Formula One 2012

[Adam]

Who was commentating for BBC with Coulthard? I only saw it for a few seconds and most of the talking was DC.

[Katsuya]

Ben Edwards, who at points managed to out-shout Croft.

[Lineker]

Jenson Button was elated after celebrating what he labelled as a very special start to the season following a commanding win in the Australian Grand Prix.

The Briton overtook McLaren team-mate and polesitter Lewis Hamilton at the start and never looked back, leading at the chequered flag ahead of world champion Sebastian Vettel.

It was Button's third win in Australia following victories in 2009 and '10.

The McLaren driver was delighted to start the season in perfect fashion.

"It was very special," said Button. "Starting the year with a win is important. To come away with Lewis's pole yesterday and victory today, I think it puts us in a great position for the next few races and on the right foot, so a big thank you to everyone in the team.

"I am very excited heading to Malaysia but not thinking about that now - I will enjoy this now with friends and family, and tomorrow turn my attention to Malaysia."

Button was leading comfortably until the safety car was deployed with 11 laps to go, and he admitted it was not an ideal situation, although it allowed him to save fuel, which he suggested was crucial for him.

"The biggest worry was the safety car," he said. "When you have a 10-second gap, it is a great place to be, but as soon as the safety car comes out and it is 6pm, it's difficult to keep the temperature in those tyres. That was a big worry for me.

"I was able to keep the heat in the tyres and saved a lot of fuel, which was important for us, and then got a good restart. I was able to do that, which I was very happy about, and was then controlling pace to the end of the race so a pretty amazing day."

Button, who scored his 13th grand prix win today, said his third victory in Australia was probably the most straightforward.

"It's very different to 2010. Compared to 2009, I was on pole [that year]. It was good but the last stint I was struggling as the tyres were working very differently, but this time through the stints the car felt good and there was good balance between the pace at the start of the stint and the pace at the end of stints. It is probably better than any year I have raced in."

Sebastian Vettel said his second place in the Australian Grand Prix proved that Red Bull is in much better shape than its surprise row three qualifying spots in Melbourne suggested.

After dominating the 2011 season, Red Bull found itself back in fifth and sixth on the Melbourne grid with Mark Webber and Vettel.

But Vettel was able to move forward in the race, getting up to third when Michael Schumacher retired his Mercedes, and then vaulting Lewis Hamilton's McLaren for second at the final pitstops. Webber finished fourth despite a poor start and early collision with Nico Hulkenberg's Force India.

Although Vettel did not have the pace to attack winner Jenson Button's McLaren once up to second, he was pleased with how Red Bull had turned its weekend around.

"Congratulations to McLaren and Jenson - he drove a fantastic race, he was unbeatable today but I am happy to come away with second," said Vettel.

"A lot of people did not expect it after yesterday."

Vettel is certain that the Red Bull RB8 has a lot of untapped speed that it just did not show in Melbourne, so was pleased to get a big score on what he thinks will be one of the toughest weekends for his team.

"It was a positive race for us, one we knew would be a difficult one - so to come second with a lot of points is important," he said.

"The car has a lot of potential. I would have loved to be in a better position yesterday. Now we need to address problems and make sure we give them a harder time next week."

Lewis Hamilton said he was baffled by his struggles during the Australian Grand Prix after finishing in third position.

The Briton, visibly unhappy with the result after the race, started from pole position but was unable to stay in first place at the start, with team-mate Jenson Button passing him and leading all the way to the end.

Hamilton was around 10 seconds behind Button when the safety car was deployed 11 laps from the end, and he was then passed by Sebastian Vettel in the Red Bull.

Hamilton conceded he could not understand where his lack of pace was coming from.

"I really don't know, I just struggled out there," said Hamilton. "I got a shocking start which was really the beginning of it all.

"It was obviously a tough race, but congrats to Jenson it was great race for him. It would have been great to have had a one-two, but it just wasn't a good day for me."

The Briton described his result as pretty poor, but has vowed to re-group and fight back next weekend in Malaysia.

"It's okay. It's a pretty poor standard compared to some others."

"[i will ] just re-focus, get my head down and there's lots of races ahead. In these championships it's all about consistency so that is what I am going to focus on."

McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh has revealed that his drivers could have been even quicker in the Australian Grand Prix if his team had not made a mistake with its fuel calculations.

Jenson Button dominated the first race of the season in Melbourne, with Lewis Hamilton coming third after losing a place to Sebastian Vettel under the safety car, but the pair had to limit their pace from early on because they were using more fuel than the team had calculated they would.

"We were more than marginal," revealed Whitmarsh. "Had we raced unfettered we would not have got to the finish line with either car, so from lap eight we were in severe fuel saving mode.

"I think unquestionably we could have gone a little bit quicker. We had a quick car here, and we should have got a 1-2, but we are not too displeased with where we are."

Whitmarsh paid tribute to the way that Button controlled the race from the front - with the Briton running error free

"Jenson did a fantastic job," he said. "He turned it on when he needed to. When he thought that Vettel after the safety car was going to get into a DRS zone he just opened the gap, so I think it was testament to him. He drove a really beautiful race: smooth, controlling, and he pressed when he needed to - just like a champion would."

Whitmarsh also thinks that Hamilton would have finished second if it had not been for his misfortune to have pitted the lap before a safety car – which helped Vettel overtake him in the pits.

"The loss of place was simply that unfortunately we pitted with both cars, and immediately a safety car was called – which cost us 10 seconds," explained Whitmarsh. "Had we decided not to double shuffle and keep him out for one lap, then we would have stayed ahead of Seb.

"We had the pace and performance. This is quite a tricky track to overtake on, so we could have held that and got ourselves a 1-2. So we were a little unlucky - and Lewis will not like being on the lower step of the podium.

"But he has had a strong weekend and I am sure he will be even more determined to go to the next race, show how quick he is in qualifying and get the job done there."

Mercedes team boss Ross Brawn blamed tyre degradation for the disappointing end to the squad's Australian Grand Prix weekend.

Both Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg had shown promising pace during the weekend, with the seven-time champion qualifying in fourth and his team-mate in seventh.

The race, however, proved a disappointment for the team, with Schumacher retiring on lap 11 after losing all drive.

Rosberg's pace was not good enough to fight for the top positions and he finished in 12th position after making contact with Sauber's Sergio Perez on the final lap.

Brawn admitted his drivers had struggled with tyre degradation.

"After a very encouraging weekend, today was not a good result for us," said Brawn. "Despite excellent starts, both Michael and Nico had difficulties from the start of the race with their tyres. With the development of the circuit and the track temperatures, we fell out of the working window, and struggled with degradation.

"However, we remain positive as both here and over the winter tests, we have demonstrated that we have a fundamentally quick car and we have a lot to build on. So we need to look at what happened today, unravel the problem and work out where we need to improve."

Schumacher said he could have scored a good result had he not been hit by problems, and the German is still upbeat heading into Malaysia.

"I believe I could have had a good race this afternoon, and I can still take some positives out of the weekend as we have seen our car was confirming our feelings, and is definitely a clear step forward. We can now build on that and start improving

Fernando Alonso says small improvements to his Ferrari may make a big difference given how tight the field is following the Australian Grand Prix.

Alonso and his team have found themselves further away from the top than they were hoping for, with the Spaniard starting the race from

12th position.

The two-time champion, however, put on a superb performance in the race to finish in fifth position.

Alonso conceded Ferrari is in no position to fight for wins at the moment, but he reckons gaining a few tenths may make a significant difference as the field is very closely matched.

