the F1 Commission then it would go to the FIA's World Motor Sport Council for approval.

Vitaly Petrov has said he feels like a new man this year, with his debut season blues now firmly a thing of the past.

The Russian faced a fight to keep hold of his seat at Renault for this season, after an inconsistent rookie campaign in 2010 that witnessed some very public errors.

However, having started his second year in Formula 1 with a podium in Australia, Petrov says that his experience this time out is totally different.

"From one year to another year, it is like a switch that turns off something in your mind," said Petrov, at an event to mark the opening of the revamped Hethel test track at Group Lotus' headquarters.

"You start to be closer to the team, and the team starts to follow you - and helps you to be on top. You can work together to be on the top and be friends with them. We talk on the phone and they say there is nothing that I have to get sorted.

"I feel like I am at home and they support me all the year. This is maybe why the results are here this year."

Petrov's improvement in form this year has earned big praise from former F1 stars Nigel Mansell and Jean Alesi – who are in no doubt about the extent that the Russian has improved.

Mansell said: "Vitaly has done a fantastic job under a lot of duress this year. I can see great things from him, going up against big names like Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull.

"You may think that the best you can do is finish seventh, and I had that upwards for seven years in F1, but if you are there, you are ready to pick up when things go wrong. So don't be surprised if he doesn't surprise himself and win a race this year. That would be fantastic."

Alesi added: "Straight away this year, we have been very impressed. Straight away he was on the podium and he surprised everybody.

"Everybody expected Vitaly to be more competitive because he has not yet big experience, but the jump he made from last year to this year is huge – and the position he took in Melbourne was not by luck.

"Many times in F1 there is an accident and three cars go away, but this podium was done by his own capacity."

Petrov welcomed the praise heaped on him – and said he would be foolish to rule out the possibility of a race win.

"All drivers want to win and be on the top, but I think we are moving in the right direction," explained the Russian. "Last year was not fantastic, but this year there have been a lot of improvements, and we are still improving together.

"Everything is possible in this life. You can see what happened in Canada, there was a big mess, so if there are more races like this then anything is possible."

Jarno Trulli insists he will not be able to perform strongly this year unless Team Lotus solves the problems with his car's power steering.

Trulli has complained several times that Lotus's power steering does not give him enough feedback when driving, thus making it hard for the Italian to extract the best from his car.

The Lotus driver also said he was expecting his team to be strong enough to fight in the midfield this year.

"These are not good times for me: the car is not efficient in its aerodynamics. After a 2010 of settling in, I was expecting to be fighting in the middle of the pack, instead we are always at the back. Lotus is still building up experience," Trulli was quoted as saying by Gazzetta dello Sport.

"The real problem is with the power steering, because it carries on troubling me. If I don't have clear feedback from the steering, as is always the case nowadays, I can't adapt: my driving is very precise and I can't make up for it nor I can feel the limit. It's like driving blindfolded.

"Kovalainen, instead, doesn't have these problems, so he goes quicker than me. In qualifying I can never bring out the best, while I do well at race starts, when the car is heavy because of the fuel load. But when it gets lighter it's trouble for me."

The Italian, whose contract with Lotus ends this year, suggested he is ready to leave Formula 1 if he can't find a competitive seat.

"I want to see how things evolve," he added. "I'm used to fighting for the podium, for victory. It's tough this way. I could have a look around and leave F1, without quitting racing.

"I'm not interested in Indy, while endurance racing like the 24 Hours of Le Mans maybe yes, with a strong team. But I'm not thinking about it now, I want to keep my mind clear. Then we'll see."

[Lineker]

McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh has hailed the agreement reached over future engine rules as very positive after teams and manufacturers found a solution that pleased everybody on Wednesday.

The Formula 1 Commission met yesterday and agreed to delay the introduction of the 'green' engines by a year, also scrapping plans to introduce four-cylinder units, to be replaced by V6 turbos engines.

Whitmarsh believes it was very positive for the sport that all parties came to an agreement after some teams and car makers had expressed their disagreement with the original plans.

"The important one is that I am happy we have agreement between manufacturers," Whitmarsh said during a Vodafone phone-in on Thursday. "They have all agreed and endorsed this, which is extremely positive.

"The teams have agreed it. It was agreed overwhelmingly within the Formula 1 Commission yesterday, so I think that's positive because clearly there has been a range of different opinions expressed and felt. So to achieve a consensus among all the parties was very positive."

Whitmarsh is also hopeful the set of regulations will help not only keep the current manufacturers in the sport, but also make Formula 1 more attractive for other car makers to want to join.

"I think in the long run we should make sure that we are attractive to a range of automotive manufacturers. They will, according to their marketing needs and priorities, come in and out of Formula 1 periodically, which is what has happened over the history of F1.

"The world has gone through an economic crisis and the automotive industry had the largest recession in its entire history. I think our timing was perhaps a little bit premature and perhaps it was a little too condensed.

"The right thing to do is to ensure that you keep what you have got, which I think have been able to do with this agreement. I hope in the future, for the sake of F1, that new manufacturers find the regulations relevant, interesting and stimulating and consequently at some time in the future come into F1."

McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh is "hopeful" the new regulations introduced from this weekend's European GP will boost his team's chances this season.

The FIA, Formula 1's ruling body, announced this week that from the Valencia race, teams will not be allowed to change engine maps between qualifying and the race, a move aimed at stopping outfits from running an extreme engine map for the grid-deciding session.

Suggestions are that the changes are aimed particularly at slowing Red Bull Racing down, although Renault admitted it will affect all teams.

Whitmarsh is hoping the changes help his team, although he is aware all its rivals will have worked hard to make sure the effect of the changes is minimised.

"There are some changes this weekend in that the FIA will enforce a strict parc ferme regulation, which will mean that the car as qualified will be the one that races," Whitmarsh said during a Vodafone phone-in on Thursday.

"Based on what I have just told you we should be hopeful on that. But I think we have got to assume that everyone has been working hard.

"I think we have got a few developments that we are going to bring to the race. We have got two very motivated drivers and we will do our best to win there. We've won at most circuits obviously, it would be nice to win at Valencia."

He also conceded the ban on off-throttle blown diffusers from the British Grand Prix was still unclear, and reckons clarification is still needed.

"Well I think it's still a little bit up in the air. In the face of it we will be making those changes which will be necessary by the FIA. I think it is quite a complex area and the precise characteristics of the parameters haven't been decided yet but I think there has been some clarifications.

"But my sense is that the teams are all still talking to the FIA and we will have the clarification over the course of the next 10 days or so. But mechanically we will continue to develop the car and aerodynamically... but the engine mapping will certainly change and we will change it in accordance with the guidelines once they are clear."

McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh has played down suggestions that Lewis Hamilton is looking to leave the British outfit.

As revealed by AUTOSPORT, Hamilton met with Red Bull boss Christian Horner during the Canadian Grand Prix weekend, triggering speculation about his future.

The former world champion, however, is very happy at McLaren, according to Whitmarsh, who says his team has no plans to change its driver line-up at the moment.

"As a general statement we have two great drivers in the team," Whitmarsh told reporters during a Vodafone phone-in on Thursday. "I think they enjoy being in this team, they both want to win and you've seen them racing each other, and had the cars to prove that.

"We will talk about the future with them when the time comes but at the moment, we're not planning on a different driver line-up.

"We're very fortunate to have two great drivers, they are great in the team, they are great with one another and I think in an odd way the last race weekend, to have your two drivers make contact and one consequently not finish the race is not what you want to happen... but I think oddly if you look back at it, the relationship between those two drivers after such an incident was remarkably strong."

He added: "Ultimately Lewis will decide where he is going, but I think he enjoys being in this team. Lewis, as a top driver, will be linked to any top team that the media thinks can afford him or satisfy his expectations.

"I don't pay too much attention what's written in the media, in my experience it hasn't been a good guide to what is really happen on driver negotiations."

Whitmarsh also believes Hamilton will bounce back following two difficult weekends in Monaco and Canada.

"I had a chat to him after Monaco, but that was primarily about what happened out of the car rather than what happened in it. He is a racing driver, he doesn't need much chat from me.

"I saw him a couple of nights ago and he's in good shape. I know he didn't like not winning, he didn't particularly enjoy the last two race weekends and I'm sure he will be looking to forward to this one."

Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner says his team is not wasting too much time pondering the possibility of a future tie-up with Lewis Hamilton - because he thinks the Briton is currently 'unavailable'.

Speculation that Hamilton could switch to Red Bull Racing in 2013, after his current contract with McLaren expires, erupted at the Canadian Grand Prix when it emerged that the former world champion had held private talks with Horner behind the team offices in the Montreal paddock.

Horner says that his outfit would always be interested in having the best driver line-up it can, but he says that not too much thought has been given to considering Hamilton as an option yet.

"I think that first of all, any driver in the pit lane would like to be driving a Red Bull car," said Horner in Valencia. "From a team point of view we want to have the best line-up that we can have, but we also want to have a line-up that works in harmony as a team. So therefore when selecting drivers you have to take certain things into consideration.

"Whether a combination of Lewis or Sebastian [Vettel] would work, we haven't given a great deal of thought because we don't believe he is available and we are happy with the current two drivers we have."

Horner admitted that he was 'surprised' that Hamilton visited him at the Red Bull Racing team offices in the Montreal paddock - although he refused to divulge exactly what they had talked about.

"Lewis's visit in Montreal was a surprise visit, the content of which I am not going to disclose here," he explained. "But Lewis is a McLaren driver.

"He has been a McLaren driver for over ten years and we are very happy with Sebastian Vettel, we have a long term contract with him and we are very happy with the job that Mark Webber is doing. Speculation to the contrary is purely that at the moment."

Hamilton reiterated in Valencia on Thursday that he will remain committed to McLaren as long as its provides him with competitive machinery – as he and his management team target getting his future sorted at the end of this year.

"I've a pretty solid contract at the moment, but Martin [Whitmarsh] has spoken to us about discussing a new contract fairly soon, in the coming months," Hamilton was quoted as saying by The Press Association.

"Definitely, hopefully, by the end of the year I will have something in place and I can continue on, which is important to be able to do. Probably by the end of this year it's important to have something put in place."

Hamilton said that he would put contract thoughts to the back of his head now – as he made it clear his focus was on trying to win the title for McLaren.

"I've not thought of myself in a Red Bull car or a Red Bull suit," he said. "I have a great car right now which is capable of winning. We are the only team that has won a race, apart from Red Bull this year.

"I have got a fantastic team here. I have been with this team since I was 13 years old and like I said before; as long as we remain competitive there is no reason to go anywhere else.

"My plan right now is to keep focusing on pushing these guys forward and trying to improve and win more races. Me and Jenson want to have more 1-2s, the team do as well.

"The team never gives up. As long as you have that in the team then that is what you want in a team: to never give up, to always push, to always want to win."

Lewis Hamilton believes there is a chance that he can end Red Bull Racing's qualifying dominance in Valencia this weekend thanks to the changes in the engine mapping rules.

From this weekend's European Grand Prix, teams are not allowed to change their engine maps between qualifying and the race - which will effectively prevent them from running extreme settings to boost their performance on a Saturday afternoon.

With Red Bull Racing's advantage in qualifying believed to be helped by such an engine mapping boost, Hamilton reckons that the competitive picture could be different this time out.

"It is definitely possible," he said, when asked by AUTOSPORT about if this weekend's changes could give him the chance of overhauling Red Bull Racing.

"I think if you look at the previous races, every time in Q3 it looks like they have done something with their engine mode which has given them the slight upper hand.

"And in the last race, while other people brought a new DRS, Ferrari had a new mode in Q3 which helped them significantly.

"We have had the same mode for a while now and everyone will probably not be using their qualifying modes because their engines would not last, they will use their race mode - and we generally have good race pace so I am hoping that it enables us to be a bit closer in qualifying. Fingers crossed it works for this race."

Hamilton is currently 76 points behind championship leader Sebastian Vettel in the title chase, and is coming off the back of two disappointing races in Monaco and Montreal.

However, Hamilton says he does not feel it essential he delivers a good result in Valencia.

"I've got massive determination but I am going to take the weekend as it comes, if it is another bad one then it is a bad one. There is nothing you can really do about it.

"I am going to do everything I can to have one of the best races of the year so far, but that is the plan every single weekend and sometimes it doesn't go your way. I guess with rule changes as well that might help too, so fingers crossed."

Speaking about his title chances, Hamilton said: "I am still massively focused on the championship.

"Of course I would like to be nice and tight in second or first at the moment, but that is not the case.

"With the points, though, people can have bad weekends and you can bounce back - it definitely feels like it could be the hardest championship from here to the end of the season. There is a long way to go, but I will not be giving up any time soon."

Sergio Perez insists he is feeling perfectly fine to return to racing action this weekend in Valencia, claiming his motivation is at its highest.

The Mexican rookie withdrew from the Canadian Grand Prix after first practice, not feeling 100 per cent following his heavy crash at Monte Carlo.

He was replaced at Sauber by Pedro de la Rosa.

Speaking ahead of the European Grand Prix on Thursday, Perez said he is confident he will have no problems this weekend.

"Yeah, all good," Perez told reporters in Valencia. "I've done a lot of training to get back, a lot of regeneration to get into a good level of training. I'm very motivated, more than ever, to come back and I'm looking forward to being back this weekend."

The rookie admitted he was told by doctors that returning to action in Canada was "too optimistic" following his accident.

"The doctors told me that we were a bit too optimistic to go back after the accident because it was a very big accident in Monaco, and after such an accident you need quite a bit of time to recover because it's in the head.

"I was feeling alright. I was feeling a bit dizzy but I was quite optimistic, but after the first session, even though the time was very competitive, I was not feeling 100 per cent and not good at all. I was feeling very dizzy during the changes of direction and under braking so I decided to wait a bit more and be back when I was 100 per cent right."

And Perez said there was no doubt in his mind that his huge will not affect him when driving at full speed.

"I'm sure it's going to be a good weekend for me. If I think 100 per cent inside the car I think I will be as quick as I was straight away in Canada."

Williams could gain a performance boost thanks to the FIA's decision to ban both off-throttle blowing of the diffuser and the changing of engine maps between qualifying and the race.

From the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in two weeks, the maximum throttle permitted while a driver is off the pedal will be 10 per cent, while the engine map rule change comes into effect immediately.

Rubens Barrichello is hopeful that Williams, which does not change engine maps between qualifying and the race and despite cold blowing, its diffuser off-throttle has never used the more potent hot blowing concept, could be a beneficiary.

"We are knocking on the door of Q3, so were are there or thereabouts and scoring low points for now," said Barrichello when asked by AUTOSPORT about the team's recent performance level. "We need to see what this new rule is going to change.

"We don't have engine maps that we change from qualifying to the race, so I don't know how much people gain from it. We have nothing [in terms of changed aero maps and hot blown diffusers] and have been doing that from the beginning of the year.

"But however much people improve, from one tenth to whatever, it only going to bring us back to the ballpark."

Barrichello added that the team's aerodynamic upgrade programme should also help improve its form. In harness with any benefit from the rule changes, he is hoping that this might move the team into strong Q3 contention on a regular basis.

The Brazilian has finished ninth in both Monaco and Canada, but is confident that the team can improve on that in the coming races.

"If our aero parts are working as well, we might be going forward," he said. "We will see how the developments here and Silverstone go, because we have lots of new things to go on the car that are going to be good.

"If people go backwards because of the FIA changes, it may be that we take a step forward as well. I'm looking forward to that."

The FIA's decision has come under fire in some quarters, but Barrichello believes that it has been done for the good of the sport.

"It's much more of a sporting decision than a political decision," he said. "F1 is about the future of road cars and I don't think you are going to see much exhaust blowing on the road.

"It's not eco-friendly, so in that respect it's much more of a sporting decision."

Fernando Alonso says there is still time to recover in this year's championship fight, but only if Ferrari turns its car around to make it the best of the field.

The Spaniard is enduring a disappointing season so far and is already 92 points behind championship leader Sebastian Vettel.

Alonso would need three race wins and a second, with four retirements from Vettel to overtake the German.

The Ferrari driver says it is a must for Ferrari to have the quickest car of the field if he is to recover, the two-time champion claiming he has driven the best seven races of his career this year.

"We need to have the best car," said Alonso. "If we have the best car we can win the title, there is plenty of time, plenty of races to recover. We need to try and win every race we go. Sometimes it is impossible, but that is our aim.

"We need to respect our opponents and we need to understand that some races and some places we cannot do that. This is also some pressure that you have when you are Ferrari - you need to win every race you go to, you need to win every championship you go to.

"These seven races, I drove the best seven races of my career, the best qualifying laps and the best starts."

Alonso also reckons the changes to the rules introduced this weekend, with teams not allowed to change engine maps between qualifying and the race, will not make a significant difference.

"I don't know. Hopefully, but I don't think it will change massively the qualifying order," he said. "I think Sebastian was the quickest in qualifying, it is true it was not one second but two tenths, but he was quickest in the wet, we were following him and he was eight/nine tenths quicker in the race.

"In the races you seem a little bit closer but we are not desperate to go here and win the race. We need to know where we are at the moment, we know we need to keep working in the direction we took. It seems we are more competitive but we cannot underestimate or forget how quick our opponents are."

He is happy about Ferrari's progress in the last two races, however, and he feels he could be competitive again this weekend in Valencia.

"At the moment it is difficult to win a race, there is no doubt that in Monaco and Canada we had the opportunity to win, that is fact, that is not a dream. We were very close, we were on the front row of the grid in Canada and we were 10 cm from winning in Monaco.

"The trend is quite good, we are improving. The Valencia characteristics are similar to Montreal and Monaco, but we have to remember we are one second behind sometimes in qualifying."

Mark Webber says the rule tweaks stopping teams from changing engine mapping between qualifying and the race are unlikely to have a big effect on the field.

"I don't think they will make the car any faster," said Webber during a press conference ahead of the European GP.

"They will be the same for everybody. We need to adapt again and get used to it.

"Our team are used to adapting to a change in the regulations. I don't think it will turn the field upside, but everyone will be in reasonable shape. We are quick."

The Red Bull driver also questioned the timing of the rule changes, as he reckons it will cost teams a lot of money to adapt.

"There is always something floating about in our sport," he said. "Obviously it would have bee very cost effective to know this before the season started, as everyone looking at it at the end of the year.

"It is not a trivial thing to throw in the middle of the season for teams, but they will adjust. Everyone is in the same boat. It is the same for everybody. We are not overly concerned. It is not a cheap exercise to make adjustments off the back of it."

But the Australian says fans will not care too much about the changes, as they only want to watch exciting races.

"I think the majority of fans aren't that bothered, they want to see what they've seen this year - good car races. They have 10-15% knowledge of what is going on behind the scenes, you have the hardcore fans who understand a bit more, but fans want to see a good car race.

"The politics in the background will always be there, but they are making these decisions for whatever reason it is.

"You design an F1 car at the start of the season to a very strict regulations and then obviously there is a massive conceptual trend for that design in the middle of the year. It is the way it is. We have to get on with it."

Jamie Alguersuari says he is relaxed about his future despite speculation about Toro Rosso wanting to give reserve driver Daniel Ricciardo a chance to race this year.

Alguersuari has been somewhat overshadowed by team-mate Sebastien Buemi this season, the Spaniard finally scoring his first points of the year in Canada.

With Toro Rosso keen to given Ricciardo the chance to race, there has been suggestions that Alguersuari needs to raise his game in order to keep his seat.

The Spaniard, however, says he is focusing on his job, not worrying about the future.

"At the moment I said it so many times, I think both of us and the team have been developing the car, we still have to learn lots of things and to develop things on the set-up," Alguersuari told a news conference in Valencia.

"I don't know about the situation on the future, I always try to do the best, I try to enjoy because it is my job and if I don't enjoy my job I would not be here. I am quite relaxed, I am quite confident, I know what I can do and what are my possibilities.

"There are lot of things to learn, a lot of things to see - and I hope to be in the points again here. I am still learning and still developing car until the end of the year."

Nick Heidfeld believes the new rule that stops teams from changing the engine mapping between qualifying and the race is going "too far".

The FIA announced after the Canadian Grand Prix that teams will have to use the same maps both in the race and in qualifying, in a move aimed at stopping radical qualifying-only maps.

Renault driver Heidfeld has joined Red Bull's Mark Webber in questioning the timing of the rule changes, as he doesn't understand why something that was legal is illegal now.

But the German is also concerned that there will situations when a map change is necessary in order to complete the race properly.

"First of all, I don't really know why something that, to my knowledge, until now has been perfectly legal is changing in the middle of the season," said Heidfeld. "But that's the way it is and we have to work with it.

"I'm very interested myself in finding out how that will affect us, because nobody knows. You can guess and make some assumptions, but I don't know. I hope that it will somehow benefit us, but it's very hard to know what effect it will have on us and the others.

"For here, the fact that we are not allowed to change settings between qualy and the race is, for me, going a bit too far in what we can and cannot change. For example, we wouldn't even be allowed to change the pitlane speed limit between qualy and the race, so if we saw that we were a little too quick during qualy we would not be allowed to change it.

"That's why it is too far. In the past we have been able to change the differential and make some small adjustments between qualy and the race but that is not allowed anymore. It's not a huge thing, but I don't understand it.

"The idea was mainly to change it for the engines to have the blowing the same between qualy and the race but now they have disallowed any changes."

The German also downplayed the effect the ban on off-throttle diffusers will have on his team.

"I don't think that it will be massive for us," he said.

Michael Schumacher has denied being frustrated by his Formula 1 comeback despite former team-mate Eddie Irvine accusing him of having "lost his talent."

The seven-time world champion said that he had no problem with his old Ferrari team-mate's hard-hitting comments, made in this week's AUTOSPORT magazine.

