Formula One 2012

[Lineker]

Romain Grosjean says his 2012 season starts in China after two disappointing opening races in Australia and Malaysia.

The Lotus driver qualified a strong third in Melbourne but was hit by Pastor Maldonado on the opening lap and had to retire.

At Sepang, the Frenchman also retired early after damaging his car when making contact with Michael Schumacher.

Grosjean says next week's Chinese Grand Prix will mark his proper start to the season, hoping he will have a trouble-free weekend that allows him to show what he and the team can do.

"We can certainly say that we have good performance from the car," said Grosjean's on Lotus's website. "We've got through to Q3 at both races so the car is performing very well. We were able to fight for the front row in qualifying and the pace in the race is very good.

"In China I hope we can have a more standard race with everything in order with regards to the start, the race - and not a crazy amount of water on track as we did at Sepang - and we can finally achieve the good result which we are capable of."

He added: "When you make mistakes you have to admit it and not repeat that mistake. When it's not your fault - well it's not your fault. The first two races were tough and we didn't get a result. On the other hand I know that we can do some great things in the future races. My season starts properly in China."

With Lotus introducing new upgrades to the car in China, Grosjean says he is excited to see how much more competitive they make the car.

"It's great to see how much the factory is behind us and working very hard to give us updates," he added.

"We've had a promising start to the season and we all want to get the best in every area, so a new aerodynamic package is quite exciting; I can't wait to see how it looks and then experience how it feels on track. Then, most importantly, I want to see the lap time gain."

And the Frenchman is convinced his team has taken a significant step forward compared to last year, but that has been masked by the troubled first two races.

"We're definitely a step forwards, we just need to be able to show this in a normal race. We've seen that we are looking good in qualifying where we've been either the second or third fastest team which is very good. There are a few areas we need to improve in the race but we are definitely on course this season."

[maninblack]

I'd be in favor of a budget cap, but they'd have to be very specific on which parts of their operation are under the cap rules.

[Lineker]

Ross Brawn has faith that Mercedes has a car that is capable of delivering strong results this season, despite its struggles in the first two grands prix of the year.

The Brackley-based outfit has delivered just a single point from Australia and Malaysia after being unable to carry through its qualifying form into the races.

But after understanding that it overheated its tyres in Australia, and failed to get them up to the right temperature in Malaysia, Brawn thinks that getting a grip on that matter will be enough for it to finally enjoy good results.

"We have too narrow a window in which we are operating the car - and we have to broaden that, and build more tolerance into how we are using the tyres," explained Brawn.

"When we encounter challenges like this, we look at all areas of the car and we challenge ourselves collectively to find the solutions we need. But our qualifying speed tells us that the fundamentals of performance are there: you can't do the lap times if you don't have enough downforce, horsepower or a good chassis."

Brawn has denied suggestions that Mercedes has focused too much on producing a car that is quick for qualifying at the expense of its pace over a race distance.

"Our objective is to build the best car we can for the race - and our qualifying performances are a consequence of that," he said. "Nothing has been consciously done to focus on making the car quick in qualifying, and not so good in the race, because under the current rules - with DRS and the number of pitstops - there are no real rewards for doing so.

"Using the tyres properly is vital for success, and it depends on a number of factors, including set-up, the downforce the car is generating and the drivers' approach. Within the set-up variations we can choose, we have the opportunity to find the right solution. But it's a learning process, and we missed the mark at the first two races."

Ross Brawn believes that improving car set-up, rather than a wholesale rethink about the design of the W03, is all that is needed for Mercedes to start finally delivering on its promise.

Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg have scored just one point so far this season, despite having had a car that has appeared to be the closest challenger to McLaren in terms of single lap pace.

Detailed analysis of the tyre problems Mercedes suffered in Australia and Malaysia have given the team cause for optimism that it knows what went wrong - and that it can address the situation to ensure there are no repeat issues in the future.

In Melbourne, the team suffered from high degradation caused by it overheating its tyres, while in Malaysia its bid to look after it rubber backfired after cooler conditions in the race meant neither driver could get heat in their rubber.

Speaking from the team's Brackley factory on Thursday, Brawn was adamant that there was nothing fundamentally wrong with the team's 2012 challenger.

"I think we can go a long way [to solving the problems] with set-up," said Brawn, who revealed how narrow the temperature operating window is.

"Obviously we are looking as to how you manage the situation, but in Malaysia it was interesting – because the car that won and the car that was second, we know from Friday practice were very, very hard on the tyres. And it turned around for them in the race.

"But you are talking about 15-20 degrees either side of the optimum being quite critical...it is quite a sensitive window. And it is something that the drivers can operate in, because if they get into that window then they feel the tyre getting a little bit overstressed, or if they ease back they can manage it, but outside of that it is quite difficult for them."

Brawn says that he is 'pretty confident' that Mercedes has made good progress with its car this year, even though it has not yet delivered results on a Sunday afternoon.

"On Fridays we run the car in race trim and we are quite diligent in running the right kind of fuel loads to represent race conditions. And we think other people don't run more fuel than us, because it would be difficult for them to run more fuel than us. So if you look at the comparative lap times, we think we are okay."

But Brawn does concede, however, that Mercedes may need to look at ways of widening the performance window that the car operates in.

"We had one race which by our own admission we didn't do a good enough job in [in Melbourne]. And one race which was an unusual set of circumstances – and a couple of things we did to try and respond from Melbourne went the other way for what we faced in the race in Malaysia. So I am still pretty confident.

"We have not had a clean weekend where we can make a judgement, but I have to say that cars have to be able to cope with a wide range of conditions and, if there is something we have to look at, it is broadening the ideal conditions that the car operates in.

"You also have this dilemma: do you create a situation where you have ultimate performance but it is a bit peaky, or do you come back a little bit from that and have a broader base? We are conscious of perhaps needing to broaden the base, but that is stuff that I think we can do. We can make our decisions on what we want to create.

"But I would like to see a couple of clean weekends – with relative consistent conditions over a weekend and see where that puts us. I think there have been a few teams that are out of position, and maybe we are the most extreme, in terms of not quite coming together in the way you would expect. I think it is all of us getting used to this new family of compounds that we have got from Pirelli."

Ross Brawn has hit back at suggestions that Formula 1 teams will face an expensive development race if his Mercedes team's DRS system remains legal and they have to copy it.

A number of Brawn's rivals have suggested that it would cost a fortune for them to incorporate a DRS-activated F-duct system on to their cars - at a time when teams are facing budget concerns.

But Brawn has dismissed such claims – and reckons that as well as the DRS system being cheap to create, he says major outfits will not face any more expenditure because they are already limited in spending due to F1's Resource Restriction Agreement.

"The system is actually very cheap," explained Brawn on Thursday. "It is a very simple cheap system, but not so easy to implement if you haven't integrated it into your car. This is perhaps where some of the frustration of some of our opponents [is coming from].

"People talk about the huge cost, but there isn't really a huge cost. You all know that there are a couple of carbon pipes running down the car, and the man on the street will tell you that they cost a few thousands pounds – they are not millions of pounds.

"The benefit we have gained is because we have thought about it and designed it into our car, and that is not so easy for people who have not go it – and that is why some of the opposition is so fierce. It is the recognition that it is quite a difficult thing to do if you haven't designed it from the beginning. That is the nature of F1."

Speaking about the RRA situation, he said: "When people make statements about having to spend lots of money copying it, it is intriguing how they can spend all that money – because under the RRA agreement I would feel that most of the top teams are working to their budget.

"So where does this extra money come from in having to copy this system? They have got to balance that against all the other developments that they are intending to do – and if it is money well spent or are they better off spending that money on the things they were always planning to do?

"Fitting that system retrospectively may not be good value because of the lap time it gives in the limited period that you use DRS, compared to the costs involved because they will have to wire it into their cars."

Although rival teams are awaiting further clarification from the FIA about the legality of the system, Brawn says he remains convinced the governing body will stick to its stance that the passive system is allowed.

"We are confident the system is legal. As far back as 2010, in working group meetings, the FIA was stating that it considered such a system to be legal, because they were questioned on it as a matter of record.

"We will obviously be extremely disappointed once someone took a different view, but I think the FIA has been fairly consistent in their position, so we have faith that they will maintain that consistency."

Mercedes is keeping its fingers crossed that work on understanding the tyre problems that have hurt it in the first two grands prix will help it finally deliver on its potential in the Chinese Grand Prix.

Although both Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher have been challengers for the front row in both Australia and Malaysia, the pair have scored just one point between them because their car has not been as strong in the races.

Detailed analysis of the problems - which included high degradation due to overheating in Australia and not getting the tyres into the right operating window in Malaysia – has been completed, and efforts made to resolve the issues for Shanghai.

Speaking about his feelings ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix, Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn said: "We hope that the weekend will prove more successful than the first two races of the season where our race results did not match expectations after a positive start to both weekends.

"A lot of hard work and analysis has taken place back at the factory since our return, and I hope to see these efforts pay dividends next Sunday in Shanghai with a performance which reflects the capabilities of the F1 W03."

Mercedes-Benz motorsport boss Norbert Haug thinks China will provide an answer as to how well the team has addressed the tyre problems – even if weather conditions will be different compared to the first two races of the campaign.

"The first two races of the 2012 Formula 1 season have been ones of unfulfilled promise for our team," he explained. "Michael's second row qualifying positions were less than half a second from pole in Australia and Malaysia, however at both events we did not convert our qualifying speed into a consistent race performance on Sunday when it counts.

"Since the last race in Malaysia, the team has conducted analysis of our tyre usage during the first two rounds, and how we can improve. The Chinese Grand Prix will provide an answer on our progress, although weather conditions and circuit characteristics will be different to either Melbourne or Malaysia."

Lewis Hamilton says he has learned the "value of consistency" in Formula 1, and he is not too worried about not having won yet this year despite two pole positions.

The McLaren driver has started from first place both in Australia and Malaysia but has failed to capitalise on his pole positions, finishing third in both races.

The Briton says, however, that the 2011 season taught him the value of scoring points consistently rather than go all out for victories all the time.

And Hamilton believes it is just a matter of time before he wins again.

"I won't deny that I'm disappointed to have had two pole positions and not to have been able to convert either of them into victories, but I prefer to think of it that luck just hasn't been on my side, and that it will swing my way sooner or later," said Hamilton.

"I also think last year taught me the value of consistency: it's no use chasing a great result if you can't back it up with another strong finish the following week. So maybe I'm just playing myself in gently: after all, in 2007, I didn't win a race until the sixth round, and I was in the hunt for the title all through the year.

"I still don't think the pecking order has settled down yet, so it's important to get some good results in the bag while we can. It will be very interesting to see how the order has shaken itself out over the last three weeks - it's going to be an interesting weekend."

Hamilton also reckons McLaren will be in a position to fight for victory again in China next week, but he conceded he is ready to settle for a points finish in victory is out of reach.

"I'm looking at the championship as a whole - although, of course, I'd love to win every race, it's more important to be in a good points-scoring position at every race. I think the first two races have shown that, as a team, we're definitely in positions to win.

"I think Malaysia was a good example of how to pick up points when you're looking at the championship – and that was something I really took away as a positive from that race. But yeah, I'll be heading to China looking to win – but it's just as important to pick up some good points if, for whatever reason, a win isn't on the cards."

Sergio Perez has urged his Sauber team to keep fully focused on extracting even more speed from its car, and not expect any automatic repeats of its Malaysian Grand Prix form.

Perez challenged Fernando Alonso for victory at Sepang last month, and hopes are high that the Swiss-based outfit can repeat that giant-killing performance at other races.

But with Sauber well aware that its qualifying form and straight-line speed performance is not among the best, Perez has urged the team to push even harder to deliver more in the future.

"We all have to keep our heads down and work hard," explained the Mexican. "Our car can be competitive and we have to make the most of it. Last year initially I had a good race in Shanghai, but then I had contact with some other cars towards the end of the Grand Prix and was penalised.

"The high speed corners of the track should suit our car. I especially like turn one - it is a long and pretty difficult bend. The long straight will not be the easiest part for us, but, again, we have to maximise our potential."

Sauber's head of track engineering Giampaolo Dall'Ara hopes that the cooler conditions at China, compared to Malaysia, should help the team too.

"We had some difficulties with tyre degradation in hot conditions in Malaysia, however, this should be less of an issue in Shanghai, because the tarmac is smooth and overall there are fewer high speed corners with high lateral forces," he said.

"What can be a challenge is the weather. In April there is always quite a high possibility of rain, which is not as dramatic as in Malaysia, but still is something we have to bear in mind when planning the weekend.

"The car will have some minor modifications compared to the one we ran in Malaysia. I'm confident we can be very competitive in the race."

Damon Hill believes there should now be a rethink about the hosting of the Bahrain Grand Prix - just a few months on from giving his full support to the event.

The former world champion visited Bahrain late last year and delivered a full endorsement of the benefits of the grand prix taking place.

However, with troubles still ongoing in the Gulf state just a few weeks before the scheduled race, he now thinks the sport's bosses should give second thoughts to the race taking place.

"What we must put above all else is what will be the penalty in terms of human cost if the race goes ahead," he was quoted as saying in the Guardian.

"It would be a bad state of affairs, and bad for Formula 1, to be seen to be enforcing martial law in order to hold the race. That is not what this sport should be about. Looking at it today you'd have to say that [the race] could be creating more problems than it's solving."

Hill is well aware of his stance last year, but thinks ongoing events there - which have included petrol bomb attacks on police cars this week and protests in 20 villages across Bahrain yesterday - make things different.

"Things are different now," he continued. "The protests have not abated and may even have become more determined and calculated. It is a worrying state of affairs."

He added: "The view I gave after returning from the visit last year was based on my understanding of several factors; the substantial economic significance of the GP for Bahrain; that the report on the April riots condemned the actions of the police and security forces, and that both sides were to take part in meaningful dialogue to resolve the problems peacefully. Under those conditions one could imagine the GP being a great fillip for a Bahrain on the road to recovery.

"However, with under three weeks to go, conditions do not seem to have improved, judging by the reports in our European newspapers, social media and on Al Jazeera TV. The recent meeting to garner support for the race as a unifying event was troubling insofar as it tried to represent the rioting in Bahrain as the result of bad press reporting and as a 'youth' issue.

"Promoting the race as 'Uniting Bahrain', whilst a laudable ambition, might be elevating F1 beyond even its own prodigious powers. I'm just saying we have to tread carefully.

"I hope the FIA are considering the implications of this fully and that events in Bahrain are not seen as they are often sold, as a bunch of yobs throwing Molotov cocktails, because that's a gross simplification. If they believe that, they ought to be more wary. You don't get 100,000 people risking their lives in protest for nothing."

The FIA has so far not commented on the Bahrain situation, and Hill believes that it is only right that, if F1 does go to the event, that its stance is made clear.

"If we go, we all go," he said. "But there is obviously still a great deal of pain, anger and tension in Bahrain. It would be better for F1 to make it clear that it properly understands this, and that it wants only the best for all Bahrain, or whatever country it visits. I think F1 is sailing very close to this limit.

"But there is an even more troubling thought, which is this: is F1 playing brinkmanship for purely financial reasons while people are putting their lives in peril to protest against this event?"

Lotus team principal Eric Boullier says he has mixed emotions about his outfit's start to the campaign - with his delight at the speed of his car tempered by frustration that it has not achieved its full potential.

A mixture of incidents and penalties for Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean have limited their race results, leaving Boullier eager to see what can be achieved on a normal grand prix weekend.

"From a personal viewpoint, I do feel a bit of frustration that we haven't delivered as well as we should have done," he said in a team preview on Thursday.

"We know we can do better, and we hope to prove that in the next races. On the other hand, I'm so proud of what the team has achieved this winter that I can't help but have a little smile on my face."

Boullier is confident, however, that the potential is there for some good results in the future - especially with Lotus delivering a series of updates for next weekend's race in China.

"The positives we have give us a strong basis to score good points this season, and on the evidence so far we are well placed to fight for our target of fourth place in the Constructors' Championship," he said. "The aero package we're bringing to China is proof that we're leaving no stone unturned.

"We are focused on developing and improving the E20, while both drivers know their objectives and are working well with the team. We can put down many of the negative aspects of the first two races to bad luck, or factors which we will all learn from. We expect to be securing some more solid points in the near future, with both cars in the top eight."

Technical director James Allison believes the updates for China will bring around two tenths of a second in performance – which could be very useful considering how close the grid is.

"It may not sound like much, but given how close the grids have been so far this season, that is a big deal. Hopefully, it's a bit more than other people will bring," he said.

"We have to continue improving the lap time of the car and for that we're looking at improvement in all areas. A specific area we've identified for improvement is pit stop times and we are focusing a greater amount of engineering effort in this direction. The areas we are looking at include the wheel nuts and wheel guns. Looking at our opposition it is clear there are gains to be made in this area."

Kimi Raikkonen thinks his Lotus team is on the verge of solving the power-steering problems that have affected him over the early part of the campaign.

The Finn and his engineers have worked hard since pre-season testing to try and deliver steering updates that will help give the former world champion the feel from his car that he is after.

But although the matter is not completely solved yet, Raikkonen thinks it will not be long before it is - which gives him reason to feel confident about the potential of the team over the remainder of the season.

"The E20 certainly feels good," explained Raikkonen. "We're working to get the steering exactly right for me – and we're almost there.

"The speed in the car is good – and this applies to qualifying and race pace. It's been two frustrating races in terms of where we started. We shouldn't have started so far back in Australia, and the penalty for changing the gearbox before the Malaysian Grand Prix cost us finishing positions too, but that's motor racing."

Lotus technical director James Allison thinks that when the team solves the steering problem, it will lead to a direct improvement in lap time for Raikkonen.

"Our latest set-up now gives Kimi sufficient assistance in the high speed, high load corners, but we still have yet to give him a power steering unit which offers the finesse he wants," he said.

"We're making progress in this area, but the way Kimi drives the car is to find the limit on the front axle and then adjust the car very delicately around that limit; he can only do that if the steering is giving him exquisite feedback.

"We are working hard to provide him with perfect equipment so that he can deliver those last few tenths in qualifying."

Lotus deputy technical director Naoki Tokunaga is to leave the team so he can take up a position as technical director of Renault's 2014 engine project.

Tokunaga originally joined the Enstone-based team in 2000 as a vehicle dynamics engineer, before being promoted to head of control systems in 2002 and then deputy technical director in 2010.

The role of deputy technical director will not be filled for the foreseeable future.

Lotus technical director James Allison said: "While we are sad on a personal level to see Naoki leave Enstone, we believe this move will be overall positive for Renault Sport F1's customers.

"We would like to thank Naoki for the tremendous contribution he has made to our team during the 12 years he has been with us and we look forward to the performance he will bring us (and all of Renault Sport F1's client teams) in his new role."

HRT has announced Chinese driver Ma Qing Hua as part of the Spanish squad's new driver development programme.

HRT said the programme would include a professional assessment of his career, private tests with cars from different categories and simulator tests.

The team said Qing Hua "could take to the wheel" of its car in the young driver test later this year if the results of the partnership are "satisfactory."

"I'm very honoured to form a part of the driver development programme at HRT Formula 1 Team since, with work and effort, it will allow me to become the first Chinese Formula 1 driver," he said.

"It's a very special moment for me and it's hard to express how happy I am. I've dreamt of becoming a Formula 1 driver since I was very small."

Qing Hua is a former A1 GP, Formula 3 and Superleague Series driver.

More on Qing Ha.

[Lineker]

Labour MP Richard Burden has joined calls for the Bahrain Grand Prix to be cancelled, amid fresh concerns about the ongoing political trouble in the Gulf island state.

Former world champion Damon Hill said this week that the FIA should rethink the hosting of the Sakhir race amid the continued unrest in the kingdom.

Burden, who under the last government was a special advisor to the Minister of Sport, Richard Caborn, on motorsport, has backed Hill's view.

"Damon Hill is right to call on the governing body of motor sport to rethink its decision to go ahead with this year's Bahrain Grand Prix," Burden wrote in a column for the Huffington Post.

"I say that as someone who is a motor sport nut as well as an MP with a keen interest in the Middle East.

"In a context where genuine and sustainable reform is taking place, holding a Grand Prix could be a unifying event for the people of Bahrain as well as a positive showcase on the world stage. But things are not at that stage.