"There's no doubt we are lacking pace to fight for victory right now," Alonso told Spanish reporters after the race. "We can't hide the fact that we were out of Q3 yesterday and today we were far from the best, so it's a tough start to the championship.

"Today we salvaged a lot more points than we expected. We only lost three or five to the favourites and a few more to Button, but maybe there will not be a clear dominator like last year and maybe no one will open such a big gap as Vettel did in 2011.

"That could be good for us. But we have look at ourselves and improve tenth by tenth. There are maybe 12 cars in the same second this year, so gaining two or three tenths is much more important than in the past. So that's what we have to do for Malaysia and China."

Alonso admitted he did not expect to be able to score 10 points after having qualified down in 12th, and the Spaniard said he was very happy with the result given the circumstances.

"It's been a good race in which we scored more points than expected," he said. "In that sense, I'm very happy to be behind the Red Bulls and the McLaren having started from 12th, which was hard to predict. It's been better than expected. Everything has gone well from the start.

"The strategy was perfect. In the first stop we overtook the Mercedes and we nearly overtook Vettel. And then in the second stop we covered Rosberg and it worked out well. Webber passed us with the safety car, so he was a bit lucky with that. Then at the end with Pastor he was quite faster than me and I had some problems to defend my position.

"I felt sorry when I looked in the mirror and saw he was out because he deserved fifth or sixth. But it was also a relief."

Felipe Massa and Bruno Senna agreed that their collision late in the Australian Grand Prix was a racing incident in which no blame should be apportioned.

The two Brazilians were fighting for 13th with Toro Rosso's Daniel Ricciardo when they touched at Turn 3 on lap 47, leaving the Ferrari with broken suspension and giving the Williams a puncture.

"I did the corner in front, but Bruno had a good turn in because I was fighting with the other car, and he was able to take the line because there was a car on my side," said Massa.

"Then we both did the corner to the left, and he was on the outside and I was completely on the inside. I turned, even a little bit early because I didn't know if he was trying to pass me from the outside. Then he turned in a little bit too much and we touched each other.

"For me it was something that can happen in a race. From my side, there was nothing wrong because I was on the inside. From his side, it was the end of the race and he was trying to fight for the position, so you cannot say he did something completely wrong."

Senna agreed that there was no malice in the tangle.

"Ricciardo had the bad luck that I'd had previously, because when I tried to overtake Felipe on the outside into Turn 13, he pushed me wide, and then Danny passed me," he said. "Then Danny tried to do the same to Felipe on Turn 3, and both of them ran wide and I had a good run on them.

"I tried to overtake Felipe on the outside at Turn 4. That didn't work unfortunately, but it was a racing incident.

"You are fighting for every millimetre of the track and probably if I was a bit slower on the outside we would have probably just touched wheels and it would have been fine, but I was a bit faster and his front wing got in touch with my front tyre and that was that."

Massa was running down the order after having difficulty maintaining tyre life throughout the race.

"I was very positive for the race, but then after five laps the rear tyres were completely going. I had no tyres, I was just sliding around at every corner and none of the other cars were losing tyres, just me," he said.

"I was failing completely with the balance of the car, not just talking about the race, but every day, the whole weekend. We need to understand why."

Senna and Ricciardo were also recovering from delays, having come together in the first-corner traffic jam.

"I've spent a long time now looking at the video and I can see that everybody was clashing together there," said Senna of the lap one clash.

"I saw some cars moving and that's why I went to the outside to get a bit more room, and then of course Danny had a problem with hitting someone and then he touched me."

Pastor Maldonado says his last lap crash at Melbourne was not a consequence of trying to harry Fernando Alonso and capture fifth.

The Venezuelan driver had been set for his best grand prix finish when, on his final tour of the circuit, he lost the rear on the exit of Turn 6 and crashed heavily into the barriers.

Maldonado said it had been a simple racing incident, and denied that it came as a result of trying to close on Alonso and steal fifth.

"It was a very fast moment, but I just lost the back of the car and hit the wall - that's it," he said.

"I had already accepted [finishing behind Alonso] because I tried to pass into Turn 3 and it didn't work. I think Alonso was slowing down, his pace was not so strong, so maybe I got too close to him and that's why I lost the back.

"It wasn't a concentration thing – I was concentrating and pushing as normal, looking after the tyres and the settings. I was enjoying the fight, but maybe I just got too close.

"[After the accident] I said nothing on the radio, I was so angry. We are a bit disappointed, but that's racing."

Maldonado also shrugged off his earlier clash with Romain Grosjean on lap two, which sent the Frenchman to an early retirement.

"With Grosjean, I just tried to overtake him, did it and he went wide," Maldonado reported.

"It was a clean one. There was very little contact – very little, not enough to put him out."

Kimi Raikkonen was left ruing the mistakes of qualifying on his return to Formula 1 race action as the Finn admitted that the Australian Grand Prix felt just like old times.

The Lotus driver began the season-opener at Melbourne's Albert Park from 17th on the grid but forged his way into the points to finish seventh.

Afterwards he said that had he and the team not made the mistakes in qualifying that dropped them out of Q1, his track position would have given him a chance to race much closer to the front.

"It feels like I've never been away," said Raikkonen. "Yesterday we made some mistakes which cost us quite badly so it could easily have been better in the race.

"I made a good start but then there was an accident in front of me at the first turn, so we lost a few places there as I had to almost stop and move onto the grass to avoid it. That made the race harder again as we had the speed, but a lot of traffic to get through.

"When you look at all these things we could have finished in a much better position. We had the safety car which I think actually hurt us a bit as well.

"Overall the weekend was far from ideal, but the car feels good and to come back to seventh means we at least come away with some points."

Romain Grosjean remained upbeat despite his early exit from the Australian Grand Prix, as he believes Lotus proved it will be a major force in the 2012 Formula 1 season.

The reigning GP2 champion qualified a superb third for his return to F1 racing, but lost three positions with a slow start and then retired following a second-lap clash with Williams driver Pastor Maldonado.

But Grosjean said his frustration at the incident was lessened because he felt so confident about the rest of the season on the basis of Lotus's Melbourne form.

"The race was quite brief, but I think we have to take the positives from it," he told AUTOSPORT.

"I was easily following the guy in front of me at the beginning. The car is good and feels as we need to have it.

"I'm sure there's more to come and the good thing is that the team atmosphere is great and we're all working together. I'm sure we can achieve some great things this year."

Grosjean felt Maldonado was entirely to blame for their collision.

"He just arrived too quick and couldn't turn his car," said the Lotus driver. "There were yellow flags in Turn 12, and we all slowed down, and I don't think he did. That gave him the advantage a bit and he was really fast at the end of the straight.

"He tried to take me down the inside, but I'd already braked quite late. He came, I turned and I was not going to go straight into the gravel to give him space, and he couldn't turn his car before hitting me and it broke my front suspension and that was it."

Nico Hulkenberg has vowed to quickly put behind him the disappointment of retiring from the Australian Grand Prix on the first lap for the second time in his career.

The Force India driver has never made the second lap of the Albert Park race having been involved in contact at Turn 1 in both the 2010 and 2012 events.

On this occasion his left rear tyre was struck by Mark Webber's Red Bull, who himself had been hit from behind.

"I don't seem to have much luck at Albert Park," said Hulkenberg. "I'm still not really sure what happened, but I got hit when I turned into the first corner on lap one.

"It's such a shame because I had made a great start, moved up a couple of positions and then I just felt somebody tap me from behind. There was a puncture and the suspension was damaged so my race was over and I had to park up.

"These things happen when 22 cars are battling going into a tight first corner, but it's really frustrating to miss out after such a good qualifying session. The good thing is that I will be back in the car in five days' time, which is the best way to bounce back and get over the disappointment."