The four-time grand prix winner, who partnered the German from 1996-1999, suggested that it "must be frustrating" to Schumacher that he is no longer the driver that he once was.

"No, it is not," said Schumacher when asked if he is finding his return frustrating. "We know Eddie, he is always good for a nice sentence. It is okay."

World Championship leader Sebastian Vettel has played down concerns that Red Bull could suffer a dip in performance following FIA rule tweaks which prohibit engine mapping changes between qualifying and the race.

Red Bull has thus far appeared almost untouchable in qualifying, with Vettel taking six pole positions and Mark Webber one from the opening seven races. In Barcelona, the duo were both more than 0.9 seconds clear of the rest of the field.

That dominance has not necessarily translated into race pace, however, with Vettel having been caught and passed by the McLarens of Hamilton and Button in China and Canada - while his lead was also closed down rapidly in Barcelona and Monaco.

Despite the apparent difference between qualifying and race day pace, Vettel believes the FIA's changes will not affect Red Bull more than other teams and remains confident his outfit can secure another strong result on the Valencia circuit.

"I think it's something that everyone was playing around with, especially this year," the 23 year-old explained. "It makes a difference to everyone, but I don't think it makes a bigger difference to us than others. It's the same for all of us, all the teams.

"I don't think (the team) are hiding something from me, so there's no secrets. We had some phases last year where people thought we had some lever in the car – turns out we didn't. From what I know, I can assure you there is nothing special going on from Saturday to Sunday.

"I can only judge what we do and sometimes we had good Saturdays but on Sundays struggled. We've had some straightforward races where we had very good race pace, and other races where we've said straight after that our race pace was not according to what we expect ourselves, so in hindsight we underperformed.

"I think you need to see every race on its own. Canada was largely determined by the weather conditions. Going to Monaco, in my case I think we had a very good race pace initially and then a very different strategy which makes it difficult to read the true pace.

"Looking back we've had a very competitive car in qualifying and race conditions everywhere so far, and that makes us reasonably confident here. Canada should not really have suited us but we had a very good day and put the car on pole, so we will see what we can do here."

Adrian Sutil has played down suggestions that he may lose his drive with Force India even though it has emerged that Renault co-owner Eric Lux has filed an official criminal complaint against him with the Munich State Prosecutor.

The German driver is alleged to have injured Lux during an incident between the pair in a nightclub in China two months ago, but when asked during a pre-European Grand Prix media briefing whether he thought news of the complaint would affect his position with Force India, Sutil replied: "Why should I lose my drive. That's a private thing and this is my work here, so..."

A spokesman for the Munish State Prosecutor confirmed on Thursday morning that there was a pending complaint for grievous bodily harm against Sutil.

Force India owner Vijay Mallya last month indicated that Sutil's drive could possibly be under threat should Lux file charges.

But when asked about this Sutil replied: "Well it depends what is the truth. We want to hear the truth and we hope we are going to know that very soon."

Sutil, who at the time of the press conference had not received any information of the complaint, said he intended to carry on as normal while the issue played out in the background.

"There is a story out there now since a few months," he said. "What can I say, I mean I have to concentrate on my job anyway. If he does that then we can go to court.

"Yeah of course it is a bit strange that it took so long, but it is out and let's see. Everything else we'll find out, or we'll go on and stuff like that, but I can't really say anything more about it.

"First of all I have to know what is going on here and my manager will arrive soon and I think we have to wait until he is here, and then I can talk to him and see what is next.

"The story came out this morning, to be honest I didn't read it until the last few minutes. To be honest you know already before me. I don't really know a lot."

Thursday's press conference:

DRIVERS - Jaime ALGUERSUARI (Toro Rosso), Fernando ALONSO (Ferrari), Kamui KOBAYASHI (Sauber), Vitantonio LIUZZI (HRT) Mark WEBBER (Red Bull) PRESS CONFERENCE

Q. Jaime, pit-lane to eighth place in Canada. You must have been pretty pleased with that?

Jaime ALGUERSUARI: Yeah it was a good race. We did a good job by changing the set-up for the race on Sunday. We knew it was going to rain and the possibilities to score some points, to finish the race, were difficult starting from the pit-lane. But with all the changes we did for the race it was worth doing it. I felt much better with the car, with the set-up, with everything on the race but not on Friday or even on qualifying. It was a good race from the strategy side, from the team, from my side so I was quite happy, quite pleased with the race yes.

Q. This time last year you finished 13th here. What are your feelings about this race?

JA: Well you know we have some new things coming on the car. I think I am feeling a bit better with the tyres, with the car, with the set-up, a better understanding of it. Hopefully all the things that we have new for this weekend they work all together and we can have a bit of extra pace as well and we can finish in the points. That will be the main target for sure.

Q. Daniel Ricciardo always seems to do something on Friday morning. How much is he a threat? Do you feel he is waiting in the wings ready to grab your seat in case things go wrong?

JA: No, I think it is interesting as he gets to try different things on the car and at the end, still this year, I did not find the best way to improve the car, the performance, and am just still learning about the set-up, about the tyres, about so many things on the car. It is interesting that he also gets to know the car, to try to improve things on the car. I think it is quite interesting and it makes things a bit easier, a bit faster. But still I am not 100 per cent happy with everything going on. I think Canada was very important for us and we are finding our way to the best performance.

Q. Vitantonio, a good 13th place in Montreal. It doesn't sound fantastic but 13th place is pretty good for an HRT car in the last race.

Vitantonio LIUZZI: Definitely, for us it was a good achievement. It was a big target for us. We know that in dry conditions that target would be pretty impossible if the race goes normally. But everybody did a great job. We have to use that kind of situation where it is a bit of a crazy race like happened in Montreal to use it and optimise everything and the result came. Thirteenth position is the best result of the Hispania team and our target is half done as we did a step forward in terms of the Constructors' Championship and we are pushing really hard. We bring also some development every race. We had a good one for Montreal. It helped already in the dry as we have been ahead of Marussia Virgin in qualifying and in the race the crazy conditions helped us. But everybody did a really good job in the pit-stop, in strategy, and I think everybody has to be pretty pleased as I think everybody did a good job for the target we want to achieve this year.

Q. Is Marussia Virgin where you have to look? You cannot look any further, Lotus?

VL: Of course our target, we said from the beginning of the season, is to try to beat both, Virgin and Lotus. We know it is not going to be easy but that's what we are aiming for. Lotus is a bit further ahead in terms of lap time in dry condition but the programme for the championship is quite interesting. A lot of development should be coming soon. We are pushing day and night. It is not easy when you are a back marker but you are still fighting with other teams and you don't have to give up.

Q. And you have got new bits here I think?

VL: We have some little things coming here in terms of the mechanical side but we are aiming for a bigger one for Silverstone.

Q. Kamui, a year ago from 18th place on the grid to seventh here. A typical Kamui type of drive I think?

Kamui KOBAYASHI: I think it is another (inaudible word) race and I think it is most important how we handle strategy and tyre management, but I think this year it is different tyre with Pirelli. I think I try to do my best but I think last year I made a mistake in qualifying. This year I try to do the best in qualifying but we have to fight for the best strategy in the race.

Q. Qualifying is really where you have got to aim at isn't it? We see you regularly racing very, very hard but if you could just move up the grid a bit it is going to make it easier.

KK: Yes, I think so. We try to do always the best in qualifying. But I think this year with Pirelli tyres it is very important we manage race pace so we are definitely focussing more on race than qualifying.

Q. You have been in a points-winning position in every single race so far this year. Where do you think you can end up? What's your target now?

KK: I don't know. I always want to get points. At the moment we manage to score points except Melbourne. But I think we have done a really great job. The team are doing good and still we are confident until the end of the season to be in the points.

Q. Do you think you can.....

KK: I try too much.

Q. You try too much?

KK: Not too much, but I mean I see if we can score points, like now. I think it is going to be enough.

Q. Fernando, you were talking earlier this week about the significance of Valencia for you. It is a significant race or a significant town or location for you?

Fernando ALONSO: Yeah. Why?

Q. In that you signed your contract with Ferrari here. Your first appearance with Ferrari was the Ferrari day at the local circuit here.

FA: Yes, Valencia has been always the debut for Formula One, good years 2005 and 2006 for me. The first time in Ferrari in winter 2010. I did some shows here. First time with McLaren in 2007 on the streets so it has always been a nice feeling here in this city. I raced for a Valencian team in Formula Nissan or F3000 so quite close relationship with this town.

Q. But it's a circuit that you haven't necessarily done very well at in this European Grand Prix. Best of sixth in 2009.

FA: Yes, in 2008 I had accident first lap with (Kazuki) Nakajima. In 2009 sixth and 2010 safety car period, safety car line one.

Q. So do you feel it owes you a better result, a more significant result?

FA: No, obviously, we see you need to be competitive, you need to be lucky and where there are safety car periods you need to be in the right place at the right moment. As happened also in Canada with all the rain, all the red flags so all the crazy races you need a little bit of luck and I think last year we missed a little of that. Hopefully this year we can be competitive. That's the most important thing and try to get this podium here in Valencia which is important for us, important for me as well, and hopefully we can make a good show for all the fans on Sunday. This is a circuit where the attendance is not great in past years and there has been a lot of effort from the circuit and from everybody to get maximum fans through the circuit this weekend so we need to put on a good show for them and hopefully they will enjoy the race.

Q. But you feel with a bit of luck the Ferrari is a winning car?

FA: At the moment it is difficult to win a race. There is no doubt that in Monaco and Canada we had the opportunity to win the race. That's a fact. It is not a dream. We were very close. We were in the first row of the grid after qualifying in Canada and we were 10centimetres from winning in Monaco, finishing second, so it is true in the last two races the trend is quite good. We improve and we seem to be more competitive. Valencia, the characteristics of the circuit are a little bit similar to Canada and Monaco, so maybe here is another good opportunity but we also cannot forget we are one second behind sometimes in qualifying and with this it is difficult to win.

Q. Mark, you didn't seem to share our excitement after Canada. Now you've seen the race again, if you have seen it again, did you think it was a good race?

Mark WEBBER: Yeah, it was a good race. Actually I have not watched it all myself to be honest. I think mixed conditions always provide good F1 races. We know that. It is easy to confuse things for the drivers, for the teams, making the right strategy, when to go at the right time and things like that and no-one expected to see what Jenson (Button) did at the end there. It was a very good drive from him so it was unusual to have the podium positions all up in the air still with three laps to go. That was the case in Canada so it was quite unusual so yeah, it was good.

Q. This one. Obviously front row here last year and then your accident which I am sure you'd prefer just to put behind you, wouldn't you?

MW: Yeah, it was a nasty one. We know that. The next race weekend I did okay so I think I have done a bit of racing since then. Looking forward to hitting the track tomorrow and getting on with it.

Q. There are some regulation changes coming up. How much do you think those are going to affect Red Bull Racing.

MW: I don't think they will make the car any faster, but I think it is the same for everybody. We have got to adapt again, get used to it, but it is nothing new for our team to adapt to a change in regulations. All the teams have to adapt and see what they can do to do the best out of it. I don't think it is going to turn the field upside down. I think everyone will still be in reasonable shape. McLaren and Ferrari are fast, we know that. We are quick but the changes, whether they will turn the championship around, I think it is unlikely.

Q. And DRS and KERS. Do you think it is going to make a difference to overtaking here?

MW: It is a very sensitive track to both of those, probably the most that we have been to. Yes, you need to have both working and it is track where there are two DRS zones here. We need to see how the first one goes, but it should be pretty straightforward in terms of how they work in the race.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q. (Paolo Ianieri - La Gazzetta dello Sport) Fernando, we saw that in qualifying in Canada you were pretty close to Vettel and here, with the outlawing of changing engine mapping between qualifying and the race, some are feeling that Red Bull may be penalised so do you think that this is your chance to try to get pole?

FA: I don't know. Hopefully. I don't think it will massively change qualifying. I think Sebastian was quickest in qualifying. It's true that it wasn't one second, it was two tenths, but he was the quickest in wet conditions at the start of the race. We were following him and he was nearly eight tenths or nine tenths quicker than us on Sunday with race mapping. We saw a superior car at that moment, a dominant car, the Red Bull, in qualifying and in the race as well. It seems that sometimes they push a little bit more, sometimes a little bit less. Because of that, in races you seem a little bit closer. We are not desperate to get pole here or to win this race. We need to know where we are at the moment; we need to keep working, to keep working in the direction we took two races ago, as I said. It seems that we are more competitive but we cannot under-estimate or forget how quick our opponents are.

Q. (Livio Oricchio – O Estado de Sao Paulo) Mark, what's your opinion about this: suddenly the officials have discovered that the exhaust systems that all the teams are using are illegal.

MW: There's always something floating around in our sport, isn't there? We know that. We had the double diffuser a few years ago; some people say it's right, some people say it's wrong and now we obviously have the exhaust thing which is their interpretation. Obviously it's not within the spirit of the rules so we change the rules. Obviously it would have been very, very cost effective for all of the teams to know this before the season started because everyone was already looking at it at the end of last year. Obviously, you look at the people from Enstone [Lotus-Renault] and those guys have done a huge, huge job, packaging their car and designing their concept around something like this working. So it's not a trivial thing to throw into the middle of the season for the teams but they will all adjust. Everyone is in the same boat so yeah, [change it] either at the start or at the end [of the season], but in the middle - it makes it a little bit more difficult, but it's the same for everyone. We're not overly concerned. I'm not sitting here saying they shouldn't have done it, it's just that it's not a cheap exercise for people to make adjustments off the back of that.

Q. (Julien Febreau – L'Equipe) Jaime, what is your situation with your Toro Rosso? There are rumours that Daniel Ricciardo could jump into the car to race even this year, or alternatively, if we listen to your boss, there is maybe a chance of you driving for Red Bull for you or Sébastien next year? What is your situation for the rest of this season and what about next year?

JA: Well, at the moment... I've said so many times that I think both of us and the team are still developing the car, still working on the car a lot. As I said before, I still have to learn lots of things, just to develop lots of things on the set-up of the car to feel better. I don't know about the situation regarding the future, because I always try to do the best that I can at every single race. I try to enjoy it because this is my job and if I was not enjoying my job, I wouldn't be here. This is the first thing to do and yeah, I'm quite relaxed, quite confident because I know what I can do, what are my possibilities and at the moment the situation is what it is. I'm here with Toro Rosso, a fantastic team, a good family and lots of things to learn still, lots of things to see, to develop, to work on and as I said, I hope to be in this race again. I hope to do a good race. I'm still learning, still developing the car until the end of the year.

Q. (Alex Popov – RTR) Kamui, two weeks ago, you drove a beautiful race but after the finish, two different drivers - Nico Rosberg and Nick Heidfeld - accused you of deliberately braking or at least lifting off just in front of them. Your reaction, and I will also ask Mark to comment, because you know well the danger of this type of situation.

KK: If you want, I can show you the data. I have nothing… Off the line, because only the car is able to stay on the track and I was really pushing. The front tyre lost the grip line, the clean line and I couldn't change the car's direction. I just had to wait otherwise I would be completely on the wet part. I tried to do the best thing, but this was coming from a bit of overdriving.

MW: I think people at hairpins are always trying to mix up the pace a little bit, particularly in Canada. Michael was also doing a good job to make the rhythm a little bit different each lap; that's normal. But obviously hitting the brakes is a different story. Obviously if you're a bit later, a bit earlier on the throttle, that's part of racing but if you're playing with the brake pedal it's obviously not something that we all agree to. I'm sure he's not playing these tricks

Q. (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) I have a question for Mark and Fernando: you were also in this situation a few years ago when you were with Renault and you had the mass damper which the FIA said was OK and then it was banned by the Federation. Now it looks like there are a lot of new rules which prejudice against Red Bull. Do you think that fans can accept this, do you not think that it's not serious to continually change the rules, new rules, yes, no and how can they accept it? Do you not think that it's not very serious to change the rules continuously: new rules, yes, no, perhaps, we don't know if this is legal or not?

MW: I think the majority of the fans aren't that bothered, to be honest. They just want to see what they have been seeing so far this year which is a lot of interesting car races. They basically have ten to fifteen per cent knowledge of what's going on behind the scenes in our sport. They just want to watch a good car race actually. You have really, really hard core fans, obviously, who understand a bit more but most people want to see a good car race so they obviously have no idea of the politics that go on in the background at this level, because they will always be there. But they're obviously making these decisions because they think it's the right thing for whatever reason it is, so you need to ask the guys who are making the decisions, why they make the decisions. I don't… or the team. You design a Formula One car at the start of the season to a very very, very tight, strict regulation and go through the fine print as much as you can and then obviously there is a massive, massive conceptual change with that design book in the middle of the year. That's the way it is and we have to get on with it.

Q. (Toni Lopez – La Vanguardia) Fernando, last year in Monza you said that with six, seven races to the end, you need to be on the podium to have a chance at the title and you got it at the end. This year, what do you think you need to have to have a chance to fight for the title?

FA: I think we need to have the best car. If we have the best car we can win the title because there is plenty of time and plenty of races to recover. If we are fifth or sixth, as we are normally in qualifying etc, it's very difficult because you cannot get the pace that everybody is doing. I think the championship is long. We need to concentrate, race by race. We will try to be on the podium, we will try to win every race we do. Obviously this is sometimes very difficult or impossible but this is our aim. We are Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro so this is our goal but, as I said, we need to respect our opponents and we need to understand that in some places, in some races we cannot do that. This is also some pressure that you have when you are at Ferrari or when you are Ferrari. You need to win every race that you do, you need to win every championship that you do and despite these seven races when I think I drove the best seven races of my career, with the best qualifying laps, compared to my teammate, compared to last year, comparing different years, the starts etc, even with that, it seems that the season has been a very bad season so far, which, in some ways I agree with, because we are Ferrari, we are obliged to win every race but in some other ways, I think we need to understand and respect our rivals and to work harder than them and to close that gap in the near future.

Q. (Toni Lopez – La Vanguardia) Jaime, after your result in Canada, do you think that you're in front with a new championship for you in terms of confidence?

JA: I hope so. We've been working a lot on the set-up of the car, the performance of the car. Until now I didn't really feel I got the best out of it. You were just still working a lot on the simulator, on the car. I think Canada was a good result for us. I think Monaco was also a good race for us, despite the crash at the end, but I think I was going to be a points finisher again. So in general we are doing good racing. We had some issues with big tyre degradation which really limited our performance in the past, as in Barcelona and Istanbul, so we had to pit once more. I think so, yeah, I think it's a new championship for us. I think it's a new challenge, for sure.

Q. (Gary Meenaghan – The National) Jaime and Fernando, can you just talk a little bit about Spain's relationship with Formula One, when you were growing up, and what it was like, and also how it has developed over the years?

FA: Well, when I was a kid, Formula One was not important at all, or was not a sport we followed. I never saw a race on TV in my life until I was 17 or 18. I was already in Formula Nissan so when I was racing in go-karts I never saw a Formula One race; some news at the end of the year, who was World Champion, who was not World Champion but obviously we didn't know any of the names that were racing. Now, I think it's quite popular in Spain. People love this sport and it's true that it's quite complex, as Mark said, with some regulation changes every year etc. It's not easy for the fans to follow but anyway, I think they love their motorsport as we love motorbikes as well in this country. Generally, I think in go-karts and in different categories now there are many drivers so I'm sure that from now on the future will be much better for Spain and I'm happy because it's obviously my sport and something that I love and now I'm happy that the country shares this love as well.

MW: He's being modest because he changed the sport in this country: what he did, no four wheels before him so he did a good job.

JA: I think Spain has always been a motorbike country, especially for the riders and so on. As Mark was saying, when Fernando came and he won both titles and so on, it changed TV coverage and for sure there are more drivers coming up and developing themselves in karting as well. I was already in karting when he won his first championship in 2005, I think and then I stepped into the Red Bull Junior team so I never thought about reaching Formula One because I was in go-karting in Italy and Europe so I was just trying to do my best in go-karts. I was having fun there and then when I had the possibility to step up into Red Bull, I obviously had the chance to one day get to Formula One but I started doing Formula Renault and so on but I never thought about reaching Formula One because I would never… no I was just trying to have fun and do my best.

[Lineker]

Mark Webber set the pace in the opening practice session for this weekend's European Grand Prix at Valencia.

The Australian posted a time of 1m40.597s to outpace Renault's Vitaly Petrov by nearly a full second in a session that was mostly incident-free.

Local hero Fernando Alonso was third fastest in the Ferrari, with Lewis Hamilton in fourth but already over a second behind the Red Bull of Webber. Nick Heidfeld completed the top five in the second Renault.

Championship leader Sebastian Vettel had a low-key start to the weekend, the German finishing down in 16th position, over 2.5 seconds off his team-mate's pace.

Force India's reserve Nico Hulkenberg was the early pace-setter during a session which saw very few drivers complete a timed lap in the first half hour.

The German's day, however, ended early after making contact with the wall at Turn 12 after losing the rear of his car under braking. The left side of Hulkenberg's car was clearly damaged, and he was forced to sit out the rest of the session, having completed just six laps.

Pastor Maldonado and Jaime Alguersuari relegated Hulkenberg down the order right after the half-hour mark, the Williams driver jumping to the top of the times only to be outpaced by the Mercedes of Schumacher 37 minutes into the session.

Massa jumped to the top just a minute later, posting a 1m42.154s, but team-mate Alonso went even quicker and became the first man to lap in the 1m41s moments later.

The Spanish driver stayed as quickest until Webber jumped onto the track to stop the clock at 1m40.597s with 37 minutes left, the Australian improving even further on his 11th lap of the day just a couple of minutes later.