"Since February last year, 45 people have died on Bahrain's streets. The latest victim was killed by live ammunition only last week. Hundreds of protesters gathered at the cemetery near his home outside the capital, Manama. Reports say riot police fired tear gas and stun grenades into the crowds, setting off running street clashes.

Although Burden is convinced the Bahrain government will do everything possible to make sure F1 is not affected by the situation, he reckons grand prix racing's reputation will be badly harmed.

"No doubt the Bahrain authorities will move heaven and earth to minimise any risks to the teams taking part," he said. "But the long term damage to the reputation of F1 and motor sport in general could be considerable.

"In hindsight, the FIA should not have scheduled the 2012 race so early in the season. It was always going to be too early to know how far things had moved on in Bahrain since last year. F1 can't turn the clock back but, with three weeks to go before the race, it can still rethink. It should do so."

Lotus has terminated its title sponsorship deal with sportscar manufacturer Group Lotus, AUTOSPORT can reveal, but remains wholly committed to keeping the famous name in Formula 1 for the future.

On the back of financial uncertainties for Group Lotus, which was recently sold by Proton to Malaysian automotive conglomerate DRB-Hicom, Lotus F1's team owner Genii Capital has ended its formal relationship with the marque.

AUTOSPORT understands that Genii owner Gerard Lopez recently agreed a deal for the title sponsorship deal, which was originally put together in 2010, to be cancelled, as well as an old option that Proton had to buy 50% of the team annulled.

Speaking about the situation, Lopez told AUTOSPORT: "The sponsorship agreement and the obligations of Lotus have been terminated. There is no option from Group Lotus to buy into F1 now - that option was taken over by us. There was one, but we have taken it over now."

Although the end of the Group Lotus sponsorship tie-up means a change of plans for the team, Lopez says that he remains committed to the Lotus name.

"We are happy to carry the Lotus name as we believe it is a good name for F1," he explained. "We funded the team last year and the year before for whatever delta was missing. We would prefer to have sponsors up to the full amount – but if we have to fund it then we will fund it.

"When we changed the name from Lotus Renault to Lotus [for this year], it opened up the door for a title sponsor. So if you take into account the fact we signed Unilever, probably the biggest sponsorship agreement this year in F1, and we signed Microsoft, which is huge news as it is a brand that has never been in F1 before, we have a wide space for sponsorship.

"If we sign a title sponsor now, we will end up with a better cash flow situation than this team ever had before."

Lopez has previously been linked with a potential takeover of Group Lotus, having held talks with Proton before it was recently sold, but he says the situation for him at present is unclear in light of the DRB-Hicom deal.

When asked if he would be interested in buying Group Lotus, Lopez said: "We don't know yet, because we really do not know what the new owner wants to do with it."

Lotus owner Gerard Lopez says his team is ready to prove itself as a frontrunner in Formula 1 this year, on the back of the form it has shown at the start of the season.

Although neither Kimi Raikkonen nor Romain Grosjean have yet finished on the podium, Lopez is convinced that the E20 has the potential to be battling pacesetters McLaren.

Speaking to AUTOSPORT about his feelings on Lotus, Lopez said: "I always said that once we lost Robert [Kubica], we lost one year - so we are one year behind schedule.

"The schedule was never that we were going to win the world championship by a set date, but it was to have a good stable team to compete for it. If it [winning] happens or not depends on a lot of things, but the situation we are in is a good one.

"Everyone is pushing in the right direction, and the car is quick – there is no question about it. We are also going to push harder because we have a very aggressive development programme, and we want to keep things tight with everyone around us. I would venture that we are slightly slower than McLaren, even though Kimi says he has speed to go for pole in Malaysia but made two small mistakes.

"I think we are right up there, probably just a little bit behind McLaren but as far as everybody else goes, we are probably as good as them if not slightly in front of them."

Lopez says he is as eager as the rest of the team for a weekend not blighted by the kinds of incidents or penalties that have hurt the team's race chances so far this year.

"We now have a phrase: 'a normal weekend'," he said. "We've coined that term at Lotus, whether it is Kimi, Alan Permane, Eric [boullier] or myself. We talk about normal weekends.

"It will be both cars not having to change anything and going for it. I think Romain is quite keen to prove himself. He has the speed – but he wants to show he has the race craft too.

"If we have a normal weekend we can show where our pace is, and score big points. I think we are happy."

Sebastian Vettel is convinced that Red Bull Racing can still win the world championship this year, despite its difficult start to the campaign.

After Red Bull's dominant 2011 season, Vettel has not been able to challenge for victory in the opening two races - and failed to score any points in Malaysia following a collision with backmarker Narain Karthikeyan.

But although admitting that the start to the year has not been what the team wanted, Vettel is optimistic that the situation will improve for both himself and his team.

"I admit, the first two races weren't exactly perfect but they weren't that bad either," he wrote on his blog on the Red Bull Racing website. "We proved we can able to compete with the strongest teams and that's very important.

"When you get a mishap like the one I had in Malaysia, however, well then even we are helpless - but that's just how F1 works."

Looking ahead to the remainder of the campaign, Vettel added: "We now have 18 more races ahead of us and we will do all we can to defend our titles. I have total faith in the team, the car and myself. There's still much for us to do, but together as a team we can accomplish anything."

[Lineker]

Bahrain's circuit boss thinks it vital that the Gulf state's Formula 1 race goes ahead, because he believes the nation as a whole will benefit.

Despite an increasingly tense political situation in the country, Bahrain International Circuit chairman Zayed R Alzayani is adamant that holding the grand prix would actually be a help to the population in its move for reform.

"It is very sad what has happened; but we cannot go back and change history, we have to learn from it and move on," he told BBC Radio 4. "I think the grand prix is required for Bahrain because we need to get started back on track. The country has suffered, the economy has suffered."

Alzayani has also hit back at claims that the Bahrain GP is being used as a political tool by the government to show that the state has returned to normality.

"I don't think so, I disagree," he said. "The race is not taking place for the authorities, the race is taking place because Bahrain has been the home of motorsport in the Middle East. We have hosted seven previous grands prix and a majority of the attendance is not the authorities or the royal family, it is fans of F1 and motorsport in general.

"We have a regional event, so quite a few spectators come from neighbouring countries, and it would not be right to deprive them of this event."

He added: "I don't know why we are being dragged into the politics of the event. We are a social event, we are a sports event and we would like it to stay that way."

Motor racing's governing body, the FIA, said on Friday that it was monitoring events closely, but had been assured by the Bahrain authorities that there were no safety concerns.

"The FIA is constantly monitoring and evaluating the situation in the Kingdom of Bahrain," an FIA spokesman was quoted as saying by Reuters.

"We are in daily touch with the highest authorities, the main European embassies and of course the local promoters at BIC (Bahrain International Circuit) as well as the international promoter.

"The FIA is the guarantor of the safety at the race event and relies, as it does in every other country, on the local authorities to guarantee security. In this respect we have been repeatedly assured by the highest authorities in Bahrain that all security matters are under control."

Formula 1 risks damage to its reputation if it does not react to the increasingly tense political situation in Bahrain ahead of the scheduled grand prix later this month.

That is the view of former world champion Damon Hill, who thinks with a fresh wave of protests on the streets and a worldwide focus now on the fate of jailed activist Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, who has been on hunger strike for 58 days, F1's chiefs must not act like they do not care.

"I think at the moment it is hotting up, which is not a good state of affairs to be wanting to go to Bahrain, when it is actually getting more inflamed," Hill told BBC Radio 4 on Saturday.

"We have the human rights president Alkhawaja in a serious situation, with two weeks to go. It is a very difficult call and my concern is that F1 is perceived to be indifferent, and that would be really damaging for F1."

Earlier this week Hill urged a rethink about the race going ahead, because of the ongoing situation in the Gulf state - and he has reiterated his belief that it would be wrong for the event to be used for political means by Bahrain's rulers.

"I think under the right circumstances it would be OK," he said. "I don't doubt that they could hold the grand prix, but if they held the grand prix and in order to hold the grand prix they have to impose very serious security measures to prevent protestors making their point, then it would appear that the event is taking place on one side of the argument. That is the worry for the reputation of the sport; that it is actually taking political sides."

Alkhawaja's deteriorating medical condition has become a focus for activists in Bahrain, with the media reporting that the police had to use tear gas to disperse protestors in Manama on Friday night.

Mary Lawlor, director of human rights group Front Line Defenders that Al-Khawaja represented after setting up the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, believes that F1 cannot be isolated from the situation.

"If Abdulhadi Alkhawaja dies in the run up to the grand prix due to take place in Bahrain on 22 April, it will increase the instability and unrest," she explained. "The Bahraini authorities clearly want to present an image of business as usual but their seeming indifference to the plight of Abdulhadi, risks tragic consequences for Bahrain.

"Those involved in Formula 1 must consult with independent journalists, community leaders, human rights groups, to get a good sense of what is going on - to see for themselves the situation in the gulf kingdom. From observing protests last week in Bahrain, it is clear that Bahrain is not safe for Bahrainis."

Nabeel Rajab, the current president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, told BBC Radio 4 that he believed suggestions the Bahrain Grand Prix would unify the country were wide of the work.

"This is a dictator who is saying that. But that is not the people saying that," he said. "The dictator is benefiting from that, the dictator wants to tell the outside world that the whole thing is back to normal... they want to come back from isolation and say that everything is back to normal.

"But on the other hand they are killing people, detaining people, torturing people. Everything is not back to normal and F1 should not help Bahrain's leaders to [think it is] so."

[Lineker]

From the Guardian:

The Formula One teams want the sport's governing body to cancel – or at least postpone – the Bahrain Grand Prix, which is scheduled for Sunday week, because of increasing safety concerns, the Guardian can reveal.

A leading member of the 12 team principals, who would not be named but who said his views were representative – said: "I feel very uncomfortable about going to Bahrain. If I'm brutally frank, the only way they can pull this race off without incident is to have a complete military lock-down there. And I think that would be unacceptable, both for Formula One and for Bahrain. But I don't see any other way they can do it."

Until now the teams and sponsors have kept quite, maintaining a united front and leaving the big decision to the men who rule the sport. And Jean Todt, the president of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, the sport's governing body, and Bernie Ecclestone, the commercial rights holder, have insisted that the race will go ahead.

But the team principal who broke rank on Monday added: "We're all hoping the FIA calls it off. From a purely legal point of view, in terms of insurance and government advice, we are clear to go. But what we find worrying is that there are issues happening every day.

"I saw an interview with a human rights activist on BBC World, and he said that there would be demonstrations and that they would be peaceful. But that is the way all demonstrations start off.

"Other team principals are going through the same worries. I spent all last week making sure the insurances are right so I can reassure the teams. I've sent out an email to our legal department to make sure all our employees are covered for acts of terrorism and civil disorder while travelling to, during and coming back from the Bahrain GP.

"We have a lot of people. Our first and foremost priority has to be our employees. And their families. That's what concerns us most, even though we've not said anything about it. It seems to me that while there has been some political progress in Bahrain they're not quite ready. The best thing would be for the race to be postponed until later in the year, or even cancelled.

"But that is a decision that must be made by the FIA, FOM [Formula One Management] and the commercial rights holder. I never anticipated a decision being made until the week before China. I believe Jean Todt is in China, which is interesting."

The fact that this Sunday's race, in Shanghai, and the Bahrain GP are scheduled back-to-back has complicated travel arrangements, with many half expecting the Bahrain event to be put back. Some teams have reportedly been issued with two return tickets, one home via Bahrain and the other directly home.

Last week, in the Guardian, the former world champion Damon Hill, a Sky Sports commentator who had spoken out in favour of the race taking place earlier in the year, called for a rethink by the FIA.

Hill, who last year called for the race not to be rescheduled following its cancellation for safety reasons, added at the weekend: "F1's chiefs must not act like they do not care. I think at the moment it is hotting up, which is not a good state of affairs to be wanting to go to Bahrain, when it is actually getting more inflamed."

MPs are also voicing their concerns in the wake of fresh protests and the growing concern for the condition of the jailed activist Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, who has been on hunger strike for 60 days. Last year more than 40 people died, many after being tortured, following Shia-led protests against the Sunni ruling family.

HRT will introduce some small updates in this weekend's Chinese Grand Prix, hoping it will help the team take another step forward.

The Spanish squad failed to qualify for the season-opening race in Australia, but then put on a respectable showing in Malaysia, where it qualified and finished the race with both cars.

Team boss Luiz Perez-Sala is confident that the three-week break between the Sepang and Shanghai races has given HRT the opportunity to arrive better prepared for China.

Perez-Sala said that extracting the best from the car remains the main goal for the weekend.

"The start to the season was very complicated because we were behind schedule with regards to the other teams," said Perez-Sala. "We had to put in a colossal effort to be able to get on track in Australia and improve our performance just one week later in Malaysia.

"There's still plenty to do and many areas to improve on to be where we should be but at least in these two weeks we've had a bit more time to analyse data, prepare and recharge batteries, therefore I'm confident that we're arriving in China in a much better situation.

"We mustn't forget that the F112 is only taking its first steps and, as of today, what we must do is progress without stopping.

"In Shanghai we'll have some small updates to optimise cooling and aerodynamics, and the target for this weekend is to check that these adjustments work. To sum up, we have to get more out of the car but must also improve on teamwork and coordination."

[maninblack]

Would F1 have to compensate the local organizer if they cancel the race altogether, instead of rescheduling it?

[Lineker]

Not sure if I'm honest...

Formula 1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone has said that he cannot force teams to race in the Bahrain Grand Prix if they do not want to go, amid growing concerns over further unrest in the troubled Gulf state.

F1's teams have so far backed the FIA and the Sakhir circuit chiefs to make the right decision as to whether the event should take place on April 22, and to ensure the safety of attending personnel. However some teams are known to have concerns about racing in Bahrain at this time.

Ecclestone, who has reportedly met with protest leaders and proposed they hold a press conference on the weekend of the grand prix, told The Times on Monday that he sympathised with the teams' situation and said: "If the teams don't want to go, then we cannot make them."

According to Ecclestone, the decision to cancel or postpone the race must come from the FIA, the event organisers or the Crown Prince of the kingdom.

The fate of the Bahrain GP seems set to overshadow this weekend's race in China, with the FIA stating that it is closely monitoring the situation. Concerns heightened on Monday, when a homemade bomb was detonated at a protest in Manama - injuring seven policemen.

The incident came amid increased tension caused by the fate of jailed activist Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, who has been on hunger strike for two months.

Meanwhile, John Yates, a former assistant commissioner in the London Metropolitan Police Service who now works for Bahrain's Interior Ministry, has warned that protestors planning to disrupt the event's running would be dealt with harshly.

"If people want to protest lawfully and give proper notice, as they have to, then they will be allowed to protest," Yates told the Associated Press. "But you can't have a protest that shuts off every road and doesn't allow people to get to the grand prix circuit.

"If someone chooses to invade the circuit, what an incredibly stupid and reckless thing to do.

"You saw what happened in the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race over the weekend. Anyone who invades the circuit is putting themselves in danger, putting the drivers in danger, putting potentially other spectators in danger. That will be clamped down on and properly so."

Bahrain Grand Prix chairman Zayed Al Zayani has blamed 'armchair observers' and 'scaremongering extremists' for creating alarm over the Sakhir event, which is due to go ahead on 22 April.

Amid increasing calls for Formula 1 not to race in the troubled Gulf state, the Sakhir venue issued a statement in which Al Zayani insisted that those with first-hand experience of conditions in Bahrain saw no reason for it to be called off for a second year.

"What has been happening is that armchair observers - who have not been sufficiently interested or committed to investigate the situation for themselves - have been driving this debate, at the expense of those neutral parties who have taken the trouble to investigate the situation at first hand," said Al Zayani.

"This, combined with the scaremongering tactics of certain small extremist groups on social networking sites, has created huge misconceptions about the current situation.

"We have welcomed a number of people to Bahrain over the last few weeks, who have all been able to find out for themselves that the Kingdom is ready to host Formula 1 next month. I therefore urge all stakeholders in the sport to listen to those with an informed, educated view of the situation and to form their views on the facts of the situation, as presented by neutral first-hand observers."

The statement quoted a report by two representatives of the Lotus F1 team who visited the circuit recently to assess the situation.

The extract from the Lotus report read: "Yes there is a need to keep the circuit and the teams secure and they are doing this and they feel very comfortable about the arrangements. If there is going to be protestation then it will be confined to peaceful protests - you will maybe see some banners being waved and maybe some tyres on fire but that is all that they expect.

"We came away from Bahrain feeling a lot more confident that everything is in hand and to be honest if it wasn't for a few more police you wouldn't know any difference from the last year we were there."

F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone told BBC Sport that he had spoken to the Lotus representative and been reassured.

"One of the teams sent a person over there recently - and I've spoken to them today actually - and they said everything's perfect, there's no problem," said Ecclestone. "They've been to the circuit, they've been everywhere in Bahrain and they are very happy."

Although Ecclestone acknowledged that he 'could not force the teams' to take part in the Bahrain GP, he said on Tuesday that at present he saw no reason for the race not to happen.

"At this time now, there are no indications it won't go ahead," he said.

"It's really not up to me to decide whether it should go ahead or not. It's up to the people in Bahrain to decide. At this time, they are not cancelling the event, so presumably they are happy."

McLaren must capitalise on its current pace advantage while it can, reckons the team's technical director Paddy Lowe, as he admitted that there was a sense of slight frustration that it had 'only' achieved a win and two third places from its front row sweeps in the first two Formula 1 races of 2012.

Although Jenson Button won in Melbourne, with polesitting team-mate Lewis Hamilton taking third, in the damp Malaysian Grand Prix Button failed to score following an incident with HRT's Narain Karthikeyan, and Hamilton did not have the pace to join Fernando Alonso and Sergio Perez's battle for victory.

"I think it was fantastic to get the grid positions that we got in Australia and Malaysia. Very, very pleased with those," said Lowe in a Vodafone McLaren Mercedes teleconference.

"Even though there were no points for it, getting the front row was tremendous for the team and a great illustration of what they'd achieved.

"We do come away from the first two races slightly disappointed that we haven't translated those two qualifying results into more points.

"We have got some good points, but in this championship - which is long and hard - you need to score the points when you've got the performance, because you can't rely on maintaining it throughout the season.

"We're determined to go to China and not only get the front row again if we can, but to turn that into a good performance on Sunday."

Although Lowe reckons McLaren has not really had a chance to show its true race pace yet this season, he acknowledged that it may well have a greater advantage in qualifying.

"It's very difficult, I think, to conclude anything from the Malaysian race itself. That was dominated by tyre condition and particularly tyre temperature," he said.

"I think we'd look to Australia for a better reference for our race pace. We were a bit challenged for fuel consumption in that race and it wasn't a particularly clean race.

"It does look as though we have a greater advantage in qualiying that the race, and that is something we need to work on. It's a characteristic that we had in reverse with Red Bull last year, where we felt that they were very strong in qualifying and got good grid positions, but actually in race pace they weren't particularly better than us, they just had track position."

Lowe added that McLaren was bringing a substantial upgrade package to China for round three of the title chase.

"We have quite a few upgrades for this event, on pretty much all sectors of the car," he said. "We're hoping for a reasonable step in performance, however we expect that will only be what we need to do to stay where we are in terms of qualifying and race pace.

"I'd be surprised if our principal competitors aren't also coming with reasonable steps forward, that's the name of the game. We're into the relentless battle of in-season development, particularly between the top teams. That's started already and we'll have to play our part and see if we can maintain the qualifying lead we have."

McLaren technical director Paddy Lowe says his team is 'stuck' over whether to pursue a Mercedes-style front wing stalling system until the rules regarding the device are properly clarified.

The 2012 Mercedes features a slot in its rear wing that is exposed by the movement of the DRS flap, and channels the airflow on the front wing in a manner that 'stalls' it for an additional straightline speed boost.

McLaren has stayed out of the row over the system - which looks set to continue into this weekend's Chinese Grand Prix - but Lowe says he is frustrated that the situation remains unclear.

Asked during a Vodafone McLaren Mercedes phone-in whether his team felt Mercedes' device was illegal, Lowe replied: "We don't have a strong view one way or the other. At this point, what we really need to have is clarity. I would say actually it would have been better if we could have had clarity before now. We'll see what events in China bring us in that sense.

"Until we've got clarity, it's difficult for us to make a huge amount of effort in that direction. That's really where we're stuck at the moment."