Team-mate Paul di Resta salvaged a point from a race he admitted he had struggled to get his car to compete in the midfield pack.

"It's always nice to start the season with a point, but it was not looking too promising until the last few laps when my engineer told me that I was catching the cars ahead of me," he said. "Fortunately I had saved quite a bit of KERS for the last corner, which helped me get a good run on Vergne and beat him to the line for tenth.

"It's clear we have a lot of work to do because we were struggling for pace at the start of each stint, which hurt my overall race pace."

Sauber's fightback in the Australian Grand Prix, and its ability to score points with both cars despite a litany of troubles, proves the underlying pace of the C31, according to both its team principal and its two drivers.

Sergio Perez gave perhaps the best demonstration, coming through from the back of the grid to finish eighth - and that after losing positions in a hectic final lap at Albert Park.

Kamui Kobayashi, meanwhile, emerged in sixth following a late battle with Kimi Raikkonen's Lotus. The Japanese driver had to cope with a damaged rear wing for the race's duration after getting tagged by Perez in the first-corner melee.

Team principal Peter Sauber hailed both drivers' performances, and said they had been made possible because Sauber had delivered a fast car.

"Both drivers delivered a fantastic race, especially Sergio, starting from last and finishing eighth," he explained. "However, this is only possible with a fast car.

"I'm very happy that we were able to fight back after a difficult qualifying. A big thank you to the team at the track and also the people back in Hinwil for designing a great car. We went into this season with high expectations and were able to deliver today."

Kobayashi labelled the race as a 'great start to the season', before adding: "After the start I nearly crashed into Bruno (Senna) who spun in front of me. I was lucky to avoid hitting him, but at the same time Sergio could not avoid touching me and then I had to do the whole race with a damaged rear wing. This was very difficult and for sure cost car performance.

"However, after the first lap I had improved two positions. I was on a two stop strategy, with two sets of softs in the beginning and the medium compound for the last stint.

"With my second pitstop I had bad luck with the timing because the safety car came out just after I had pitted. Then I was running in ninth position until the ultimate lap when Pastor (Maldonado) crashed and Sergio had a battle with Nico (Rosberg). I went passed and finished sixth."

Perez , who started from last after changing a gearbox, said his first corner touch with Kobayashi was just one of the ailments he suffered during the race.

He insisted he was happy with the performance despite conceding position on the final lap.

"After I had to start last on the grid because of changing the gear box I knew I had to try everything to gain positions right after the start," he explained. "I managed to get into 12th behind Kamui and touched his car while he had to avoid crashing into the Williams car in front of him. My front wing was then damaged and this was only one of the difficulties I had today during the race.

"I also had to save tyres, also for some time fuel, and I had to fight to defend my position. It really was a tough race for me. On the very last lap Pastor crashed and I backed off, but then Nico overtook me, our cars touched and I had to finish the race with tyres that were completely gone.

"Of course I'm not happy to have lost my position on the final lap, but I am very happy for the team because finishing sixth and eight is a good start to the season."

Daniel Ricciardo believes he was capable of finishing higher than ninth despite only gaining the position on a 'crazy' final lap of the Australian Grand Prix.

The Australian started his final tour of Melbourne Park in 11th, directly behind Toro Rosso stablemate Jean-Eric Vergne and towards the back of a multi-car squabble for the lower order points.

When Nico Rosberg (Mercedes) and Sergio Perez (Sauber) clashed, Ricciardo pounced, picking off Vergne on the exit of Turn 13 and benefiting from Rosberg's puncture to seal ninth in a 'crazy' end to the grand prix.

Ricciardo reckons however that his race had previously been affected by damage suffered at the start - without which he could have finished even higher up the order.

"It's good to finish ninth, but I think I could have done better," the Australian said. "I made a decent start but there were too many of us there. I hit the left front quite hard against a Williams and had to come in to change the nose. I had to race with a bit of damage after that.

"It was not easy to come back, but I never gave up, pushing all the time. I don't really know how that happened on the last lap.

"I was a bit lucky to be the last one in that group because I could have a clear picture of the other cars going off in front.

"Then I had a chance to attack Jean-Eric. He defended into Turn 13 and I thought I could make the switch back and I did, which put me in P9. The last few laps were crazy and I was pushing like hell.

"I'm extremely happy and it's great to score my first F1 points here at home in Australia, where the crowd has been just fantastic all weekend long."

Vergne also said his race had been complicated by the first lap melee, adding: "I got a super start and I had moved up a few places, but then Webber touched my right rear and I went straight on, losing a lot of time. After that, it was complicated as I was stuck behind cars I could not pass, even if they were considerably slower than me.

"It's just a shame that at the end I tried too hard and lost too much ground. That's racing.

"The car seems to be working well and we were competitive all weekend, so I'm looking forward to getting back on track in Malaysia in a few days."

Heikki Kovalainen will lose five places on the grid of the Malaysian Grand Prix after being penalised following the race in Australia.

The Caterham driver, who retired from the Melbourne race, was found to be in breach of Article 40.8 of the sporting regulations.

The rules say no driver can overtake another car until he passes the first safety car line for the first time when the safety car is returning to the pits.

Kovalainen overtook two cars before that and will therefore lose five places on the grid at Sepang.

Kovalainen wrote on Twitter afterwards: "Tough day today, never mind one of those races that happen sometimes, bit harsh penalty from stewards for the next race but that's life too!"

Post-race press conference:

TV UNILATERALS

Q. Jenson you took the lead at the start, controlled the race, sum up your emotions?

Jenson BUTTON: I think, as we all know sat here, every win means a lot to you, and for us as a team it really shows how important the winter is. We've had a strong winter - yesterday's qualifying really showed that – so it's nice to come away with a victory today (at the) first race of the new season. The guys back at Woking have done an amazing job this winter. This will definitely help them to push harder into the extra hours in the morning when they're making that extra little part. So, big thank you to everyone at Woking and the whole of the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team for this victory here in Melbourne.

Q. Sebastian, sixth on the grid, unaccustomed for you, but second at the end, which is a bit more normal. The Safety Car did the trick for you to get past Lewis with 20 laps to go.

Sebastian VETTEL: Yeah, nevertheless I think we would have had a good shot at him because it was very close and I was quite quick and I decided to stay out and he went to the pits so I think we would have had a crack even without the Safety Car, it would have been very close but surely it did help a little bit. Nevertheless, I think it was a great race. Quite a lot of fun. A good start initially but then I was surprised by Nico. He had a very good start. I got a bit stuck at the inside, I didn't really have an option on where to go and he got past and then I had two Mercedes ahead. I got past Nico very quickly – which was a great manouevre, on edge. And then I was behind Michael where I had a mistake, went off in the first corner and then he decided to do exactly the same the next time I got close to him. That was good. And then, obviously, catching up the McLarens. I think all in all, congratulations to McLaren and to Jenson, he drove a fantastic race and was unbeatable today but I'm very happy to come away with second, it's a lot of points. I think a lot of people would not have expected that after the result of yesterday. I think we had a better car in the race and the car seems to have a lot of potential and it's up to us to get to it. Then we should be very close to these guys but I think it was a great day and thanks to everyone for pushing so hard and making the race result today possible.

Q. Lewis, you look dejected. It wasn't your day today, was it?

Lewis HAMILTON: No. First of all, congratulation to Jenson he did a fantastic job and congratulations to the team for doing a great job over the winter. Yeah it as just a bit of a tough day but we have plenty of races ahead so I just have to keep my head down.