A spin by Timo Glock in the dying moments of the session meant there were no improvements after that as his car was parked in the middle of the track.

Lotus reserve Karun Chandhok endured a disappointing day, the Indian failing to set a time after his car suffered a gearbox problem early on. Chandhok, replacing Jarno Trulli during the session, managed just two installation laps before being asked to return to the pits.

Apart from Hulkenberg's crash, there were just minor incidents during the first 90 minutes, with several drivers going off track without consequence.

FP1


Pos  Driver                Team                  Time               Laps

 1.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault      1m40.403s   	      22

 2.  Vitaly Petrov         Renault               1m41.227s  + 0.824   20

 3.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari               1m41.239s  + 0.836   22

 4.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes      1m41.510s  + 1.107   23

 5.  Nick Heidfeld         Renault               1m41.580s  + 1.177   24

 6.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari               1m41.758s  + 1.355   23

 7.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes      1m41.926s  + 1.523   14

 8.  Adrian Sutil          Force India-Mercedes  1m41.955s  + 1.552   20

 9.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes              1m42.043s  + 1.640   22

10.  Jaime Alguersuari     Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m42.216s  + 1.813   29

11.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes              1m42.270s  + 1.867   26

12.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m42.412s  + 2.009   27

13.  Rubens Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth     1m42.704s  + 2.301   23

14.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari        1m42.738s  + 2.335   20

15.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Cosworth     1m42.841s  + 2.438   28

16.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault      1m42.941s  + 2.538   21

17.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari        1m43.201s  + 2.798   18

18.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes  1m43.769s  + 3.366    7

19.  Heikki Kovalainen     Lotus-Renault         1m44.136s  + 3.733   17

20.  Jerome D-Ambrosio     Virgin-Cosworth       1m45.026s  + 4.623   17

21.  Timo Glock            Virgin-Cosworth       1m45.221s  + 4.818   19

22.  Tonio Liuzzi          HRT-Cosworth          1m45.494s  + 5.091   24

23.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth          1m46.926s  + 6.523   27

24.  Karun Chandhok        Lotus-Renault         		       2


All Timing Unofficial[/code]




Fernando Alonso delighted his home fans by posting the fastest time in second Friday practice for the European Grand Prix in Valencia.



The Spaniard made good use of a run with the softer Pirelli tyres to finish in first place with a time of 1m37.968s, the Ferrari driver outpacing McLaren's Lewis Hamilton by over two tenths of a second.



World champion and championship leader Sebastian Vettel had to settle for third place ahead of the Mercedes of Michael Schumacher and the second Ferrari of Felipe Massa, who completed a promising day for the Maranello squad.



McLaren's Jenson Button, struggling with the rear end of his car, finished in sixth, with this morning's pace-setter Mark Webber down in seventh over half a second behind Alonso.



Massa came close to matching the pace set by Webber in first practice right at the start of the afternoon session, the Brazilian moving to the top of times with a 1m40.857s, but he was outpaced by team-mate Alonso a moment later as the Spaniard posted the fastest time of the weekend up until that point - 1m40.492s.



Ferrari's dominance at the top of the times did not last long, however, as Vettel began to show his true pace following a low-key outing in FP1. At the 13-minute mark, the Red Bull driver shot to first place with a 1m40.062s, but then improved even further and got into the 1m39s on the third lap of his run.



Vettel returned to the pits after that, as team-mate Webber jumped to second place, some two tenths behind the reigning world champion. The Australian was relegated to third by Alonso, who joined Vettel into the 1m39s, but responded moments later and regained second by going 0.002 seconds slower than Vettel.



With 50 minutes left, Alonso looked set to move to first place, until he found a slow Narain Karthikeyan on the final corner, the Ferrari driver aborting his lap.



Nick Heidfeld was the first man to try the softer rubber with 40 minutes to go, the Renault driver making a 1.5-second improvement over his time with the medium tyres, moving to first place by nearly seven tenths of a second.



Heidfeld's moment in the sun last just a couple of minutes, however, as Webber also put on a set of soft tyres to post a 1m38.531s to go quickest ahead of Nico Rosberg, also on softs. Vettel was next up with the softer rubber, the world champion going fastest by 0.266 seconds over Webber.



Hamilton bettered Vettel's time in his first run with softs to jump to first place, but another driver on yellow PZeros, Alonso, topping that just a moment later.



The Spaniard continued to another lap and became the first driver to lap in the 1m37s to open a two-tenth gap to Hamilton and Vettel, second and third at the time.



Jaime Alguersuari was forced to sit out the session after his Toro Rosso car suffered a problem with his engine before the start.



Paul di Resta came close to following suit after Nico Hulkenberg damaged his car in the opening session. The Force India mechanics had to work frantically and di Resta finally hit the track with 10 minutes left.





[code]FP2


Pos  Driver                Team                   Time               Laps

 1.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari                1m37.968s            35

 2.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes       1m38.195s  + 0.227   26

 3.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault       1m38.265s  + 0.297   31

 4.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes               1m38.315s  + 0.347   30

 5.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari                1m38.443s  + 0.475   32

 6.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes       1m38.483s  + 0.515   30

 7.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault       1m38.531s  + 0.563   26

 8.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes               1m38.981s  + 1.013   33

 9.  Nick Heidfeld         Renault                1m39.040s  + 1.072   35

10.  Vitaly Petrov         Renault                1m39.586s  + 1.618   27

11.  Adrian Sutil          Force India-Mercedes   1m39.626s  + 1.658   31

12.  Rubens Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth      1m40.020s  + 2.052   34

13.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Cosworth      1m40.301s  + 2.333   34

14.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes   1m40.363s  + 2.395   7

15.  Sebastien Buemi       Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m40.454s  + 2.486   32

16.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari         1m40.531s  + 2.563   37

17.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari         1m42.083s  + 4.115   34

18.  Heikki Kovalainen     Lotus-Renault          1m42.156s  + 4.188   39

19.  Jarno Trulli          Lotus-Renault          1m42.239s  + 4.271   25

20.  Timo Glock            Virgin-Cosworth        1m42.273s  + 4.305   21

21.  Jerome D-Ambrosio     Virgin-Cosworth        1m42.809s  + 4.841   36

22.  Tonio Liuzzi          HRT-Cosworth           1m44.460s  + 6.492   29

23.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth           1m46.906s  + 8.938   16


All Timing Unofficial

Renault has appointed John Wickham as its new team manager, AUTOSPORT can reveal, with the former technical and operations manager of A1 GP taking on his role from this weekend's European Grand Prix.

Wickham was drafted in by team principal Eric Boullier recently to perform an efficiency study of the outfit, and that move prompted sporting director Steve Nielsen to tender his resignation.

On the back of that, Wickham has been hired as team manager as part of a wider reshuffle that will see chief race engineer Alan Permane move into a more senior role too.

When asked by AUTOSPORT about the background to the reshuffle, Boullier said: "Steve resigned, so I think it is just another step in maybe bringing some new ideas and to go for the next step where I want the team to be.

"For what I want to achieve with the team, John has a great experience of where I want his job to be. It is not about replacing a sporting director, it is more splitting responsibilities.

"Alan Permane will have more responsibilities on the sporting side, and I need more focus on the race team itself."

Wickham managed the Spirit-Honda Formula 2 team in the 1980's and brought the engine manufacturer into F1 in 1983 before Honda did its deal with Williams.

Nielsen is set to remain at the team until the Singapore GP.

Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner says he does not understand why the FIA chose to make a move on the blown diffuser regulations mid-season, rather than waiting until the end of the year.

With Horner claiming it is impossible to predict what impact this weekend's change to engine-mapping rules and the looming ban on off-throttle use of blown diffusers from Silverstone will have, he has expressed frustration at the timing.

"It is slightly confusing with the technical directive that it was not addressed at the end of the year going into next year," he said. "Why has it been done mid-season, rather than like the F-duct or the double diffuser [that were allowed to remain on all season]?

"But at the end of the day, it is the same for everybody and we will deal with it starting at Silverstone."

When asked whether he was worried about the consequences of the changes on Red Bull Racing's title challenge, Horner said: "To be totally honest it is impossible to predict.

"We know what benefit we see, but we don't know what benefit others see. I think in reality it will affect the front-running teams probably a very similar amount to be honest, but until we get to Silverstone it is impossible to predict."

Horner did suggest, however, that rival teams hoping the FIA rules directive would hamper Red Bull's overall form were likely to be disappointed.

"The secret to a quick car is that there is never a silver bullet," he said. "It would be wrong to expect that this has been the sole reason behind the performance of the car, either this year or last year or the year before that. It is one of those things.

"We will deal with it, we will move on. We have some parts in the pipeline for Silverstone and hopefully we can be competitive there."

Jenson Button says it is essential that McLaren keeps piling the pressure on Red Bull Racing - because he thinks its rivals are vulnerable to making mistakes when the heat is on.

Although Vettel has a healthy 60 points advantage at the head of the championship after winning five out of the seven races held so far this year, Button is not despondent about prospects for the remainder of the campaign.

And he thinks the fact that Red Bull Racing made an error in Monaco at the first round of pitstops, and then Sebastian Vettel tripped up on the final lap in Montreal, shows that the reigning champions do have an Achilles Heel.

Reflecting on his recent strong form in Monaco and Canada, Button said: "It doesn't change my confidence in my driving or my confidence in the team.

"But one thing it does is it does make me smile, because it shows that if we put them under pressure then maybe they will make mistakes. And at this moment of the season that is exactly what we have got to do.

"I felt we got very unlucky in Monaco after leading for so many laps and having such good pace that we didn't win the race. But I think we got repaid for that in Montreal: we got a bit of luck at the end of the race if you can call it luck, and we got the victory.

"We have to keep putting them under pressure. They had their issues in the pit stop in Monaco a couple of times, putting the wrong tyres on the car, and then Sebastian running wide on the last lap of the race [in Canada].

"So we have to keep doing that, keep putting them under pressure, because if we don't then they are invincible. They are so fast and Sebastian is doing such a good job that if we don't force them into mistakes then it is going to be very difficult to beat them this year."

Button is unsure what impact the changes to the engine mapping rules, and forthcoming blown diffuser clampdown, will have on the competitive order - although he hopes it allows McLaren to get closer to Red Bull Racing in qualifying at least.

"I think we are all going to be hurt by the engine mapping rule. I think that it will make a big difference to us in qualifying, but I think it will be a bigger difference for Red Bull," he said.

"If you look at their pace in qualifying compared to their race pace it is very different, so I am hoping they are going to have more issues than we are in qualifying. I still think that they will be quicker than us, but I hope we can get closer in qualifying so we can fight them in the race."

Jenson Button says that talks have not yet begun with McLaren about extending his contract at the team.

AUTOSPORT reported earlier this week that McLaren is set to reward Button with a fresh contract by taking up an option it has on the Briton for next year - and offer him improved terms in likely exchange for a longer deal that could tie him down for the next few seasons.

And although there seems little doubt that Button will remain at the team in 2012, he made it clear in Valencia ahead of the European Grand Prix that the matter was not sorted yet – and that he may not want too long a deal.

"The team has an option for me for next year, which we haven't talked about yet," he said when asked about his future.

"I am sure we are going to have to talk about it soon because it has been mentioned so much in the press, but we didn't plan on talking about it quite yet. For me, I have an option. But I don't want to look too far in the future."

Button also played down talk linking him with Ferrari, insisting there was nothing to rumours suggesting he was on the shortlist at Maranello for the future.

"Yeah, I don't know who put that out there, but it wasn't us and it wasn't Ferrari," he said. "It was just some column inches."

Nico Rosberg says Mercedes GP should not get too carried away with Michael Schumacher's strong showing in Canada a fortnight ago - because the outfit is not yet in the position it wants to be in.

Schumacher delivered the best form since his Formula 1 comeback when he fought hard for a podium finish in Montreal, before eventually finishing fourth after being unable to defend from rivals in the DRS zones.

But although that result was the best of Mercedes GP's season so far, Rosberg says it is important the team realises it needs to do much better in lifting the performance of its car.

"We should not over-estimate the performance in Montreal," explained Rosberg. "In qualifying we were sixth and eighth, and that is the level of performance we have at the moment.

"With a good race we can do a little bit better than that, but it is not realistic to think that on pure performance we are able to go on the podium at the moment."

Rosberg spent time at the team's Brackley factory last week to get a better understanding of the situation the team is in this year, as he remained confident it would get on top of things.

"I wanted to get up-to-date with developments and how the near future is doing - how much progress we expect to have," he said. "I also wanted to catch up with the engineers, review Montreal and things like that.

"I also spoke to Ross and the feeling was positive, for sure. It is still as always that this team will have success. It is just a matter of time, although it is hard to say when. Obviously we are not where we want to be."

When asked what the team was lacking to achieve that success, Rosberg said: "Just general performance from the car. The car in general is not there yet, where it needs to be to win races."

Michael Schumacher insists that Mercedes does not have the pace to challenge for a podium finish in the European Grand Prix despite setting the fourth fastest time during Friday practice.

Schumacher, whose best lap was 0.347 seconds off pace-setter Fernando Alonso's Ferrari, believes that only luck would allow the MGP W02 to finish in the top three.

He added that although the car's single-lap speed was good, he is less confident about tyre degradation over race runs.

"Forget the podium, we are not strong enough for that," said Schumacher after practice. "The Ferraris are very strong and we are behind the McLarens and the Red Bulls. If we are lucky, we might catch one of those teams, but we must be lucky. That's too far away from the podium.

"I don't think that the pace is good enough. It's one thing for a lap and it looked reasonable, but that depends on how good a lap the other guys got in. The other question is long-run performance because we usually drop off a little bit on that."

Schumacher complained that the team struggled with the balance during the morning session, but achieved a "reasonably stable" balance in the afternoon.

Team-mate Nico Rosberg had a similar experience during the two 90-minute free practice sessions. He ended the day in eight place overall, one second off the pace.

"This morning was a bit difficult," said Rosberg when asked by AUTOSPORT about his progress. "We lost some time this morning with a few things on the car.

"We are not quite happy yet with the balance. There are so many things with the KERS and the new mapping regulations that made it all a bit more challenging."

Sebastian Vettel insisted there is "nothing to be afraid of" regarding the new engine mapping rules introduced in Valencia following practice for the European GP.

Despite the rule - which stops teams from changing the maps of the engine between qualifying and the race and which believed to be aimed especially at slowing down Red Bull - Vettel said there were no signs of change after practice.

"It was five seconds," Vettel joked when asked about the difference with the new rules.

"No, I can understand that it is news to everyone to get some information but I can only say that it will affect everyone when the rules change, but I don't see us suffering from other people more than others.

"Maybe I will be surprised, maybe not. But from what I judge now, there is nothing to be afraid of."

Vettel finished the day as third quickest, behind the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso and the McLaren of Lewis Hamilton.

The world champion downplayed having finished behind his rivals when asked if they were closing in on Red Bull.

"It is important that we are there or thereabouts, it is tight here," he said. "It changes from circuit to circuit, sometimes the gaps are bigger, sometimes much closer.

"We got to Australia and we were quite a bit quicker than others, then we get to Malaysia and we had to push hard to be on pole position. That is two weeks and nothing changed on the car, it was just a different track."

Team-mate Mark Webber echoed Vettel's thoughts that nothing had changed for Red Bull despite the new regulations.

"Nothing has changed on engine mapping," he said. "McLaren was not slow in Canada and neither was Ferrari, so not much has changed. On all of this subject we wait until Silverstone, as it is a normal GP in terms of the new regulations, at least for us anyway. For us not much has changed."

Jamie Alguersuari is confident that the problems that prevented him from taking part in the second free practice session for the European Grand Prix will not be a major setback for the race weekend.

The Spaniard was unable to complete a lap during the afternoon after his Toro Rosso's Ferrari engine suffered a problem shortly before the start of the session.

Alguersuari insists however that the team was still able to gain valuable information in morning practice - during which he completed 29 laps and set the 10th fastest time.

He is also optimistic that the team will be able to fix the problem before final practice on Saturday morning.

"I was only able to run in the morning, as we had a problem on the car that could not be correctly analysed and fixed in time for the second session," Alguersuari said.

"However, I had an interesting morning running the new medium compound tyre and we were able to gather plenty of data on this and other aspects of the package, including some updates we have here.

"As a general comment, I'd say the car feels better. I am sure we will solve the car problem in time for me to catch up in tomorrow's final free practice."

Alguersuari's team-mate Sebastien Buemi completed 32 laps during the afternoon and was 15th fastest.

McLaren drivers Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton admitted they were struggling to make the medium tyres work properly during practice for the European Grand Prix.

Pirelli's medium tyres are making their racing debut this weekend, and Button admitted the rubber felt to be too hard for the Valencia circuit.

"On the softer tyre the balance is pretty good, we are getting there," said Button, sixth quickest today. "But on the harder tyre we still have to do more work. They are very different tyres and they work in a very different way, so it's a bit tricky.

"But we have a lot of time and hopefully we'll improve the set-up for tomorrow. I think we know what we have to do, which is good."

He added: "This afternoon on the harder of the two tyres there was very little grip, with massive oversteer, big understeer. And then you put the soft tyre and it's a completely different balance, so it's difficult to get both tyres working with the same set-up.

"It does feel like the medium tyre is too hard for this circuit. Let's just hope the circuit improves tomorrow and we'll be a little bit more competitive on it."

Team-mate Hamilton, second fastest behind Fernando Alonso, also conceded it was hard to find the right balance with the harder tyres.

But the Briton is adamant that McLaren will be in the mix for the top spots nonetheless.

"It's been an interesting day," he said. "We bought the new medium tyre here which has been pretty difficult to use. I guess the Red Bulls and the Ferraris were able to do it, but we were struggling with that. But once we put on the option tyre we see that we have very decent pace.

"But there's still improvement that we can make with the car. It looks very tight in the front, but we are definitely in the fight."

Paul di Resta faces a challenge to make up for lost time in the build-up to the European Grand Prix after third driver Nico Hulkenberg crashed the Scot's Force India this morning, restricting him to only three flying laps on Friday.

After setting the pace early in the session, the German lost it under braking on the run to Turn 12, hitting the wall and forcing the team into completing a lengthy repair to damage to the driveshaft/gearbox assembly.

Despite only taking to the track with 10 minutes of the afternoon session remaining, di Resta lapped only seven tenths of a second off team-mate Adrian Sutil.

However, he was not able to complete a run on the medium compound prime tyre or complete any high-fuel running, which will be a disadvantage with only one hour of practice remaining before qualifying.

"I feel for Nico because I'm sure that he feels pretty low at this point," said di Resta. "It was obviously not his intention to do that.

"All credit to the guys [for repairing it] and I'm sure Nico will be thanking them because they are the ones that were getting the car back together. It was unfortunate that what broke took a lengthy amount of time to repair.

"It's hard coming here having done nine laps last year to have only three timed laps going into Saturday morning. It becomes a question of how risky you want to be changing things and the setup because you are still improving yourself and the track is going to evolve.

"The biggest disadvantage is not doing a long run to get the starting aero balance for Sunday and to understand tyre wear. Despite being disadvantaged by Hulkenberg's mistake, di Resta stopped short of calling on Force India to drop its policy of running its reserve driver on Friday mornings."

Di Resta himself had the advantage of running during the session on eight occasions last year, although never damaged the car and always underlined the need to keep the car on the track.

"It makes things tricky, but it benefited me last year being a rookie to the championship this year," said di Resta. "It's a team policy and I went along with it. It has not hampered me too much up to now and hopefully it won't hamper me this weekend.

"It's a risk. How do you tell somebody that you've just crashed their race car? I've crashed cars in the past that haven't been mine, but not before another diver gets into the car for FP2 to prepare for a race. It's a hard thing to accept but there's not much that can be done."

Sergio Perez felt confident he was back to full fitness after completing the opening practice day in Valencia.

The Sauber driver, who suffered concussion in a massive Monaco qualifying accident, had to withdraw from the Canadian Grand Prix having felt unwell in opening practice. He was replaced for the rest of that event by McLaren reserve - and ex-Sauber driver - Pedro de la Rosa.

But today Perez managed a full day of practice in Valencia with no ill effects.

"More than anything I'm happy to be back in the car," he said. "Everything went okay, I feel well and I have done a lot of work over the last weeks to get there. I picked up speed quite quickly and this is good."

Having ended up only 16th, Perez admitted his main concern was Sauber's apparent lack of performance on the Spanish street track.

"Overall it looks as if we are a bit off the pace here," he said. "We have quite a lot of work to do tonight to improve the car.

"With regards to the tyres, I find it difficult to get the medium compound up to temperature. Here low grip is a general problem of the circuit. It is pretty dusty and, even with the soft tyres, it is difficult to find a proper grip level. We will sort out several things and I hope for a good qualifying."

Fernando Alonso says there are several reasons to be positive about the Scuderia's performance, having delighted his home fans by topping the second practice session in Valencia.

It was a promising opening day for Ferrari, as Alonso finished third fastest in free practice one and Massa placed inside the top six in both sessions.

And while Alonso admitted there was a need to remain realistic, he was nevertheless pleased with both his and team's progress on the opening day of what is his second home race of 2011.

"Overall, a positive start to this Valencia weekend," Alonso declared. "We got through all our planned programme, working mainly on tyres and looking for the limits and thereby improving performance.

"The track characteristics are well suited to our car and the car seems to handle well, therefore we can tackle qualifying with confidence, aware that we are up against very strong rivals."

Alonso did however explain that it was too early too make predictions for the weekend, particularly given the multitude of settings and programmes each team typically runs during the opening practice sessions.

"In FP1 and FP2 you try so many things and the track changes very quickly, so it is really impossible to make predictions. Already in the past we have gone well on the first day only to see ourselves losing out by a second in qualifying, therefore it is too early to say where we are compared to the others.