Lowe said the issue was not whether using the DRS flap movement in this manner was morally correct given that the flap was specifically designed as a mandatory overtaking aid, but whether the wording of the regulations specifically precluded it.

"There's no such thing as the spirit of the rules. It's a term often used, but the rulebook is text that has a meaning - you decide what that means and how you work to it. There's no headline regulation that says 'above all else, you've got to remain within the spirit of what was intended,'" he argued.

"If you look at the system on the Mercedes, you could get into arguments there about whether it's in the spirit of what was intended with DRS. Well, it definitely wasn't. DRS was created as a rear-wing flap, it wasn't anything else.

"The debate around whether or not they can keep that system on the car is not about whether it is in that spirit or not, it's about whether the text of the regulations means they cannot."

Ferrari technical chief Pat Fry believes the team is still almost a second off the pace in normal dry conditions, even though Fernando Alonso is leading the Formula 1 world championship.

Alonso took a shock victory in the damp in Malaysia, and finished fifth in Australia - despite Ferrari struggling for speed.

Fry said Ferrari owed its position to both Alonso's heroics, and the Sepang weather working in its favour.

"I certainly wasn't expecting to have one driver leading the championship," he said. "From quite early on in testing, we realised we had quite a few issues we needed to sort out.

"Everyone at the factory has been working hard at that, as we still have a long way to go. I think our dry qualifying performance is still around 0.8s off the best while we want to be the best ourselves.

"Damp low grip conditions suit our car and flatter some of the issues we have with the F2012 at the moment. You could see that in Melbourne on Friday and again in the race in Malaysia."

He added that Ferrari was trying to accelerate its development to get out of its current plight, and would have some upgrades for China this weekend then a major package in Spain next month.

"We are constantly working on improving the issues we have," said Fry. "New parts are coming through and we are trying to get them to the racetrack as quickly as possible - we will have five updates for China, some are quite visible, others less so. Then there will be a bigger upgrade package for Spain.

"It would be nice to have them earlier, but we have already brought forward some parts we were developing for Spain and we should have them in China."

[maninblack]

I like that name. Pat(ty) Fry.

[Lineker]

So Bernie says that the teams must decide on Bahrain. Teams say it is the FIA's decision. Now we just need the FIA to say it's Bernie's call, and the circle will be complete!

Formula 1 teams insist that it is not their call as to whether the Bahrain Grand Prix goes ahead, with the FIA now being looked at for a final decision.

Amid increasing concern about safety in Bahrain on the back of protests supporting jailed activist Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, who has been on hunger strike for two months, the fate of the race is now the main talking point in F1.

Bernie Ecclestone, the sport's commercial rights holder, had said on Monday that if teams had concern then they would be free not to go - although they could face commercial consequences for doing so.

However, in a statement issued by the Formula One Teams’ Association, the onus has been firmly shifted on to motor racing’s governing body to decide what the appropriate course of action is.

"There’s been some media speculation recently to the effect that the teams may seek to cancel this year’s Bahrain Grand Prix," said the FOTA statement. "That wouldn’t be possible. Teams are unable to cancel grands prix.

"We race in an international series called the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, and it is therefore for the FIA to offer the teams guidance on these issues."

The FOTA statement was followed shortly afterwards by one from Lotus, criticising Bahrain organisers for using comments from the team in a press release supporting the event.

Lotus representatives had visited Bahrain to prepare a private dossier for all teams about safety in the Gulf state – but comments in this document were released to the public.

"Earlier today, the Bahrain International Circuit (BIC) issued a press release attributing quotes to our team showing support for the Bahrain GP," said the Lotus statement.

"These quotes were part of a full internal and confidential working document, that was also sent on a confidential basis to all F1 team managers last week.

"Lotus F1 Team is one of 12 contestants of the Formula 1 World Championship and we would never try to substitute ourselves for the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), which is the only party entitled to determine if a Grand Prix should go ahead or not, and we endorse the FOTA statement that was issued earlier to this effect."

The clash over the use of the Lotus comments will only serve to increase tensions between the race organisers and the teams, with meetings scheduled to take place over the Chinese Grand Prix to discuss the next steps.

Last year, Bahrain’s circuit boss Zayed Alzayani criticised teams for being 'temperamental' in forcing the cancellation of the 2011 race.

"I feel disappointed," he said at the time. "It cannot go within three months from one end of the spectrum, 'Oh, you are my favourite destination. We love it here. We feel like we are at home in Bahrain.' To the other, 'We don't want to go to Bahrain.' Yes, events have happened in between but you can't be so temperamental."

[Lineker]

A number of Formula One teams expect the Bahrain Grand Prix to be called off amid security concerns, BBC Sport has learned.

[Lineker]

An astonishing couple of press releases today. First, Lotus on their Facebook:

Never let the facts get in the way of a good story….

Take a little look at what we found online. Don’t you think it’s funny? We do. We had a good old giggle. After all, we love a bit of self irony, just as well really. Although it’s funny, this one’s not accurate but then again, why let the facts get in the way of a good story? The inconvenient truth is – surprise, surprise – we have never said that there are no problems at Lotus.

So whilst lots of people obviously feel the need to comment on Lotus’ current situation in the absence of proper facts or evidence, we can’t ignore these particular mistruths any longer even if we would like to, so we have decided to turn a negative into a positive and use this hilarious piece of ‘art’ to set the record straight regarding the status quo at Group Lotus and try to return a little stability to a fast changing situation.

False rumour #1: Dany Bahar is no longer CEO of Group Lotus.

Fact: Rubbish – Dany Bahar still is.

False rumour #2: Dato’ Sri Syed is no longer Managing Director of Proton.

Fact: Again rubbish. He still is.

You can thank good old Tony Fernandes for these two. Don’t take everything he tweets too seriously – perhaps he’s still frustrated about owning Caterham instead of Lotus and the fact that he fights HRT and Marussia instead of Mercedes and Ferrari in F1.

And whilst we’re on the subject of jokes - do you know the latest F1 joke? Mike Gascoyne, Caterham Group’s Chief Technical Officer, has gone missing. Why? He’s looking for the 30 to 40 points he predicted for the last F1 season. Funny.

Speaking of F1: It seems that one special so called ‘independent’ source is at the root of the lion’s share of damaging rumours and misleading stories. The delightful Joe Saward which leads us nicely to….

False rumour #3: Joe Saward is JUST an independent journalist.

Fact: He is an active Director on the Caterham Group Board.

And unlike some, we don’t want to get too personal, so we’ll leave it to you to judge how ‘independent’ his stories about Lotus are.

False rumour #4: Group Lotus is no longer involved in F1.

Fact: Lotus F1 Team and Group Lotus have reshaped their commercial relationship earlier this year. The new governance agreement signifies the continued commitment of Group Lotus to the team and the sport.

Group Lotus’ branding and marketing rights and subsequent activities remain unaffected by the new agreement until at least 2017. Alongside continued branding and title partnership status, Group Lotus is also the exclusive master licensee for all Lotus F1 Team merchandise.

The new agreement was reached following Group Lotus owners Proton providing team owners Genii with a £30m loan which is repayable within three years. In order to secure the loan Genii used 100% of the F1 team’s assets as collateral meaning that under the conditions of the loan agreement Proton have been given full title guarantee to all plant, machinery, show cars, computers, office and the Lotus F1 Team headquarters.

In addition Proton retains the rights to purchase 10% of the F1 team. Another 10% share option will be activated if the team default on their loan obligations with Proton.

Again we leave it to your judgement how ‘bad’ Lotus’ current situation in F1 is. And speaking of bad situations…..

False rumour #5: Group Lotus is going into administration.

Fact: Rubbish. The takeover of our parent company Proton by DRB-HICOM couldn’t have come at a worse time, but up until that point Proton was (and still remains) fully committed to our five year business plan to create jobs and to expand the factory and business. With the takeover process the funding has been restricted and DRB-HICOM is taking time to understand what to do with the business. DRB-HICOM is currently in the middle of due diligence of Group Lotus and there have been and continue to be positive discussions between Group Lotus senior management and senior management at DRB-HICOM both here in Hethel and in Malaysia. At no point has DRB-HICOM indicated to Group Lotus that it intends to put the company into administration. The over-active rumour mill is seriously damaging our business reputation, image and credibility but it is what it is.

The simple fact is, and we haven’t denied this - Lotus is going through a very difficult phase at the moment but we are showing true fighting spirit every day in trying to keep this vision alive. This is also a fact – no matter what people outside of Lotus may say or tweet or blog.

Story:

Group Lotus insists that it remains committed to Formula 1 until at least 2017 despite the recent change to the terms of its sponsorship deal with the Lotus F1 team.

A Lotus statement issued today claims that under the "reshaped" commercial relationship, it continues to be the title partner of the ex-Renault outfit despite the team now searching for new sponsorship income.

The team had previously confirmed that it would continue to carry the Lotus name in F1.

"Lotus F1 team and Group Lotus reshaped their commercial relationship earlier this year," said Group Lotus in a statement in which it criticised rumours about the company.

"The new governance agreement signifies the continued commitment of Group Lotus to the team and the sport.

"Group Lotus' branding and marketing rights and subsequent activities remain unaffected by the new agreement until at least 2017.

"Alongside continued branding and title partnership status, Group Lotus is also the exclusive master licensee for all Lotus F1 Team merchandise."

The statement also revealed that Group Lotus owner Proton it still has the right to purchase 10 per cent of the team, with a further 10 percent also available if the team defaults on repayments on a £30 million loan that forms part of the agreement.

"The new agreement was reached following Group Lotus owners Proton providing team owners Genii with a £30m loan which is repayable within three years.

"In order to secure the loan Genii used 100 per cent of the F1 team's assets as collateral meaning that under the conditions of the loan agreement Proton have been given full title guarantee to all plant, machinery, show cars, computers, office and the Lotus F1 Team headquarters.

"In addition Proton retains the rights to purchase 10% of the F1 team. Another 10% share option will be activated if the team default on their loan obligations with Proton."

The statement also hit out at Caterham F1 team owner Tony Fernandes and its technical chief Mike Gascoyne.

"You can thank good old Tony Fernandes for these two. Don't take everything he tweets too seriously - perhaps he's still frustrated about owning Caterham instead of Lotus and the fact that he fights HRT and Marussia instead of Mercedes and Ferrari in F1," the statement read.

And a little before that, Bernie showing how much of a fucking dinosaur he is:

DTM racer Susie Wolff has joined the Williams team as a 'development driver', the British outfit announced on Wednesday.

Wolff, who raced as Susie Stoddart before she married Williams's shareholder Toto Wolff, will contest her seventh season in the DTM this year.

She will work with Williams's simulator before she takes to the track in a test in the coming months, according to the team.

"Susie is a talented, successful and highly professional racing driver who competes in one of the world's most fiercely-contested racing series," said team boss Frank Williams.

"Susie will join Williams as a development driver, in which capacity she will assist us with the development of our simulator and other technical challenges. Susie will also undertake some aerodynamic testing of the FW34 and a full track test in the coming months.

"Susie will also attend a number of races with us. I should add that, as Susie is married to Toto Wolff, a director of Williams, her appointment was carefully considered and then approved by the board, with Toto recusing himself from the process."

Wolff added: "Formula 1 is the ultimate challenge for any racing driver and it offers me the chance both to apply and to improve the skills I have developed racing in DTM. In return I shall be offering some of my own technical insight and experience - coming from a different discipline – and helping the team engage with its partners.

"I hope also to demonstrate that women can play a role at the highest levels of motorsport and I shall be working closely with the team on its social responsibility programme in the areas of education and road safety."

Formula 1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone also welcomed the announcement.

"If Susie is as quick in a car as she looks good out of a car then she will be a massive asset to any team and on top of that she is very intelligent. I am really looking forward to having her in Formula 1."

[Lineker]

Group Lotus insists that it remains committed to Formula 1 until at least 2017 despite the recent change to the terms of its sponsorship deal with the Lotus F1 team.

A Lotus statement issued today claims that under the "reshaped" commercial relationship, it continues to be the title partner of the ex-Renault outfit despite the team now searching for new sponsorship income.

The team had previously confirmed that it would continue to carry the Lotus name in F1.

"Lotus F1 team and Group Lotus reshaped their commercial relationship earlier this year," said Group Lotus in a statement in which it criticised rumours about the company.

"The new governance agreement signifies the continued commitment of Group Lotus to the team and the sport.

"Group Lotus' branding and marketing rights and subsequent activities remain unaffected by the new agreement until at least 2017.

"Alongside continued branding and title partnership status, Group Lotus is also the exclusive master licensee for all Lotus F1 Team merchandise."

The statement also revealed that Group Lotus owner Proton it still has the right to purchase 10 per cent of the team, with a further 10 percent also available if the team defaults on repayments on a £30 million loan that forms part of the agreement.

"The new agreement was reached following Group Lotus owners Proton providing team owners Genii with a £30m loan which is repayable within three years.

"In order to secure the loan Genii used 100 per cent of the F1 team's assets as collateral meaning that under the conditions of the loan agreement Proton have been given full title guarantee to all plant, machinery, show cars, computers, office and the Lotus F1 Team headquarters.

"In addition Proton retains the rights to purchase 10% of the F1 team. Another 10% share option will be activated if the team default on their loan obligations with Proton."

The statement also hit out at Caterham F1 team owner Tony Fernandes and its technical chief Mike Gascoyne.

"You can thank good old Tony Fernandes for these two. Don't take everything he tweets too seriously - perhaps he's still frustrated about owning Caterham instead of Lotus and the fact that he fights HRT and Marussia instead of Mercedes and Ferrari in F1," the statement read.

Fernando Alonso is under no illusions that Ferrari has managed to turn its car around for the Chinese Grand Prix.

The Spaniard won the Malaysian Grand Prix before a three-week break ahead of the Shanghai race, where Ferrari will have some updates for its car.

Despite the extra time to work on improving the car, Alonso is not expecting any miracles this weekend.

"I'm not expecting any surprises in this race, compared to what we saw in Australia and Malaysia," Alonso wrote on Ferrari's website.

"It's true almost three weeks have gone by, but that does not mean there was enough time to completely turn the car around in such a short time: we will have a few small updates, but nothing particularly significant and on top of that, we can expect that the other teams will also bring some new parts.

"Therefore, we won't change our approach to this grand prix: to get a good result, we will need to concentrate on ourselves, trying to be perfect and to exploit every possibility that might come our way over the weekend."

The Ferrari driver, leading the championship after his win at Sepang, says he is not thinking about specific targets for China, but rather about achieving the maximum possible.

"I don't want to come out with statements that our aim is to finish in this or that position, as these discussions are not worth the time spent on them," he added.

"We will have to do the maximum and bring home as many points as possible: a bit like ants who start something one day, knowing it will produce something worthwhile in the future."

[Lineker]

The Lotus team has filed a protest against Mercedes's rear wing ahead of this weekend's Chinese Grand Prix.

Although the FIA had deemed the DRS wing legal twice in the previous two races, Lotus has decided to officially protest its legality ahead of the Shanghai race, the third round of the championship.

The team lodged the protest under article 3.15 of the technical regulations.

"With the exception of the parts necessary for the adjustment described in Article 3.18, any car system, device or procedure which uses driver movement as a means of altering the aerodynamic characteristics of the car is prohibited," the rules sate.

A meeting with Lotus and Mercedes representatives will be held in the afternoon in China, with the former having already lodged a 2,000 Euro deposit for the protest.

Mercedes's design helps stall the front and rear wings for a straight-line speed boost, something rival teams believe it is illegal as it makes use of driver movement when he activates the DRS.

Ross Brawn has said he is disappointed that the row over the Mercedes rear wing has dragged into a third race, with Lotus having now lodged a protest against it.

Speaking before a scheduled meeting with race stewards to discuss the legality of the DRS-activated F-duct on the W03, Brawn said he believed the matter should have been cleared up earlier in the campaign.

"I think it is disappointing after three races that we are still in this situation," he explained before being notified of Lotus' protest.

"The system hasn't changed and the FIA's position hasn't changed, and as far as I understand their arguments haven't changed. So if they protest now, why didn't they protest in Australia? There is nothing new."

Brawn said that he was baffled about why rival teams had got so worked up over the system - especially because he reckoned its benefit was marginal.

"It is a bit of a puzzle," he explained. "Obviously there are benefits in the system but I think Lotus was quoted that they are getting a 0.2 second benefit upgrade here. Well, I can promise you that our system is not [worth] 0.2 of a second - particularly in a race when you only get to use it whenever you overtake.

"The effort and time that has gone into it seems to be disproportionate, so it does seem to be a strange situation."

Brawn also reiterated that the concept of using the DRS-system for an extra benefit was ratified as long ago as 2010.

"It is a matter of record that in 2010 Charlie [Whiting] stated that such a system was legal. It is in the minutes of the [technical] working group meetings. The question was asked and he stated his opinion then that he considered it legal. It has not been going on for three races. It has been going on for two years."

Lotus's protest against the legality of Mercedes's rear wing has been rejected by the FIA, Formula 1's ruling body.

Lotus had lodged a protest on Thursday ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix as it believes the DRS system used by Mercedes goes against the regulations.

Lotus believed the wing was in breach of rule 3.15 of the technical regulations.

"With the exception of the parts necessary for the adjustment described in Article 3.18, any car system, device or procedure which uses driver movement as a means of altering the aerodynamic characteristics of the car is prohibited," the rule says.

On Thursday evening, however, the FIA said that stewards had agreed unanimously to reject the Lotus protest, meaning Mercedes will be able to continue using it over the grand prix weekend.

Mercedes team boss Ross Brawn had said before the verdict that he was saddened to see the row drag on for the third consecutive race.

"I think it is disappointing after three races that we are still in this situation," Brawn said.

"The system hasn't changed and the FIA's position hasn't changed, and as far as I understand their arguments haven't changed. So if they protest now, why didn't they protest in Australia? There is nothing new."

The Stewards convened at 17:15 hrs on April 12, 2012 to consider a protest lodged by Lotus F1 Team concerning the Technical Delegate's scrutineering report of April 12, 2012.

The protest was against the eligibility of Cars 7 and 8 entered by Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team wherein it was alleged the cars did not comply with Article 3.15 of the FIA Formula One Technical Regulations.

The protest was lodged in accordance with Article 171 of the International Sporting Code and was lodged within the time prescribed under Article 174 ©.

Appearances at the Hearing;

Representing Lotus F1 Team: Messrs Alan Permane and James Allison

Representing Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team: Messrs Ross Brawn and Geoff Willis

FIA Technical Delegate: Mr Jo Bauer

Argument

Mr Allison, in his case on behalf of Lotus, proposed 5 questions that he believed needed to be answered;

1. Does Article 3.15 apply to the device being employed by Mercedes?

2. Does the system comprise any parts that are not "necessary for the adjustment described in Art 3.18"?

3. Can what Mercedes is running be described accurately as a "car system", a "device" or "procedure"?

4. Does the Mercedes device depend upon "driver movement"?

5. Does the Mercedes device "alter the aerodynamic characteristics of the car"?

Mr Allison then asserted that if the answers to all these questions is "yes" then it must be concluded the Mercedes system is prohibited.

Mr Allison also asserted there needed to be a distinction between the "prime" purpose of a "device" and a secondary purpose or consequential outcome.

He argued that the Mercedes device has a prime purpose of altering the aerodynamic characteristics of the car.

Mr Allison later provided the Stewards with written grounds for the protest (Exhibit B). Mr Brawn, for the Respondent Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team, provided the Stewards with a detailed paper outlining its response (Exhibit A). This paper contains certain confidential Intellectual Property and could not be provided to Lotus however Mr Brawn presented the key points of his response verbally, which were;

1. The "device" or "design" contains no moving parts.

2. There are no upper limitations provided in the regulations on what can be achieved using DRS apart from what is written in the current regulations. He provided examples of teams making modifications to other parts of cars to take advantage of the different airflow resulting when DRS is activated.

3. The "device" or "system" being protested against (commonly referred to within the team as "DDRS" or "Double DRS") was simply an enhancement to the existing DRS but made after DRS was originally introduced. Therefore is was wrong to discriminate against any enhancement simply because it has been introduced after the original introduction of DRS

4. There is nothing in the regulations preventing a hole in the inner side of the rear end plate and a duct running to the front of the car to take account of a change in the aero characteristics when DRS was operated and that this was an evolution to improve the performance of the DRS.