Q. Back to you Jenson: how did you feel when the Safety Car came out? You had built up a 10-second cushion. Did you think 'uh-oh, I'm in trouble here'?

JB: Yeah, you always do, especially when it's so cold. It's late in the afternoon, the sun's dropping, it's difficult to keep heat in the tyres. That's the last thing you want leading the pack round to the restart. I was a little bit on edge but I was able to keep heat in the tyres, save a lot of fuel, which I think was quite important for us, and get a good restart. The team said push as hard as you can for two laps after the restart to get a gap. I was able to do that which I was very happy about. And then it was about controlling the pace until the end of the race. Yeah, it was a pretty amazing day.

Q. Sebastian, from your side when the Safety Car came out? Your feelings and how quickly were you made to make that decision?

SV: We decided to stay out when Lewis came in, then the Safety Car came out. I'm not sure, maybe it helped us a little bit to get past Lewis. We had a great stop so I think that was the most important thing. And then when the Safety Car came, yeah, I thought I would be in a good place or a good position to have a go at Jenson... but I didn't! He was just too quick. Two corners and he seemed to be gone and I was struggling to get up to speed. I think I held up Lewis, he was a couple of laps very close with the DRS enabled, so it wasn't very easy to get away from him but Jenson was out of sight. So there was no way we could have stayed with him. He completely deserved to win today.

Q. Lewis, your feelings when you saw the back of that Red Bull in front of you having taken your second place? You had a go to try and get it back again in the final stages?

LH: Yeah, very similar to the position I was in last year. It was quite a tough race but it was still quite positive for the team to come here with good pace and so hopefully we can take that on to the next race.

Q. Jenson, we go next to Malaysia. You'll be looking for another win there I'm sure. Stiff competition though, we in for a competitive season clearly. How are you feeling after this first race?

JB: We all think this year is a very special year in Formula One. Last year was also, having five world champions but having six world champions and so many competitive teams – it's good to see Formula One is in a great place right now. It's a great sport to be a part of right now. Very excited heading to Malaysia but I'm not thinking about that right now. I'm going to enjoy myself with the team this afternoon/evening, with my friends and family. Then tomorrow I'll turn my attention to Malaysia.

PRESS CONFERENCE

Q. Jenson, your third win here, this place must be getting a bit special for you?

JB: Yeah. And I've actually stayed in the same bedroom those three years. We arrived this year and my missus said 'we're actually in the same bedroom when you won those two previous years' – so maybe that's the reason why.

SV: Next year you get a different one…

JB: yeah, whatever… but every race you win, as we all know here, is very special but I think starting the year strong for this team is really important and the last two years for us have been tricky coming into the first race, so to come away with Lewis' pole yesterday and the victory today, I think puts us in a great position for the next few races and on the right foot. Big thank you to everyone within the team who's worked so hard. I saw our mechanics this morning who said 'this curfew's great – it's the first rest we've had since the start of the year', so big thanks to all of them and everyone at Woking that's worked those extra hours to get these extra parts out and… yeah. Fantastic day.

Q. You seemed to pull away progressively at the start of the race, then got a margin and then that margin seemed to stabilise. What was it like at the start of the race?

JB: The first few laps I knew I had to push hard. I knew that Lewis would be right on my tail and I obviously had to try to get away because of the DRS after lap two, so that was important. But I think we're all going into a bit of the unknown in the race. The longest run I did was about eight laps on Friday – and obviously the conditions were very different. So, going into the race, trying to understand what wing angle to use, tyre pressure and everything was very tricky. I think we got it close but it wasn't quite right but the second and third runs for me were much better. We had more of an understanding of what the car felt like in the first stint and the second and third ones were much stronger. All in all I'm happy with the car, there were a few areas where I think it could have been a little bit better – but I think we did a pretty damn good job this weekend.

Q. And the difference in tyres for you

JB: Yeah, there is a difference and it's a difference in balance more than anything else. The biggest worry was the safety car. When you've pulled a ten second gap, or you've got a ten second gap it's a great place to be. You can control it to some extent but as soon as the safety car comes out and it's six o'clock in the evening, it's difficult to keep temperature in those tyres and we found that last year and the year before, so that was a big worry for me. We all try to keep as much temperature in the tyres but when you actually push, it's a very different feeling and it's very easy to lock-up and grab a tyre. That didn't happen, I was able to pull a good gap again in order to get out of the DRS zone and then try to control the pace – but Seb put in some pretty quick laps in the end and I had to just put a couple in just to keep the gap – but we did it in the end.

Q. Sebastian, for you, you had quite a few battles, not just with Lewis at the end but also with Michael. It was quite a lively race for you.

SV: Yeah, the start was surely pretty interesting, so I enjoyed that. I think I had a good start first off, getting off the line was important. Then it's a bit tricky here because Turn One is quite difficult to find the right point to hit the brakes. But I was quite surprised when Nico all of a sudden arrived from the outside. I think I got a bit stuck. Surely you don't, y'know, want to leave the door open at the inside, he used the opportunity and, yeah, great start for him. Nevertheless I think I was happy with how the first two corners went and from there I felt pretty quickly that yeah, McLarens are pulling away, bye-bye, and I had to make sure that we are not losing too much ground. I felt that we were quicker than the Mercedes. I got past Nico fairly early, which was important, and then with Michael I did a mistake going into the first corner. I was a bit surprised, obviously I was in the DRS and I arrived a fair bit quicker than the lap before which caught me out. Fortunately I kept the position against Nico, and then had another go at Michael and, yeah, he was very kind, he did exactly the same mistake I did a couple of laps earlier, so that was good. Then it was quite surprising to see how we were able to catch Lewis in a way. I think the second stints were fairly, yeah we had the same pace: Lewis was a bit quicker in the beginning; I seemed to be a bit quicker at the end just when we lined up for the last round of stops and I decided to stay out when he pitted which I think was the right decision. I think we would have had a little bit of a go anyway, but then the safety car came out. I'm not sure, I think it might have helped us a little bit, anyway we got him at the stop, so great job from the guys at the pitbox, and after that, yeah, obviously I thought I'd have another go at Jenson but yeah, the first two or three corners after the restart he was already quite far away. I was struggling, at that time I was holding Lewis up a little bit and he [Jenson] was pulling away too much. I think once I got settled the lap times weren't too bad, the speed wasn't too bad but I think overall he was too quick today for the whole race. So, out-of-sight. Nevertheless, I think it was a very positive race for us, we knew it would be a difficult one, so to come away with second and a lot of points is very important and I think the car has a lot of potential. Obviously we would have loved to have been in a better position yesterday but as I said, we did a lot of laps and I think we understood more about the car and, yeah, now we need to address the problems and make sure that we give them a harder time next week.

Q. Were you happy with the gear ratios because at one time we thought you were hitting the rev limiter?

SV: Yeah, I don't think it's a secret – we were quite aggressive and I was happy with the ratios. Obviously overtaking around here is quite difficult, we know it's difficult even if you have perfect gears for overtaking, so we decided on the best compromise. I think it worked out, to be honest. I think we had good pace in the race and we still got past people so that was good. The only manoeuvre which I think was a bit borderline was when Lewis was just getting past Perez in turn one and then I lined up for turn three and I'm not sure if he saw me.. It was very close to the outside there, so I need to have a word with him, but other than that it was fine.

Q. Lewis, what happened at the start, because it was almost as though when you changed into second or third gear the car seemed to hesitate or bog down?

LH: I'm not really sure what happened but I lost at least too many positions.

Q. And during that first round of pit stops you seemed to lose around five or six seconds? I didn't see how you lost it.

LH: Me neither.

Q. How about the tyres?

LH: I had some degradation on my first set although probably similar to others.