"It's not by chance that red Bull have always taken pole in the first seven races of the year and clearly they are still the favourites. Overtaking will be easier here than in Monaco, but grid position will nevertheless be important."

The FIA plans to keep experimenting with double DRS zones for the rest of the season - even though it believes the concept did not work at the Canadian Grand Prix.

Race director Charlie Whiting said on Friday that both he and drivers did not believe that the second DRS zone in Canada, which was situated on the start/finish straight, was a success - because it handed too much of an advantage to a driver who had already overtaken his rival in the first zone.

However, Whiting said that it was not straightforward to create a system that would automatically prevent a driver using a second DRS zone if he had already got past his rival.

"I don't think it worked in Canada," said Whiting during a media briefing at the European Grand Prix. "We were experimenting, but one of the things that emerged from it is that if a driver passes in the first sector he can then use it in the second sector.

"We were aware of that, and we just had a chat with drivers about it and they feel he should not be allowed to use it the second time. But it is not a trivial matter to get that to happen automatically. So we are discussing that. We want to try and use two sectors more."

When asked about the possibility of having two separate DRS detection and activation zones, Whiting said: "We would need two detection points, two notification points and two activation points - and it doubles the chance of something going wrong. We have had a few problems because it involves beacons by the track, and that is the only thing I am wary of.

"The idea of two zones emerged after Australia because the first zone wasn't quite long enough, was it? The drivers could get closer than they would have been, and maybe they could have had another go into Turn 3 – that is the idea.

"In Canada the first activation zone was sufficient and the second one was a bonus. It could work here with two decent sized zones."

Whiting also confirmed that at Silverstone the DRS zone will be on the Wellington Straight at Silverstone, with consideration being given to a second zone along the old start-finish straight.

At the Nurburgring, the DRS zone will be on the long run to the chicane – and include the kink.

Friday's press conference:

TEAM REPRESENTATIVES - Ross BRAWN (Mercedes), Mike GASCOYNE (Team Lotus), James KEY (Sauber), Geoff WILLIS (HRT), Franz TOST (Toro Rosso) PRESS CONFERENCE

Q. Mike, can I start with you. Principally about General Electric. What sort of effect are they going to have on the team?

Mike GASCOYNE: Well twofold. It is great to have one of the world's biggest corporations coming on board in what is a very major sponsorship deal for the team and I think it really makes the future look very good for us, both financially and also as a technical partner. I was lucky enough to visit their research facilities when we went to New York to make the announcement and (they have) some fantastic technology and facilities. It was actually, for me as an engineer, very inspiring to go around their labs just and see the level of technology and enthusiasm and the freedom to think. I think in Formula One we are very good at what we do in getting to races every two weeks and turning things around very quickly but sometimes as engineers we lose that capacity to think and be innovative and give people the freedom to have time to do some fundamental research. So it was very inspiring for me, as an engineer, to go around there, and I am sure some of the technologies they have got in battery technologies and electric motors for electric vehicles will be very relevant to where Formula One is going in the future. All in all, on all fronts, a fantastic announcement for the team.

Q. When do they start getting involved?

MG: Well, I think you will see at the next race the unveiling of the car with all the signage on and from a technical point of view we are already in discussions with them.

Q. Geoff, 13th place in Canada, most people would say not fantastic but it was a step forward for yourselves, so what are the aims now for the rest of the season?

Geoff WILLIS: Certainly, it was a good result for us, if 13th place is ever a good result. It was important for us in the championship fight we are having. Again those sorts of races are races where you have to finish and you have to finish as far up as you can. Those are the times when a backmarker team can get lucky but you have to make your luck. We are still developing the car this year. We will carry on as long as we can through the season. We were going to have a development here that actually will come to Silverstone and we are trying to get something on the car pretty much every race I would say for the next four or five races. We have got a new wind tunnel programme starting very shortly, which we will do some 2011 car work on, so I am hoping we will get something from that test immediately on the car.

Q. Are you just duelling, as it were, with Marussia Virgin or are you aiming at Lotus as well?

GW: I think you always have to aim high and being realistic there is quite a big gap to cross. It would be nice to be able to cross some of the gap this year and continue to cross it next year.

Q. James, slightly contrasting messages coming out of your team. You said that you slightly need to improve on qualifying, you feel that you need to. Then, yesterday, Kamui Kobayashi basically said that qualifying wasn't that important. Interesting contrast.

James KEY: Well I guess Kamui is a bit individual in that respect isn't he, as he is such a good racer and he again proved in Canada I think that he can go from one position and quickly make places up. But I think as a team in general our race performance is much better than qualifying. I think it has got something with the way we are using the tyres. But if we need to look at our race weekend and improve one part of it, I think for us it is qualifying. We tend to build up to it and I think in Canada it was a bit of a disappointment. In Monaco it was better up to a point, obviously, but I think that's our focus at the moment – to try and make the car quicker over the weekend.

Q. Just talk a little bit about Kamui. How pleased are you with his performance and how far can he go do you think?

JK: Well, we are very pleased, as he has continued from where he left off last year. The good thing with him is that he does challenge in races. He has got a very good racing head on him. Even in Canada I think he made up three or four places until we had the red flag and that's the wet conditions. But he keeps it clean. You know he is not knocking his front wing off every five seconds, so I think we are extremely pleased to have him in the team again this year and he is continuing to prove to be a great racer. Kind of going off from last year, we continue to have a lot of faith that he can make a strategy work which with these tyres et cetera is quite important I think.

Q. Ross, we are seeing you it seems inching up the hierarchy. Is that the case at the moment? We saw Michael (Schumacher), for example, fourth this afternoon and he was very nearly on the podium in Canada.

Ross BRAWN: I think they are little snapshots rather than the complete movie. We can, in certain circumstances, make an impact but not consistently enough. You have to say at the moment the only team who is consistently performing is Red Bull. We have those little short periods when things can look good but we cannot put the whole thing together yet. That's what we have to do. We have to improve the car to put the whole thing together.

Q. Do you think Michael has got back into his rhythm now? We saw it in Canada and we are seeing it here.

RB: Well, I thought he was always in his rhythm. As I say in Canada we gave him an opportunity to demonstrate it to a bigger audience. But if you watch his racing, particularly at the beginning of the race, we are always highly entertained by the incar coverage we see of Michael, it is great. I think he has got one of the best records this year for people gaining positions in the first few laps. An opportunity developed for him to show what he has been doing all the time and what we have been seeing all the time and I think for both drivers (is) if we can give them the right car they will both succeed.

Q. Franz, first of all can we have a little update on what happened this afternoon.

Franz TOST: We started the engine on Jaime Alguersuari's car for the second free practice. We recognised a strange noise, a mechanical noise, and then we removed the gearbox and started once more, but it seems that we had a mechanical failure and therefore, unfortunately, he couldn't go out. The engineers are just investigating the reason for this. I don't know currently what happened.

Q. How much do you think that is going to hurt him in terms of overall time?

FT: Especially on such a track here in Valencia it is important to do as many laps as possible and therefore it is not a good preparation for him for tomorrow. Hopefully, we can sort out all the problems so he can do a good third practice session and be prepared then for qualifying.

Q. We see Scuderia Toro Ross very much as the Red Bull junior team, which is very much what it was set up to be initially. One driver is in his third season. The other driver, it is his second season. Admittedly you are trying Daniel Ricciardo but there is also Jean-Eric Vergne in the wings as well. What is the policy now for the team these days?

FT: The policy for the team is that it is the Red Bull rookie team. When Dietrich Mateschitz and Red Bull bought Minardi the reason for this was to give young drivers from the Red Bull driver pool the chance to come into Formula One. To be educated in Formula One and then to be transferred to Red Bull Racing if they show good performance. Sebastian Buemi is doing his third season and so far he is performing well. Jaime is in his second season and he had a little bit of troubles at the beginning of the season but in Canada he showed a good performance. We will see how he will do in the next races. Ricciardo is the driver on Friday. We prepare Ricciardo for the future and so far he is doing a good job and then we will see.

Q. There are technical matters. The the map changing, which obviously is being stopped here, off-throttle blown diffusers, exhaust, the future engine. Pick one of those subjects that most concern you. Mike, would you like to start.

MG: I think with the changes for here and Silverstone, I don't think the changes here will radically affect anyone. Yes, people were running sort of more extreme maps in qualifying but I don't think the effect will be very great for any team. I think, on the change for Silverstone with the blown diffuser, I think it is frustrating when there is a change in the middle of the season. We have all spent a lot of money developing something. I think from a pure point of view, as an engineer, Charlie (Whiting's) interpretation within the rules, I think you can argue that it is probably correct in some respects. We, as engineers, are always pushing to get an advantage and will obviously implement it if it is within the rules. If Charlie thinks it has gone too far or if something shouldn't be happening then he is right to act. It is just frustrating it is done in the middle of the season without consultation. I think that is the main sticking point for everyone really. But we have all got to get on with it. Is it going to change anything? Probably not. For sure the teams at the front have probably got more developed blown diffusers and will take a bigger hit. For those of us at the back that have only started with that technology this year, probably the effect we are getting will be slightly less but actually will it change the pecking order? Probably not. It will just compact it a little bit.

Q. Geoff, what's your chosen subject?

GW: Well, I think I will stick with the technical directive changes and the changes for Silverstone, as it is a complex issue. We can debate whether or not the technical directives are a regulation change or not, but for a small team these changes are significant in a sense that we have to make decisions on our cost performance criteria whether we do something or not. And in our particular case, we started to play catch-up by modifying exhausts to get some performance benefit. (We) stopped that when TD15 came out. (We) realised when TD16 came out we could carry on, missed a race from it and then introduced it for Montreal, where it was probably a significant help getting that P13, which is pretty important for the team. Now, we will lose a little bit of performance from it in its Silverstone guise and that probably might be the wrong side of the performance-cost criteria for a small team like ourselves and we may well have spent that budget elsewhere. Or certainly (spent) that time and effort elsewhere. But the bigger picture here is that, as Mike has hinted at, we probably shouldn't be making these changes mid-season. We can argue, for example, why, with the F-Duct, we waited until the end of the season and why some other things historically have been changed mid-season and other ones at the end of the season. Really the Technical Working Group is the group that should be making recommendations about technical regulations and clearly if there is something, whether or not if it is a regulation change strictly or whether it is an interpretation change, if we do that mid-season it is clearly going to be very difficult in the TWG to get agreement or even to have an open – and I hope all discussions are rational – but an open and unbiased discussion, as clearly some teams will take a benefit from a change and some teams won't. We really should be moving these sorts of discussions into next year's regulations or even further away, such that we can have an appropriate and what I would say is a complete disinterested conversation about it. But, for example, if there was an issue that came up midseason that was a safety critical thing then without doubt we would discuss it and if we had to we would change rules mid-weekend if we had to if it was that important. But that's what I think at the moment. We do need to have a proper process where we discuss things in the TWG and it goes through the hierarchy of TWG, F1 Commission, Council or whatever.

Q. James?

JK: Well, I think on a similar note from our side it has been good to have some clarity from the FIA as it is, as Geoff says, a pretty complicated area. You are always going to have exhaust gas exiting the car somewhere, so you will always have some form of aero influence. So, in that respect, I think what has been done for next year with some proscribed position for the exhaust is very sensible, as it removes all the ambiguity and also removes a fairly expensive development direction which, as people have seen from this year, is pretty expensive and complicated. I think the moves for next year are sensible. The change in the middle of the season is always going to be tricky because it does alter things. Having said that, I think there is a distinction between the exhausts and things like the F-Duct and the diffusers that we had recently as they were deemed legal and they were pure aerodynamic devices. I think the difference here is that engines shouldn't be aerodynamic devices and they weren't deemed legal and I think that is the distinction for a mid-season change rather than an end of season.

Q. Ross?

RB: I think James probably touched on it very well there in terms of it not being a change of regulation; it's a realisation. The things we were doing, that type of interpretation is not legal. I think the difficulty the FIA had is that the protagonists behind raising this issue were threatening to protest the cars and that was the difficulty they had. They couldn't ignore that and once they were made aware of the technology I think they started to sympathise with the view that the people who were upset about it had, because the FIA didn't discover this by themselves, they were alerted about it by a team. And once that ball started to roll, they probably had little choice but to decree what should happen. If they hadn't have taken action, then it sounds like some teams were going to protest the situation to get clarity through the stewards and that wouldn't be very good for Formula One. We want to avoid that at all costs because I know from experience that the stewards would find such a technical argument quite difficult to resolve and it would probably end up in the appeal courts again and that's no good. I think it's probably being dealt with in the best possible way but what we need now is absolute clarity on where we're going with this and I think having the exhaust moved next year is very important because we don't want this to end up as another argument of the type we had about traction control: what was traction control, what wasn't traction control, what you could do, what you couldn't do? We want clarity because, as you know, the traction control issue has not been discussed for several years, and we don't want to have the exhaust blown issue being discussed and being a major distraction to what we're doing. So we will cope – I think we will all cope this year. It will make a difference to the cars. We've got a new floor coming at Silverstone which is designed around that technology. We've got to decide what we're going to do now but I think having the exhaust moved next year should bring clarity to this area. But there will be something else round the corner, as always in Formula One.

FT: Yeah, we have invested a lot of money in development and research on this special exhaust system. OK, the important thing is, as Ross just mentioned, the clarity in the regulations, and regarding the mapping, we rely on Ferrari, because they provide us with the engines. It's difficult to estimate the performance loss we will see in Silverstone.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q. (Joe Saward – Grand Prix Special) On a question about regulations, we have a situation where, in December, there was a regulation decided for 2013 and apparently that's now changed completely and will be coming in 2014. Can you give us some idea whether we can actually trust that as a final result, or will you all agree on something else at a later date? Ross would be a good person here.

RB: I'm pretty confident that's the final result. I think the initial proposal didn't seem to have a complete consensus, complete support from all the manufacturers. All the manufacturers who are currently supplying engines in Formula One have signed an agreement that this is the engine we're going to support in the future. That's as good as it can be.

Q. (Ann Giuntini – L'Equipe) And about this engine, to all of you, if it is a V6, as it looks like being, what are the advantages of a V6 over an in-line four cylinder, and will there be a problem with cost? It could cost more.

RB: I think there are many considerations we have to make when we are changing the powerplant in Formula One and obviously the technology in the automotive field is changing and the big question is how relevant do we need to be and how relevant do we want to be. I think there is a justification for relevance in the type of engines we have in the future. We don't want to end up as a dinosaur in five or ten years and the technology I see that we're working on with these new engines is the technology that is going to become commonplace in road car engines in the future: small capacity, turbocharged engine, direct injection, special KERS systems. They're all going to be the technology we're going to be using in the future and when you do that, you can generate a lot more interest with a manufacturer, and we want to try and get some manufacturers back into Formula One and we won't get that if we continue with a V8 normally aspirated engine. So I think the engine has much more relevance. The cost is a very good question. I think the concept of the resource restriction we have with the chassis is now being put in place for the engine, to make sure that there is a framework that you have to work within, to design, build and develop this engine and the FIA are working with the manufacturers to create that framework and I think that's a very important initiative to encourage manufacturers to come in, because they will know that they can enter Formula One for a cost and they won't get outspent. They will need to be cleverer than their competitors for the same amount of money.

Q. (Joe Saward – Grand Prix Special) Can I ask all of you, with the exception of Franz; you're engineers, getting to play with advanced systems, how much more gripping is it for you, as a task, as opposed to what you're doing now, because it's so restricted, what you're allowed to do and what you're not allowed to do? Is it more fun when you've got things that are unrestricted?

MG: I think Formula One shows that as the regulations involve and stop things, then engineers come up with new avenues and we've seen, with things like F-ducts and blown diffusers, engineers will always be inventive, whatever the restrictions placed upon them. I've been in this game too long – 23-odd years – and I don't think it's really changed for me, as an engineer. You're still looking for innovation, you're still pushing, you're still developing in every area, so as the old saying goes, as one door closes and another one opens. I don't think the restrictions we've had have really limited what we can do from an engineering point of view. The gains might be smaller, but they are still gains, which are significant and move you up and down the grid, so for me there's still the challenge that there always has been.

GW: I think the task of engineering is really resource management and dealing with restrictions, whether they are financial, time, resource, material properties, whatever, so in that sense, it doesn't really matter what set of even arbitrary constraints we've got, we still have a very interesting engineering challenge. In that sense, I completely agree with what Mike's saying. Probably the thing that concerns me is when we put all that constructive effort into something that is in itself not a particularly beneficial step forward in technology, so I think we have to... for the interest from the engineers' point of view, it's always there because we are solving problems, we're all competitive. But it would be good to make sure that we do keep a certain amount of relevance, whether as Ross has said earlier, whether it's of direct relevance to the business of major car manufacturers behind the Formula One teams, or whether it's of relevance to the sorts of technologies in aerospace and related industries that support a lot of the other parts we do on the chassis.

JK: Personally, I think that the constraints or restrictions, if you like, actually breed a bit of innovation because you level out pretty quickly, and I think that when the 2009 aero regulations first came in, it looked pretty basic to begin with but soon there were all sorts of tricks we could play. Looking at the last three years, with double diffusers, F-ducts, the exhaust recently, we wouldn't have thought of such things maybe five years ago when the regulations had been around in a certain state for a long time. So, personally, I think that knocking some of these things out as Ross suggested, there will be something else round the corner and as an engineering challenge it's great because there's always a bit of fresh thinking needed. So I'm not massively concerned about it, I think it's a good thing, in a way.

RB: It's a position we're all in, so whatever the constraints of that competition, we've got to be innovative and try and find the best solutions. Personally, from an engineering perspective, I think it's a little bit of a shame that we're so biased towards aerodynamics and not more towards systems or suspension because all these systems and things that we'd like to do have had to be stopped because we go too fast and we get too fast because we optimise the usage of the aerodynamics and it would be nice to find a way of pulling back the aerodynamics and allowing a bit more freedom in these particular areas, but that's just a personal view of finding a balance. So, I think we will never be able to ignore the aerodynamic performance of a Formula One car and that's one of the things that make it so special. I think it would be interesting to just change that equilibrium a bit and perhaps give some more freedom. We had to stop active suspension because of the aerodynamics, not because active suspension itself was a problem. It would be nice to get a different equilibrium in the equation, one day.

Q. (Joe Saward – Grand Prix Special) As a follow up to that, is there more enjoyment or more sense of achievement if there's a relevance to it?

RB: I think you've got more opportunity to find more partners in the business if there's some relevance to it. Mike touched on General Electric. It's a fantastic partnership but there will be a limitation to what they can get involved in because, at least in my experience, there's not many people outside of Formula One who can really contribute very much towards the aerodynamics. They might help with some of the methodology but they can't contribute very much towards the aerodynamics. It is so specialised, or seems to be so specialised. It would be good if we could have those hooks that we get people involved in Formula One in lots of different areas, so manufacturers can justify even more their involvement in Formula One because they're getting not only branding but direct technical benefit or gains from what they're working on in Formula One, so the cost of that technology gets spread into their organisation. What we learn in aerodynamics doesn't get passed back to a road car. Our KERS system, interestingly, has got passed to our road car side and the SLS Electric has got a Formula One KERS system in it.

Q. (Laurentzi Garmendia – Berria) Ross, if there wasn't a team telling the FIA about these hot blown diffusers, how long and how far do you think you could go; what would have been the benefit you get from this?

RB: I think it was opening up a lot and I think each time you do a car, you can look at the concept again, you learn a lot from the application. Each time you do a new car you can look at the layout of the car, where the suspension goes, where the gearbox goes, the layout of all the major pieces to try and optimise that technology, so I think it had a long way to go. It was actually proving quite an interesting area. We feel we're quite low on the slope of getting the most out of it, so I think there was a lot of potential in the system, which will be stopped next year with the mandatory exhaust outlets.

Q. (Matt Youson – Matt Youson and Associates) Ross, have you got the same economy targets that were placed for the four cylinder engines or do you need to reduce the ambitions?

RB: No, we're keeping the same efficiency objectives that we had with the straight four, (it's) probably be a little bit more challenging with a six but we want to keep the same efficiency objective, and one of the objectives is to increase the targets in terms of lowering them in future years, so that can be the target for the engineers to try and achieve increasing performance or keep maintaining the performance with less and less fuel, which I think is a really interesting challenge. What we don't want is a situation where we have an amount of fuel you race with and you might run out on the last lap. We don't want that. We want measured fuel efficiency, maximum fuel flow rates and try and control it in a way that still encourages interesting and exiting racing.

[LUKIE]

What happened to Kobayashi?

So blown-diffusers are off for this race and subsequent races?

[Lineker]

Blown diffusers scrapped from Silverstone and the different quali and race settings are banned from this race, as I understand it. Kamui just seemed to set poor times in FP1 and FP2, but improved in FP3 (see below)

EDIT: turns out that he stuck it into a wall.

Sebastian Vettel set the pace in the final free practice session for the European Grand Prix in Valencia as things began to get serious on the dusty track.

The world champion was 0.420 seconds faster than Fernando Alonso, with Felipe Massa third and Mark Webber in the second Red Bull fourth.

Jenson Button was the quickest McLaren in fifth ahead of Nico Rosberg, Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher. The two Renaults of Vitaly Petrov and Nick Heidfeld completed the top 10.

It was all about Red Bull and Ferrari again in P3 as the balance of power swung between the two teams at different phases of the session.

Massa was the first serious player to hit the top of the times with a 1m40.891s just before the halfway point, but that lasted mere seconds before Alonso re-established the mark with a 1m39.743s. It was his second attempt having backed out in sector three on his previous run.