Mr Allison argued that the Mercedes device being protested was not a part of DRS and indeed that "DRS" was not a term defined in the regulations. He also argued that there was a substantial difference between other modifications made to the car which had aero impacts compared to the modifications made to the Mercedes.

Mr Allison agreed in response to questioning that there is nothing in the regulations that prevents an aero link between the front and rear wings but that the protest centred on the fact the link created was for the sole purpose of using a driver-created movement to alter the aerodynamics of the car.

He stated that if the hole currently located in the rear end plate was located elsewhere and permanently exposed, this would be acceptable.

In response Mr Brawn argued that the regulations do not state how much effect can be gained from DRS and that the Mercedes system was passive. He advised that almost all cars on the grid had made improvements to the aerodynamics of parts of the cars so that they reacted better to the airflow when DRS was activated and in some cases this had increased the speed by 17 to 20 kph as opposed to the initial increase using DRS of 10 kph (Mr Allison argued that the initial advantage was 12 kph).

Mr Willis asserted that all the teams had developed their bodywork to react to the movement in the upper rear wing flap.

Mr Bauer noted that it was not possible to operate the new Mercedes device in isolation to the normal DRS, it was not independent of it.

He also advised that Mercedes has sought clarification on the device prior to the first Grand Prix of 2012 and that he had confirmed to the team prior to the Australian Formula One Grand Prix that the design was permissible.

Note: In relation to the absence of a definition of the term "DRS", Article 3.18 makes several references to the word "systems" and the term "Drag Reduction System" has been widely used within Formula One and the FIA. For the purpose of this deliberation, it is taken to mean the "system" referred to under article 3.18.1 "Driver adjustable bodywork"

Decision

Having examined the evidence presented, the Stewards DECIDE unanimously that the Protest is DISMISSED.

The grounds for this decision are:

1. There are many different parts of bodywork fitted to cars from a variety of teams, which have been designed specifically to take advantage of the change in airflow caused by the activation of the DRS.

2. The modifications on Cars 7 and 8 are examples of the above.

3. The Mercedes design complies with all bodywork geometric and stiffness regulations.

4. The design is entirely passive and has no moving parts whatsoever.

5. The sole purpose of the "DRS" (or the "system" as referred to in the regulations) as stated in Article 3.18.3, is to improve overtaking. The Mercedes design is completely consistent with this objective.

6. . Noting the agreement of Lotus that "if the hole currently located in the rear end plate was located elsewhere and permanently exposed, this would be acceptable", there is no reason why the locating of the hole is the current position on Cars 7 and 8 should not also be acceptable. 7. In relation to the 5 questions posed by Lotus, all 5 of which Lotus assert (and the Stewards agree) if answered in the affirmative, would rule the vehicles ineligible;

(i) Article 3.15 does not apply because it does not directly use driver movement, as a means of altering the aerodynamic characteristics of the car. The alteration is indirectly (and not directly) consequential to the movement of the driver adjustable bodywork ("DRS")

(ii) The second question posed is not relevant in light of (i) above

(iii) The Mercedes design is not a "system" or "device" in its own right, it is part of a design made to take advantage of the change in airflow caused by the activation of the DRS (refer 1 above)

(iv) The Mercedes design is not activated by driver movement. It is a consequence of a change of position of the driver adjustable bodywork, which is permitted under the regulations.

(v) The Mercedes design does appear to alter the aerodynamic characteristics of the car by reducing the drag, however this is consistent with the intent of the regulations.

Accordingly not all of the 5 questions can be answered in the affirmative and therefore do not form successful grounds for the upholding of the protest.

Further, and distinct from the grounds above, the protest is dismissed on the grounds that the FIA confirmed the assertion of the Mercedes team that it had, in accordance with Article 2.4 and/or 2.5 of the F1 Technical Regulations, sought clarification from the FIA Formula One Technical Department concerning this matter and the FIA confirmed that the Mercedes design had been deemed permissible.

All parties are reminded of their Right of Appeal.

Lotus has elected not to appeal against the FIA stewards' decision that the Mercedes DRS system is legal, after its protest about the design was rejected on Thursday night.

Following a length meeting in the Shanghai paddock between the FIA and representatives of the Lotus and Mercedes teams, the four race stewards at the Chinese Grand Prix threw out the protest that had been lodged earlier in the day.

Although Lotus was reminded of its right to appeal the decision, sources at the team have confirmed to AUTOSPORT that it will not challenge the ruling - which means that the team must now decide if it is worth devoting resources to create its own version of the double DRS.

In a lengthy report issued afterwards by the stewards explaining their decision, they said that they had reached their verdict on several grounds.

They believe that the 'double DRS' system was within the regulations because it was completely passive - and was not influenced by driver movement but "indirectly (and not directly) consequential to the movement of the driver adjustable bodywork."

Mercedes had also successfully argued that many rival teams had modified bodywork on their cars to enhance the effects of DRS – and that its concept of flowing air through the endplate and down the car to stall the front wing was just another example of this.

The stewards also made it clear that the fact that Mercedes had sought clarification about the design from the FIA before the start of the season was important.

The statement said: "Further, and distinct from the grounds above, the protest is dismissed on the grounds that the FIA confirmed the assertion of the Mercedes team that it had, in accordance with Article 2.4 and/or 2.5 of the F1 Technical Regulations, sought clarification from the FIA Formula One Technical Department concerning this matter and the FIA confirmed that the Mercedes design had been deemed permissible."

The FIA has been reassured that Bahrain will be safe for next weekend's grand prix, despite concerns about the situation there.

Ahead of crunch meetings between teams and Formula 1 bosses in China this weekend to discuss whether or not the race goes ahead, FIA president Jean Todt has been told that matters are not as bad as some have portrayed.

In a letter that was sent to him on Wednesday by former UK head of counter terrorism John Yates, Todt was informed that there was no major worry.

Yates, who is an advisor for the Bahrain's Ministry of the Interior, wrote: "I am aware of the very real concerns that those involved in F1 may have regarding the holding of the fixture here in Bahrain next week.

"I have listened to the recent exchanges on the UK BBC Radio 4 Today programme and read related stories in the media with interest. It is clear from this and other reporting that the real picture of life in Bahrain and the very real reforming efforts being made at a number of levels are not reaching the ears of those that matter.

"I am particularly concerned that those intimately involved in F1 - drivers, teams, sponsors, media and supporters wishing to attend – are being presented with a distorted picture. This picture is being shaped by a huge amount of inaccurate and often deliberately false information being spread through social media forums."

Yates did say, however, that there were some troubles in the Gulf state – but these were isolated incidents.

"Some troubles do still exist," he said. "The almost nightly skirmishes that take place in certain villages are a potential block on progress and are putting those involved in their policing and innocent members of the public in significant danger. However, in spite of how these events may be portrayed through the medium of YouTube and other outlets, their significance should not be overplayed.

"These are now lawful protests, which are permitted, but violent conduct by a very small minority – often groups of 15-20 young men. These are criminal acts being perpetrated against an unarmed police force who, in the face of such attacks, are acting with remarkable restraint.

"These people are intent on causing harm to the police and the communities in which they live. They are not representative of the vast majority of delightful, law-abiding citizens that represent the real Bahrain that I see every day. Along with my family, I feel completely safe. Indeed, safer than I have often felt in London."

The letter from Yates came before a statement issued by the White House condemning the violent clashes that have taken place in Bahrain recently.

"The United States continues to be deeply concerned about the situation in Bahrain, and we urge all parties to reject violence in all its forms," White House spokesman Jay Carney was quoted as saying.

"We condemn the violence directed against police and government institutions, including recent incidents that have resulted in serious injuries to police officers.

"We also call on the police to exercise maximum restraint, and condemn the use of excessive force and indiscriminate use of tear gas against protesters, which has resulted in civilian casualties."

Bernie Ecclestone will meet with Formula 1 teams tomorrow to discuss the Bahrain Grand Prix, as the F1 supremo insists the race is on unless it is withdrawn by local authorities.

Although Ecclestone insists that the meeting is not related to whether Bahrain should go ahead, it is understood that the question of whether it can will be discussed at length.

"I'm meeting the teams on unrelated matters," Ecclestone told reporters in China today. "There's nothing about Bahrain, or Barcelona or Monaco or anywhere.

"The race is on the calendar. Unless it gets withdrawn by the national sporting authority in the country, we will be there.

"I don't see any difference between here [China] and Bahrain. It's the same. It's another race on the calendar."

FIA president Jean Todt won't attend the meeting because he won't be in China on Friday.

Ecclestone, who confirmed that he plans to attend the race, is confident that safety will not be a problem in Bahrain.

He believes that protesters in Bahrain have not "got anything against" the grand prix itself.

"I don't see why it should be," he said when asked if it is dangerous for team personnel or journalists to go to Bahrain. "I don't think that the people in Bahrain have got anything against F1 team people or journalists.

"Apparently people there are carrying out their business as normal, I'm told. I've not been there. A guy from Lotus went over there to check things out and he said that everything is perfect. It's business as usual."

Ecclestone warned that F1 should not get involved in politics in any of the countries that it visits.

"When we enter a country in the normal way, we don't deal with the religion or the politics," he said. "We will go there. If it was a pop singer, they would be there and they would sing.

"We shouldn't get involved with other people's politics in Formula 1 racing."

A London-based Bahraini pro-democracy campaigner has responded to John Yates over his suggestions that he feels safer in Bahrain than in London.

Yates, a former UK head of counter terrorism who is an advisor for the Bahrain's Ministry of the Interior, wrote to FIA president Jean Todt to give him reassurances about the situation in the country ahead of next week's grand prix.

Yates wrote that F1 is being presented with a distorted picture of the Bahrain situation, adding: "Along with my family, I feel completely safe. Indeed, safer than I have often felt in London."

UK-based Bahraini pro-democracy campaigner Ali Mushaim said the Bahrain area will not be safe for Formula 1.

"The people are very angry. I don't think that the area will be safe," he told the Independent. "If the Bahraini people don't feel safe in their country, they cannot give any foreign people guarantees to be safe when Formula 1 comes to Bahrain.

"The Bahraini people are peaceful. However, if Formula 1 comes to Bahrain, I don't know what will happen - but I don't think everything will be peaceful."

Mushaima, reported by the Independent to be on hunger strike since April 4, said the situation in Bahrain had not changed since the race was cancelled last year.

"Last year Formula 1 didn't come to Bahrain for the same reason," he added. "There are still human rights abuses, many hundreds of Bahrainis are in prison, and still the villages are being attacked, Bahrain is occupied by Saudi troops. Nothing has changed."

Mark Webber believes that Formula 1 drivers have no choice but to trust the FIA to make the right decision on whether the Bahrain Grand Prix will be safe.

The Australian described it as a "waste of time" for the drivers to discuss the issue because there are so many different agendas and perspectives and that the FIA is in the position to make a call on whether the race should go ahead.

"We can only go on what the FIA are reading into the situation and we are putting an immense amount of trust in them in going to and from the track each day, competing at the track and having a normal grand prix weekend," said Webber.

"There are some massive decisions to be made. It is a difficult decision now because we are a week away. Now it's topical, there is a lot more pressure involved in the decision-making process and it's on the FIA as the teams and Bernie [Ecclestone] have stated.

"We all know why it has dragged a bit. With the funding and finances that have come from Abu Dhabi and Bahrain and the Middle East, they are excited about F1 and they clearly want to give it another go."

The Australian was a critic of the possibility of racing in Bahrain last year, but admitted that it is difficult to get reliable information on the real situation to make a judgement on next week's event.

"I've tried to watch the news to get the most balanced view that I can possibly get without being too corrupted with other information," said Webber. "It has been a little quieter but sitting here I have as much information as anyone else really.

"If I have a choice, then I want to race. That's what I want to do. But saying that, you cannot ignore the fact that in the back of your mind there are a lot of good people in our sport and all of them want it to go down smoothly. We don't want to be involved in the situation that is out there, but the people that support our race are on one side and that's why it is so sensitive."

Webber added that while increased security provisions have been put in place, he does have concerns that not everyone involved with F1 will benefit from the same level.

"There are [safety] measures in place and there is added security," said Webber. "But we also accept that not everybody can have that and that doesn't make me feel comfortable. Let's hope that it [the extra security] is complete overkill.

"We need to trust that the people taking the decision know how these people are going to operate. I don't know."

Jenson Button says Formula 1 must remain united over the Bahrain Grand Prix issue, amid ongoing uncertainty about the fate of the race.

Bernie Ecclestone is due to meet with F1 team bosses in China on Friday to discuss the latest situation, with all parties now accepting that the final decision on the event now rests with the FIA.

But despite the varied feelings within the paddock on the matter, Button believes that teams and drivers should not allow themselves to get divided on what happens next.

When asked about his feelings on racing in Bahrain amid the backdrop of ongoing protests, Button said: "I'm sure some people will be outspoken and some won't. Some can and some can't.

"And for me, I look to the governing body of the sport to decide whether we go to Bahrain or not for the next grand prix. I don't know all the facts, hopefully they know all the facts and they can make the right call.

"We have to stay united as Formula 1, and to say that teams can make their own decisions is wrong because we are racing in a championship. If one team does not go, 25 points lost is massive.

"F1 staying as one and staying united is very important I think. And the decision needs to be made by the FIA. I totally trust that they will make the right decision."

Button's confidence that the FIA will do the right thing was backed up by Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn, who says that teams have to rely on the governing body for direction.

"It is very difficult for us [the teams] to make a judgement," he said. "So we are relying on people who are on the ground and should know what is going on, to make that judgement. And there is a limitation as to what we can do.

"So we look to the FIA and FOM to give us those reassurances, and it is an ongoing situation. But if the FIA and FOM assure us that it is safe and correct to go there, then we will go there."

Brawn said he was equally hopeful that vested interests - due to Bahrain's financial and political ties with senior figures in the paddock - would not influence what the FIA decides.

"I hope when it matters, with the issues at stake, that those things are not factored in and they make a proper assessment of the situation, as I am sure they will."

Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner added: "I think the situation for us with Bahrain is that we enter a championship to do all the races, Bahrain is obviously very much still on the calendar and we trust in the FIA's judgement. They are far closer to the situation than we are, and we will follow their updates and advice."

[Lineker]

The FIA has confirmed a single DRS zone for this weekend's Chinese Grand Prix at the Shanghai circuit.

The DRS (Drag Reduction System) will be allowed on the back straight, with the activation zone located before the halfway point of the straight, after Turn 13, just like in 2011.

Like in the previous race in Malaysia, there will only be one DRS zone this weekend.

Lewis Hamilton's chances of fighting for victory in the Chinese Grand Prix have taken a hit as he will be given a grid penalty.

The McLaren driver confirmed on Thursday that he will need a new gearbox for the weekend, meaning he will get a five-place grid penalty for the change.

Hamilton said the damage to the gearbox was only picked up in last 48 hours.

Hamilton, who has started the first two races from pole position, is currently second in the championship behind Ferrari's Fernando Alonso.

Lewis Hamilton is still gunning for a victory in the Chinese Grand Prix despite a five-place grid penalty guaranteeing that he will start the race no higher than sixth.

The McLaren driver discovered that he would be hit with the penalty today after the team detected the problem "in the last 48 hours".

But while he insists that he will be satisfied with a finish on the podium, he has not given up on a win.

"We have still got a great chance to win," said Hamilton. "We have still got a quick car and we will try and put ourselves in the best position possible to have the right strategy and to be quick enough that we can still fight for the lead.

"But I would settle for a podium. I always say I want to move forward. That is the key."

Despite the penalty, Hamilton is determined to fight for pole position on Saturday even though it would only give him a place on the third row.

He believes that this would still give him a chance of climbing the order in the race, given the competitiveness of the McLaren.

"It doesn't change my approach; you still have to qualify as high up as possible," he said. "I won from third last year and I will just have to try and win from further back. I will have to try and get sixth if possible.

"We have got a quick car and hopefully with our upgrades we'll be quite competitive this weekend. We still have a fighting chance. I will try to minimise the damage by qualifying as strong as possible."

Hamilton added that despite underlining the need for consistency after taking back-to-back third places in Australia and Malaysia that he is not consciously taking a more cautious approach.

"I never plan to have those kinds of [inspirational] races and I never plan to have bad races," he said when asked about balancing up an aggressive approach with the need to finish. You can never plan for how races go.

"Every year I target to finish every race but sometimes it just doesn't go to plan. I got here on Sunday and am doing absolutely everything to make sure I'm prepared in the best way."

Sebastian Vettel will revert to an older specification of exhaust layout for first practice at the Chinese Grand Prix as his Red Bull Racing team aims to unlock more pace from the RB8.

The reigning world champions introduced a Sauber-style exhaust layout for the final two days of pre-season testing at Barcelona, but Vettel has not been as happy with that configuration as the version used at the beginning of testing.

Although the team is convinced that the update package delivers an improvement in laptime, it has elected to experiment with a different configuration for Vettel in Shanghai on Friday to try and understand the situation better.

While Vettel will run the design that blows the exhausts over the beam wing, team-mate Mark Webber will run with an updated version of the concept that uses the exhausts to channel blown air around the rear area of the car and down on to the floor.

Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner said that with no opportunity to test the two concepts side-by-side, the only chance was to run them in China practice.

"We will be conducting some evaluation work between the two cars," explained Horner. "With testing not allowed during the season, Friday is the best opportunity to do some track testing and we are using the opportunity to look at an earlier iteration of exhaust and a further iteration of what we ran in Malaysia.

"Obviously we will then look at the data and then draw our own conclusions from there."

Horner added that he expected the data to show that the version run by Webber is better - but the team was not yet 100 per cent convinced.

He also confirmed that it would be possible for the team to switch Vettel's exhaust configuration to the newer version for Saturday morning if it was deemed better, but there would be no plan for Webber to revert back to the older concept if it shows some advantage for his world champion team-mate.

Sebastian Vettel believes that Red Bull Racing must get on top of the balance problems that have afflicted it during the first two races of the season to reveal the car's true potential.

Vettel admitted that he is not comfortable with the balance of the RB8 and could not point to any specific area of the car that needs to be improved.

"There is not a fundamental problem with the car," said Vettel. "It's not as if you look at the back end or the front wing and there is a problem. There are a couple of things that maybe do not work together nicely. The car is very nervous and it is moving a lot.

"The problem that we have at this stage is that the balance of the car doesn't seem to be as good as it was last year. That's not about downforce level, it's about getting the car to work together as a whole. That's where we are trying to improve."

Vettel has no doubts that the RB8 is a car that can challenge for race wins, but is not sure how long it will take to find the right balance.

But he insists that the team does have a handle on the direction that it needs to go in and once it has understood the car fully, Red Bull will be back on form.

"I would not say that we are lost," said Vettel. "The problems with the car are very different and bigger than last year, when we understood the car very well and we could build on that.

"I strongly believe that we have a very competitive car. We just need to get it working properly and we should be in a very competitive position.

"What hurts us is that we cannot get to the full potential of the car. Once we put this puzzle together, we will be in a much better position."

Fernando Alonso insists he is expecting a tough weekend in China despite having won the last race in Malaysia.

The Ferrari driver took advantage of the tricky conditions at Sepang to take his first victory of the season, moving to the top of the championship standings.

Alonso has however made it clear that Ferrari is still far from the top teams and is keeping his feet on the ground for this weekend's race.

"Nothing has changed since Malaysia and so I expect a tough weekend," said Alonso in China on Thursday. "There will be no big surprises, as although the car has some small improvements, there is nothing big coming for this race.

"I expect this is the same situation with the other teams, which is why I feel the general picture will be the same as at the last two races. This means we will struggle to get through into Q3 on Saturday and then on Sunday, we will be hoping to get a good start and then do a good job of tyre management."

The Spaniard is still hopeful the circumstances will play in his favour like they did in the first two races in order to continue scoring good points.

"We can also hope for a little bit of luck, because this is a factor we often forget but it is there, as we saw in Australia and then again in Malaysia where I was lucky to avoid a first corner accident," he said.

"You need a big package to win and luck is part of it, so let's hope it stays with us for this weekend."

Felipe Massa is taking a relaxed approach to this weekend's Chinese Grand Prix despite continued speculation about his Ferrari future.

Despite Ferrari's insistence that it has every confidence in the Brazilian, there continue to be question marks over whether he will be replaced after a poor start to the season.