Q. And how hard was Webber pushing at the end?

LH: Yeah, he was very quick. I damaged my tyres behind Sebastian, then I decided to drop back a little bit so I had some clear air but Mark was definitely putting pressure on.

Q. And with DRS and KERS you were unable to get past Sebastian.

LH: Yeah, they were very quick down the straight, so there was no chance of getting past.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q. (Mike Doodson – Honorary) Lewis, in the unilateral, Sebastian said if you hadn't lost that place under the safety car he thought he would have been able to have a go at you. Do you agree with that, was your car running perfectly or were your problems going to slow you down at that stage?

LH: I didn't generally have great pace, so he may or may not have got passed me, who knows? It doesn't really matter. He did in the end.

Q. (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Jenson, three victories in four years, you will probably apply for Australian citizenship, but how different were these victories compared to the two others that you had here in Melbourne?

JB: It's very different to 2010 when there were obviously strange conditions, a wet start and then drying out. Yeah, very different to 2010. Compared to 2009, I was on pole that time but the race…

SV: … it was too easy for you in 2009

JB: 'Too easy', let's not talk about that, eh? 2009 was good, yeah, but still in the last stint I was struggling in 2009, because the tyres were obviously working very differently but this time, all the way through the stints the car felt good. I think there was a good balance between pace at the start of the stint and pace at the end of the stint. I think I came away feeling that in terms of the balance we had over this weekend and for this race, and the way that we handled the tyres was probably better than any year I've raced here.

Q. (Livio Oricchio – O Estado de Sao Paulo) Sebastian, we rarely have the chance to see you fighting in the race. Tell us your experience, what did you learn, is it so different than being at the front from the start of the race?

SV: I think generally… to be honest, I don't really understand the question. People already asked yesterday, 'how do you deal with the disaster of sixth place on the grid?' I don't think it was a disaster. They said we were in the shit, then other people behind us, they were at the back of the shit. We didn't have the best day yesterday, maybe that's true, but nevertheless, I think I was quite confident going into the race. I felt I can do better, my eyes were on the front, not looking into the mirrors too much. I think the racing has already been like this last year when you had pit stops and to make the strategy work you had to pass a couple of guys quickly. It was a little bit the same today, obviously, all the time for position, at the beginning of the race, right after the lights went out, so in that regard, it was a bit different maybe to the majority of last year, but it's not as if it's a completely new situation. Most importantly last year, we didn't allow ourselves to get used to it and therefore it was nothing out of the ordinary, today, to start from P6 and we know that, as I said, there's a long race ahead of us and opportunities to fight. My target was to win the race and now I came second, I think the winner totally deserves to win that race, and therefore it was our maximum, and I'm very happy with that.

Q. (Simon Cass – Daily Mail) Jenson, I missed your victory salute; was it the W or was it a V for victory or what?

JB: I tried to think of something new but I just can't beat Seb's finger. We need to talk afterwards. Q. (Simon Cass – Daily Mail) Do you think Seb might get as sick of seeing that as you were of the crooked finger last year?

JB: Hopefully he will.

SV: What did you do?

JB: I actually did the W with a water bottle in my hand, which didn't really work very well. Yeah, I'm sure we will sometimes see the crooked finger but hopefully not very often this year and we're going to fight as hard as we can to stop that from happening. Always love your questions.

Q. (Michael Schmidt – Auto, Motor und Sport) Jenson, if I saw it correctly, you had soft, medium, medium whereas the Red Bull had soft, soft, medium. Does it mean that degradation on a McLaren would have been a little bit higher?

JB: To tell you the truth, I really don't know. Most of the race I was concentrating on Lewis behind me. He was pretty close so I didn't really know what was going on behind in terms of the Red Bulls. I really don't know. That's just the strategy we went for. I don't think it was an issue of degradation, just the idea that we had and the strategy that we thought was best. But again, with very limited running, it's very difficult to come up with the correct strategy. I think it just depends on which tyre you run on Friday, and I ran the soft tyre and thought that was the right way to go.

Q. (Byron Young – The Daily Mirror) Sebastian, does this make the McLarens the favourites for this year's championship, or would you say that you guys are neck-and-neck with them?

SV: No, we are not. I think they were stronger this weekend so look at the result yesterday, look at the result today. As I said, Jenson deserved to win, he was out of reach for us. I'm very happy with second, especially after the difficult day we might have had yesterday but nevertheless, this was race one. I think it was good to finally get back to racing and stop all the talk, to see some results. We always said in winter testing that McLaren looks very strong. They had a very solid winter, no issues with the car. They did a lot of laps every day so we expected them to be strong. Yesterday they did surprise everyone a little bit with their pace in qualifying. Today in the race I think it was looking a bit better for us, but nevertheless, they are the ones to beat at the moment. Yeah, we will see what we get next weekend. If I remember last year, we were pretty dominant here and then qualifying was just a couple of hundredths between Lewis and myself, so we will see what happens next week.

[LUKIE]

Eh. You guys might love the coverage, but I am disappointed. There was a real lack of talk between the commentators, unlike last year, when an issue would occur, and there would be a discussion as to why.

It was just constant yelling about what was happening on track. I can tolerate it, but I don't think it is an improvement on Coulthard and Brundle. They were still amazing during their time together.

[Lineker]

Yes they were. But natural chemistry is always going to take time to strike up and develop. You can't judge it off of the very first weekend alone. Also tbf you didn't get to see any of our buildup programmes pre-race. They were fantastic,

Did One HD just take the Sky Sports coverage then? Presume they will do that for all the races... unless they opt for BBC's Coulthard/Edwards when it's available.

[GA!]

nevermind

[LUKIE]

They do their own pre-build up stuff, and then switch over to Sky Sports come race time.

[Lineker]

Lotus and Red Bull are keen to get a final ruling on the legality of DRS-activated f-ducts ahead of this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix, amid the ongoing row over the Mercedes design.

Both teams met with the FIA's Charlie Whiting over the Australian GP weekend to express their belief that the concept used on the Mercedes rear wing is in breach of regulations that prevent driver-activated aerodynamic devices.

The Mercedes design features a hole on the inside of the rear wing endplate, which is covered when the DRS is not in use but uncovered when the DRS wing lifts up.

It is understood that this hole ducts air all the way through to the front wing - where it escapes through slots in the underside to help stall it for a straight-line speed boost.

Both Lotus and Red Bull considered the possibility of a protest against the Mercedes in Australia, but elected against doing so for now because they preferred to try and sort the matter out behind closed doors.

Lotus team principal Eric Boullier said though that the next few days would be key to trying to resolve the matter in an amicable way.

"We are still talking with Charlie," Boullier told AUTOSPORT. "Of course we did not do anything here [in Australia], but we just want to have a fair understanding.

"It would have been the wrong thing to spoil the race result to be honest, so the plan is to wait for next week. Let's see what happens."

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner added: "I think that there are different interpretations of the rear wing of the Mercedes. We have had some discussions with Charlie, and we chose not to protest it this weekend.

"There were other teams who were perhaps even more animated than we were, but I think it is something that we just want clarity on because one could argue that it is a switch that is affected by the driver.

"The driver hits the button and it uncovers the hole - so therefore it is driver activated, which would not be in compliance with the regulations. I think there will be a whole load of debate about it during the next five days."

Horner said that if the FIA stands firm in its belief the system is legal, then it would likely lead to teams needing to embark on a costly development push to introduce their own versions.

"It is a clever system and hats off to them for doing it, but the most important thing for us is - is it OK?" he said.

"The frustrating thing with all these systems is that it will undoubtedly be banned for next year, but in the meantime are we all going to go off and chase the idea.