Just as it was beginning to look a bit like Friday all over again, the Red Bulls then emerged from the pits as the session moved into the last half an hour.

Equipped at this stage with the medium prime Pirelli tyres, Vettel moved the goalposts with a 1m38.999s. The world champion then re-emphasised Red Bull's prime tyre position with a 1m38.694s, comfortably faster than the Ferraris.

As the German continued imperiously on, his team-mate Webber moved to second in the sister Red Bull.

Not long after all this, teams began switching to the option Pirelli and Nico Rosberg proved the one-lap pace of the soft tyre by going quickest with a 1m38.580s, while Mercedes team-mate Michael Schumacher shot to third.

This signalled the switchover as all the frontrunners flowed out on the yellow-painted boots. First Massa, and then Alonso returned to the top of the times again - the Spaniard's lap of 1m37.678s actually standing until the last three minutes of the session.

That was when Vettel embarked on a red hot flying lap on the softs to go emphatically quickest with a 1m37.258s lap. That in spite of distractions from Narain Karthikeyan's HRT and one of the Lotus cars pitting in front of him.

The German went for it again as the session came to a close, but was slowed by yellow flags at the final corner after Kamui Kobayashi had a major moment when he lost the rear end and shot off down the infinite escape zone, damaging his Sauber's nose in the process.

Vettel's time then, four tenths faster than Alonso's best, would set the tone for qualifying. While McLaren - winner in Canada – was a second away at best with Button's fifth fastest lap.

FP3


Pos  Driver              Team/Car              Time       Gap       Laps

 1.  Sebastian Vettel    Red Bull-Renault      1m37.258s            15

 2.  Fernando Alonso     Ferrari               1m37.678s  + 0.420s  16

 3.  Felipe Massa        Ferrari               1m37.840s  + 0.582s  17

 4.  Mark Webber         Red Bull-Renault      1m38.068s  + 0.810s  13

 5.  Jenson Button       McLaren-Mercedes      1m38.326s  + 1.068s  13

 6.  Nico Rosberg        Mercedes              1m38.580s  + 1.322s  15

 7.  Lewis Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes      1m38.741s  + 1.483s  13

 8.  Michael Schumacher  Mercedes              1m38.799s  + 1.541s  14

 9.  Vitaly Petrov       Renault               1m38.822s  + 1.564s  17

10.  Nick Heidfeld       Renault               1m39.113s  + 1.855s  15

11.  Adrian Sutil        Force India-Mercedes  1m39.411s  + 2.153s  19

12.  Sergio Perez        Sauber-Ferrari        1m39.778s  + 2.520s  18

13.  Paul di Resta       Force India-Mercedes  1m39.823s  + 2.565s  18

14.  Kamui Kobayashi     Sauber-Ferrari        1m39.848s  + 2.590s  18

15.  Sebastien Buemi     Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m39.888s  + 2.630s  17

16.  Rubens Barrichello  Williams-Cosworth     1m39.987s  + 2.729s  18

17.  Pastor Maldonado    Williams-Cosworth     1m40.004s  + 2.746s  16

18.  Jaime Alguersuari   Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m40.239s  + 2.981s  20

19.  Heikki Kovalainen   Lotus-Renault         1m41.267s  + 4.009s  15

20.  Jarno Trulli        Lotus-Renault         1m41.690s  + 4.432s  18

21.  Timo Glock          Virgin-Cosworth       1m42.557s  + 5.299s  18

22.  Tonio Liuzzi        HRT-Cosworth          1m43.243s  + 5.985s  17

23.  Jerome D-Ambrosio   Virgin-Cosworth       1m43.309s  + 6.051s  18

24.  Narain Karthikeyan  HRT-Cosworth          1m44.630s  + 7.372s  19


All timing unofficial[/code]


Formula 1's top teams could be hurt by up to half a second per lap in qualifying due to the clampdown on engine mapping imposed at this weekend's European Grand Prix, reckons the FIA.


With teams bracing themselves for a major change in the way they use blown diffusers over the next two races, FIA race director Charlie Whiting believes the first step in Valencia this weekend may well have an effect on the competitiveness of some teams.


"I think it is impossible for us to quantify it, but I have heard during discussions that the most extreme maps may give you half a second per lap," explained Whiting. "That is what I hear, but it is not something we are concerned with."


Whiting has been surprised about what some teams have been doing with their engine maps - and said that was the motivation for him acting now in both the ECU restriction and the ban on the off-throttle use of blown diffusers from the British GP.


"Everybody is doing this to an extent. Some are doing it more extremely than others and you could argue some are doing it better than others, but everyone is doing it to some degree. There are real extremes out there but I am not at liberty to say how extreme, but I have been quite surprised."


Responding to questions about why the FIA had chosen to act now, Whiting said: "All we are doing is making sure how we think a car should be run legally.


"It is not for us to say whether or not a certain team would be more penalised than others. It just depends how extreme they are, but I have seen evidence of maps from teams that are extremely extreme and it is not confined to one team, I can assure you.


"We know exhaust gases have an influence on aerodynamic performance of the car, we accept that, but the point is that the designs should minimise the effect they have on the car, they should not attempt to use the exhaust for a completely different reason.


"It is a bit like mass dampers, where its first use was fairly benign when it came to aerodynamics. But the more it got developed the more extreme the designs were. There were four, five, six mass dampers on the car, and they were clearly being used for aero reasons. These things escalate as we all know to the point where something has to be done. The mass damper was the same example of the approach we have taken."


He added: "We haven't made any changes to the rules; all we are doing is stopping people breaking the rules."


Whiting said that discussions were still taking place with teams about the extent to which the throttle can remain open from the British GP - with teams requiring different levels pending on the design of their engine.


"There are a few elements that we have not yet finalised," he said. "We have had meetings with a couple of engine manufacturers, as we only want to target this one particular area for what we feel is the illegal use of engine maps for aero reasons.


"We don't want to influence the perfectly legitimate systems on the cars like engine braking for example, we are happy for them to use it but we don't want it to be abused.


"If a driver comes off the throttle, we are saying that the throttles can be 10 per cent opened at 12,000rpm and 20 per cent open at 18,000rpm. One engine manufacturer is asking for a little bit more and for what appear to be genuine reasons.


"We have the ability to go back to 2009 and look at the maps and records we have and everything. We can refer back to those – if they needed 28 per cent of throttle at 18,000rpm back then it is perfectly legitimate – so that would appear to be a perfectly reasonable request. "


Whiting also revealed that if the FIA had not seen through on its decision to clamp down on the issue now, then there would likely have been a protest from a team about the matter.


"I think we got close to a protest in Monaco and I gave the team the assurance that we were going to follow it up and we were not going to give it up," he said. "They were concerned about us changing our mind and letting it go for the rest of the season.


"I have already emphasised to the teams that that option is open to them. Everyone is doing to the same degree the same thing, but we need to be sensible about it and approach it in a pragmatic way to get the situation under control."


Pirelli is to make a push to change Formula 1's qualifying rules to prevent drivers from being tempted to not run in qualifying in a bid to save tyres, AUTOSPORT can reveal.


With drivers limited to just six sets of tyres for qualifying and the race, there have been occasions where drivers have limited their running on Saturday to ensure that they keep fresh sets of rubber for Sunday.


But amid fears that there could be circumstances where drivers choose not to do any running at all in Q3, Pirelli has asked the teams to consider modifying the rules.


"We are talking with the teams about the regulations," Pirelli's director of motorsport Paul Hembery said. "At the moment if you don't set a time, for example in Q3, then you are able to choose the tyres that you start on. It means people could be saving a set of tyres because then they would be better off in the race.


"I've made a suggestion to put to the Sporting Working Group to say that actually in those circumstances, you should be made to use your Q2 tyres in that situation, so there is no advantage from not setting a time."


Hembery said the matter had been discussed in the Formula 1 Commission meeting earlier this week, and that it was now likely to go through the Sporting Working Group for an official vote.


"From the meeting I was at, they felt it was a very good idea and it would get rid of anyone messing around like that," he said.


"If you have problems and don't go out and qualify, you will still start on a set of tyres that have done an out-lap, set a time and an in-lap, so they will be in the same condition as everyone else. That is the fairest sporting way, so hopefully they will adopt that."


When asked if he thought the matter would get the approval of the teams, Hembery said: "Certainly from the team principals' point of view they were in favour of that, because we saw one example of that when Michael [schumacher] had an issue in Monaco and then had the option of starting on what he wanted.


"We want to get rid of that scenario. And it is more for the fans because otherwise we will see people not bothering in qualifying and that is a waste of time.


"So if drivers are going to have to use a used set they may as well try and go and get a position anyway."


Felipe Massa says Ferrari is not pinning its title hope beliefs solely on the fact that changes to the way teams can use blown diffusers from the British Grand Prix could mix up the order at the front of the field.


Although Red Bull Racing's rivals are all hopeful that the ban on the off-throttle use of blown diffusers will allow them to close the gap on the world championship leaders, Massa says that Ferrari will need to keep pushing hard elsewhere if it is to win the championship.


"For me the regulations do not change anything for the moment," said Massa, when asked if his optimism on the title was boosted by the changes coming for the British GP.


"We will see at Silverstone if we gain anything or not. But it is impossible to be optimistic now because of the regulation change. We don't know how it is going to be and maybe it doesn't change anything. We need to wait and see."


Although Massa is current 129 points behind Sebastian Vettel in the title standings, he says that he and the team will not give up until the crown is totally out of its reach.


"We can still fight for the championship, because while the mathematics say it is still possible then nothing is impossible," he said. "But for sure it will not be easy.


"It will be very difficult. We need to keep our feet on the ground, and try to do the best we can all the time. It will be very difficult but we need to fight."

[Lineker]

Sebastian Vettel's 2011 qualifying tally now stands at seven poles from eight grands prix, as the world champion took his 22nd Formula 1 career pole in Valencia.

The German leads an all-Red Bull front row ahead of team-mate Mark Webber, who was only fifth after the first Q3 runs, but was the only man to improve at the second attempt and duly jumped to second.

Lewis Hamilton completes the top three in the best McLaren, ahead of the Ferraris of Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa. Montreal winner Jenson Button (McLaren) will start sixth.

The Mercedes chose to only make one Q3 run and filled row four, with Nico Rosberg a scant 0.009 seconds ahead of team-mate Michael Schumacher.

Fifth row men Nick Heidfeld (Renault) and Adrian Sutil (Force India) both made the Q3 cut but did not set times - Sutil sitting the session out, and Heidfeld going out briefly at the end before aborting his run.

Sutil's last-minute progress into Q3 came at the expense of Renault's Vitaly Petrov - which was the only real upset of the first two thirds of qualifying.

Paul di Resta joined the Russian on row six in the second Force India, ahead of Rubens Barrichello (Williams) and Kamui Kobayashi (Sauber).

The second Williams of Pastor Maldonado caused a brief red flag in Q2 when it ground to a halt in the middle of the track. But he had already done a time good enough to secure 15th on the grid ahead of Sauber's Sergio Perez and Toro Rosso's Sebastien Buemi.

After some fleeting scares for Webber, Kobayashi and Massa (who got himself out of danger by sticking on soft tyres and blasting to the Q1 top spot by a huge margin), it was Toro Rosso's Jaime Alguersuari who was again the upper midfield driver exiting in Q1. He ended up 18th ahead of the Lotus duo - Heikki Kovalainen in front of Jarno Trulli, who spun on his final Q1 run.

Everyone comfortably made the 107 per cent qualifying cut, with Tonio Liuzzi's Hispania splitting the Virgins as he edged ahead of Jerome D'Ambrosio.

Qualifying


Pos  Driver                Team                  Time          Gap   

 1.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault      1m36.975

 2.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault      1m37.163  +  0.188

 3.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes      1m37.380  +  0.405

 4.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari               1m37.454  +  0.479

 5.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari               1m37.535  +  0.560

 6.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes      1m37.645  +  0.670

 7.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes              1m38.231  +  1.256

 8.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes              1m38.240  +  1.265

 9.  Nick Heidfeld         Renault               No time

10.  Adrian Sutil          Force India-Mercedes  No time

Q2 cut-off time: 1m39.034s                                   Gap **

11.  Vitaly Petrov         Renault              1m39.068s  +  1.763

12.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes 1m39.422s  +  2.117

13.  Rubens Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth    1m39.489s  +  2.184

14.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari       1m39.525s  +  2.220

15.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Cosworth    1m39.645s  +  2.340

16.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari       1m39.657s  +  2.352

17.  Sebastien Buemi       Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m39.711s  +  2.406

Q1 cut-off time: 1m40.131s                                    Gap *

18.  Jaime Alguersuari     Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m40.232   +  1.819

19.  Heikki Kovalainen     Lotus-Renault        1m41.664   +  3.251

20.  Jarno Trulli          Lotus-Renault        1m42.234   +  3.821

21.  Timo Glock            Virgin-Cosworth      1m42.553   +  4.140

22.  Tonio Liuzzi          HRT-Cosworth         1m43.584   +  5.171

23.  Jerome D-Ambrosio     Virgin-Cosworth      1m43.735   +  5.322

24.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth         1m44.363   +  5.950


107% time: 1m45.301s


* Gap to quickest in Q1


** Gap to quickest in Q2[/code]


Sebastian Vettel insisted there was too much talk about how the rule changes would affect Red Bull's performance, after the team dominated yet another qualifying session.


Vettel secured his seventh pole in eight races as his team continued with its perfect record of top spots in qualifying this year.


That despite the FIA now not allowing teams to change their engine mappings between qualifying and the race.


"There has been a lot of talk but for us we never really understood why," said Vettel.


"We had to focus on what we have to do here, and that is it. We had a good qualifying session, generally a good build-up throughout the weekend, picking up steadily some pace and I felt more and more comfortable in the car, that was most important.


"It was nice today to sit here and have the front row for us, it is a good start for tomorrow, but it is a long race so we have to go from there."


The world champion believes there will be even more talk when the ban on off-throttle diffusers is introduced at the British Grand Prix, but he doesn't believe it will affect Red Bull more than others.


"A lot of talk and we will have same sort of talk before the Silverstone GP again. We know what we do, surely it is a step back but it is the same for all of us, for some more and some less. For the car based on that concept, cars like Mercedes or Renault, they will I think feel it more than others."


The German also denied he was unemotional about scoring yet another pole position.


"I think that is wrong. It was a little bit odd because I stopped the lap early, came in and had to focus I do everything right and stop the car, I was waiting for the call and I had to switch off the car, so I didn't have a lot of time. I just had congratulations to them.


"It depends a little bit the moment, if you are cruising circuit and have time to talk you give a bit more room to celebrate. I knew in the second run that obviously I was a little bit quicker but not much, I wanted to save lap on tyres, came in and I didn't know, Mark improved and so on, but I was already stopped on parc ferme and didn't know."


Team-mate Mark Webber, second today, also made it clear he was never expecting the team's performance to be affected.


"We have said it enough, we came here and didn't expect any difference. You guys wrote a lot, some others spoke a lot, maybe some in our team, who technically were not on top of things."


Lewis Hamilton is optimistic that he will still have a chance to challenge the Red Bulls for victory in tomorrow's European Grand Prix despite Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber sweeping the front row, and Valencia having a reputation as a track where passing is difficult.


The McLaren driver was 0.4 seconds off polesitter Vettel's pace as he qualified third today, but hopes that he can move forward if the race is as eventful as many 2011 grands prix have been.


Asked if he felt he could race with Red Bull, Hamilton replied: "That is always the question, but we are as close as we could be. This is a track notorious for being difficult to overtake on.


"We will see what happens, there will be more pitstops here than we have had in the past. We have seen how other races unfolded [in 2011] so we could still have an exciting race."


Hamilton added that he was pleasantly surprised to get as high as third, having struggled to get this weekend's Pirelli tyres working for him so far this weekend.


"I wasn't expecting to be so high up," he said. "After practice three we were struggling a little bit to switch the tyres on.


"The guys did a great job to analyse the data into qualifying. My lap wasn't too bad, I tried to improve on last lap - always trying to get a bit more - but I got a bit greedy, and bailed out on last lap to try and save tyres for the race."


Michael Schumacher believes it would be too optimistic to expect his Mercedes team to be able to fight with the cars in front after a discreet qualifying showing in Valencia.


The seven-time champion will start the European GP from eighth position, a result the German admitted was average.


Schumacher said, however, that he was not expecting anything else this weekend, and is keeping his expectations in check for the race too.


"I am OK with today's qualifying result which I would say was an average one," said Schumacher. "I might have improved by one place but in the penultimate slow corner, I attacked a bit too early, got oversteer and had to lift for a moment which cost me the place to Nico.


"But all in all, we came in where we had expected to finish. It would be optimistic in my view to expect that we can attack the cars in front of us tomorrow because I think our starting positions realistically reflect where we stand at the moment. So let's see how the race develops and what we can make out of it tomorrow."


Team-mate Nico Rosberg was said he was satifised with his seventh place on the grid, the German having managed to save a set of soft tyres for the race.


"Yesterday was very busy with a lot of set-up changes but the team and I did a decent job today to improve the car, so I'm quite pleased," he said. "It is difficult out on track this weekend and we have to be careful of overheating the rear tyres - that will certainly be something to watch out for tomorrow.


"I was able to save one set of soft tyres, by running used options in Q2, and this can be important in the race as we aim to score some nice points. I'm looking forward to it."


Kamui Kobayashi says he is 'very confident' for the European Grand Prix despite failing to qualify in the top ten on Saturday.


The Sauber driver will start from 14th position after struggling with tyre warm-up issues during the grid-deciding session.


Despite the problems, the Japanese is bullish about his chances of scoring tomorrow, as he is adamant his car is a lot better in race trim.


"It is quite tricky. Generally our car improved and, again, I am very confident for the race," said Kobayashi. "We have shown we are much better in race conditions.


"Again I had warm-up issues with the tyres, and once I find some grip the front tyres overheat. For the future we will try to find a solution for this, but for tomorrow I will be aiming for points as in the previous races."


Sergio Perez admitted he expected to be quicker thanks to the higher temperatures, but the rookie had to settle for a disappointing 16th position.


"Because the track temperatures were going up I expected to be a few tenths quicker, but it turned out not to be that easy," he said.


"We did more laps in order to get the tyres to work, but this also has disadvantages. However, I think tomorrow it will be possible to get some points and this is my target."


Nick Heidfeld believes his Renault team made the right decision in saving tyres for tomorrow's European Grand Prix.


The German driver did not set a time in the final qualifying segment in order to save soft tyres for the race, a tactic used often by teams this year.


Heidfeld will start from ninth position.


"When I went out in Q3, we saw that Sutil was not going to do a lap time so we quite rightly came back in because the cars ahead had posted times that were considerably quicker," said Heidfeld.


"Of course, when you're in the car and you are called back, you want to stay out and have a go! But, it was the right decision because we've saved tyres. We were targeting higher than P9 and P11 but realistically, on today's pace, that's where we were so we will now look forward to a strong race tomorrow."


Team-mate Vitaly Petrov qualified in 11th, the Russian admitting there was not more pace to extract from his car today.


"The gap between me and P10 was very close, but that's racing - sometimes other cars are faster than you and tomorrow is another day," he said. "We didn't have any particular problems, just not quite enough speed so we will try our hardest in the race tomorrow.


"It's a long race and it won't be an easy one in this heat. We will analyse the data and hope we perform better on fresh tyres. I'm sure there will be a lot of overtaking and much will depend on who can look after the rear tyres the best.


"Here, the degradation is not as bad as we have seen and we will not see a race like Barcelona so I'm confident we can take a good stride forwards and get a good result."


Paul di Resta says he is satisfied with his recovery in qualifying after losing nearly all of his practice time on Friday when Force India's test driver Nico Hulkenberg crashed his car.


The Scot will start 12th on the grid for the European Grand Prix, two places behind his team-mate Adrian Sutil, and di Resta said afterwards that he might have gone even quicker but for a mistake on his final flying lap in Q2.


"After the problems we had in free practice, I knew that I would be on the back foot today having only completed three timed laps yesterday," said di Resta. "But we tried our best this morning to get up to speed with the car before qualifying.


"On my final flying lap in Q2 I was on the edge and simply made a small mistake at turn 17 - I missed a downshift and ran wide. That meant I lost the advantage I'd made at the start of the lap. So I will start from P12, which is not too bad considering all that has happened this weekend.


"I'm staying positive and think that we can fight for points from there. The only unknowns are that I haven't done a long run on high fuel and it's difficult to know where to start with the aero balance or when to conserve the tyres. So we will try and make the most of what we know."


Sutil was delighted to have made it in to Q3 for the first time in 2011.


"The car has been working pretty well all weekend and I felt that we had a good chance to make it through to Q3 today," said the German. "But I knew that we would have to get the lap just right. That's why this result feels great because I got the maximum from the car. We didn't go out in Q3 because we felt it was better to save another set of soft tyres for the race.


"Also, we saw in Q2 that Heidfeld was three tenths away and that it would be difficult to improve on P10. So it's a good grid position, but the race is what counts so hopefully we can convert this into points tomorrow."


Fernando Alonso is convinced his Ferrari team will catch the leading teams this year after another solid performance in qualifying for the European Grand Prix.


The Spanish driver, who was fighting for victory in the previous two races in Monaco and Canada, will start tomorrow's race from fourth place.


Alonso said he was not disappointed with the result, as he is aware of the strength of Red Bull and McLaren.


And the Ferrari driver is encouraged by the progress made by his team, which he believes will be able to get closer to its rivals soon.


"I don't think this was a disappointing qualifying, because even if there were those outside the team who built up expectations, within it, we were well aware of the situation," said Alonso.


"The aim was to fight with the McLarens and we did just that. Maybe we had hoped to be ahead of both, but instead we find ourselves splitting the two drivers.