When asked whether he had taken his friend, and former rival, Rubens Barrichello's advice to "enjoy himself", Massa said that he would be doing so after spending several day since the Malaysian Grand Prix trying to understand his early-season struggles.

"Yes," he said when asked about taking Barrichello's advice. "That's the direction. I spent many days at Maranello understanding and analysing everything that happened in the last race.

"You need to relax to do your job in the best way that you can and enjoy it while you are doing it. We race because we love to race and we enjoy it.

"We are definitely starting a better season compared to the first two races. It's not the first time that this [a bad start] has happened to me. We just need to work and have the best weekend to get out of the car happy."

Massa admitted that Ferrari expects to struggle again in China.

This is despite the team bringing some car upgrades that should at least improve its pace.

"We worked to bring some pieces to this race," said Massa. "We are still not going in the direction that we want, even with these new pieces, but we are working hard to have the improvement on the car that we need and want.

"The most important thing is the confidence to do a better job on the track that the car can give to you. Hopefully it will be a better weekend."

Nico Rosberg says his Mercedes team is not yet fully on top of the tyres issues that have hindered the outfit in the first two races of the season.

The German squad has shown promising pace in qualifying but has then struggled with tyre degradation in the races, where its pace has dropped significantly.

Although Rosberg says the team has a better understanding of the issues, he concedes there is still work to do.

"I'm sure we understand it a bit better, but in Malaysia it was a bit of a different issue to Australia, so it's two separate things," he said when asked by AUTOSPORT about the tyre situation.

"We've learned, but it's not so easy. We don't fully understand all the issues yet, so it's really going to be step by step and trying to improve the situation."

The German driver believes Mercedes' situation has improved since the start of the season, and he reckons the team would have been better than in Australia had the Malaysian Grand Prix taken place in the dry and with more heat.

"We would have been better," he insisted. "In Melbourne we struggled a lot with the heat and we did a lot of things to improve that situation, so we would have looked better in Malaysia, but not up to our qualifying level."

Although Rosberg claimed the car has a lot of pace in qualifying trim, he reckons a strong grid position will not help much if it cannot get on top of its tyre problems.

"The car has the potential to be very, very quick in qualifying. Maybe a little bit more than we managed in the last races, but I wouldn't say we missed out on pole. With the pace that we have in the race, even if you are on pole, you are not going to win, so we need to work on the race pace."

Romain Grosjean is hopeful that the upgrade package his Lotus team has taken to the Chinese Grand Prix will allow the team to close the gap to McLaren.

Lotus proved competitive in the opening two races of the season, with Grosjean qualifying just 0.380s off pole in Australia and team-mate Kimi Raikkonen within a quarter-of-a-second of top spot in Malaysia.

But Grosjean is looking forward to the gap closing thanks to car improvements that will be tried for the first time during Friday practice.

"We have been working very hard to bring some updates here and I'm proud of the job that the team has done," said Grosjean. "Hopefully it can bring us closer to the top.

"We saw that McLaren was very strong at the start of the year. Maybe we are now even closer? We have a car that is able to achieve some good results - podiums and maybe more if everything goes perfectly."

Grosjean expects upgrade package will improve the cars performance by tenths of a second. It will feature some obvious aerodynamic changes.

"Hopefully more than a few hundredths," he said when asked what the upgrade might be worth. "It's quite big. Visually you can see differences on the car.

"The rear endplates are a bit different and the front wing. And there are smaller differences that you cannot see so well."

"If our [performance] numbers arrive [on track], it will be nice to have and we should definitely feel it in the car. Hopefully we will have good testing on Friday."

Grosjean is hopeful that the Lotus E20 should be well-suited to the characteristics of the Shanghai circuit.

He is determined to avoid a repeat of his early retirements in the first two races and capitalise on the pace of the car to claim his first points in F1.

"Hopefully pretty good," he said when asked how the car will suit the circuit. "It's quite a fast track but with slow corners as well.

"We saw that the car worked well in Sepang and Melbourne and with the engineers we are trying to get even more out of it because there are some areas where we can improve.

"I have to learn from the mistakes that I've made in the first events and not make them again. I'm sure we will have a good performance."

Pastor Maldonado believes Williams needs to improve its qualifying pace in order to fight closer to the front of the field.

But the Venezuelan is still convinced that his team is among the strongest in terms of race pace at the moment.

"We need to improve our qualifying pace," said Maldonado, who has qualified eighth and 11th in the first two races.

"I think our top speed is not the best. We are missing a couple of tenths on the straights, but that's it. I think it's a compromise.

"The race pace is quite competitive and good, one of the best. I think better than some of the top teams, so it's looking good. We just need to keep pushing. Keep developing the car."

Maldonado, in his second season with Williams, says he is feeling much more confident this year.

"I'm much better. More clam, more ready. For sure I feel better every time, even if the car is new and it's been changing race by race and test by test.

"I'm more confident with the team and I feel they are more confident with me, and this is a good thing. I think we haven't scored any points but we have been there, and this is the most important thing because there are 18 races to go."

Maldonado is yet to score a point this year after crashing out in Australia and retiring with an engine problem in Malaysia.

Nico Hulkenberg is expecting the midfield battle to be just as tight in China this weekend as it was in the opening two races of 2012.

The German's Force India team banked nine points in Australia and Malaysia, but on raw pace appears to be one of the weaker midfield outfits despite Hulkenberg making Q3 in Melbourne.

But Hulkenberg is confident that Force India can still fight for points this weekend despite being behind the likes of Sauber and Williams on speed.

"In winter testing, we were very close together and we still are," said Hulkenberg. "[The gap] is not much, it is only one, two or three tenths, so we are not totally out of reach.

"As we saw in Malaysia, on a good day you can be around the top 10 and on a bad day, you can be 16th or 17th. That shows how close it is."

Hulkenberg confirmed that Force India will try out some car upgrades during Friday practice.

But he refused to divulge any detail about the nature of the new parts and the potential time gain.

"We just have to keep our heads down and maximise our performance each weekend and work hard on the car and the updates," said Hulkenberg.

After the Malaysian Grand Prix, deputy team principal Bob Fernley admitted that he does not expect his team to make a big stride forward until the Mugello test at the start of May.

Heikki Kovalainen expects his Caterham team to join the midfield pack before the end of the season despite a disappointing start to 2012.

The ex-Lotus outfit had been confident of breaking into the group this season, but in Australia and Malaysia, neither the Finn nor team-mate Vitaly Petrov looked to have the pace to do so.

Caterham has taken some upgrades to the Chinese Grand Prix that it hopes will chip away at the gap and Kovalainen is confident that the team will achieve its goal later in the year.

"It's hard to say, but what we have got to be targeting is to close that gap to the midfield," said Kovalainen when asked by AUTOSPORT when he expects Caterham to catch the pack. "Towards the end of the season, we should be able to do that.

"Hopefully it will be quicker than that, but we can't expect other people to sit still. Everybody is moving forward. Hopefully, we have got more to come than some teams in front of us because we are still down on resources and facilities.

"We are not at the level that some other teams are but we know where the main areas are to improve."

Kovalainen admits that Caterham still has some way to go before it can get into serious contention for Q2 on pace.

In Australia, he was almost one second behind the car ahead of him in qualifying, while in Malaysia he was still three-tenths behind Scuderia Toro Rosso's Jean-Eric Vergne despite the Frenchman having to abandon his best lap after a massive tyre lock-up.

"The reality is that we are not quite there," said Kovalainen. "We haven't quite joined that pack yet.

"Once we have joined that group, we will pick a few cars off sometimes because it's so tight. But it's hard to pick out a car or team who is just in front of us. They are in the pack and it changes according to the session, but we are always in our normal position because we haven't been able to make a step forward.

"But we have made progress over the winter and we are making progress all of the time. It just takes time. It comes down to more people and better facilities and we are currently improving both of these areas. We are on the right track."

Thursday's press conference:

DRIVERS - Bruno SENNA (Williams), Vitaly PETROV (Caterham), Paul DI RESTA (Force India), Sergio Pérez (Sauber), Fernando ALONSO (Ferrari), Narain KARTHIKEYAN (HRT)

PRESS CONFERENCE

Q. Bruno, great result in Malaysia. Do you think that was your best ever grand prix?

Bruno SENNA: I think it was a great race. We had strong pace and a pretty good strategy as well, even though we had an accident on the first lap, which could in theory have influenced our race result badly. Anyway, we had a strong race. I didn't make any mistakes during the race, apart from the first lap, and that's very encouraging. It shows the car has good performance in the dry and in the wet and we had both conditions in the race. I think it was a pretty good effort, not only from me but from the team as well. I'm not racing on my own.

Q. Do you feel that those are the perfect conditions for you to perform best in the car this year?

BS: I don't think it's a case of this year but for sure in the early part of the season it's best when you have more mixed conditions. I'm still learning the team, learning the car, learning the tyres. I only came into the season quite late last year and quite a few things have changed as well. All this settling period takes a few races, so I hope I can get them out of the way as quickly as possible but for sure a few races like this would increase the chance of a good result for us but later in the season the drier the race the better.

Q. The potential looks a lot better than it did last year for Williams. Are you confident of that and of the development necessary to keep them there?

BS: Yeah, the team has done a great leap forward in terms of performance. The changes that happened definitely made the team focus on the right areas and now it's up to us, to me and Pastor, and also the engineers to keep the development rate as high, or higher than the guys we're competing against to try and continue in the position we are. It's tough. If it was easy everyone would do it but it's the situation we're in. We're pushing very, very hard and for sure scoring points, especially big points as we did last race keeps everyone motivated.

Q. Vitaly, you've been in the points here in the last couple of races, what are you feelings coming into this race? You've had a couple of races with Caterham, so what are your feelings about the team after a couple of races?

Vitaly PETROV: I think first of all, everyone has a good feeling to come back to a track when you have the first points in F1, so it's a good memory. I have a god memory to come back here because in 2010 I had a good race here, in the wet. I was quite quick and managed to finish in the points. What's going inside the team? I feel quite happy. I feel more free to work. I felt much less pressure on my shoulders. Definitely I still have pressure because I have a very strong team-mate, so I need to work quite hard. But in general I'm a little bit more relaxed than last year.

Q. I think we will be watching that battle with your team-mate with interest. It's been a focal point of watching your team so far this year?

VP: Last two races we did a good job during the race. I know I need to little bit improve my qualifying performance but we bring some good maps and some good set-up to this race, and we have some good updates coming, so I'll cross they fingers they work again, as good as we expect. Yeah, but as for the performance during the race we were not too bad. I think I need to work a little bit harder in qualifying and then we will see.

Q. And are you comfortable now inside the car?

VP: Yeah, actually. It's quite comfortable and we still need to adjust the seat a little but at the moment it's OK.

Q. Paul, were talking there about the battle between team-mates, which is always of interest. There's quite an interesting battle between yourself and Nico, you seem to be very closely matched.

Paul DI RESTA: Yeah, I think it was pretty similar last year with Adrian. Obviously with Nico, I have to have a lot of respect for him. At the moment we seem to be the closest drivers, against their team-mates, but it's always good to have that competitive nature in the team, you push each other along and drag the best out of each other. At the moment it's work in progress because were trying to develop the car. And to do that fast we have to work together to build our team to try to challenge the likes of Williams and Sauber, who are a bit in front of us at the moment. But, having scored the points that we have in the first two grands prix, we're certainly looking forward, hopefully until we get some updates on the car, and we can put some more performance on, which we're quite confident we can achieve.

Q. This is your second Formula One season. Do you think the first one was learning and that this one is about confirming the form you showed last year?

PDR: I think there's more pressure for you to perform, in terms of being a second-year driver, but I've always had the task of just trying to pick the positive and certainly just trying to do the best I can in the sport I love doing. So far our race performance has showed to be stronger than our qualifying and the experience I got last year I think paid a lot to the result I got in Malaysia in tricky conditions and we managed to finish seventh. Everyone achieved the maximum we could from the package we had. We just need to make sure we're at the top of our game all this season, because to maintain the position, as a driver and as a constructor, that we achieved last year is a mighty challenger. But the vibe in the team is quite high and strong at the moment.

Q. You talked earlier about how Sauber and Williams are perhaps a little bit ahead of you, whereas they weren't at the end of last season. There's a little bit of ground to be gained there. Are you confident of getting that back?

PDR: Yeah, I think we started this year very strong. They've obviously come up with updates and stuff. We've been relatively neutral. The tunnel and the factory are working very hard. We are looking forward to the next couple of races when we get back to Europe. We have a good package coming for Mugello. We've obviously been working very hard on that. We've taken the decision to leave it there to maximise that. Really, at the moment, we're trying to do the best job we can with the car we have. Certainly in Malaysia we achieved a lot so there's no reason why we can't do that again. Last year here our car showed more potential than we thought, so I hope that the philosophies that carried on from that, certainly lead into this year. We got into Q3 here with a car that nearly never got into Q2 in Melbourne.

Q. Sergio, tell us about the reaction in Mexico to your second place in the last grand prix?

Sergio PEREZ: Well, it's been really great. I had some time there with the family, with friends, to enjoy the result we had. The people there were going crazy. It was a great result for my country. It was 40 years since the last podium we had in Formula One, so it was really nice to feel all the support I'm getting from the fans, from the country.

Q. Do you think there is more pressure on your now? And also, will there be more money for development with, perhaps, more money from Mexico?

SP: That would be a good sign, no? Already, the interest has come up, not only from Mexico, but from other companies around the world that can help us to develop our car, which is important for us. In terms of pressure, I think the pressure remains the same, giving my 100 per cent every race weekend, trying to have success, and just try to the best, that will be the target for the next 18 races.

Q. I think a year ago we were thinking 'that Sergio Pérez is pretty good with the tyres' and a year later we're still thinking the same thing - after the first two grands prix. Have the specifications come to you? Have this year's specifications helped you?

SP: I don't think it has helped in terms of last year for me on the roadside. I can play the tyres, but sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't work. I always try to adapt myself to different conditions that you have in Formula One most of the time, which is even more difficult, to be adapting to every single condition. You have different conditions in free practice than in qualifying and it's very important to be able to adapt yourself to any condition.

Q. But that's something that you're going to continue to exploit?

SP: Of course, there is a big potential there and with experience it will get better because when I came to Formula One it was (sound drops out) to keep changing your style. People always ask me 'what's your style?' but I think in Formula One you don't have one – you are always changing your style and trying to adapt yourself to any condition.

Q. Fernando, what we expecting from you and what are you expecting from yourself and Ferrari this weekend? What's changed since the last race?

Fernando ALONSO: Nothing changed. I think it's going to be a tough weekend for us again. I don't expect any big surprises as we've been saying, the team and myself, all week, the car has some small improvements, nothing big for this race and I think it's the same, more or less, for all the other teams around us in the paddock. So I expect more or less the positions to maintain, or to keep the same as the first two races, which means a difficult to weekend for us. Struggling to be in Q3, I guess, in qualifying and then in the race to score as many points as possible as we did in the first races – trying to do a good strategy, a good management of the tyres and a little bit of luck. It's always a factor that we always seem to forget is there. I remember in Australia we had a great team effort from everybody there, a good strategy, pit stops etc, but we also had some luck to get the fifth result and in Malaysia we had the same. Starting from the first corner, we avoided any accident. It seems normal but every first corner is always a risk. We had Grosjean and Schumacher crashing in turn four in Malaysia, which we were very close to being in that accident as well. So, it's always... a race or a grand prix is not only pace, a good strategy or good driving skills. It's a big package and luck is a big factor. Hopefully the luck is still with us this weekend.

Q. Will a wet track be part of that luck?

FA: I guess so.

Q. So you're praying for rain?

FA: It can be a very good weekend for you or very bad because it's a little bit of gamble in the rain. Anything can happen. You can be with the right tyre in the right moment or completely the wrong tyre in the wrong moment, so this is what happens in wet races. As I said, with a normal race we know our possibilities, we know our limitations at the moment, which is not quick enough. So in a wet race, we can lose a couple of points or we can win a lot more. Maybe this risk of a wet race can be good for us at the moment because in normal conditions we are not as fast as we expected.

Q. Fernando, you've passed Jackie Stewart's number of wins with your victory in Malaysia. Only Michael Schumacher, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna and Nigel Mansell have won more races than you. That last win of yours was also compared with Gilles Villeneuve in that it was a win against the odds. What does it mean to you to be talked about in the company of those drivers?

FA: I'm privileged to be in that group of great drivers that I watched on TV as a kid and now I'm having a good career in Formula One and I've been extremely privileged to drive for fantastic teams in my career. So, the number of victories will hopefully increase even more and I will be up in this table. Records are not something that you pay a big importance to now, as you concentrated on your next grand prix or you are so focused on your daily preparation that you don't pay too much attention but I'm sure that in 10 or 15 years time I will appreciate it much more than now. But I'm not paying too much attention now.

Q. Narain, it's been a difficult start to the season. Just give us some indication as to how difficult it has been for the team, for the drivers and the sort of mountain that there is to climb for the HRT team.

Narain KARTHIKEYAN: Yeah. The start of the year wasn't very good because we missed all the testing and then we came to Australia with a new car and like all new cars, it had a lot of problems with cooling and hydraulics and few laps. Clearly our car is still lacking a lot of downforce, which is the biggest problem. Pedro de la Rosa is quite good to help the team to go in the right direction, he has a lot of experience with big teams, so we're trying to improve. It's still a very small team and we have limited resources but I can see that the structure is a lot stronger than last year. There are some good people in the team and so we will improve quite a lot at the Mugello test hopefully.

Q. It's obviously left you as a backmarker in the last race which got you involved in a public argument which we won't go into, but what is life like as a backmarker in Formula One, especially when there are a lot of cars on the circuit due to the reliability of the cars? Are your eyes on the mirrors all time?

NK: Yes, practically after the first 15 laps or so after that it's very difficult because a lot of blue flags. I think at the last race there were something like 36 blue flags so it's quite difficult. The car is obviously five or six seconds off the pace and in tricky conditions like when we switched to dry tyres, with less downforce and it's so hard to drive and the car is a handful to drive in completely dry conditions, so in mixed conditions it's really difficult. But it is what it is, this is what I have and I will try to do the best with what I have.

Q. Is the driver ever going to say that the car is too slow in those conditions, at one circuit or another?

NK: No, I think qualifying within the 107 percent is no longer a problem, but we need to improve for sure. We need to reduce the gap. If you take our lap times from last year, we have not improved so much. From the numbers we had, we were hoping that the car would take a significant step forward but that is not the case right now. We know the reasons, there is a wind tunnel programme and we're trying to improve it.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q. (Flavio Vanetti – Il Corriere della Sera ) Fernando, are you surprised that the Red Bulls haven't been as competitive as they were last year and that they will come back very soon?

FA: Not surprised because I know the complex world of Formula One and developing a car in Formula One is not the easiest thing in the world but for us and for the team, we were surprised that when we put the car on the track in winter testing that we didn't have the results we were hoping for and that was the biggest surprise. From that point, you start working on the car, you start working on the improvements and you know that there's not a magic button that you touch, or a magic part of the track that you can change and the car immediately becomes competitive. You start work that has to be done properly, step-by-step and hopefully new parts will come very soon that will make the car quicker but this is something that we need to be calm about, let the people in Italy work and here when we are on trackside and at the Grand Prix try to maximise the potential we have in our hands; it's what we did in the first two races and what we will try to do in the next two.

Q. (Steve Dawson - ESPN Star Sports) Does any member of the panel acknowledge that they might have a moral difficulty in going to Bahrain next week?

There is no reply.

Q. (Carlos Miguel – La Gaceta) Fernando, in this race are you waiting for big improvements or is everything going according to plan? Or are you waiting until Barcelona for a big improvement?

FA: As I said, no big improvements for this race and I don't think… No big improvements for this race and as I said, we're working, we're working on the car and I think we cannot say that for Barcelona there will be a big improvement because we don't know. We are working day and night to do the work and to improve the car and I think we have some new parts for the car which we need to test tomorrow – maybe they are working fine, maybe they are not working and we need to come back with those parts. In Barcelona there will be more new parts which I'm hoping for. We need to test to see if they are working fine. For Canada there will do more, Monaco, so it's nothing… as I said, Formula One these days doesn't have a magic button where we change something, we arrive in China, we arrive in Barcelona, in Canada and you change one part on the car and you improve by one second. This will be constant work from the team, improving one tenth, two tenths, three tenths every step that we do and we need to do it quicker than the others because all the other teams will bring a couple tenths (advantage) to every race so we need to bring some more.