"Inevitably there would be a considerable amount of cost involved. It would be a development that the front teams would look at, but it might be something that is prohibitively expensive for the smaller teams."

Leading Formula 1 teams are optimistic that talks to frame a new Concorde Agreement with Bernie Ecclestone are progressing in the right way, amid talk that some competitors could even take a shareholding in the sport.

A story that broke on the Sky News website, which was subsequently removed, suggested that Ferrari and Red Bull were on the verge of agreeing favourable financial terms with Ecclestone - which could hand Ferrari shares in the sport, plus both outfits a seat on the F1 board.

Neither team was willing to speak openly about the situation, but both said that talks were heading towards a successful resolution.

Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali said: "I think that what I can say is that we are in discussions, and the discussions are going on in the right way. But there is no more than that at the moment."

When asked about suggestions Ferrari may even have signed a deal, Domenicali said: "No. Not at the moment."

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said about his own outfit's position: "We are in discussion about a future Concorde Agreement. We want to have a Concorde Agreement that reaches into the future and we are in discussion with FOM at the moment.

"Talks have been progressing reasonably well, so we will see."

Horner said that any decision by F1's owners CVC to float the sport on the stock exchange was not down to the teams.

"IPO (initial public offering) is really down to the current shareholders," he said. "It is not really the team's business. It is down to the current shareholders, so that is more of a question for Bernie and CVC."

But news that Ferrari and Red Bull could get more favourable terms in the future prompted questions about whether or not rival teams would feel they were still competing on a level playing field.

McLaren declined to elaborate on the situation, with a team spokesperson telling AUTOSPORT: "McLaren and indeed others are in useful dialogue with the Commercial Rights Holder, and do not want to jeopardise those discussions by further comment."

Lotus team principal Eric Boullier said: "On paper you always want more money and it is a tricky decision about what to do. I don't want to talk about it."

Ecclestone did not travel to the Australian Grand Prix, but he told The Daily Telegraph in an interview before the weekend that he was eager to get Concorde Discussions resolved before the start of the campaign, before adding: "I don't want it dragging on."

McLaren's world championship hopes now rest in its own hands following Jenson Button's performance in the Australian Grand Prix, according to team principal Martin Whitmarsh.

With the Woking-based team having delivered on its target of starting the season with the quickest car, Whitmarsh says it is now in control of its own destiny as it pushes to improve the MP4-27.

"We can win this if we improve the car at a quick enough rate," said Whitmarsh in Australia. "So that is clearly what we are going to set out to do.

"We have got two fantastic drivers and a strong team, and now it is up to us. We are starting from the right place.

"We know we have got to improve the car on a race-by-race basis, and if we don't do that then that is the nature of this sport.

"We have got some formidable competitors in Red Bull, Ferrari, and Mercedes, plus Lotus looks strong as well. It is pretty tight - as it should be. This is F1. It should be difficult to win and it is."

Whitmarsh says one the factors that makes him so confident about McLaren's title prospects for this year is the way that Button has further improved over the winter.

"He has just got stronger and stronger - and I think he has such a mature laid back easy manner that belies the underlying hunger to win that he has," he said.

"I think he must now believe that he is in a good chance of a proper title run this year, and I think he is.

"Providing we can continue to improve the car, not make mistakes, and be reliable, there is no reason why we cannot recapture that."

Whitmarsh also thinks that Hamilton's disappointment after being beaten by Button in Australia was not out of the ordinary - and comes simply from the 2008 world champion's desire to win.

"They are great team-mates and great working together," he said. "You can see - whoever wins is delighted and whoever doesn't win isn't going to be happy.

"Lewis isn't going to be happy after Australia and when he starts getting happy with being third, or beaten by his team-mate, then he won't be the Lewis we all love and admire."

Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner thinks the battle between his outfit and McLaren will fluctuate on a race-by-race basis this year.

After seeing Sebastian Vettel be unable to stop McLaren's Jenson Button winning the first race of the season, Horner says he does not expect that pattern of form to remain for the rest of the season.

"We saw it last year where there were swings and roundabouts - with some circuits suiting different cars and different characteristics," he explained.

"We saw that swing from weekend to weekend on occasion. McLaren has always gone well here, and if you remember Lewis [Hamilton] harried Seb most of the race last year.

"So I think there are circuits that will affect performance, but I think the teams are very closely matched at this point of time. As always, though, it will be a development race between now and the end of the season. Whoever gets the most performance from the car quick enough will see a gain from that."

Horner thinks that Vettel and team-mate Mark Webber did not get the maximum potential out of the RB8 over the Australian GP weekend - which means in theory they can do a better job against McLaren in the future.

"We knew McLaren from winter testing were competitive, and we have seen that here this weekend," he said. "But our race pace was every bit equal to them here - and neither of the drivers have been totally happy with their cars here this weekend.

"We know where we need to improve, we have plenty of things in the pipeline and so we take an awful lot of positives out of this weekend, with a podium and fourth place finish."

Horner also believes that this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix, with Sepang demanding very different aerodynamic characteristics, could well help Red Bull Racing close in on McLaren.

"I hope so," he said. "I think that Malaysia is a considerably different prospect to here. Here it is short turns, it is bumpy, and there are not a lot of high speed corners. But Malaysia offers that variance, so I think it will be interesting to see.

"We expect McLaren to be quick in Malaysia as well, but hopefully we will be in better shape there than we were here in qualifying."

Mark Webber says his recovery to fourth place in the Australian Grand Prix gives him confidence that Red Bull is in good shape this year, despite losing out to McLaren in the fight for victory.

Red Bull's slide from being the dominant force in 2011 to one of several teams in the leading pack last weekend was one of the talking points of the first grand prix of the campaign.

Webber took fourth in the race while team-mate Sebastian Vettel got between the McLarens of Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton to finish second. But Webber was buoyed by his fightback from a first corner collision at the start, which he feels proved the competitiveness of the RB8.

"I had to rebuild the race from much further back than I had anticipated, but then there were a lot of positives after that," he said. "The pace was very strong.

"I was closing on most people and generally sometimes I was the quickest car on the track. Overall we had some positives, and I think Red Bull Racing leaves here pretty satisfied.

"Yes, we still got beaten and McLaren did a very good job and Jenson deserved the race, but overall we expected to have a bit of a harder time in the race. In the end I am looking forward to round two and a nice battle next week."

Much like his team boss Christian Horner, Webber is predicting some pretty close fights between Red Bull and McLaren, judging by the competitiveness of the outfits in the Australian Grand Prix.

"We are both pretty well organised teams and we have executed good races from both sides," Webber added. "The drivers are very experienced at getting the cars home, but in the end McLaren had track position in qualifying and we had a bit of catching up to do.

"We all bunched up under the safety car and pretty much followed each other home, so let's see how next week goes. It is pretty early days, but it seems that there are going to be some pretty good battles this year."

Nico Rosberg believes his Mercedes team can quickly get on the top of the tyre degradation issues which hampered its chances in Australia.

The Brackley-based team had looked a serious threat for a podium finish in Melbourne - especially with Michael Schumacher and Rosberg running in third and fourth places after the first corner of the race.

But its race turned to disappointment, as Schumacher retired with a gearbox problem and Rosberg slipped down the order with tyre degradation - before a late collision with Sergio Perez gave him a puncture.

Although its situation would point to some trepidation ahead of this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix, where the track characteristics and high temperatures will make tyre management crucial, Rosberg is upbeat that the team can put in place changes to make its situation better.

"You can do a lot," explained the German. "It is early days and there are so many new things on the car. With a good analysis of the car and what's going on, and also set-up wise, you can improve things.