"I reckon that tomorrow we could see different strategies in terms of pitstops. Our aim is to finish on the podium and we are in with a chance.


"The development work on the car is progressing well, but we are a long way behind in terms of aerodynamics, which to put a time value on it means two or three months. It will not be easy to catch up but we will do all we can to succeed."


Alonso also claimed it was no surprise to see Sebastian Vettel on pole again despite the rule changes introduced this weekend.


"I did not expect that the very slight change introduced to the rules would change the order of things and that was the case: Red Bull was and still is the favourite.


"We will see if at Silverstone, where there are more significant changes coming, something will happen, but we need to keep in mind that everyone or almost everyone will suffer a drop in performance."


Team-mate Felipe Massa qualified in fifth position after a tough qualifying, but the Brazilian was also pleased with the development rate of his team.


"It wasn't an easy qualifying, even if fourth and fifth places is definitely not a bad result," he said. "Maybe the others, especially McLaren, managed to find a little something extra between practice and qualifying, while Red Bull continues to be very strong, as was predictable.


"We have become more competitive over the past three races and our aim is to keep going down this path. We must push on the development of the car, especially as next year's regulations will be more or less the same, therefore any work we do now could be helpful in the long term too."


Ferrari technical chief Pat Fry says his biggest aim is to make the team more 'creative' in its design thinking to help lift its form against rivals.


Having replaced Aldo Costa following a staffing reshuffle last month, Fry has been evaluating the way Ferrari works in its push to close the gap on Red Bull Racing.


Fry said on Saturday that there will be changes to the way Ferrari's wind tunnel programme was utilised from next week, but he believes that there was the necessary brain power already at the outfit to help it achieve its aims.


"We are looking at trying to change the way we work," said Fry. "There are a lot of very clever people at Ferrari. We are just trying to give them space to try and come up with ideas and be more creative, I don't think there will be any [staff] changes."


When asked by AUTOSPORT about what changes he had made since taking on his role, Fry said: "The main focus in the last three or four weeks is that we made some changes in April, and we continued with those.


"We are trying to look at the way we run the wind tunnel, and we are trying to change that and that will be happening in the next week or so. Plus the way we use simulation tools to work out exactly what is better. We are trying to build a foundation to make those decisions."


Although Ferrari has hopes that the blown diffuser regulation tweaks for Silverstone may transform its chances of winning the title, Fry says it is hard to predict exactly what will happen at the British GP.


"I think it is going to be very hard to say what is going to happen until we get there," he said. "The engine mapping changes here are relatively small compared to the changes for Silverstone, but it really just comes down to how much people have been using it.


"Everyone has been exploiting the blown diffusers, but to what level I really don't know, it will be interesting."


He added: "I hope we will catch them up, but whether it is a landmark race or not I don't know."


Lewis Hamilton says he will "think twice" before trying to overtake in tomorrow's European Grand Prix, despite vowing not to be less aggressive.


The McLaren driver has been involved in incidents with other drivers in the last two races in Monaco and Canada, crashing with team-mate Jenson Button during the Montreal race.


Speaking after qualifying in Valencia on Saturday, Hamilton said he is not planning to be less aggressive, but he did admit he may think more carefully before trying to pass.


"I'd like to say no," said Hamilton when asked if he would be more cautious tomorrow. "I don't think I will, if the chance comes. Of course, I want to finish for the team, that's the key. I think I will always remain as aggressive as I am.


"But instead of thinking once about it, maybe you'll perhaps think twice. If that means you are more cautious, then so be it but when I get the opportunity I am going to attack and try to overtake."


The Briton, known as a good overtaking driver, said there was nothing he could put his finger on for the amount of accidents recently.


"Not really," he said. "Things happen for certain reasons and of course you look at them and you analyse where you made the right decision or if you didn't.


"But that's just the way life is. It happened in those two races and hopefully it won't happen again. I don't know why the previous overtaking manoeuvres were much cleaner and much easier. Maybe the drivers are putting up even more of a fight than they have in the past."


McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh said he had no objections to Hamilton's style.


"I have no problem with how Lewis is racing," he said. "He is a natural, aggressive, born racer and he's going to go out there and race. I wouldn't want him to do it any other way.


"He will learn from it. I don't think he needs teaching from me because he is a professional racing driver."


Post-qualifying press conference:

[spoiler]TV UNILATERALS


Q. Sebastian, you said all along this week that the new regulations on engine mapping wouldn't affect Red Bull and as you are on pole I assume you are correct.


Sebastian VETTEL: I didn't say that. There was obviously a lot of talk beforehand going into this grand prix and there will be a lot of talk before the next grand prix. But everyone will lose out something. People expect us to lose more than others but that's where I disagree. All in all a very good day for us. Very good to have the front row for our team. It will be a long race tomorrow. It is always tough here. It is a tricky circuit, there are so many corners. We have got 25 before we cross the line again and especially in qualifying to get every single corner right is very, very difficult. So to get the perfect lap in is quite tough. But I think my first run was quite good. I was very happy and Mark obviously in the second run. It is a good result and a good point to start from tomorrow so we will see what we can do.


Q. Mark, you are alongside Sebastian on the front row as it was last year and you were the only one of the leading contenders to improve on your final run. So was it the perfect lap from you?


Mark WEBBER: It was pretty good to be honest. As Seb touched on you have got so many corners you would like to put all of them together perfectly from all of your runs I suppose. But that's not the case. You have got to try and do your best to put them together when it counts. I hadn't had the smoothest build up into Q3 so the guys did a good job to recover with me. I knew there was some more to come on the last lap, I just had to put it all together. Still not easy. Still it was a pretty good lap and it was good to go a little bit quicker in the last sector to put that one together. Seb was a bit stronger in the first two but in the end great day for the team off the back of all the talk. Nice to come here today and do well. Of course, no points today so looking forward to tomorrow's race and go from there.


Q. Lewis, you to were trying to improve right at the end of Q3. But, compared to this morning, third on the grid is that a good effort for you and McLaren?


Lewis HAMILTON: Definitely. Definitely. We weren't really - at least I wasn't – expecting to be so high up. After P3 we were struggling a little trying to switch the tyres on but the guys did a great job in analysing some of the data that we have from there to improve into qualifying. Fantastic job by the guys. I think the lap wasn't too bad. Tried to improve on the last lap there but you are always trying to get a little bit more but I guess I got a bit greedy so just bailed out on the last lap and hopefully save those tyres for the race.


Q. Sebastian, you have already alluded to it being a long race tomorrow. A double drag reduction zone system as it was in Canada. How easy will it be for you to protect that pole position?


SV: Well it depends where you are exactly, as you say. Obviously if you are in the front and the people are close enough behind then it is tricky. And it is tricky not only once, but twice here. Valencia is a street circuit but still they are quite long straights and for those two zones it will be important tomorrow to have enough of a gap or if you are behind to be close enough to try something. Both times you have a reasonable hard stop so you can try something under braking so we will see. At the moment it is not yet clear how many stops we will have and how efficient overtaking will be so we will see what happens. As I say it is a long race and it will be quite hot tomorrow.


PRESS CONFERENCE


Q. Sebastian, was this Red Bull's answer to the regulation changes?


SV: Well I mean as we touched on earlier there has been a lot of talk but for us we never really understood why. We had to focus on what we have to do here and that's it. I think we had a good qualifying session. Generally I think a good build-up throughout the weekend. Picking up steadily some pace and, in my case, I felt more and more comfortable in the car. That was most important. It is nice today to sit here and to have the front row for us so it is a good start for tomorrow but it is a long race so we will have to go from there then.


Q. Interesting that you did seven laps in Q1 on the prime tyre. Probably the hottest conditions that you've used them and, of course, same time as it is going to be race time tomorrow.


SV: Yeah, we did a couple of laps, probably more than we needed to, but in the end it is free running and it is nice to get a feel for the car especially with the conditions as I think the circuit has changed from morning to afternoon so I was quite happy that I wasn't called in and I could have a couple of laps to get the eye in.


Q. What is your feeling between the prime and the option for tomorrow for the race?


SV: Big difference I would say. If you look at the lap times only, for the whole field it is somewhere in the region of one to 1.5 seconds or for some even more seconds so it is a big step. If you are in Q3 the option tyre was the favoured one as usual. But I think tomorrow for strategy and so on it will be quite interesting. Maybe we will see a different approach at different times so we will have to go from there. So first off, as I said, we need a good start and then we see where we are. You see whether you have a gap you can afford to wait a lap or not whether you have to try to pass someone but tyres are pretty far from each other.


Q. Mark, your third time on the front row this year. Can you be fighting for the lead tomorrow?


MW: Absolutely. It is going to be a long race for all of us. Not too clear on how we are going to go with the race strategically so I am in the second best place to start the race. It's been a tight qualy, wasn't the best build-up through Q3 for me. I was a little bit out of bed. The boys did a good job recovering. It looks like we had a bit of a brake balance issue so we have recovered from that and then in the end did a very good job with getting back onto the front row ahead of our main rivals.


Q. Will brakes be an issue during the race tomorrow?


MW: Brakes? No, touch wood. It should be fine.


Q. And that final corner. So many people seemed to make mistakes there. What is it about it?


MW: Yeah, it is a very challenging corner actually. One of the most challenging on the calendar for us although it is just a tight second gear left hand hairpin, or first, depending on what your ratios are. But the entry speed is very high. You have a kink beforehand but you know the entry and exit are both very important so you see people having a lot of problems getting into there. It is quite easy to misjudge the breaking point. I was very, very lucky on my last lap and got it right so that helped me get the front row but it is easy to run out of talent and not look too good there. But got through there today just.


Q. Lewis, yesterday you said that you found the primes quite difficult; were they better today, had the circuit come to you?


LH: I think that when we got to qualifying we managed to switch them on a little bit better. So, through the team analysing some of the data, the pressures, temperatures, all those kind of things, seemed to be able to switch them on – thank heavens, because we were struggling in practice. For us, there was almost a three-second difference from prime to option at one point. So I was quite thankful that I was able to get a decent time out of it in Q1 and then, obviously on the options, they worked quite easily, they were very easy to bring in, so I'm quite happy with the pace that we had. I think it's good for us to be able to be up ahead of the Ferraris this weekend, compared to the previous race. I think we should be able to have a good race from there.


Q. Can you race Red Bull?


LH: Ah, that is always the question but we're as close as we can be. This is a track notorious for being difficult to overtake on. Since 2008 it was always hard to overtake whoever was up front, but we will see what happens. Obviously there are more pit stops here – hopefully – than we've had in the past. We've seen how the other races have unfolded, so we could still have an exciting race.


QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR


Q. (Joris Fioriti – Agence France Presse) Sebastian, we couldn't hear much passion between you and your team when you secured pole. There was like 'Sebastian, good job, pole position', 'yes, thanks': not much. Is it something that you're so used to that there's no passion any more?


SV: I think that's wrong, it was a little bit odd because I stopped the second run a lap early, came in and then had to focus that I did everything right and stopped the car. Yeah, I was waiting for the call, obviously, and then I had to switch off the car, so I didn't have a lot of time, so I just said 'congratulations' also to them. It depends on the moment. When you're cruising on the circuit you have time to talk then you are obviously giving a bit more room to yourself to celebrate.


Q. (Joris Fioriti – Agence France Presse) But were you anticipating it, you knew you were going to get it?


SV: No, I knew on the second run that obviously it was a little bit quicker but not by much so I wanted to save a lap on the tyres and came in and then I didn't know... Mark improved and so on, but as I said, I was already stopped in parc fermé and didn't really know.


Q. (Joris Fioriti – Agence France Presse) For Lewis and Mark: isn't the situation getting a little bit annoying for other drivers to be always fighting for second place ?


LH: No.


MW: I think that it's what it's about in Formula One, isn't it? Seb's done a good job on Saturdays for the last few years. Obviously, it was closer between him and I on Saturday (last year). This year he's on a phenomenal run, he enjoys this car and tyres and is doing a very good job. That's how it is.


SV: With all respect, I think that we all fight for first. I can't expect Lewis to go into qualifying to fight for second as a target. We always want to be… everyone I think. Otherwise what is the point of going round and trying to finish fifth or second or tenth? There are no points on Saturday.


Q. (Álvaro Faes – La Nueva España) Sebastian, when you got out of your car, you took a look in the cockpit of the other cars. Were you looking for any kind of new engine mapping or new innovation?


SV: No, you obviously can't see much. I was having a look at the steering wheels of the other cars. There are no secrets but maybe there is something you can learn, so that's why I had a look.


Q. (Livio Oricchio – O Estado de São Paulo) To all drivers: your teams haven't tested the new regulations on the track. Tomorrow, you will use the same engine map that you used today. Do you think it can change anything in the result of the race; are you worried about that?


MW: Well, first of all I think some teams tested it a little bit in P1, the Silverstone regulation, and I don't expect there to be a huge, huge difference tomorrow, from what we've done today, in terms of the difference between Saturday and Sunday for us. We've seen in the past that sometimes the results can be different and I think that could happen tomorrow, but it won't be down to… if Lewis wins by 50 seconds it's not down to the exhausts regs or the fact that he can't change the differential by a bee's dick. It's going to be down to a result that probably would have happened anyway.


SV: I think, as Mark said, and I said earlier, a lot of talk and we will have the same sort of talking before Silverstone Grand Prix again. I think we know what we're doing. Surely it is a step back but it's the same for all of us; for some probably more, for some less, especially for those cars which were based to work on that concept, cars like the Mercedes or Renault, they will feel it more than others, I think.


Q. (Michael Schmidt – Auto, Motor und Sport) Mark, you picked up the speed on your very last run. Was it just a brake balance problem before which hampered you?


MW: I probably said that we changed the car quite a bit with what we can change, within qualifying: obviously front wing, brake balance and a few things like that. I wasn't happy with the car at all in Q1. We were in big trouble but we got on top of this, so thank God we managed to recover very, very well and put the car right towards the front, because after Q1 I was thinking that it might be a different day tomorrow. It was most of the reason why.


Q. (Ian Stafford – The Mail on Sunday) Seb, after what happened in Canada, I think the world of Formula One has been slightly clutching at straws and thinking 'ah, the first sign of weakness. Will it prey on your mind?' Has it preyed on your mind? You don't get any points for being on pole but is this a nice beginning to a reaction to what happened in Montreal, what you've done today?


SV: In that very moment, I was obviously disappointed. I think you could see it, I wasn't the happiest guy at that moment, Jenson was. It was a long race, it was easy to make mistakes and not everyone finished so looking back, it was very important to finish that race and collect a lot of points. Surely it took a little while, but to be honest, by Monday, Tuesday, it was history and you start looking forward to the next race. A championship doesn't come down to one race or two races. Of course I would have loved to win but it didn't happen, so we start from zero again here.


Q. (Joris Fioriti – Agence France Presse) For both Red Bull drivers: one may have thought that the FIA's decision on mapping of engines was a decision taken against Red Bull to prevent you taking a huge lead in the championship. Is there a small feeling of revenge right now that you once again took the first and second places on the grid?


MW: I think we've said it enough, mate. We came here and we didn't expect any difference. You guys wrote a lot about it, some other teams spoke a lot about it. Maybe some people in our team spoke a bit that maybe technically were not completely on top of things, but in the end we've just got on with our job basically and we knew that it would be… if we got done here, it would be fair and square, not because of that. It was just a fair battle going into today and the results are a fair reflection of what happened today.[/spoiler]

[LUKIE]

"A good lap for Mark Webber".

Every lap is a good lap for Webber if he doesn't collide with a wall.

[Rich]

Not the most exciting of Grand Prix but all the same an amazing pair of performances by Alonso and Vettel, just brilliant.

[Whole Fn Show]

Dont really see how Vettel and Alonso's performances were "brilliant"

Vettel had a great qualifier which just set him up for a free race on his own again. I still think if He were to qualify 2nd or 3rd things would be completely different. I just dont see that hes that good of a driver. No where the skill of Hamilton and Button, its just that he's got the fastest car by far.

[Rich]

The guy didn't put a wheel wrong all race, its very is that not brilliant when he was put under pressure during a 2 hour race?

And Alonso out drove his own car to finish second, also, how is that not brilliant?

Especially when the conditions were so difficult and hot.

[Gazz]

No where the skill of Hamilton

lol

[Lineker]

Whilst Hamilton does have talent, he spoils it all by being a gigantic cunt nugget. Today's race set a record for most number of cars to complete a race ever, with no retirements.

Sebastian Vettel resumed his domination of the 2011 Formula 1 season after his Montreal blip, by winning the European Grand Prix in Valencia with ease.

The world champion broke his rivals' challenge with an early charge that saw him establish a three-second lead within a few laps and then nurse a similar advantage for the rest of the afternoon, before a push for fastest lap in the final stint took his winning margin up to 10.8 seconds.

Fernando Alonso finished a very encouraging second for Ferrari in front of his home crowd. Both Ferraris had jumped Lewis Hamilton's McLaren at the start, with the flying Felipe Massa dodging between Hamilton and Alonso, then trying to get down the inside of Mark Webber for second. But as he had to back out of the move, Alonso went around the outside of his team-mate and took third.

Alonso then stayed close behind Webber and managed to grab second place with an outbraking move on lap 21. The Spaniard could not shake the Australian off, and when the Red Bull made its second stop one lap sooner, Webber was able to vault back ahead of Alonso.

But the battle was not over, as at the final tyre changes Alonso regained the advantage by running three laps further on used softs while Webber was on his new medium tyres. The Ferrari rejoined just in front, and any hope Webber had of coming back at Alonso ended when the Red Bull team ordered him to back off and take care of a gearbox finish. He held on for third.

Running longer at most pitstops did not help Massa, who fell back to fifth in the end behind Hamilton, closing on the McLaren late on without ever threatening.

Montreal winner Jenson Button had a very low-key afternoon. He was passed by Nico Rosberg at the start and by the time he had dived back ahead of the Mercedes with a bold move at Turn 2 on lap six, the rest of the leaders were out of reach. A later KERS fault ensured Button would finish a lonely sixth.

Rosberg took seventh, having battled for a while with the impressive Jaime Alguersuari, as the Toro Rosso driver converted his miserable 18th on the grid to an eighth place finish by making a two-stop strategy work on a day when nearly everyone else had to pit three times. Alguersuari fended off Adrian Sutil to the finish, as the Force India escaped from an early battle with Nick Heidfeld's 10th-placed Renault.

Sauber's Sergio Perez pulled off a unique one-stop strategy but narrowly failed to convert it to points, chasing Heidfeld home in 11th.

Michael Schumacher's hopes of points ended when he made contact with Vitaly Petrov's Renault as he joined from the pit exit after his first tyre change. That meant an extra stop for a new front wing, leaving the Mercedes 17th. Petrov was only 15th, having never really recovered from a bad start.

PROVISIONAL RACE RESULTS


The European Grand Prix

Valencia, Spain;

57 laps; 310.080km;

Weather: Sunny.


Classified:


Pos  Driver        Team                       Time

 1.  Vettel        Red Bull-Renault           1h39:36.169

 2.  Alonso        Ferrari                    +    10.891

 3.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault           +    27.255

 4.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes           +    46.190

 5.  Massa         Ferrari                    +    51.705

 6.  Button        McLaren-Mercedes           +  1:00.000

 7.  Rosberg       Mercedes                   +  1:38.000

 8.  Alguersuari   Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +     1 lap

 9.  Sutil         Force India-Mercedes       +     1 lap

10.  Heidfeld      Renault                    +     1 lap

11.  Perez         Sauber-Ferrari             +     1 lap

12.  Barrichello   Williams-Cosworth          +     1 lap

13.  Buemi         Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +     1 lap

14.  Di Resta      Force India-Mercedes       +     1 lap

15.  Petrov        Renault                    +     1 lap

16.  Kobayashi     Sauber-Ferrari             +     1 lap

17.  Schumacher    Mercedes                   +     1 lap

18.  Maldonado     Williams-Cosworth          +     1 lap

19.  Kovalainen    Lotus-Renault              +    2 laps

20.  Trulli        Lotus-Renault              +    2 laps

21.  Glock         Virgin-Cosworth            +    2 laps

22.  D-Ambrosio    Virgin-Cosworth            +    2 laps

23.  Liuzzi        HRT-Cosworth               +    3 laps

24.  Karthikeyan   HRT-Cosworth               +    3 laps


Fastest lap: Vettel, 1:41.852


Not classified/retirements:


Driver        Team                         On lap



World Championship standings, round 8:                


Drivers:                    Constructors:             

 1.  Vettel       186        1.  Red Bull-Renault          295

 2.  Webber       109        2.  McLaren-Mercedes          206

 3.  Button       109        3.  Ferrari                   129

 4.  Hamilton      97        4.  Renault                    61

 5.  Alonso        87        5.  Mercedes                   58

 6.  Massa         42        6.  Sauber-Ferrari             27

 7.  Rosberg       32        7.  Toro Rosso-Ferrari         16

 8.  Petrov        31        8.  Force India-Mercedes       12

 9.  Heidfeld      30        9.  Williams-Cosworth           4

10.  Schumacher    26       

11.  Kobayashi     25       

12.  Sutil         10       

13.  Alguersuari    8       

14.  Buemi          8       

15.  Barrichello    4       

16.  Perez          2       

17.  Di Resta       2       


All timing unofficial[/code]


Formula 1 technical chiefs have given their formal backing to plans for 1.6-litre V6 engines to be used from 2014, but have requested that the new power-units rev higher than originally suggested.


During a get-together of technical figures in the Valencia paddock on Sunday morning, the representatives agreed with the new engine plans that were approved by the Formula 1 Commission last week.