Q. (Livio Oricchio – O Estado de Sao Paulo) Sergio, how is your approach to this Grand Prix, considering that everybody is maybe expecting something similar from you in comparison to the last two races? It looks very hard not to be affected by the interest everybody has in you.

SP: I think we are really realistic as a team. We know that the Malaysian race was not a normal race, the conditions were extremely difficult for everybody. We got them right, we stopped at the right time more or less and we were able to fight for victory, but I think in normal conditions this is not where we belong, we have to be very realistic and our target is still to score as many points as possible. If we can score another podium during the year it will be great, but we are very realistic that it can really only happen in different conditions.

Q. (Carlos Miquel – La Gaceta) Narain, tomorrow in the drivers' briefing what's your position with Vettel?

NK: For me it was a racing incident and we've spoken to each other so it should be OK.

[Lineker]

The Bahrain Grand Prix will go ahead as planned, the FIA announced on Friday, after promising that security in the Gulf state has been assured.

Following weeks of uncertainty about the fate of the event, amid ongoing unrest in the kingdom, motor racing's governing body ended speculation about the matter.

Before talks take place between Bernie Ecclestone and teams in the Shanghai paddock, the FIA said that it saw no reason to be worried about safety.

"Based on the current information the FIA has at this stage, it is satisfied that all the proper security measures are in place for the running of a Formula One World Championship event in Bahrain," it said.

"Therefore, the FIA confirms that the 2012 Gulf Air F1 Grand Prix of Bahrain will go ahead as scheduled."

The FIA made it clear that it had kept a close eye on developments in Bahrain, and was not worried by anything it had seen over recent weeks.

"The FIA is the governing body of motor sport and therefore of Formula One," said the statement. "As such, it sets the season's calendars following the proposal of the Commercial Rights Holder (CRH) in accordance with the local national authorities in all matters relating to safety.

"Within that context, the FIA ensures that any event forming part of an FIA World Championship is organised in compliance with the FIA Statutes and the relevant Sporting and Technical Regulations and that the safety of the public, officials, drivers and teams is secured at all times during an event.

"The FIA must make rational decisions based on the information provided to us by the Bahraini authorities and by the Commercial Rights Holder. In addition we have endeavoured to assess the ongoing situation in Bahrain."

The FIA added that there had been no request from Formula 1 teams or Ecclestone to postpone or cancel the race.

The Bahrain Grand Prix is to go ahead as scheduled on 22 April, the sport's governing body the FIA has said.

There had been concerns it would be cancelled due to security concerns caused by civil unrest in the Middle East country.

But in a statement released on Friday, the FIA said it was satisfied proper security measures were in place.

Earlier, Sir Jackie Stewart said cancelling the event could have had a damaging effect on Formula 1.

The event was cancelled last year following pro-democracy protests in the country.

Confirming the news, the FIA said: "Based on the current information the FIA has at this stage, it is satisfied that all the proper security measures are in place for the running of a Formula One World Championship event in Bahrain.

"Therefore, the FIA confirms that the 2012 Gulf Air F1 Grand Prix of Bahrain will go ahead as scheduled."

The organisation added that its president, Jean Todt, had been on a fact-finding mission to the country in November last year and had met a lot of decision makers and opinion formers, including Bahrain's Crown Prince and several politicians and business leaders, who all wished for the event to go ahead.

"Away from the public eye, the FIA has received regular security briefings from the most senior diplomatic officials based in the Kingdom as well as from other independent experts," it added.

The confirmation cames as F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone was preparing to w meet the 12 teams in Shanghai on Friday to discuss the plans.

He has continually said he had no concerns over safety.

Red Bull driver Mark Weber had initially expressed some misgivings about the prospect of racing.

But on Thursday he gave his tentative support to the event, saying: "If we had a choice would we go? I want to race. That is what I would like to go there and do.

"But saying that you cannot ignore the fact that all of us, in the backs of our minds, want it to go down smoothly and don't want it to be involved in the unrest.

"We want the people out there to support our race. That is why it is so sensitive."

On Thursday three-time world champion Stewart said : "I'd be disappointed if F1 allowed itself to be threatened in such a way."

"It's negative for the sport in general to cancel an event. And where would it end then - the Olympics, the World Cup?

Bahrain International Circuit chairman Zayed Al Zayani has insisted the Middle East island state was ready to host the race and criticised "scaremongering tactics" saying they helped create misconceptions about the situation in Bahrain.

Human Rights Watch has warned Formula 1 that by holding next week's Bahrain Grand Prix, it will be endorsing the kingdom's regime despite claims that sport and politics don't mix.

Joe Stork, the deputy middle east director of Human Rights Watch, which monitors human rights issues worldwide, stopped short of calling for the race to be cancelled in an interview with AUTOSPORT. But he believes that if the race does happen then F1 will be seen as supporting the government.

"You can't say that you are not mixing politics and sport when you are coming down on one side," Stork told AUTOSPORT. "You may prefer not to be facing the choice of whether to go in or stay out, but this is the choice F1 faces. Whatever decision it takes, there is a political aspect to it.

"We don't feel that it is our place to be calling for F1 to boycott Bahrain. But it is not a very good situation and it's getting steadily worse. We are not security experts, so that's a whole separate consideration that F1 needs to take into account as well.

"We are looking at a lockdown. F1 is not my world, but this seems to be a terrible climate in which to hold what is supposed to be a competitive, festive sporting event. In the circumstances, I don't know who is going to be having any fun."

Stork believes that even though there is a good chance that security forces in Bahrain can make the race itself safe, F1 will face serious questions about its willingness to race there.

Protests against the race have been ongoing in Bahrain in recent weeks according to widespread news reports, and they are expected to continue once F1 arrives.

"I think that they [F1] will have some explaining to do," said Stork. "I can easily imagine that the security will be such that you won't have the race disrupted on the track and I imagine that they can keep that under control.

"But if you have a situation where there are demonstrations on a nightly, if not daily basis, clashes with security forces who aren't known for the most sophisticated crowd control techniques is not going to be good.

"It's not going to be good for Bahrain, it's not going to be good for F1 either if it happens either during the race or when it's clear that the demonstrations are primarily aimed at stopping the race. That's what the story will be."

Stork accepts that staging the race will be a positive for some in the kingdom - specifically the government - but that this is not a valid argument for the race going ahead.

"From the Bahraini government's point of view, of course," he said when asked if there were potential benefits to the race going ahead. "They are desperate to make the case that the situation is normal from a security point of view, normal in terms of civil strife, and that it's one big happy family.

"But the fact is, it's not normal. I'm not sure that it's the mission or the mandate of F1 to be participating in these kinds of exercises.

"Then there's the financial aspects. The economy of Bahrain is not in the best shape given the year-plus of civil unrest. F1 is a money-maker and is good for Bahraini business and tourism.

"The [ruling] Al Khalifa family are desperate for [the grand prix] to happen. But that doesn't mean that it should happen."

Edited April 13, 2012 by Sir Linekllot

[Lineker]

Lewis Hamilton topped the rain-hit opening free practice session for the Chinese Grand Prix.

The McLaren driver set two fast laps at the end of the session to head Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg by a second at the top of the timesheets as a flurry of drivers set their best laps in the dying minutes of practice.

Hamilton, like team-mate Jenson Button, ran an upgrade package on his McLaren including modified front and rear wings and a new floor during the session - the team taking advantage of new-for-2012 regulations allowing sensor rigs to be run during Friday practice to measure the wake off the rear of the car.

Overnight rain meant that the 90-minute session started in damp conditions and during the half-an-hour most teams focused on installation laps and aerodynamic test runs.

Red Bull Racing's Mark Webber was the first driver to set a serious laptime, getting down to a 1m39.558s on the third flying lap of a six-lap run on Pirelli's medium compound rubber.

That lap was good enough to top the timesheets for much of the session as shortly after he had completed it, light rain made track conditions worse. By this stage, only nine drivers had completed serious runs and their laptimes were largely unchallenged until the track dried up enough for slicks to be run effectively in the final 10 minutes of the session.

Michael Schumacher had been in contention to top the timesheets after swapping fastest times with Webber with a few minutes to go, but he ended up third two-tenths behind his team-mate.

Behind him, the two Saubers of Sergio Perez and Kamui Kobayashi both improved at the eleventh hour as the track conditions rapidly improved, demoting Webber to sixth.

The Australian was running Red Bull's latest-specification exhaust setup, while team-mate Sebastian Vettel, who ended up one place and two-tenths behind him, used the exhaust setup the team ran early in testing to compare the performance of the two designs.

Button ended up eight fastest, complaining of traffic late on, with Scuderia Toro Rosso pairing Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne rounding out the top 10, like most of the field setting their fastest times in the final few minutes on prime rubber.

All of the top 16 drivers improved late on, with Lotus driver Romain Grosjean down in 17th place the best of the drivers whose laps in the early dry phase of the session were not improved upon.

Force India reserve driver Jules Bianchi made his grand prix weekend debut as third driver at Force India, ending the morning in 20th place, setting his best time on intermediates unlike team-mate Nico Hulkenberg, who used medium slicks.

His opposite number at Caterham, Dutchman Giedo van der Garde, also made his first appearance, lapping around 1.5s off Heikki Kovalainen's pace.

FP1


Pos  Driver                Team                  Time               Laps

 1.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes      1m37.106              7

 2.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes              1m38.116s  + 1.010   14

 3.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes              1m38.316s  + 1.210   14

 4.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari        1m38.584s  + 1.478   13

 5.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari        1m38.911s  + 1.805   12

 6.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault      1m38.977s  + 1.871   15

 7.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault      1m39.198s  + 2.092   12

 8.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes      1m39.199s  + 2.093    6

 9.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m39.748s  + 2.642   16

10.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m39.768s  + 2.662   14

11.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari               1m40.056s  + 2.950   14

12.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari               1m40.153s  + 3.047   14

13.  Valtteri Bottas       Williams-Renault      1m40.298s  + 3.192    8

14.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes  1m40.328s  + 3.222   13

15.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault      1m40.540s  + 3.434   12

16.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault      1m41.071s  + 3.965   14

17.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault         1m41.204s  + 4.098   14

18.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth     1m42.330s  + 5.224   14

19.  Giedo van der Garde   Caterham-Renault      1m42.521s  + 5.415   11      

20.  Jules Bianchi         Force India-Mercedes  1m44.118s  + 7.012    8

21.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth          1m44.227s  + 7.121   10

22.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth     1m44.500s  + 7.394   15

23.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth          1m47.204s  + 10.098  12

24.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault         1m50.465s  + 13.359  11


All Timing Unofficial[/code]




Michael Schumacher ended the first day of practice for the Chinese Grand Prix on top of the timesheets.



After rain restricted the number of laps completed in the morning, every team opted for an intense schedule during the second 90-minute.



Morning pacesetter Lewis Hamilton picked up where he left off early on, hitting top spot after just eight minutes while on a six-lap run on medium Pirellis.



With everyone opting for primes for their first serious runs, Hamilton's time was 0.134s faster than Schumacher, with Red Bull Racing's Sebastian Vettel two-tenths further back.



Hamilton and the Mercedes driver continued on mediums on their second run, while Sauber driver Kamui Kobayashi jumped up to third place with a lap within a tenth-and-a-half off Hamilton on the half-hour mark. A few minutes later, the Japanese survived a lurid slide off the track after being caught out while pushing too hard.



Vettel was the first of the frontrunners to set a time on the soft compound tyre, lapping a quarter-of-a-second quicker than Hamilton on the first flier of his second run and subsequently improving by another four tenths of a second.



Team-mate Mark Webber, running the latest-spec exhaust compared to the early specification used in the first part of pre-season testing that Vettel ran, slotted in just under three-tenths behind his team-mate not long before the halfway point of the session.



While the Red Bulls had taken three laps to get the peak performance out of their soft tyres, both Schumacher and Hamilton, who shortly after headed out on their fresh soft rubber, extracted the performance from their tyres immediately.



Schumacher posted his best time, a 1m35.973s, on his first flier, but Hamilton looked set to outpace him after setting the best time of all in sectors one and two before losing his advantage, and another 0.172s, in the final sector.



Neither Nico Rosberg in the second Mercedes, nor Jenson Button in the second McLaren, were able to match the pace of their team-mates, ending up fifth and sixth ahead of Kobayashi, whose earlier lap on prime rubber was enough for seventh overall.



Force India driver Paul di Resta ended up eighth fastest, within a second of the outright pace and a couple of tenths ahead of team-mate Nico Hulkenberg, with Alonso, who couldn't get the maximum out of his soft tyres on his first flying lap, just behind.



Several drivers had offs during the session. Both di Resta and Caterham driver Vitaly Petrov suffered spins at the final corner after running wide at the exit and losing it on the damp runoff, but the biggest moment of the day was provided by Marussia driver Timo Glock.



The German appeared to lose his front wing under braking for Turn 1, locking up and clattering through the gravel trap and ending up against the barrier. The team was uncertain as to the cause of the off, but Glock's initial concern that he had hurt his hands soon abated.



[code]FP2


Pos  Driver                Team                   Time               Laps

 1.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes               1m35.973             32

 2.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes       1m36.145s  + 0.172   29

 3.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault       1m36.160s  + 0.187   26

 4.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault       1m36.433s  + 0.460   23

 5.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes               1m36.617s  + 0.644   30

 6.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes       1m36.711s  + 0.738   27

 7.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari         1m36.956s  + 0.983   28

 8.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes   1m36.966s  + 0.993   30

 9.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes   1m37.191s  + 1.218   30

10.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari                1m37.316s  + 1.343   32

11.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari         1m37.417s  + 1.444   22

12.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m37.616s  + 1.643   33

13.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault          1m37.836s  + 1.863   30

14.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m37.930s  + 1.957   31

15.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault          1m37.972s  + 1.999   25

16.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault       1m38.176s  + 2.203   34

17.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari                1m38.293s  + 2.320   30

18.  Bruno Senna           Williams-Renault       1m38.783s  + 2.810   37

19.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault       1m38.990s  + 3.017   36

20.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault       1m39.346s  + 3.373   19

21.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth      1m39.651s  + 3.678   15

22.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth           1m40.343s  + 4.370   24

23.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth      1m40.753s  + 4.780   30

24.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth           1m41.125s  + 5.162   26


All Timing Unofficial

Lewis Hamilton is upbeat about the long-run pace of his McLaren, which he hopes will make him a contender for victory in China despite a five-place grid penalty.

The McLaren driver discovered yesterday that he would be hit with the grid drop after the team discovered a cracked component in the gearbox, forcing them to change it before Saturday morning.

But Hamilton, who ended morning practice fastest and was second in the afternoon session, is confident that his race pace is strong enough to be a factor.

"The longer runs look competitive," said Hamilton. "It's the race I'm focusing on a little bit more than qualifying compared to the other races and we are improving consistency and the way we look after the tyres.

"The car is looking very good. We have a few improvements to make to the balance but hopefully we will be there or thereabouts.

"We had a good couple of sessions today so I will try and improve the balance a bit and also see if I can try and find some time elsewhere on the track."

Despite focusing on the race, Hamilton did not discount having a run at a third consecutive pole position tomorrow even though he knows that he will end up being relegated to sixth place.

"The car feels quite good but the others seem like they have made a good step as well like the Red Bulls and the Mercedes," said Hamilton. "We will keep on pushing and I hope we can be as high as possible especially when we have a bit of a penalty to take."

Jenson Button was less positive than his McLaren team-mate after a difficult day.

He struggled with tyre temperatures and car balance and admitted that he needs to make some progress overnight.

"It wasn't a great day but there's still a lot of information to look at [to understand] the reason why we couldn't get a good balance today," said the 2009 world champion.

"The car is obviously working, we've just got to get it in the right area to get the tyres working, which Lewis is doing very well. The pace is in the car, we've just got to extract it."

Jenson Button does not believe that Lewis Hamilton's grid penalty is automatically a good thing for him.

Although the five-place drop that Hamilton will suffer as the result of a gearbox change leaves the way open for Button to secure pole position, the Briton is aware that his team-mate being out of position could complicate his own strategy.

When asked by AUTOSPORT if it makes his life easier knowing that Hamilton will start down the order, Button said: "In a way it does. But it also throws it up in the air a lot more. It's a strange one: you would say it should make life easier for me, but does it? I don't know, we'll have to wait and see."

He added: "If we are in different positions on the grid, and run different strategies, sometimes you don't want that. We will have to see what happens.

"It's obviously sad for Lewis and for the whole team as well because it is an issue and we don't like to have reliability issues. We have got to hope that it doesn't happen again and we can put it behind us.

"Obviously it was unlucky for Lewis that it happened on his car and not my car, but if you don't find the problem you can't solve it and it could easily happen on my car next race so... hopefully we can find and solve that problem so it doesn't happen again."

Button is upbeat about McLaren's potential for the Chinese Grand Prix, after the team locked out the front row at the opening two grands prix.

"We were unlucky in Malaysia and obviously there were a couple of mistakes, but as a team I think we've done well at the start of the year. We come here with a few upgrades and it's not like the years before when we've sort of brought six tenths of a second of upgrades. You just can't do that in terms of the ways the cars are limited now because of the regulations, but I am very happy with what we have brought here.

"I think the team has done a great job to do that considering we're probably one of the teams that most teams are copying in terms of the design of the car so it's tricky for us. So really our war is with Red Bull, the Lotus, which I don't think has had a proper weekend yet, and the Mercedes, which obviously hasn't had a proper weekend yet. It's not going to be a walk in the park this weekend, it's going to be very, very competitive."

Sebastian Vettel found the Red Bull RB8 more comfortable to drive during Friday practice for the Chinese Grand Prix after switching to the exhaust design used during pre-season testing.

The double world champion ran the old package to allow the team to conduct a comparison with the latest-specification used by team-mate Mark Webber, but is unsure whether or not he would continue with the car in this configuration.

"I think I felt a bit more comfortable here today and a bit more together, so we will see," said Vettel after practice. "It's a bit tricky now to say. I don't have the [point of] comparison on this track, and it is cooler here, but it looks a bit more competitive and looks fairly close.

"I don't know [if we will keep the exhaust on the car] but for now I am pretty happy. Now we need to look at the data and compare the two cars to see which is the best package to come up with."

Team-mate Mark Webber was also happy with the progress made during Friday running and is hopeful that analysis of the comparative data of the two cars will allow the team to make a step forward on Saturday.

"I haven't driven the car for a while that Seb had today, and neither has he," said Webber. "It's the first time he has been back in it and there are changes and differences on how the cars work on different parts of the lap, so we need to go through it tonight.

"We might rob a little bit of each other's strengths and weaknesses. In general, we are going in the right direction."

Vettel and Webber ended the afternoon practice session third and fourth fastest, 0.172s and 0.460s off pacesetter Michael Schumacher respectively.

Ferrari technical director Pat Fry says the upgrades the team has brought to Shanghai are a step forward - but that this will not be apparent in the Chinese Grand Prix as the circuit characteristics do not suit the F2012.

Although Fernando Alonso leads the world championship thanks to his surprise Malaysian GP victory, Ferrari has struggled for pace in dry conditions all year.

It accelerated its upgrade programme to fit new parts for China, but Fry warned that the team was still unlikely to qualify above the lower part of the top 10.

"We have brought some updates here for the F2012 which should provide an improvement in terms of performance, compared to the first two races," he said.

"The first evaluation that we can make after these three hours of free practice is a positive one, but clearly we have hours of work ahead of us this afternoon and tonight to complete an in-depth analysis. On the other hand, we cannot ignore the fact that the characteristics of this track seem to be less suited to our car than Malaysia.

"Taking these two factors into consideration, I am not expecting anything new in terms of our positions on the grid. At the moment, our realistic expectation is somewhere between seventh and 12th place, as indeed we were in Sepang.

"However, we have to bear in mind that it's all very close, so it only takes the slightest thing - a mistake, a less than perfect lap – to make for a significant change of position, either upward or downward."

Fry called for patience from Ferrari's fans as it tries to pull itself out of its current troubles.

"To those who ask me when we will see a Ferrari fighting for pole position, I can only reply there is no magic button we can press to improve the situation in one go," he said.