"[sepang] is also a different track and different circumstances, so it can all look very different."

Rosberg believes that a poor balance to his car was the main contributor to his struggles in the race.

"There was a lot going on [in the race], and unfortunately car wise we were not where we wanted to be," he said.

"We were not quite good enough I think with the balance, and we were wearing the tyres a little bit more than other people. So, we need to look into that and learn what we can do. I'm sure we'll bounce back next weekend.

"My start was great so thanks to my engineer, who did a fantastic job moving me up from seventh to fourth. That was nice but from then on it was a bit more difficult. As Ross [brawn, team principal] would say: 'onwards and upwards' to the next race."

Ferrari believes its performance in the Australian Grand Prix should act as a spur to get on top of its issues as quickly as possible.

After a disastrous qualifying, with neither of its drivers making it through to Q3, the Italian outfit enjoyed improved fortunes in the race as Fernando Alonso fought hard to take fifth place.

Although that result was better than Ferrari had expected after Saturday, team principal Stefano Domenicali has urged his squad to do even more now so it does not lose too much ground in the world championship chase.

"Considering the level of performance, to be fifth is something important," he explained. "Considering the situation of the championship that I am expecting to see this year, it is vital that, while we have so many problems, we score these points.

"I would say it is a step forward, but we do not have to hide behind that, because we are not happy with the performance of the car. What I am really asking from my engineers is to push as much as possible to try to fix the things that, in their view, are now much clearer."

Domenicali said that Ferrari was aware of exactly the areas that are the problem points on the F2012 - which means that the team should now be able to make some good progress.

"We have understood the problem with the car," he said. "What we have to see after the understanding is the fixing, and not only the fixing - but to fix it as soon as possible."

There have been suggestions that Ferrari could need a dramatic rethink of its car plans – with a new chassis or revised suspension concept – if it was to recover.

However, Domenicali has dismissed such an idea – and said that the focus is on more normal development updates.

"No, in terms of the chassis there is nothing going ahead," he said. "In terms of developments: yes, there are a lot of things that have to be improved because as qualifying showed, we have fundamental issues – one is the speed, and the other thing is the traction. They are the two fundamental things that we need to work hard to fix."

Ferrari is not planning on bringing any upgrades to this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix, but Alonso says hopes are high of new items coming for the races in China and Bahrain.

"Obviously the car will be nearly identical [in Malaysia] because it's next weekend, but we will try to improve something in the set-ups, so the set-up is right for that circuit," he said.

"And then for China, Bahrain etcetera, they will bring some updates. Hopefully it will get better."

Lotus has faith that it is on course for some strong results this year, judging by the pace its new car showed over the Australian Grand Prix weekend.

Although Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean endured frustrations in qualifying and the race respectively to leave the team well adrift of the podium, Lotus chiefs are upbeat about the platform it has for 2012.

Team principal Eric Boullier told AUTOSPORT: "The result was not as rewarding as I would like, for all of the effort we have put in, but if we are able to qualify well [Grosjean] and then race well [Raikkonen] it is promising for the future. If we don't have any stupid race incidents, then we can deliver a strong performance."

Although Grosjean's early exit after a collision with Pastor Maldonado meant there was no proper indication of his potential in the race, Raikkonen was able to deliver some impressive lap times as he climbed up from 17th on the grid to finish seventh.

But although Raikkonen's pace was often a match for race winner Jenson Button, Boullier was not getting too carried away as the team packed up and headed for Malaysia.

"We need to look at the race as a whole, but Kimi had a good race and Romain was definitely up to speed so he could have done a very strong race as well," he added. "It is promising for the future, but we will see."

Technical director James Allison told AUTOSPORT that although a strong performance in Melbourne is no guarantee that a car will be quick elsewhere, he was upbeat about what he has seen.

"You normally look at who does well here and they will do okay all year," said Allison. "We were alright in Jerez, we were alright in Barcelona and we were alright here, so I am pretty happy overall.

"Last year was a pretty tough ride for everyone in the team, grinding out the year with [a car concept] we knew we were trapped with. So to bounce back from this and the [chassis] troubles we had in the first Barcelona test, to show that we can come here and get this done, is great."

Kimi Raikkonen has set his sights on fighting for a podium finish in this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix.

The 2007 world champion rallied back from a difficult qualifying session to score points on his return to the sport in Australia last weekend.

That performance has given him confidence that the Lotus E20 is capable of fighting at the front in Sepang - where he scored his maiden win for McLaren nine years ago.

"The car feels very good," said Raikkonen. "In the race I was stuck in traffic a lot so it didn't show so much, and who knows what might have happened if we had a better grid slot.

"There is a lot of speed in the car. As long as qualifying goes well we could be fighting for podiums.

"There's much more to come. We're learning about the car all the time and the last race didn't really give us a chance to use its full potential. Hopefully Malaysia will be a bit more straightforward."

Raikkonen sees no reason why Lotus shouldn't be on the pace this weekend, citing the fact that the car has gone well at every track it has run on already this year.

"We'll be trying to improve our performance in Malaysia," he added. "We don't know how the car will behave there but it's been good everywhere so hopefully it'll be the same there.

"You still need a good car [at Sepang] and that looks to be what we have. Hopefully we'll have a smoother weekend than we did in Australia with no mistakes."

Team-mate Romain Grosjean, who starred in qualifying last weekend by taking third on the grid, said that he expects the team to be able to hit the ground running in Malaysia because it doesn't have any major work to get through.

"The car was working very well in Australia," said the Frenchman. "There are always small improvements you can make but there's nothing major I could point to right now. The car is performing very well."

Pastor Maldonado thinks Williams has Red Bull and McLaren in its sights after he produced the surprise performance of the Australian Grand Prix.

The Venezuelan crashed out in Melbourne on the final lap as he tried to harry Fernando Alonso for fifth place, but he had already done enough in the race to show how big a step forward Williams has made over the winter.

And with the team now knowing just how competitive its Renault-powered FW34 is, Maldonado says ambitions have moved up a level.

"Next weekend [in Malaysia] will be interesting for everybody," he said. "The McLaren and Red Bull look strong, but we are not that far behind.

"I was close to [Mark] Webber in the first and second stint - a little bit quicker in the first but just losing a little bit in the second. So we are there. I think we are faster than Ferrari, plus quicker than Sauber and Force India as well."

Although Maldonado's last-lap accident, allied to Bruno Senna's troubled race, meant Williams left the opening race with no points, the former GP2 champion reckons the team is still heading to Malaysia with a spring in its step.

"The team is confident," he said. "We need some points, but at the same time we are more relaxed now because we did a pretty good job.

"We've been pushing so hard to get this car more competitive. I think everybody is surprised by our pace, even more in the race than in qualifying.

"And there is even more we can improve. I think we have a pretty good base to start the season with, but I am not surprised. The car looked consistent and quick on high fuel in testing."

Narain Karthikeyan is confident his HRT team will enjoy a better weekend in Malaysia than it did in Australia.

The Spanish squad completed very little running in Melbourne as was hindered by problems with its car, which had only completed a shakedown prior to the grand prix weekend. Both Karthikeyan and team-mate Pedro de la Rosa failed to qualify for the race.

And although Malaysia will be one of the toughest races of the season for all the teams, the Indian is optimistic the weekend will be easier.

"It wasn't an easy first weekend for us in Melbourne but the team is working hard and we hope to complete the maximum amount of kilometres with the new car so that we can have it in prime conditions for qualifying and the race," Karthikeyan said.