Such approval from the teams was necessary as part of the official process required for new regulations to be put in place - with the FIA keen to get the matter sorted by the end of this month.


And although the meeting was not an official gathering of the Technical Working Group, it is understood a letter was sent from the teams to the FIA's Charlie Whiting expressing their support for the V6 plan that was put forward earlier this week - with a few minor tweaks which included lifting performance from a 12,000rpm limit up to 15,000rpm.


As well as the engine situation, the teams are understood to have also formally requested that planned chassis regulation changes for 2013 are also delayed for one season - so they coincide with the new engines.


The matter is now likely to be put to an official fax vote of the FIA's World Motor Sport Council - which could mean the regulations being put in place as soon as next week.


Mercedes-Benz motorsport boss Norbert Haug said in Valencia that he was happy with the plans for the V6, which came after disputes between carmakers over the original move towards four-cylinder power-units.


"It is important that we get even lower costs in the future," explained Haug. "It is a strong signal that all the teams voted the same, and that the manufacturers got together in quite a short period of time. That is a positive development."


Timo Glock insists that Virgin's decision to switch its focus to its 2012 car in the wake of parting company with technical director Nick Wirth will not affect his motivation.


Virgin came into this season hoping to reach Q2 on a regular basis, but the team has not managed to do better than 20th in qualifying so far this year. Despite knowing that he could face a second consecutive year without any points finishes as development tails off in the second half of the year, Glock claims he will have no difficulty maintaining focus.


"I never lose my motivation," said Glock. "My motivation is still to keep the gap to Lotus as small as possible and just to get the best out of qualifying and the race every time.


"That's what I am doing and I can't do any more."


He comfortably outqualified lead HRT driver Vitantonio Liuzzi after the Spanish team sprung a surprise in the last race in Canada by beating Virgin. Glock believes that the battle between the teams, which are currently occupying the bottom two places in the constructors' championship, could swing depending on the circuit characteristics.


"We have to see how tracks like Silverstone, which has a completely different characteristic to Valencia, will affect us or HRT," said Glock. "It will be track dependent.


"This weekend has gone well so far. We were consistently quicker than them and closer to Lotus, for some reason, which is positive for the team, but at the moment it is quite a big gap."


Team principal John Booth put Virgin's lack of pace in Canada down to a lack of a low-downforce set-up, something that did not hinder the team so much during the race.


He added that the performance of this year's car at different circuits corresponds to the pattern seen last year.


"This is a totally new car to last year, but oddly enough the circuits where we were comfortable last year are the ones where we are comfortable this year," said Booth. "And the circuits where we struggled last year, like Barcelona and Canada, we have struggled again this year.


"We haven't quite got to the bottom of it, although we didn't have a low-downforce set-up for Canada, which compromised qualifying there. But it almost paid dividends in the [wet] race."


Heikki Kovalainen is confident he is in the form of his life with Lotus at the moment, and says he will keep working to make himself an even better driver.


Although the ex-Renault and McLaren driver is much further down the field with Lotus these days, Kovalainen feels he is now a much more complete racer than he was when driving for frontrunning teams.


"I think I'm driving better than before and all the time I feel I'm doing a better job than I've done in the past," he said.


"I've learned from my experiences and the mistakes that I've done in the past. I think I'm comfortably in control of the whole situation now - the way that we set up the car, the way that we plan the sessions, go into qualifying and the races is better than before.


"For me, the feeling is that now my career is really starting. I'm working so that whenever there is an opportunity in the future, I'm there to take it. It's all you can do. The last thing you should do is give up and let it go. I'm not ready for that yet."


Lotus was 1.4 seconds behind the slowest of the rest of the midfield in Valencia qualifying, which Kovalainen largely put down to the team lacking KERS.


"We knew this was how it was going to be - long straight lines and no KERS, it's hurting us quite a lot," he said.


"We knew there was going to be no chance to battle with the cars ahead and we needed to be lucky to get into Q2. We pushed to the limit and I managed to do a couple of decent laps, but there's nothing more we can do about it at the moment."


He feels that in general Lotus is in better form in Valencia than it has been of late.


"For me, the balance is good, and this weekend, compared to Canada and Monaco, is back to more normal again," said Kovalainen. "At those races we were running different brakes and a different set-up, and I wasn't really getting everything out of it at those races.


"This weekend I'm back to strong and confident driving."


Fernando Alonso described splitting the Red Bulls in the European Grand Prix as a 'great achievement' for Ferrari, and evidence that the team is getting much closer to winning.


Alonso moved up to third at the start and had a race-long battle with Mark Webber's Red Bull - passing it on track in the second stint, falling behind again at the second pitstops, and then finally taking the place for good during the final pit sequence.


"It was an interesting race for the fans and people on TV, to see the fight with Webber all the race through," said Alonso. "At the beginning of the race I was behind him, trying to not be too far away, and have a benefit in the pitstop and an opportunity to overtake him.


"We had an opportunity in the middle of race when I overtook him at Turn 12. They did a good stop and overtook us and then at final stop the team did a good strategy and we overtook him. Quite a bit of changing positions between Mark and me.


"Second place is the maximum we can have these days, so being here between the Red Bull Racing cars is a great achievement.


"Monaco was a good performance to finish second, Canada a good performance but we didn't score and here second is a great team result.


"We are definitely moving in the right direction and will get closer to them at the next races."


Alonso underlined that Ferrari had already made great progress since its troubled early races.


"I think we all in Ferrari know our tifosi is expecting us to win," he said. "At the moment we are not in that position. We are getting much closer. In first few races we were 1.5 seconds behind, now it is six or seven tenths, so we have halved it. We will not stop working until we reach the performance of the car."


Sebastian Vettel insists he is not looking at the championship table yet, despite his huge advantage after his victory in Valencia.


The world champion scored his sixth win in eight races on Sunday, extending his lead in the championship over Mark Webber and Jenson Button to 77 points.


The gap means Vettel would still lead the championship even if he missed the next three races.


But the Red Bull driver says it is important ro focus on each race to try to achieve the best result, and claimed he is not focused on the championship yet.


"I don't look at the gap, it is a long season," said Vettel. "For sure we have had a phenomenal start to the season. We continue that way, we have to take every single race as it comes. Surely we don't have to win by taking too much risk but the target is still to win races.


"It feels wonderful like I said today and we try to achieve our optimum. If we have the chance to win then we have to take it. If the day comes and we are not competitive enough, and we are good enough for third, we have to finish third and not seventh.


"At the moment we all enjoy it. It is incredible the achievement and step the team made in the last two/three years. Every single department got so much professional. We have to keep doing what we do, and stay hungry wanting to win races and wanting to become better and better every time."


The German, who has also been on pole position in all but one of the races this year, denied his win in Valencia had been easy.


He also praised the work of his Red Bull team for having produced such a strong car again.


"Maybe from the outside," he said. "I don't know how much there was happening in the grand prix. From myself it looked like an absorbing race. I enjoy it so much when it is you and your car every single lap. I had pressure from behind with Fernando and Mark, they were pitting some times before and some times after, they were pushing hard.


"For some reason I enjoy this track and it's smooth too - it is fantastic. The team has done a phenomenal job. Even though we come here and say it might be tricky, we managed to put everything together. A faultless weekend and I am very happy with this result."


Mark Webber admitted it was his fault to miss out on second place in the European Grand Prix, but the Australian was very happy with his performance during the weekend.


Webber finished in third position, behind team-mate Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, after deciding to pit before the Spanish driver in his final stop.


The move did not pay off and Alonso, who was right in front of Webber before the pitstop, managed to make his stop and open a 17-second gap in the end.


Webber admitted it was his fault to pit when he did, a decision he reckons cost him second.


"I think we should have [finished second] but in the end we didn't," said Webber. "It was probably my best race of the year, to be honest. It was quite close with all three of us. We were trying to manage tyres. I was very, very happy with how the race was going - and it was my fault basically.


"I was right about Fernando coming underneath me in the stop and did not know how th medium would perform on the out lap. That is the risk I decided to take – we lost out.


"My fault to miss second today. All of us nip and tuck. In the end the gearbox was playing up. We had massive gap to McLaren so could cruise to the end."


The Red Bull driver, however, was encouraged by his own performance and has vowed to be stronger in the next race.


"I think we saw today was the closest I've been for a while. I am getting better, up until the last 15 per cent, that is the way it goes. It's fine line racing against those guys. I am happy with my performance and I will come back better at the next race."


McLaren's Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button both called for the team to find more downforce on the car as soon as possible after they took disappointing fourth and sixth places in Valencia.


After several races in which McLaren had either looked capable of beating Red Bull or succeeded in doing so, the European Grand prix saw the Woking squad jumped by Ferrari and some way off the lead pace.


Hamilton said the team now needed more performance from its next batch of upgrades in order to close back in again.


"I think we're quite a bit down on downforce," he told television reporters. "We've not made an upgrade for several weeks now. We've had upgrades like the front wing for example but rear downforce, we've really been struggling with that."


He also predicted that McLaren could suffer more than most when the exhaust set-up rules are tightened from the next race at Silverstone onwards.


"I think in the next race we'll really, really struggle," Hamilton warned. "Once we lose the engine map [blown exhaust] I think we may see some differences there."


Button agreed with his team-mate assessment of McLaren's position.


"We need some good upgrades," he said. "We need to get our heads down and improve the car, the package. Aerodynamically I think we need an improvement for Silverstone because we're not moving forward and that's what we need to be concentrating on.


"I do know of some new parts that are coming but I think we need more. We need to take some risks because behind us is a big gap - this race anyway - to the Mercedes and the Ferraris are in front of us and the Red Bulls are miles away.


"We need a lot of laptime and I don't think this new regulation change in terms if the diffuser blowing is really going to have a massive impact – on laptime it will but in terms of mixing up the field I don't think it will. Hopefully we'll gain a little bit more than Red Bull, but I'm not to sure at the moment."


Hamilton said his Valencia race was compromised by a bad start and high tyre wear, but that the McLaren was not quick enough to do better than fourth in any case.


"It was just we got a bad start, a really very poor start, and lost out to the Ferraris but in all honesty we weren't as quick as the Ferraris so even if I was ahead of them I would have really struggled to stay ahead," he said.


"The guys [on the radio] were just asking me to stay out longer and I was like 'I'm trying to look after the tyres as much as I can so this is all I can do'. So I was pushing all the way but my tyres... I was really struggling with oversteer for a long time.


"It seems like we've taken a step backwards perhaps this weekend in terms of our performance or the others have taken a step forwards again. To be able to finish fourth, at least that's still some good points compared to the last two races I've had."


Button's run to sixth was also marred by his KERS breaking during the race.


"I didn't have a very good balance, had a lot of wheelspin, which I was struggling a lot with throughout the race," he said.


"We've taken a lot of front end out of the car and then I had the KERS fail halfway through, which for us is a lot of laptime. We have a very good KERS system and it's about four and a half tenths around a lap because you gain on exits and braking when you have KERS."


Jaime Alguersuari was delighted with his result in the European Grand Prix after charging from the back of the field.


The Spaniard had qualified down in 18th position after being knocked out in Q1, but on Sunday put on a superb drive to finish in eighth place.


It was the Toro Rosso driver's second consecutive finish in the points and Alguersuari was elated.


"I am very happy with this result, especially after I only qualified in eighteenth place," said Alguersuari. "It definitely paid off to concentrate on race set-up. This was a fantastic race and I want to thank my mechanics who worked so hard after the problems we had with my car on Friday during Free Practice.


"This result is a reward I am happy to give them. Even though I still struggle to get the best out of the tyres in qualifying, I feel I now have a much better understanding of how to use them in the race and that's definitely the best way round as the points are only given out after the race!


"We were able to run at a consistent pace all afternoon, which was the key to this result and it's the first time this season that I have had this feeling from the car and I am happy about that.


"Apart from working well with the tyres, I think the updates the team brought here were also a contributing factor, as they worked well and that partly explains why my pace was really good."


Team-mate Sebastien Buemi finished down in 13th position, the Swiss mystified by his lack of pace.


"First of all, congratulations to Jaime who drove a very good race to bring home some valuable points for the team," he said. "I had a very good start, passing quite a few people and running at a strong pace in the early stages.


"However, as soon as I had degradation from my tyres, my lap times slowed and I was no longer able to pass other cars. Now, immediately after the race, I'm not sure why I was not quick enough, as after the first stint I could no longer match my team-mate's times, so we will have to look at the data.


"So, I am a bit disappointed, but we can sort it out and be ready to try again at Silverstone in two weeks time."


Michael Schumacher took the blame for his crash with Vitaly Petrov during the European Grand Prix at Valencia.


The German driver made contact with the Renault at the second corner when the former champion rejoined the track after a pitstop, an incident which damaged the Mercedes's front wing.


Schumacher was forced to drive a full lap with the damaged front wing before pitting, something that cost him all his chances of a good result.


The seven-time champion finished down in 17th place.


"Not a very satisfying race for me today," said Schumacher. "The outcome was decided after lap 15 when I slid into Petrov and lost the points I could perhaps have achieved. Our race pace should have allowed me to finish more or less where I started, but that is only speculation after the incident.


"I saw Petrov quite late, even though I was aware that he was coming, and tried to brake as late as possible and go round the corner with him. But when I wanted to draw back, I locked the front wheel and slipped into him, which was clearly my mistake.


"From then onwards, the race was done and I just had to drive the car over the finish line. We will now look ahead to Silverstone which is one of our home races."


Team-mate Nico Rosberg was seventh in the race.


Nick Heidfeld said he was hoping for more in the European Grand Prix after finishing in a distant 10th place.


The German driver finished a lap down after a poor start, having been unable to pass the Force India of Adrian Sutil.


Heidfeld conceded he wasn't expecting to finish behind a Force India or the Toro Rosso of Jaime Alguersuari.


"What cost us a little bit today was our starts," said Heidfeld. "I lost a position to Adrian (Sutil) and then had to fight hard not to lose more. I finished more or less where I had been for the majority of the race.


"I managed to overtake him once but then he used DRS to get past me and unfortunately I was not able to attack any harder to get by him. It's still another point gained for the team, but I did not expect to finish behind one Force India and one Toro Rosso."


Heidfeld also admitted he believes the ban on off-throttle diffusers to be introduced from the British Grand Prix will help his team.


"Overall this weekend, we pushed hard but it just has not been possible to get the pace out of the car that we wanted at this track," he said. "We will remain optimistic, though because Silverstone is a track with a lot of high speed corners, and our car performs well in these conditions.


"We will also see how the new regulations affect our car, but I think it will have a positive impact for our team."


Team-mate Vitaly Petrov was also disappointed with his day after finishing down in 15th position, the Russian surprised his tyres did not last as much as he expected.


"Of course I am disappointed with today's race," he said. "I was very surprised that the tyres did not last very well for us, as some of our competitors were able to do a two-stop race whereas we needed three.


"We know that our car's pace was not fantastic here and the race has strongly highlighted that we have work to do because we should finishing easily in the top ten."


Pirelli believes that even a more aggressive choice of tyres for the European Grand Prix may not have been enough to help make the Valencia race a thriller.


The Italian tyre manufacturer elected to bring its more conservative medium compound this weekend because it wanted to run it in race conditions before the British GP - and the easier time that drivers had with tyre degradation helped contribute to a less exciting race that has been the case at other events this year.


Although Pirelli's director of motorsport Paul Hembery thinks a super soft/soft choice may well have improved matters slightly, he thinks it would not have been enough to deliver a huge spectacle.


"What we saw in GP2 and GP3 was that there was a lot of the overtaking under braking, and there are not that many places to overtake here," Hembery told AUTOSPORT.


"But the F1 cars have extremely good braking, so we lost that little opportunity.


"From our point of view probably the conservative choice of medium did not help. If we had gone the super soft route - it would not have worked tremendously well here because it is far too hot for it – but people would have had to use it in qualifying and, if they had just got eight laps out of it, it would have pushed people harder on the soft, perhaps to the limit.


"They would only have needed a couple more laps out of each set on the soft, but some might have done it, some might have not and that might have brought into play a little bit more the performance difference of the cars as the tyres degraded more.


"We have seen that maybe we could have assisted – but I am not sure of that of course because we didn't see the DRS working in many places. It is one for all of us to look back on – we need to look back and see what we could do.


"Having the super soft may well have created a slightly more interesting race, but I have doubts with the overtaking zones that it would not have changed a huge amount. It certainly would not have been as exciting as some of the other races we have seen."


Hembery insisted, however, that there was no need for F1 to worry about the tyre situation simply because one race had not been tremendously exciting.


"I guess we were all a bit bored because we have been so used to so much excitement this year. We get a race that is relatively straightforward and we start worrying, but we are going now to Silverstone which is a step back to the other extreme. It is a high-speed aggressive circuit."


Post-race press conference:

[spoiler]TV UNILATERALS


Q. Sebastian, another win. You described it on the team radio as better than anything you could imagine. Why do you rate this win so highly?


Sebastian VETTEL: Yeah, I mean maybe from the outside I don't know how much there was happening in the grand prix. But maybe from the outside. At least for myself it looked like a boring race but I tell you I enjoy it so much when it is between you and the car every single lap. Of course, I had some pressure from behind at various times as the strategy was a little bit different from Mark and Fernando. Sometimes they were pitting earlier, sometimes later. Even though I had a gap before the stop I came out of the garage and still they were quite close again. Pushing hard but judging the tyres, trying to imagine what the end of the stint could be like, trying to foresee the strategy. For some reason I enjoy this track. Last year I had a very smooth weekend and again this year from the beginning to the end. Fantastic. The team has done a phenomenal job preparing the car. Even though we come here every year and we say this might be tricky as this track is maybe not made for us 100 per cent, with no real fast corners, but we manage to put everything together and faultless this weekend. I am very happy with the result.


Q. Fernando, for some laps it was just you and your Ferrari. Though for many laps it was you, your car and Mark very close on the track. It was a great battle with Mark that you had.


Fernando ALONSO: Yeah, it was I think an interesting race for the fans, for the people on TV to see the fight with Webber all the race through. At the beginning of the race I was behind him, trying to be not too far and trying to have the benefit in the pit-stop and have the opportunity to overtake him. The opportunity came later on in the middle of the race but on the track not in the pits so I overtook him on the braking for turn 12. On the pit they did a good job again and overtook us and then in the last pit-stop I think the team did a very good strategy, keeping the car out with the soft tyres for a couple of laps longer than the Red Bull, and the car performed very well and we overtook him finally on the stops. We changed positions between Mark and me and in the end second place is the maximum we can have this day so being here between the Red Bull cars is a great achievement from the team. Monaco was a very good performance all weekend. We finished second. Canada was a very good performance. We didn't score any points there and here again very good weekend in terms of performance Felipe (Massa) and me and now both cars in the top five is a great team result so definitely moving in the right direction. We need to keep working and be even closer to these guys in the next grand prix.


Q. Mark, Fernando mentioned the change of positions at the pit-stops. You received an apology on the team radio. Is that because the team believes you really should have finished second to Sebastian today?


Mark WEBBER: I think we should have but in the end we didn't. It was a good race with Fernando. I think it was probably my best race of the year to be honest up until the last pit-stop. It was quite close with all three of us. We are trying to go as fast as possible while managing the tyres at the same time. It is always the same these days. I was very, very happy with how the race was going until the last stop. It was my fault basically not the team's. I was worried about Fernando coming underneath me around the stops and it was not really known how the medium tyre would perform on the out lap. For sure, it is not as good as the soft but is it better than an old soft? That was the risk I decided to take. I lost out. Fernando stayed out for a few more laps and also I came out behind a little bit of traffic so my fault we missed second today and Fernando drove a good race. All three of us were nip and tuck all the way to the end. At the end the gearbox was playing up. We had to back right off but we had a massive gap to McLaren, they were one sector behind at least if not two, so we could cruise to the end and look after the gearbox.


Q. Sebastian, it seems the one man who is not taking risks at the moment is yourself. You are 77 points clear at the top of the championship. Could you start to take things a little easier now as we approach the half-way stage?


SV: Not really. I don't look at the gap. It is a long season. We have had a phenomenal start to the season and to continue that way is our target. But we have to go step-by-step and take every single race as it comes. Surely we don't have to win by taking too much risks but the target is to win races. It feels wonderful as I say today and we try always to achieve our optimum. If we have a chance to win then we have to take it. If the day comes and we might struggle and not be competitive enough and the car is only maybe good enough for third then we have to finish third and not seventh. It is still a long way. At the moment we all enjoy. It is incredible the achievement and the step the team has made in the last two-and-a-half years, every single department has got so much more professional, the reaction to mistakes. The amount of things we learn and the step we make forward is incredible. We have to keep doing what we do and stay hungry, wanting to win races and wanting to become better and better every time.


Q. Fernando, Ferrari have given you your first podium on this Valencia street circuit. But you will be hungry for more I am sure and pushing the team in your desire to win races.


FA: Yeah, definitely. We all in Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro know that our tifosi are expecting us to win. At the moment we are not in that position but we are getting much closer. In the first three or four races of the championship we were on average 1.5 seconds in qualifying behind Red Bull, now we are on average six or seven tenths so we have closed by half the gap. But it is still another half. We will never stop working until we reach first position in terms of performance of the car so they can be very calm about our effort that it will be always 100 per cent. First podium in Valencia. I missed this trophy. At home I have trophies from all Formula One circuits I race apart from Abu Dhabi and India, obviously we race there this year, so now that I have here in Valencia obviously Abu Dhabi and India will be the next target to complete the collection.


Q. Mark, it is your first points on this street circuit but you are after victories too, so how close are you to Sebastian in terms of achieving that?