"We need to push in many areas, starting with the aerodynamics which is still the decisive factor in today's Formula 1, while not forgetting our work methods, in order to get the results in the short term, but especially in the long term."

Alonso and Felipe Massa were 10th and 17th in practice on Friday, with the latter saying he would have been closer to his team-mate had he not been disrupted by Marussia driver Timo Glock's crash.

"When I was on my first run on the soft tyres, Glock went off the track at Turn 1 and I was forced to pit again," said Massa. "This meant I was unable to get the most out of this set of tyres and significantly improve my time.

"I am sure that it would have been much faster than the one posted on the classification. That bothers me a bit because I did not manage to use the soft tyres in the way I should have done."

Ferrari needs to widen the operating window of its F2012 because it is only delivering its peak performance in selected conditions, says its tyre guru Hirohide Hamashima.

Although Alonso's form in the Malaysian Grand Prix showed that the Ferrari can deliver in low-grip conditions, the team is still working on improving how it performs in other situations.

"Honestly speaking, still we are struggling," said Hamashima about the tyre performance. "The car has potential, but so far we can't find the good point at the moment. In the winter, sometimes we could find the good point, but sometimes there was a big difference. And, at the same time, we have to find the good point and also make the car more robust."

Hamashima, who joined Ferrari after years working for Japanese tyre company Bridgestone, thinks that the F2012 performs better in race conditions than qualifying - but he reckons that it will be able to be strong on both single laps and long runs.

"I believe that currently our car is stronger in race conditions than in qualifying," he explained. "But only two races have passed, so I don't know for sure. But at least we can say wet conditions are maybe preferable."

Speaking about the tyre warm-up problems that Ferrari faced in recent history, Hamashima said: "We at Ferrari have solved the warm-up problem. But in terms of the different positions of the compounds by Pirelli, the car helps so much to fix the warm-up problem.

"Of course, in race conditions it is a compromise. If you warm up well, the degradation will be greater than previously, but once we can make the balance of the car right, I believe that we can get good warm up and good durability. So currently, we have to find a good balance."

Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn says there are no concerns about Nico Rosberg's qualifying performances this year - despite the German making errors on his quickest qualifying runs in Australia and Malaysia.

With Mercedes having delivered a step forward in performance this year, Rosberg has been in contention for take pole position at the opening two events but lock ups on his Q3 runs hurt his chances.

Those errors have raised question marks about Rosberg's ability to deliver under pressure, but Brawn has insisted he is not worried about what has happened.

"To be fair it is a very small sample base," he said when asked about Rosberg's situation. "We have only scored one point in two races and if that is our average then we have some serious issues.

"It is far too early to say [about Rosberg]. There have been some differences in the way the car responds under braking, and they are the things that have caught him out. At the last race he had an issue with flat spotted tyres and I think he did the previous race – so it is a particular issue under braking that he is finding a little bit difficult.

"We are doing things to try and improve that for him. I don't think there is any issue with Nico and, when that gets smoothed out, we are going to see something special from him."

Brawn believes that Rosberg's ability to deliver something extra over a single lap could be a factor in what has happened too.

"He is good at squeezing out that last bit of performance, and maybe in doing that he is going a little bit over the edge," he said. "It is up to us to try and improve the car so he can do that."

Sauber's sights remain set on consistent points finishes rather than podium finishes despite Sergio Perez's near-victory in last month's Malaysian Grand Prix.

Sauber CEO Monisha Kaltenborn admitted that expectations have been raised by that performance, but emphasised that the team must remain realistic.

"We are laying a basis for our target which is to score points at every race weekend and through that significantly improve our position [in the championship]," said Kaltenborn.

"Looking at the result that we had in the last race, it's normal that you raise your expectations but we are quite prudent about the fact that in Malaysia everything went just right. It would not be right to take that as a benchmark for the coming races, particularly because the gaps are so small so it doesn't take much and you are suddenly down the grid.

"The Sauber C31 is a fast car and, looking at the last race, is competitive under very different conditions. So it gives us a lot of confidence. We can see that there is a lot of potential, so we need to utilise it."

Kaltenborn believes that the team can achieve its target of improving qualifying form because its tyre warm-up characteristics are not as troublesome as they were in 2011.

The C31 is easy on its tyres in race conditions, but as a consequence of this struggles to get enough energy into the rubber for optimum grip in qualifying. While this has held Sauber back in qualifying so far this year, the problem is not as severe as it was last year, which gives the team encouragement.

"The major problem we still have is qualifying," said Kaltenborn. "Last year it was a bigger issue trying to get the tyres to work at the right temperature. It's not so much of an issue this year.

"We can utilise the potential of this car far more if we have a good starting position, but to have that result everything needs to fit together; your set-up, how you use your tyres, the drivers doing a perfect lap. We need to work on this combination."

Sergio Perez says he struggled with brake issues during second practice for the Chinese Grand Prix on Friday.

The Mexican, who starred in the previous race in Malaysia where he finished second, was fourth fastest in the morning session but dropped down to 11th in the afternoon.

Perez admitted he was happier with his car's balance in the morning, and blamed brake problems for a big lock-up that damaged his tyres in the afternoon.

"The balance of my car had actually been better in the first free practice session compared to the afternoon," said Perez. "I wasn't too happy in the second free practice. I had problems with the brakes, which didn't work the way they should, and I lost too much front tyre temperature on the back straight.

"It was too easy to lock the front. We need to improve the car's overall balance for qualifying. We have a bit of homework now, but we have gathered quite a good amount of data."

Team-mate Kamui Kobayashi, on the other hand, was happier with his car's handling in the afternoon after finishing seventh fastest.

"We had a few minor issues to fix, but overall today's practice sessions went smoothly," he said. "Sometimes the visibility was a bit poor and this didn't help to predict where the track was and wasn't slippery.

"My car definitely felt better balanced in the afternoon's practice session than it did in the morning, and I believe we look okay here on this track.

"Of course there is still room for improvement in regard to the set-up. When we make our decisions for tomorrow we will not focus too much on today's track conditions, as we expect the temperatures to be a bit higher then."

Giedo van der Garde felt he delivered the maximum he could for Caterham in his first appearance in a grand prix weekend practice session at Shanghai on Friday.

The Dutchman has previous Formula 1 testing experience with Spyker/Force India, Super Aguri and Renault, as well as trying the 2012 Caterham in winter testing this year, but had not run in a GP weekend itself prior to China.

Van der Garde took 19th place in the first practice session, which saw damp conditions. He was 1.5 seconds down on team-mate Heikki Kovalainen's pace.

"That wasn't the easiest first FP1 session for me with the team but I'm pleased with the job I did and have had good feedback from the engineers, so I don't think I could have done any more in today's tricky conditions," said van der Garde.

Caterham's technical director Mark Smith said the team was satisfied with van der Garde's contribution.

"We started with Giedo in for Vitaly this morning and he did a good job in conditions that were obviously pretty tricky," said Smith.

Van der Garde felt that Caterham had made clear progress with the CT-01 since he first tried it in the winter.

"In general the car balance was good. There's a lot of traction and the braking stability has improved since the test I did in Spain so it's good to see the car's developing well," he said.

"Bearing in mind the updates we've brought here, it's clear the team is pushing hard to join the fight ahead and I'm glad I had the chance today to help here in China."

Formula 1 teams say they are happy for the Bahrain Grand Prix to go ahead, after receiving reassurances from Bernie Ecclestone in China on Friday.

Representatives from all the teams met with Ecclestone in the break between first and second practice to discuss the Bahrain situation - as moves were made to clear up queries they had.

Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner said that the ending of speculation about the matter was welcome - with teams having been told by the FIA earlier in the day that the Bahrain GP was definitely on.

"I think it's clear," said Horner. "The confusing thing has been uncertainty, so I think for everybody here in the paddock now it's clear that there will be a race in Bahrain next week."

Williams director Toto Wolff, who attended the meeting for the Grove-based team, told AUTOSPORT: "We have to rely on competent people. The FIA issued a statement relying on people there, and competent people. They say it is safe; safe for teams, safe for F1, and that is why we go full steam ahead to Bahrain.

"I am happy to take the team to Bahrain. I have to balance out what information I get and, at the moment, it seems to be competent information. And you have to, at a certain stage, rely on that information. I would rather go for [information from] competent people being there, rather than Facebook."

Wolff said that the meeting had been positive, and that it was good to get some dialogue with Ecclestone about the situation there.

"The teams expressed I would not say concern, but they wanted to know whether everything we heard was right, and we have to rely on this."

Although Ecclestone insisted that there were no problems in Bahrain, Horner did say that his outfit would be taking extra safety precautions.

"I think we take the security of all our employees very carefully and, so inevitably, as with other races, sometimes extra precautions are taken," he said.

"We'll do our best to ensure that all our guys and girls are in a secure environment, and I don't doubt that for a moment. I think the statement from the FIA is clear and you are looking at thousands of people attending that race, not just Red Bull Racing."

Bernie Ecclestone thinks it is now time to stop speculation about the Bahrain Grand Prix, after he reassured Formula 1 team bosses on Friday that the event would be totally safe.

F1's commercial rights holder held a meeting with team principals in the Shanghai paddock to talk about the Bahrain situation - with the FIA having confirmed earlier in the day that the race will be going ahead.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Ecclestone said that there were no issues or concerns about Bahrain.

"Everybody's happy," said Ecclestone. "We haven't got any problems. It's a problem being discussed by the media. They don't have any idea what's going on. That's the problem.

"This race is on the calendar, and has been on the calendar for quite a long time, and we will be there. All the teams are happy to be there."

Ecclestone said there was no point in trying to second guess what protestors may try and do to disrupt the event.

"The national sporting authority will keep us informed as to what is happening. There's nothing happening. I know people who live there and it's all very quiet and peaceful.

"There has been enough speculation and things said, and I think it was a good thing to put something out. I suppose the right thing to do is to stop speculating and wait and see, then we will deal with the matter when it arises."

The Bahrain International Circuit has welcomed the FIA's announcement of this morning confirming that the kingdom's grand prix will go ahead next week.

Amid growing speculation about whether the race would be called off after news reports of further protests against the race in Bahrain, the BIC's statement is insistent that the situation in Bahrain is adequate to stage the race.

The statement reads: "The Bahrain International Circuit ('BIC') welcomes the statement which the FIA has issued regarding next week's Bahrain Grand Prix, together with the clarification provided by the commercial rights holder, following recent media speculation."

"The BIC has been clear throughout recent weeks and months that the security situation in Bahrain is suitable for the staging of a major sporting event. This assessment has been provided by experienced figures, from both inside and outside the Bahraini government, to motor racing entities which have travelled to Bahrain to do their own research."

The statement claimed that it was business as usual in terms of preparing for the event and that the BIC has total confidence that it will run run properly.

"The certainty of those assessments have meant that the BIC has been able to prepare as usual for the staging of the F1 Grand Prix and is therefore wholly confident that the event will be organised with the efficiency that has been the hallmark of the BIC in the past.

"We hugely look forward both to an exciting sporting occasion and to extending the traditional warm Bahraini welcome to Formula 1 teams, administrators and fans visiting our country next week."

[Lineker]

Lewis Hamilton set himself up perfectly for a strong qualifying run at the Chinese Grand Prix by topping the final free practice session at Shanghai.

The McLaren driver must serve a five-place grid penalty because of a gearbox change, but confirmed his status as qualifying favourite as he bids to limit the damage caused and secure what would become sixth place on the grid.

Hamilton's fastest time came during a qualifying simulation on the soft Pirelli rubber late in the session, the 2008 world champion eclipsing his team-mate Jenson Button by just over a tenth of a second.

After a quiet start to the session, with the first timed lap not being completed until almost 15 minutes had elapsed, the teams and drivers set about their run plans on prime rubber. As well as evaluating overnight setup changes, teams also needed to use the running to understand how the increased track temperature, which was almost 15C higher than on Friday, affected tyre characteristics and grip levels, the latter reckoned to have reduced.

Red Bull's Mark Webber emerged with the fastest lap from those completing their initial prime runs in the first half-hour. He set a mark of 1m36.879s to shade Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg by 0.1s. But Hamilton also showed his pace on with fuel by lapping 0.375s off Webber's pace with a time set on his first flying lap. A subsequent run on mediums suggested that he could easily have gone quicker, even though he didn't complete what would have been a faster lap.

Sebastian Vettel also turned in a decent lap on his first proper prime run, which came later than most, lapping 0.160s off his team-mate. Vettel opted to use the Red Bull exhaust setup used in the first part of pre-season testing, which although it produces less downforce appears to offer him a more consistent and well-balanced car, while Webber stuck with the latest-specification.

Mercedes pairing Michael Schumacher and Rosberg were the first of the frontrunners to complete a qualifying simulation on soft rubber with around 20 minutes to go. Rosberg took top spot with a lap of 1m36.389s, shading his 43-year-old team-mate by 0.123s.

Button jumped ahead of both on his qualifying simulation with 10 minutes remaining, setting his best time on the third lap of his run.

In the flurry of qualifying simulations that followed in the final five minutes, Hamilton made his move and put together the fastest times in all three sectors to take top spot despite a lock-up at Turn 14.

Neither Red Bull driver appeared to show their full qualifying hand, with Webber ending up fifth and Vettel ninth, but Williams man Pastor Maldonado and Sauber duo Sergio Perez and Kamui Kobayashi both did times good enough for the top 10.

The top 18, propped up by Ferrari's Felipe Massa, were covered by just 1.891s, suggesting that today's qualifying session will be a very competitive one for the leading nine teams.

FP3


Pos  Driver                Team                   Time               Laps

 1.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes       1m35.940s            13

 2.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes       1m36.093s  + 0.123   12

 3.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes               1m36.389s  + 0.449   16

 4.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes               1m36.512s  + 0.572   17

 5.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault       1m36.635s  + 0.695   16

 6.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault       1m36.765s  + 0.825   17

 7.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari         1m36.781s  + 0.841   19

 8.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari         1m36.880s  + 0.940   17

 9.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault       1m37.039s  + 1.099   15

10.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault          1m37.061s  + 1.121   17

11.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes   1m37.237s  + 1.297   16

12.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault          1m37.274s  + 1.334   19

13.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes   1m37.288s  + 1.348   16

14.  Bruno Senna           Williams-Renault       1m37.425s  + 1.485   14

15.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari                1m37.465s  + 1.525   12

16.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m37.493s  + 1.553   13

17.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m37.628s  + 1.688   14

18.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari                1m37.831s  + 1.891   14

19.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault       1m38.701s  + 2.761   19

20.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault       1m39.198s  + 3.258   19

21.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth      1m39.796s  + 3.856   18

22.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth      1m40.048s  + 4.108   17

23.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth           1m41.263s  + 5.323   14

24.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth           1m41.499s  + 5.559   18


All Timing Unofficial[/code]


Amnesty International claims the situation in Bahrain has not improved since the 2011 grand prix was cancelled - and says Formula 1 risks being used as a political tool by allowing next weekend's race to go ahead.


After weeks of debate and controversy, the FIA announced on Friday that there was no reason why the 2012 Bahrain GP could not take place as scheduled on 20-22 April.


But human rights group Amnesty released a briefing on the Bahrain situation later in the day, in which it accused the Gulf state's government of trying to present an image of change rather than tackling its issues, and suggested F1 was a factor in this process.


"In recent months, the Bahraini authorities have become more concerned with rebuilding their image and investing in public relations than with actually introducing real human rights and political reforms in their country," said the Amnesty statement.


"Indeed, for the authorities, much is at stake. They are keen to portray Bahrain as a stable and secure country in order to stave off international criticism. But as the country prepares to host the Formula 1 grand prix on 20-22 April, after the event was cancelled last year in response to the instability in the country, daily anti-government protests continue to be violently suppressed by the riot police that uses tear gas recklessly and with fatal results. Acts of violence by some protesters against the police have also considerably increased in the last three months.


"Holding the grand prix in Bahrain in 2012 risks being interpreted by the government of Bahrain as symbolising a return to business as usual. The international community must not turn a blind eye to the ongoing human rights crisis in the country. The government must understand that its half-hearted measures are not sufficient - sustained progress on real human rights reform remains essential."


The report argued that the present situation in Bahrain was little different to the circumstances that had led to the 2011 race being called off.


"Despite the authorities' claims to the contrary, state violence against those who oppose the Al Khalifa family rule continues, and in practice, not much has changed in the country since the brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters in February and March 2011," said Amnesty.


Earlier on Friday the FIA had declared that it was content the Bahrain GP could safely go ahead.


"Based on the current information the FIA has at this stage, it is satisfied that all the proper security measures are in place for the running of a Formula 1 world championship event in Bahrain," it said.


And F1 commercial rights-holder Bernie Ecclestone told reporters at the Chinese GP that the situation in Bahrain was being misrepresented.


"Everybody's happy," said Ecclestone. "We haven't got any problems. It's a problem being discussed by the media. They don't have any idea what's going on. That's the problem.


"This race is on the calendar, and has been on the calendar for quite a long time, and we will be there. All the teams are happy to be there.


"The national sporting authority will keep us informed as to what is happening. There's nothing happening. I know people who live there and it's all very quiet and peaceful."


Damon Hill says he is now 100 per cent behind the decision by the FIA to let the Bahrain Grand Prix go ahead.


The former world champion had initially supported the event, but then changed his mind and asked the governing body for a rethink, saying Formula 1 could not 'be indifferent' to what is happening in the country.


On Friday, however, Hill said he now fully supports the FIA decision to give the race the green light and show that the country can host the event peacefully.


"I am now 100 per cent behind the FIA decision to race in Bahrain," said Hill. "All the arguments have been made for and against. Human rights organisations have had their cases heard. No one is under any illusions about the situation.


"But the less vocal majority of Bahrainis also have a right to get on with their lives and we also have a responsibility to our F1 fans in the region.


"I hope that F1 can be seen as a symbol of all that is possible if we can work together peacefully."


Lotus is evaluating the idea of developing its own version of the Mercedes DRS-activated front wing stalling concept that it lodged an unsuccessful protest against on Thursday at the Chinese Grand Prix.


The Enstone team reckoned that the design, which allows airflow to be channelled from the rear of the car to the front when the DRS is open, violated regulations prohibiting driver-influenced aerodynamics.


But now that the FIA has deemed it to be legal, the team is looking at whether or not to produce its own version.


"We are at the point of having to make our first estimates of how big the gain might be and eyeballing up the difficulty in actually realising that gain," Lotus technical director James Allison told AUTOSPORT.


"It's anyone's guess how powerful what Mercedes has is. But that's not the issue; it's how powerful we think we can make it.


"If you consider that the average rate of improvement is 0.1s per race and we think we can make something that is, say, 0.4s better in qualifying, it's four races' worth of progress and worth having a bash at. But it can be used in qualifying only.


"If [however] you judge that it's going to take eight races worth of effort for four races' benefit, then you are better off working on other upgrades instead."


Lotus team principal Eric Boullier confirmed that the outfit would go ahead with developing the design if it could spare the resources needed to do so.


"Now we know the position of the stewards and the FIA, we can now interpret it more extremely," Boullier told AUTOSPORT.


"Maybe we will develop it if we can afford it and have the resources to do it because it's clearly a gain in qualifying. But it's not worth that much in the race obviously."


Nico Rosberg says it could take several weeks for the Mercedes to be competitive in race conditions.


Despite strong qualifying performances, Rosberg and team-mate Michael Schumacher have suffered from tyre issues in the first two races of the season and the German expects Mercedes to struggle in China as well.


"The big problem is with the tyres on this track, especially the front tyres, they destroy very easily so you have to be very careful and find a set-up for the car to help that," said Rosberg.


"It is not so easy because in the race we are still having some difficulties, in qualifying we are very good and we will try very hard to improve but it will take some time.


"We can't expect to come here and all of a sudden win the race, it will take some weeks."


Team boss Ross Brawn said Mercedes is concentrating on improving performance for the race.


"Whilst our low fuel runs look good, our primary focus has been on race pace and working to understand the tyres so that we can use them as well as possible on Sunday."


Schumacher set the pace in the afternoon session, with Rosberg down in fifth position.


Marussia is still investigating the cause of Timo Glock's accident in practice to work out if his front wing failed before he went off the track.


Television footage of the incident at Turn 1 in second practice showed the front wing was off his car before he hit the barriers - but neither the team nor driver are sure if the wing came off after he had gone off the track.


The team was still looking into the data on Friday evening to try and work out what happened, while Glock said he was unsure about the case.


"I just know that the car went straight," he said when asked by AUTOSPORT about the incident. "When the front wing dropped off I have no idea. I didn't see any video footage so far, so we are looking into it.


"We have a bit of a direction and we just have to wait until we have the whole analysing done and see what the problem was."


Although Glock said over the team radio that he had hurt his hand in the crash, he made it clear that the matter was not serious.


"In the first moment it felt like I had hurt it. I was so slow in the end [of the crash], and I thought I would just touch the tyre barrier, so I kept my hands on the steering wheel," he explained.


"I didn't have much speed, but it felt like I ran against a wall and not a tyre barrier. We pulled 8G, and I got a bit of a hit on my hand. But it is all okay now."


Bill Stone, a key figure in the histories of racing car constructors March and Reynard, died earlier this week at the age of 72.


Born Arthur George Stone on June 10, 1939 in Ngaruawahia on his parent's farm in New Zealand, he learned to drive tractors at an early age. At 18 he was driving big diggers and earthmovers, later helping to build the airport in Fiji.


His earnings were channelled into sprints and hillclimbs in New Zealand with a Jaguar XK120 and a 500cc Cooper Mk9-Norton, later converted to JAP 1100cc power. By 1964 he had graduated to an ex-Denny Hulme Cooper T52 in Formula Junior, which he entered into the 1965 and 1966 New Zealand Grands Prix, competing against the likes of Graham Hill and Jackie Stewart.


The following year Bill finished eighth in a Brabham BT6 in the same race against Stewart and Jim Clark, and outlasted Hulme and Jack Brabham. He used the same car in the 1968 Tasman Series, finishing 10th at Pukekohe and sixth at Levin.


Upon moving to the UK, Bill bought a crashed Brabham BT21 from Frank Williams, which he and his friend Jimmy Stone rebuilt and raced in Europe. In 1969 he bought a McLaren M4A but ran out of funds. However, a call from the car's designer, Robin Herd, changed his career.


Herd asked Bill to build the first March racing car - the 693. Stone became the first employee of March Engineering Ltd and had an input into the design of the first March Formula Ford car.


He was soon promoted to production manager at March and was instrumental in the manufacture and assembly of the entire range, including F3, F2 and F1 machines.


In 1971, a chance meeting with young engineering student Adrian Reynard - on a visit to the March factory - led to the establishing of Sabre Automotive. Bill left March and founded Sabre in a small workshop equipped only with a set of welding bottles and a pillar drill. Reynard became his partner (although still at college and apprenticed to British Leyland) and the company established itself as a sub-contractor to March, Chevron, Mallock and other racing car companies.


Little did he realise as he delivered wishbones and axles to Mallock, that the young female greeting him was one Susanne Mallock, who would later become his second wife.


While Reynard finished his education and designed and built his own Formula Ford, Bill grew Sabre into a profitable business. He was able to pass on his wisdom, expertise and business savvy to Reynard and they became great friends. When Reynard managed to sell replicas in 1975, Sabre set about manufacturing kits of parts. By the end of 1976, 12 Reynard car kits had been made and sold but Bill decided to move to New Zealand with his first wife Maura. Sabre's name was changed to Reynard Racing Cars to reflect the main product line and Adrian took over the company, replicating the philosophies of his mentor, to grow it into the largest racing car constructor in the world by the 1990s.


Bill bought a 60-acre farm in New Zealand, raising angora goats and running a vehicle recycling yard, as well as working for a trailer manufacturer. But his appetite for motorsport became aroused again and he moved back to England, setting up another fabrication business; Bill Stone Engineering, which became a sub-contractor to Mallock.


He was then recruited as team manager for Andy Rouse's Ford touring car programme. He stayed until the end of 1995, when he was persuaded by Reynard to head the Chrysler North American Touring Car Programme for his company. This was an ambitious develop/design/build project, which won first time out and subsequently won the NATC title.


In 1997 Reynard became the partner of BAT in establishing the BAR F1 Team. Bill was again the first employee of the company and was instrumental in setting up temporary premises and recruiting the staff, many of whom remain today under the auspices of the Mercedes team in Brackley. Bill organised the design office and R&D department while the main factory was being built.


In 2001 Bill was head-hunted by Minardi F1 team boss Paul Stoddart before moving back to New Zealand with Susanne in the middle if the last decade.


Still he wasn't entirely finished with motorsport. He acquired a Speedway car and a Mallock Mk6B, which were both meticulously prepared and raced with great spirit and enthusiasm. He even managed to win what was his final race, a wet Formula Ford encounter at Hampton Downs in February 2011.


His legacy is not just that he saw the best in everyone and gave freely of his wisdom and advice, but also that he carried an aura of quiet confidence and purpose and was able to selflessly inspire those who met him to greater achievement.


He died peacefully in his sleep at home in Pukekohe on April 10, 2012, with Susanne at his side.

Friday's press conference:


[spoiler]TEAM REPRESENTATIVES - Matt MORRIS (Sauber), Antonio CUQUERELLA (HRT), Dave GREENWOOD (Marussia), James ALLISON (Lotus), Paddy LOWE (McLaren), Pat FRY (Ferrari)


PRESS CONFERENCE


Q. A question to you all. If you'd like to give a swift appraisal of where you feel you are in the pecking order after two grands prix, and what you think the potential is, where you think you can be?


Matt MORRIS: I think it's very difficult to tell. I think there are five or six teams that are all very close, and I think we're one of those teams, but exactly where we stand, we probably need another couple of races.


Q. What about potential?


MM: Yeah, I think we've clearly shown that we've got a competitive car, but we also need to keep our feet on the ground, remember who we are and who we're competing against. But, for sure, we feel we can be scoring points on a regular basis.


Q. Toni, a very difficult start to the season for you.


Antonio CUQUERELLA: Yes, it was indeed. For us we came later, we started later than the others and it's a race to catch up for us. We are just trying to bring the car to the performance it was supposed to have in the first race, so that's where we are. It's quite clear, everyone can see that, we are at the back, we are the last ones. So we are just trying to get closer to the rest.


Q. And the others?


Dave GREENWOOD: A similar situation to Toni for us, a late start to the year, which is not what we wanted. Again, we're towards the back end, which is fairly obvious, and we're just working hard to catch up to the guys in front. I think there's a fairly big gap between us and the front, there's no disputing that, but our main job is to close that gap and we've already seen from last race to this we've closed that slightly and we've just got to keep going like that.


James ALLISON: I think the first couple of races would suggest we're Q3 material. I would hope that we're towards the front of Q3 but, as everyone will say, it's very tight this year, the gaps in the grid are very small and the tiniest error makes a lot of grid places at the moment.


Paddy LOWE: We're obviously over the moon to have had the qualifying results we've had in the first two races, front row in both races. That's what you dream of really, with all the work you do on a new car that starts early the year before. It's a great result for the whole team. A bit less satisfied with what we've delivered from the races but in terms of overall performance – very pleased.


Pat FRY: I think our performance here is likely to mirror the first two races. We've got a few small upgrades here that should improve it a fair amount but then I think this track suits us less favourably than the last one really, so I expect the gaps are going to be similar. We have a lot of work to do to catch the others, particularly in qualifying.


Q. Matt, a more specific question to you. Now you're very close in that midfield and one of the teams that perhaps can improve by using a Mercedes-type device, they cal it a DDRS. Have you got the time; have you got the money and the budget to do that?


MM: We're looking into the system to try and assess it fully, to work out the lap time, or qualifying lap time gain, versus costs. I think at the moment for us it doesn't balance out. We're probably better off spending our money on more conventional lap time.


Q. A question related to last year, when perhaps you're exhaust-blown diffuser didn't work. Was there any advantage in that this year?


MM: It's not really been an advantage; I think we've just lost less than some of the other teams maybe, because, by our own admission, we didn't have the best exhaust blown diffuser last year, so for sure we had more to lose.


Q. Has that had something to do with the performance do you think?


MM: I think it's brought us closer to some of the other teams, yes.


Q. Toni, it's an uphill struggle for you. Just give us some indication of the sort of facilities you have at the moment, the staff you have etc?


AC: It's clear that we are changing. From last year to this year there has been a big changing hands in the management of the team and we are even relocating to a different country in Europe. Our car has been designed by different clusters around Europe, with not everybody in the same room. Now we are trying to centralise everything and work as a team, which has not been the case in the last two years. The main goal then... we still need to get organised and that will bring performance and the development we want on the car.


Q. That sounds like the sort of think that will take an awful long time to do, like a whole year almost, a whole season.


AC: Of course we are making some appointments and we are trying to hire more people to reinforce ourselves but it is not going to be something we expect to be working in two or three months. It going be, as you say, probably more thinking of next year but some results need to show this year, in the second half of the season.


Q. Dave Greenwood, to some extent you've been doing the same thing because the whole factory has relocated as well. Where are you in that process?


DG: I think we're basically in the process where we now have a solid design team and an aerodynamic group that's expanded rapidly over the last six months. We're in a process now where we're using a wind tunnel on a regular basis, matching that in with the CFD, so if you like we're further along that process. We're still very much at the start of it but I think it's bringing improvements to the car much better than we've seen before in the previous two years of how we worked. So all in all a positive.


Q. And the development is on course? Is there a programme for that?


DG: Like every team you have a development programme and ours has been perhaps a little bit delayed in how it started from winter testing but we've hit the ground running now we're racing and we've brought developments to the last two races and today we ran new developments as well and we're happy with how they're progressing.


Q. James, yesterday you took a protest to the stewards. How disappointed were you with the outcome of that?


JA: It's been no secret that our team has had some disagreements with what we saw Mercedes to be running. We thought there were strong arguments against such a thing. That's been rumbling along gently in the background, as everyone knows. We made what we hoped were strong arguments both to Mercedes and to the FIA but didn't prevail and so with some regret we decided it was worth bringing it before the stewards to settle the matter one way or the other.


Q. I have to say we got a very fair hearing yesterday. The stewards took a lot of time to listen to our arguments and what I hoped were very strong arguments didn't prevail – but that's the process and it's fair enough, just get on with it and accept that we were wrong in our earlier view.


Q. What is the reaction to that? What do you do now? Are you doing to do the same thing?


JA: Just die like a man! Get on with looking at what possibilities are open, having accepted that this is a perfectly OK system to put on the car.


Q. Is it something that you think every technical director will now be looking at?


JA: Well they'll certainly need to decide whether or not the cost and expense… well it's not so much expense, the opportunity-cost of doing that system is higher than developing the things they had in mind otherwise. And that's exactly the same choice we'll face in our team.


Q. Paddy, a question about Lewis' gearbox. How come it was only discovered yesterday?


PL: Well it's a bit of a disappointment. We were able to notice a problem as a result of analysing some oil samples that showed a problem that's developing in the rear of the gearbox. It could still work but the risk of a failure during the race itself is too great and a much greater penalty from that than would come from a five grid-place penalty. So very disappointing for everyone, particularly Lewis, to start a race weekend in that way on the back foot. But, y'know, we'll do the best with what we have. Try to get pole position so that at worst he'll be in sixth.


Q. On a completely different subject, we have a Mugello test coming up, we haven't had an in-season test for several years now, to what extent has simulation etc overtaken that? Or is it still invaluable?


PL: It's still very, very valuable. Simulation has grown a great deal in the last few years and we do depend a lot more on in. In fact it pushes the testing in a slightly different direction, in the same way you saw this morning we were running on Lewis' car a big sampling array for aerodynamic pressures. We're using these tools in order to validate our simulations. So we increasingly use testing in order to calibrate the simulations we're doing in the office. So, it's very, very important still. I think what's happened is that we've moved the testing bias towards Fridays rather than the tests that used to occur between each race. We get the job done, we just do it probably more efficiently really by using the race practice. Mugello will allow a few other things. It's a redistribution of where we put the effort. We used to have that test in the pre-season period. That's been moved to April. It allows us to do a few different things mid-season that we wouldn't have been able to do. It's a lot more work actually, that we haven't been used to but it helps us make a step mid-season.


Q. Pat, obviously the problems with the car. How fundamental are those problems?


PF: I think we have a reasonable understanding of them and the areas we need to be working on. It's like all these things, there's never a golden bullet, it's not a light switch you can turn on. You might have the idea of, 'OK, that's the problem' but it's hard work to try and fix it. And you're not going to change it around in a week. Everyone is working very hard to fix all those issues and then get back on a sensible development curve.


Q. And really you discovered those problems some time ago. Is it a surprise not to have seen more bits on the car since the last race?


PF: I think there's a number of different issues that we've had, the most obvious one from the early testing was the exhaust system where we were struggling with what that was doing to the rear tyres. I think we now understand that and are on top of that – though we haven't run that style exhaust system since the first Barcelona test. The other areas have come to light where we knew we had the problems [but] we didn't know where and we were really learning that through the last Barcelona test. And then to fix problems it's not the work of a minute. Here there are quite a few new parts on the car. There will be another set of updates, bigger updates, coming through for Barcelona. It's a race of upgrading. We've got a lot of upgrades coming through but so does everyone else around this table.


QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR


Q. (Dan Knutson – Honorary) Following up on the question on the pecking order, from first through twelfth, where do you see yourselves now and when you get the car more sorted, where do you have the potential to be? For the front row.


PF: I think here the grid will look quite similar to that at the last two races. I don't think the pecking order is going to swing around that much. We're going to be somewhere around seventh to eleventh or something. Obviously we need to get a better car so that ultimately we're qualifying on pole. It would be nice to be able to sit and say we're qualifying on pole, take a five place penalty and start sixth. That would be quite a luxury really.


PL: As I said earlier, we're very pleased to have taken the front row in the first two races. Also, as Pat said, the upgrade war which is a relentless one through the season has already begun so we can't rely on maintaining that performance even to this race; we've all brought upgrades this weekend, so we hope to be able to maintain that through tomorrow and take the front row again, but we certainly can't rely on it and certainly can't rely on staying there throughout the rest of the season. It will be long and very tough.


JA: I think our best car was third in Australia, sixth in Sepang so I guess that puts us P four and a half. I've got no idea where we will come in this race. I think, like the other two, that the pecking order is likely to be largely unchanged. We're all pushing similarly hard developing our cars and I see no reason why there should be any substantial change to the running order. What will make the difference is very small errors during qualifying because the grid positions are separated by less than a tenth of a second.


Q. (Ted Kravitz – Sky Sports) This is for everybody except for James: did you agree with Lotus in their assertion that the Mercedes system was against article 3.15?


MM: I don't think it's really for us to comment on the argument that James has had. We've got our views on it but it's not really for us to discuss that.


AC: I think we have the same point of view. We understand both parties and we accept what the FIA has said.


DG: Exactly the same. I think it's a matter for the FIA and the other two parties involved.


PL: For us it was a point of quite tricky interpretation so what we mainly wanted was clarity, so we have a clear decision from the stewards and I think that's better than the uncertainty that we've had in the last few weeks.


PF: I think there's always different ways to interpret the rules, we've seen that going on for years. At least now there's a clear decision; we obviously respect that decision. People are always trying to stretch the limit of the rules. We had a wing that was legal in Barcelona on a Friday, Friday night it wasn't. Again, we respected that decision and took it off the car.


Q. (Dan Knutson – Honorary) Pat Fry has talked about 'no golden bullet to fix the Ferrari'; McLaren is very quick so this is for the other four guys: what one area of the car do you really need to work on to make it even better?


MM: I don't think there's one particular area to be honest with you. I think we continue looking at every part in the car, both aero-wise, mechanical set-up-wise and also the way we go about our race weekend in qualifying and in the race, so I don't think there's one single item that we specifically concentrate on, it's just an overall group effort on the whole car.


AC: In our case I think it's very clear. From the teams that we are close to in qualifying, especially in our case, the difference is aero. Ninety percent of our lap time gap to the front row is aero. Of course there is a difference in aero programmes and budgets, so we just need to get more with less money, so it is possible.


DG: The same for us really: aero is the key at the minute and that's what we're working hard on, but in lots of areas though, not just finding parts that we think have got more downforce but correlation and understanding flow structures and all that kind of stuff. We're on a steep learning curve and that's where we're heading, basically.


JA: I'm with Matt, you fight the thing on all fronts and try to pick, across the whole gamut of bits you could put on the car to improve it, the ones that will bring the most improvement the fastest, but there isn't a family of parts that you pick from. It just depends on what ideas you've come up with in the factory, what the team has come up with in the factory.


Q. (Luigi Perna – La Gazzetta dello Sport) For Pat Fry and Paddy Lowe in particular: are you going to develop a solution similar to Mercedes for your car in the next few races – I mean the F-duct?


PF: We've been looking at it for a while. I think it's just a case of weighing up what the performance is on our car. It's bound to vary differently from car to car and particularly if you've had that system in mind and developed your car to work around it, you're further up the development curve so it's not just a case of applying it to our current aerodynamic characteristic, it's then trying to exploit it further after that, so I expect there will be a two-fold thing: we will know instantly – or we know instantly – what it's worth in terms of lap time and we can weigh that up in the cost performance and the effort needed. And then we also need to look at what's the ultimate potential of that device. We've been looking at it for a month or two. Now it's clear we can at least start working for sure, weighing up everything properly.


PL: In these days of really very limited capacity – whether that's people or time in wind tunnels – to develop aerodynamics, you do have to carefully select where you put your effort to make the most profit in performance, so this will fall into that camp. We have to decide how much we can get from it, how it ranks compared to other areas we may work on. It does have the immediate downside that it really is only a qualifying benefit as far as we can see, so immediately it has to earn quite a lot to make that worthwhile.


Q. (Cheng Liang Zong - China News Service) Antonio, we know that the Chinese driver Ma Qing Hua joined HRT recently. How do you describe his future at HRT and what do you think he should do to ensure that he becomes a real Formula One driver? And secondly, after nine years of Formula One coming to China, Chinese people are still concerned that there is not a native Formula One driver or team so do you think it's just a question of a lack of money or lack of some kind of culture or is it just about timing?


AC: We still don't know – the driver hasn't jumped into the car yet, so we still need to know his capabilities and as soon as we have an opportunity, he will drive in the young drivers' test so we have hopes of him and of course he's a part of our young development programme. We don't know how much we can expect from him but of course there are big hopes.


Regarding China, I think there are many countries, including India and China, that are far from Europe where the centre of gravity of Formula One has been in the past. They are just becoming important and we can see that China is an important country for the future. There are many countries that were not important in F1 and now they are becoming important in the last two years, so why not China in two years?


Q. (Andrew Benson – BBC Sport) Pat, could you explain why you think the car is so far off the pace at the moment, notwithstanding the exhaust problem which presumably can't account for all of it? And why the team decided to take such a different design approach when, if you look at Silverstone last year when the blown diffusers were taken off, you were actually quite competitive?


PF: I don't think you can use Silverstone as a benchmark for the car performance this year. Obviously the exhaust effect is reduced a huge amount from what we had last year. As I said, the exhaust is one of the more obvious changes that we've made, but that's quite a small part of the problem that we've got. I don't really want to go into where all the problems are – it's not just a case of us trying to build a quicker car, we need to fundamentally be changing the methodologies that we use to select, design and manufacture so that we are competitive long term. There's work on all fronts, not just work going into what we're taking to Barcelona, there's also a huge amount of work in just trying to change the fundamentals of what we do so we can actually take a step forward and be competing with everyone else.


Q. (Andrew Benson – BBC Sport) As a follow-up, can you just mention briefly what areas you think specifically the team is lacking in as opposed to the specific design features of the car?


PF: The biggest performance differentiator – as people have mentioned earlier – is aerodynamics. We've got some issues there that we're trying to resolve. The areas you need to be working on is everything from the way you run the wind tunnel, the accuracy of your wind tunnel, the simulation that you use to decide what components to take forward, so we're not leaving any stone unturned. We're actually trying to review and revise our methodologies through the whole process and that carries on into the design office for trying to get weight out of various parts, make other bits more durable, so there's work going on absolutely everywhere within the company, on the basic fundamental methodology as well as just trying to upgrade the car.[/spoiler]

Quali has just started. Looks like Vergne is going to be the seventh car to drop out in Q1.

[EddieG]

Vettel not making Q3

[hugobomb]

Vettel out in Q2!!

Perez still going well, Ferrari might starting sniffing around