MW: Well, I think we saw today it was the closest I have been for a while. In qualifying in Canada it was very close between us with the KERS situation but racing when it counts. But I think I am getting better. Today's race proved that up until the last 15 per cent where it didn't quite go our way. That's the way it goes where it is a fine line racing against these guys. I learnt a lot today. I was happy with my performance and I will come back better for the next race.


PRESS CONFERENCE


Q. Sebastian, your second pole to flag here. You seem to have been on top ever since Friday afternoon really.


SV: Well it is always a long weekend. I really like coming here. It is not my home grand prix but the atmosphere here is something special. It is a little bit similar to Monaco but it is more relaxed. It is not so packed, not so busy, not so crowded. But still the atmosphere is there. The grandstands are full. Fernando gets most of the support but being in the city, a little bit outside around the harbour, it is nice so all in all it is a very nice grand prix. The circuit, we always approach the grand prix and it is a bit difficult to know how it will perform as there are not too many high speed corners here and a lot of hard stops. I think we have made huge steps forward in the last two years in those type of corners but still it is not our ideal track. Nevertheless, a perfect weekend. Yesterday was the foundation and today it was a long and tough race. It was quite close always between two, one-anda- half, two-and-half, three seconds. Not too easy to really pull away and open a gap. It is a bit unknown. How long is the stint going to be? How many laps does it mean in the next stint and then at the end on the medium tyres? It helps having that little bit of a cushion, so we always came a lap later and others came earlier and came out closer or they were closer behind me when I came out so I had to build up a gap again. Really trying to get a tenth or two every lap so, all in all, a faultless race and I enjoyed it a lot. I didn't have a fight or nobody to race but if you race against yourself and the car and always against the guys behind, between one-and-a-half and three seconds, so I really enjoyed today.


Q. What was the tyre comparison like between the carious sets of tyres?


SV: To be honest I think Mark was maybe the first of our group to change onto the hard tyre. I saw him going in the pits, exit of the last corner, and then I was asking by radio what is his pace as we all didn't know really how quick the warm-up will be. I think, generally, the warm-up is fine but is it strong enough to beat a used set of options, and we realised he wasn't able to do the usual step you see on new tyres because the medium tyre is probably slower. We decided to stay out and came in last of the groups. If you have a bit of a cushion you can buy yourself a bit of luxury and wait for one or two laps so in the end I think we had a very good strategy and a race without mistakes.


Q. And the fast corners of Silverstone next?


SV: Yeah, I think it is something all drivers enjoy and we seemed to enjoy the last two years. I won 2009. Mark won there last year, so all in all we like the track. It is nice. It is very close to the factory and it is our home grand prix for the team so it is nice for the people as they can come to the circuit and watch our car. They see it on TV all year round but it is nice when they have the opportunity to come and visit and see us on the track performing live so looking forward to the whole week and the weekend in Silverstone with a new garage and a new pit area. That will be interesting so we will see.


Q. Fernando, great to hear that you get so much satisfaction from second place especially after the luck you have had here in the last few years.


FA: Yeah, I think podium here was the target and it was a personal target to get the trophy here in Valencia to enjoy the champagne and the celebrations after the race. I miss it in the last races here. We didn't have the chance with Renault in 2008 and 2009 and last year we had a difficult race with safety cars et cetera, so finally with a normal race we get this chance to be on the podium. To celebrate this fantastic weekend. I think it has been for the fans a good race, not only on the track and here on the circuit. I think there has been a lot of events, concerts, things like that all weekend. I think all the city of Valencia has welcomed Formula One in a very good way. People enjoy and this is the best result we can achieve now for them, for the Spanish fans, for the supporters, and obviously we keep working to win one race hopefully soon.


Q. You beat one Red Bull. Can you beat two?


FA: Well I think we need to be realistic knowing that our pace now is not enough to win races or be on pole position. But there is a clear trend, a clear direction that is moving forward and we did some good steps in the car. We were, as I said in the press conference, 1.5 seconds on average in the first three or four races of the championship. Now maybe we have halved the gap. We need to wait for Silverstone, Nurburgring, circuits that are more normal circuits, not only straights and big braking. But we are confident that we have understood our problems. The wind tunnel problems we had at the beginning of the year so now all the parts we put on the car, all the ideas that we have, we know now they are working so that is definitely a positive thing. What we can do on the track side, drivers, engineers, mechanics, is to deliver. It is to do clean races with no mistakes, good starts, good strategy as we see today. I know there was a lot of criticism about the strategy in Canada, putting on the intermediate tyres and then it rained. But I think that is more bad luck than wrong strategy. In terms of strategy today we did very well. We overtook one Red Bull at the end and hopefully that will be in the papers tomorrow as well.


Q. And a great start from both Ferraris today.


FA: Yeah. Well, I wasn't 100 per cent happy with my start. Obviously we knew that the wrong side of the grid here is quite bad so I lost ground with Felipe who was fifth and also Jenson was very close to me, so I was sixth. I think the first 100metres of the start was not very good, but in the first corner, everybody seemed to brake very early this time, so I took the benefit from it.


Q. Mark, well done and it's great to hear that you get such satisfaction from a third place.


MW: I think there are a lot of positives from this race for me. It was a clean, straight fight at the front for the first time since Turkey, probably, not having any real hiccups in either qualifying or the first lap or something like that. There wasn't a huge amount between all three of us, I think all of us were pushing as hard as we could, but also nursing the tyres, getting as far as we could on the tyres. So it was nice, for a change, to always have Seb in sight, that's the first thing, so he was certainly there and Red Bull's stops were obviously always close together. I'm disappointed myself... at the end I probably pitted a bit too early on the last one, because the warning on the option was pretty quick in terms of if you needed to pit, so I was a bit worried about Fernando coming underneath us but the big question mark was how was this tyre going to perform in the first eight sectors of its life? And it turned out it was marginal against a used option and also I had a little bit of Vitaly and Rubens, I think, but that didn't cost me so much. It was just trying to get the car going on that compound so in the end, that was my call, so no fault of the team, at all. They did a really good job around the stops. I think we got all the other stops really good; together we did that, and then the last one didn't go our way so a lot of positives. We didn't give it to Fernando but we helped him get second, but anyway, a very strong result. The pace was quick at the front and I was happy to be amongst it for the majority of the grand prix until 15 per cent to go and then we had a problem with the gearbox in the last seven laps, when I obviously had to nurse the car home. It was good that McLaren weren't so strong, so we could nurse the car home.


Q. Did that contribute to your moment on lap 53, when you went off briefly?


MW: Umm, where did I go wide?


Q. You went wide into the pit one time.


MW: No, the gearbox was working fine but they were worried about the gearbox, so I had to look after it. A lot.


QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR


Q. (Salvador Enguix - La Vanguardia) Fernando, I don't think you're very happy about your race, but for a lot of people you have to have had a very good race in your car. Why are you not very happy today? That's the impression you give.


FA: I think I said in the press conference that I am very happy. I have repeated a couple of times that this is a very special podium. I also said in the press conference that I missed podiums here, Abu Dhabi and India. I can cross out here, and hopefully I can get a podium in Abu Dhabi and India as well and complete all the trophies from the Formula One calendar. Definitely this Valencia was one of the most special races, to be in the celebration at the end of the race, and we did it. So far it's the best result of the year and the best podium of the year.


Q. (Livio Oricchio – O Estado de Sao Paulo) Fernando, were you worried at the end of the race when you took on medium tyres; you might have lost position to Webber because in free practice you were slower than them on this kind of tyre?


FA: Yeah, obviously in practice I think we were more competitive with the soft tyre compared to the medium tyres, so as we said yesterday, we tried to minimise the time with the harder tyre in the race because we knew that maybe we were less competitive. But it was the time to stop. Obviously we had two or three extra laps compared to him with soft but if you don't stop you lose the position so we had to stop and be in front of him in the first corner, and then the game is on, so you need to hope that the pace is good enough and I think it was a good surprise, how the car performed in the last stint. We were expecting a lot of trouble, a lot of problems with the level of grip and in fact I think our best laps of the race were at the end on the medium tyre, so that's also very encouraging for the next races.


Q. (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Fernando, when you passed Mark during the first stint, and then you came out a second behind him, was it because you waited a lap too long? On TV it looked like you had a bit problem coming out.


FA: No, I think when you are one second, 1.5s gap between two cars, the car that stops has the advantage because the whole lap will be around two seconds quicker. We knew when Mark stopped that we obviously had to stop the lap after, but our chance of being in front was not great, and I also think we had a lot of problems with backmarkers, problems of traffic. Obviously it's not easy to let cars past on this circuit, there are two walls on this long straight which isn't really straight, there's always a little bit of corner. I think we all lost time – maybe I lost time in this middle part of the race. I know Mark lost time with one of the Hispania cars at the end. At the end of the race it balances out but when you are in a pit stop area, or when it's pit stop laps, it's very important.


Q. (Frederic Ferret – L'Equipe) Sebastian, each race you increase your lead, but behind you in second place, the name changes. Who do you think is your main opponent now? Mark, Fernando or the McLaren guys?


SV: Mark, Fernando, Lewis, Jenson. I think they are obviously closest. To be honest, I don't look at the scoreboard much. I think you always need to take last year as an example. It shows we had good races last year up to a certain point where things went wrong and we lost a lot of points, not necessarily making big mistakes but losing out, losing points. If you look at Formula One and you compare it to other sports, it's a very, very long season. We have a lot of races and there are so many things that can happen, and surely you will have some races where everything will work, but you will have races where you will struggle, where it will be difficult, where you have conditions like Canada or things not going your way. You decide to stop and then all of a sudden it starts to rain like Fernando had in Canada. It's not necessarily mistakes but it just doesn't go your way. The safety car comes out at the wrong moment or whatever. It can change the result completely and therefore the outcome and points. Of course our target is to be in the lead and make sure we stay there but the most important race to lead the championship is after the last one and not really before.


Q. (Jaime Rodriguez – El Mundo) Sebastian, are you calculating at which race you could clinch the championship?


SV: No. I wasn't good in maths. I liked maths but… No, it's good to know that obviously we are in the lead, by how many points I don't really care. People tell me often enough so I don't need to check. Sometimes they say it differently, surprising but it happens. I think we will find out early enough when it matters, whether we are in a good position or not.


Q. (Joris Fioriti – Agence France Presse) Fernando, you seem to be truly happy today about your result but you're 99 points behind Sebastian Vettel. When will you stop hoping to fight for the title? Is it already the case?


FA: Well, I think I'm happy with the performance and the team moving forward from a difficult start to the season. Obviously the championship is not in our calculations at the moment, so not in our hands, so we need to do it race by race, try to win the races we go to and wait for some mistakes from Red Bull. At the moment, I don't think we can think of the championship in a proper way. We just need to take it race by race and see what happens in the last part of the season. The distance now with 99 points, a hundred or whatever, is a lot so it's not in our hands. At the moment, as we said, we're one second behind, or eight tenths behind so if anyone thinks we can win a championship being eight tenths behind it's because maybe they don't understand Formula One.


Q. (Flavio Vanetti – Il Corriere della Sera) Fernando, we know that Ferrari is going to Silverstone with some upgrades. Which is the main thing you ask for from the team, the thing you need most?


FA: Aerodynamics. I don't think that it's a secret what we are lacking. What Formula One needs these days is aero performance. We can be more or less competitive in these circuits where there are not high speed corners with heavy braking on the straights. The tyres are the same for everybody, brakes are no different, engines are more or less the same, KERS we all use, so it's all about aerodynamics. As I said, these days everybody knows about our problems during the winter and we were putting parts on the car which didn't make the car quicker, slower and when we realised that was Malaysia. Now we are a couple of months behind.


Q. (Marco degl'Innocenti – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Question for the two Red Bull guys: are you not a little concerned that your huge advantage from the previous races seems to be becoming a little thinner now?


SV: I think we have to wait. I think every circuit is different. If you need an example, we go to Melbourne and there we were very quick. We went to Malaysia and it's very tight. If you look at qualifying in Melbourne we were something like half a second clear. In Malaysia (he said Melbourne), two hundredths or maybe five hundredths. I don't remember. It was very close with McLaren. That was two weeks after and no upgrades, nothing happened, so things change quickly just because of the nature of the track, so we really have to go step by step. Every race is different, every track has its own characteristics. Historically we prefer tracks with high speed corners so Silverstone coming up should be a good one for us. Now the rules change slightly. I think we've said many times that it's the same for everyone, so if we are not allowed to do that any more, it's the others as well. Yeah, I said yesterday there was a lot of talk before this race, and already the talk starts now for the next race. We will see what happens.


MW: I think this is probably our weakest track of the year, maybe, so we didn't do too badly today on a very weak track. We have a different regulation from Silverstone onwards and we expect that we can still be pretty competitive again. If we can keep Valencia as one of our weakest, definitely our top three weakest tracks, we didn't do too badly today, so we should go OK on the other ones.[/spoiler]

[Lineker]

Pirelli says it will not be pressured into favouring one team over another when it comes to making a final decision on tyre compounds for the British Grand Prix - despite Ferrari admitting that its hopes of challenging Red Bull Racing could be hurt if the rubber is too hard.

Ferrari's recent upgrades have lifted the team into a position where it appears to be Red Bull Racing's current main rival - and Fernando Alonso was able to finish between Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber in Valencia.

However, with the team having struggled for pace earlier this year on Pirelli's hard compound tyre, Ferrari is openly worried about its prospects for Silverstone if that tyre is one of the choices for the British track.

A final decision on the matter will be made by Tuesday morning at the earliest and, although Pirelli is aware of how important its selection could be, the Italian tyre manufacturer says its priority is in bringing the tyre that is best for everybody – not just one team.

Pirelli's director of motorsport Paul Hembery told AUTOSPORT: "It is a big challenge for us because we want to make sure that we have good racing. Equally, we don't want too many pitstops. Silverstone could be very hot - and if it is hot, fast and aggressive that for us is a big call.

"If it is cold you don't want to have compounds too hard, which then start sliding and graining. It is something we are analysing. So we will look at the data from Valencia and we need to make a decision by Monday night, or at the latest Tuesday morning."

Hembery was under no illusion how significant Pirelli's decision could be on the competitive order for Silverstone – but said it would be wrong for a decision to be based on helping out individual competitors.

"The teams have a difference of opinion," he said. "We have asked their advice but clearly we don't want to favour or penalise one over the other. We have to take a look at the whole field.

"We have 12 teams we look at and feel that we are going to make the right choice for them, and also the right choice for us of course.

"Our main concern is to make sure that we don't penalise any team. Some people have decided that from Barcelona the hard tyre favours those with high downforce, so we have to be careful that the strategy based on hard tyres is not going to penalise any particular team. Equally we don't want to be in the situation where we have five pitstops, so it is a balance we have to find."

He added: "You have to think what is right for us - and what is right for us is that we don't want more than four pitstops. We would prefer to have three, but probably Silverstone whatever we do we will probably have four, whatever option we do. As long as we don't have five, that is fundamental for us.

"If it is three or four then it is mixture of how we balance all the requirements of the teams. We will do a table, we will analyse all the teams' requirements, and we will base it on what is the best for the majority of the teams."

Felipe Massa believes Ferrari's ever-improving challenge against Red Bull Racing could be stalled at the British Grand Prix if Pirelli elects to take its hard tyre to that event.

A raft of upgrades to the 2011 Ferrari has helped the team close the gap to pacesetter Red Bull Racing, and it is keeping its fingers crossed that developments for Silverstone will help it do even better.

However, Massa reckons that the struggles Ferrari had earlier this year at races where Pirelli's hard tyre was used could be repeated if Pirelli chooses to take the conservative option for the next round for the championship.

When asked by AUTOSPORT about his feelings on Ferrari making further progress to close down Red Bull Racing, Massa said: "Well I am optimistic with the new parts we are going to try to bring to Silverstone. However, I am not so optimistic with which tyres we are going to have there, because I have heard that maybe we are going to have medium and hard.

"If we have that, it can be a problem for us - not just for us but for most of the teams maybe taking away Red Bull or even McLaren."

Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali said it was clear that the team would be in favour of Pirelli opting to bring the soft and the medium compound to Silverstone – with a final decision on the matter due in the next 24 hours.

"I think that if you look at our pace with the softer tyres you can see that our car always performs better with them," he said.

Sebastian Vettel's focus will remain very much on winning every race he can, even though his healthy championship lead now means he can start playing the numbers game to secure himself his second world title.

That is the view of his team boss Christian Horner, who reckons that Vettel is not yet ready to start taking things conservatively to guarantee another crown.

The German's triumph in the European Grand Prix, which was his sixth victory this season from eight races, means he now has a 77-point advantage over Jenson Button in the championship standings.

Horner said that such a margin would not distract Vettel from his desire to keep adding more race victories to his tally.

"He is very focused on winning," said Horner. "Montreal was all about winning. He went for it on the last lap because he knew he had to stay ahead at the DRS zone, but it did not work out for him there. His mindset is 25 points."

Vettel's advantage at the top of the standings means he could miss every race up until the Belgian Grand Prix at the end of August and still be leading the title chase at the Spa-Francorchamps event.

And although many of Vettel's rivals now concede the title fight is all but over, Horner still refuses to believe Red Bull Racing has got the championship in the bag.

"I don't know how many points there are available," he said. "There are a lot of points on the board available and up for grabs, so you can never say never.

"Our focus is race-by-race: to go and maximise our performance and get the best out of each weekend we can. This weekend we came within three points of a maximum score, and we have had both cars on the podium."

He added: "He [Vettel] and the team have got themselves into a strong position but, as we know, there is such a long way to go in this championship, and who knows what the effect of the regulation clarification - it is not a change – could be for Silverstone.

"I feel we have capitalised on all our opportunities so far and, as a team, that is hugely rewarding."

McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh says he remains an 'optimist' about Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button's chances for the British Grand Prix, despite a difficult time in Valencia last weekend.

Both Button and Hamilton were unable to challenge Red Bull Racing and Ferrari's leading drivers as they struggled with tyre degradation at the European Grand Prix.

After the race, both drivers urged the team to deliver improvements to the car - and Hamilton conceded that his world championship chances were effectively over because he was now 89 points adrift of Sebastian Vettel.

But Whitmarsh is refusing to throw the towel in yet, and says that improvements in the pipeline for Silverstone – which could include a revamped DRS wing – plus different track conditions, could help his team return to form.

"There has never been a car that has had enough power and enough downforce," said Whitmarsh about the comments his drivers had made.

"You are working all the time to do that. We were not exploiting the tyres correctly; we were struggling with traction – and that was not to do with downforce, that was tyre temperature."

He added: "But I am an optimist. We plan to go to Silverstone with some new things; we will have new parts and possibly a new rear wing – various bits and pieces.

"Silverstone is very different to here. Anyone who stands here and say I am sure we will be back with the quickest race car would be rather foolish, but we will see how we get on.

"We've had a difficult afternoon, but we had three races with the quickest race car and we just did not have the quickest one here. This is not the intention and we will be working hard to develop the car to be quicker at Silverstone."

Hamilton's difficult afternoon in Valencia left him in no doubt that Sebastian Vettel was well on course to take his second world title.

"He has pretty much won it," Hamilton was quoted as saying by the British press. "It's finished really, in the sense of the championship. Unless he doesn't finish the next 10 races, which is very unlikely, then he is gone.

"We just can't beat Red Bull right now. They would need to fall off the track for me to beat them. There was over a second per lap difference today. That is just ridiculous."

Gerard Neveu has stepped down as head of the Paul Ricard circuit, shortly after the announcement that he was heading up the taskforce entrusted with getting the French Grand Prix back on the Formula 1 calendar.

French prime minister Francois Fillon announced the formation of the GP taskforce last week, with Neveu joined in the group by Renault team boss Eric Boullier and ex-cabinet minister Gilles Dufeigneaux. The nation has not had a grand prix since France dropped off the calendar in 2008.

Neveu will leave his Ricard role on 23 September. He was track manager from 2001 to 2009 before becoming the circuit's managing director.

Jarno Trulli says the excellent finishing record that modern Formula 1 cars are displaying is reducing the level of excitement in the sport.

All 24 starters made it to the chequered flag in Valencia last weekend - only the fourth time in F1 history that the entire starting field has made it to the finish.

"We've broken a new, previously unthinkable record in Valencia: all the 24 cars that started the race got to the finish: no failures, no retirements, no crashes," Trulli wrote in a column for Repubblica.

"[Narain] Karthikeyan is the first driver in F1 history to finish 24th. Whether this is a positive or negative record, it depends on the driver and his ambitions. Perhaps I wouldn't like it."

Trulli argued that the perfect reliability was taking another human element out of F1.

"In any case, this record is a bit paradoxical and has a precise significance: the Valencia race in my opinion has indicated another winner, besides [sebastian] Vettel as usual. That winner is technology," the Lotus driver continued.

"After having won hands down, in the last few years, the battle against the human element, ever less important in F1, it has ended up winning the philosophical battle against the unexpected and more generally against the unpredictable. Something that in our world is called 'mechanical failure'.

"Between 10 and 15 years ago, when I started racing (in F1), a driver knew how he'd start a race, but wouldn't know how he would finish it. In fact, he didn't even know whether he would finish it. Nowadays, instead, reliability has become ordinary: cars have four wheels and are reliable. I can't remember the last time an engine broke down in an F1 race. Constructors have become excellent at quality control and no detail is left to chance."

He believes this is having a negative effect on F1.

"This implies two things: the first is that the chances for a small team to get in the points have sensibly reduced; the second is a further loss of appeal for F1," he said. "It's no coincidence that the Valencia race has been the most boring of the year."

Trulli qualified and finished 20th in last weekend's race.

Sam Michael Q & A.

[maninblack]

If it's any consolation for Trulli, F1 haven't figured out a way to fully control the weather yet.