"The team is working on solving the reliability issues that we encountered, so I'm confident that things will go better in Malaysia. Sepang is a circuit that I like a lot and a place where I have raced numerous times.

"This was the only grand prix out of the eight that I took part in last year that I didn't finish, so this year I'm looking to firstly qualify and then finish the race, that is the main objective."

De la Rosa, who was unable to use DRS in Australia, believes the main focus should be on trying to solve the issues with the system as well as the power steering.

"Our two main priorities for Malaysia are to have DRS and improve the power steering in this short time that we have whilst being away from Europe," said de la Rosa. "In Australia we were only able to complete seven timed laps so I need get more track time, get to know the car better and improve the set-up.

"If we can achieve this then we could have a good grand prix. Sepang is probably the toughest track of the year both for car and driver. Mechanically it's very demanding because besides there being a lot of consecutive high-speed corners it is very hot and humid."

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McLaren managing director Jonathan Neale says his team will trust the FIA to take a definitive judgement on the wing system that Mercedes is operating in Formula 1 this year.

Lotus and Red Bull have openly questioned whether the device - which features a hole on the Mercedes W03's rear wing endplate uncovered by the movement of the DRS wing and directed air to the front wing to stall it for a straightline speed boost - is within the regulations. The teams elected not to lodge a protest in Australia, but to ask for further clarification after the race.

In a Vodafone McLaren Mercedes teleconference, Neale said that he believes Mercedes would have cleared the system with the FIA before using it, and so would rely on the sport's governing body to make a definitive ruling rather than getting involved in the row.

"Mercedes were very quick during qualifying and there is enough YouTube footage of Michael [schumacher] being very defensive about photographs of the car," said Neale. "But I think we have to rely on the FIA [to make the correct ruling].

"All the teams are going to be trying to extract the maximum within the permitted regulations, and innovation - particularly if a car is quick - certainly comes under challenge. We understand that well. But I don't understand well enough what Mercedes are actually doing, and we have to rely on our colleagues at the FIA.

"If we have anything that we think is innovative or pushing the interpretations of the regulations, we are all obliged to disclose that to Charlie Whiting and his colleagues, and I'm very confident that Mercedes will have done that and got a ruling that's OK."

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said in Melbourne that his concern was that there would now be a costly rush for the whole pitlane to copy the Mercedes idea.

"It is a clever system and hats off to them for doing it, but the most important thing for us is - is it OK?" he said.

"The frustrating thing with all these systems is that it will undoubtedly be banned for next year, but in the meantime are we all going to go off and chase the idea.

"Inevitably there would be a considerable amount of cost involved. It would be a development that the front teams would look at, but it might be something that is prohibitively expensive for the smaller teams."

Ross Brawn has taken a swipe at the exhaust designs of some rival teams, suggesting they have not been created in the way the rules intended.

Amid an ongoing row over the design of a DRS-activated F-duct on Brawn's own Mercedes car, the team principal thinks that it is wrong that his team is being singled out for technical scrutiny.

"Every year that I can remember, there is debate and argument," said Brawn about his car being at the centre of paddock gossip in Australia. "And probably, to be honest, what we have done is taken the spotlight off the exhaust systems that people are running because they are nowhere near what was intended by the FIA.

"The FIA probably told you all that we were not going to have exhaust blown diffusers any more. We thought we were not going to have them. But several cars have got them.

"Our wing system has probably taken the spotlight off something that was clearly never intended.

"F1 is very competitive, the people involved in it are extremely competitive, and it is the nature of F1. You have to work to written regulations and, if somebody can see a clever interpretation, then that is the nature of this business."

Although Brawn still faces the risk of a rival team protesting the legality of the rear wing design on his car, he has ruled out lodging a similar complaint against the exhaust designs elsewhere.

"We have already been through the FIA and challenged the FIA to its interpretation," he said. "They told us that they are comfortable with what has happened, so we respect that.

"We are now looking at the systems people are using to see if we feel that they could be a benefit to us. I suspect they will disappear next year."

Michael Schumacher says he is confident the speed Mercedes showed in Australian Grand Prix qualifying will not turn out to be a one-off - despite the team's disappointing race and Melbourne's habit of sometimes producing anomalous results.

Schumacher's team-mate Nico Rosberg was fastest in Q2 in Australia, and Schumacher qualified fourth, with the pair then running third and fourth early in the race. A gearbox problem halted Schumacher, while Rosberg fell back with high tyre wear and was classified only 12th following a last-lap collision with Sergio Perez's Sauber.

Seven-time Formula 1 champion Schumacher said the fact that Mercedes had not managed to maintain its pace all through the Melbourne weekend had not dented his confidence that 2012 could be a very strong season for the team.

"After the disappointment of how the first race in Melbourne turned out, I am flying to Malaysia with a big sense of anticipation, because we saw in Australia that our car is capable of putting us in the mix," he said.

"Of course, we haven't forgotten that the circuit in Melbourne is not really representative of the true competitive picture, but nevertheless the car gives me a good feeling for the season ahead.

"Sepang will be interesting for everybody because it will be the first clue to the real relative strengths of all the cars. The range of slow and fast corners give a good indication of where you are, which always makes the race in Malaysia fun for the drivers and engineers, and overall a big challenge for both man and machine."

Team boss Ross Brawn agreed that Mercedes now just had to deliver.

"We have a fundamentally good car, now it is up to us to optimise its performance and achieve its potential on track," he said.

McLaren has warned its rivals that it could be even stronger in the Malaysian Grand Prix because its car excels on the type of high speed corners that are a feature of Sepang.

Although Jenson Button was in a class of his own in Melbourne, his team boss Martin Whitmarsh suggests that the Albert Park circuit did not actually play to the strengths of the new McLaren.

"If you looked closely at ourselves in testing at Barcelona, we were pretty good in the high speed corners," Whitmarsh explained. "We looked like we were quickest in the high speed corners and, if anything, Red Bull was beating us in [low speed] traction areas.

"So to come to a circuit like this [in Australia] and see we were reasonably strong in relation to them is good. I think the theory goes then that we should be strong when we get to the next track.

"It is a high speed track and, based on our performance, we should believe we are going to be quite quick there. We are looking forward to next weekend. I think we do fancy our chances there, but who knows. Let's see how we go."

Whitmarsh also thinks that rivals Mercedes will be stronger in Malaysia, after its strong qualifying form evaporated in the race in Australia.

"Mercedes is definitely quick, and we thought they were going to be a much stronger threat to us in the race," he said.

"If you had said to me before the start, I would have said that Mercedes was the biggest threat to us. They were very, very quick - quick in a straight line, and I thought they were going to be quite a handful for us.

"As it turned out, I think they underperformed. They can do a better job than they did in Australia, that is for sure."

Sebastian Vettel has conceded McLaren has the upper hand over Red Bull at the moment, and that his team will need to dig deep if it is to overhaul its rivals in the fight for the world championship.

Although Vettel bounced back from a disappointing sixth place on the grid to finish second last weekend in the Australian Grand Prix, he never looked like being able to threaten runaway race leader Jenson Button.

Despite not getting the best out of his car in Melbourne, particularly in qualifying, Vettel was under no illusions about how strong McLaren appears to be.

"I think at the moment they have the upper hand," said the double world champion. "They showed it here. But whether they still have it next week remains to be seen.

"Surely they look very strong. They had an excellent winter. Pre-season testing was very good for them and they seem to be in very good shape, whereas there are a lot of things we need to do to catch up. Hopefully we will be able to do that and beat them."

Although there were stages of the Australian GP where Vettel was a match for Button, he does not think that he had the package beneath him that would have allowed him to overhaul the 2009 world champion for victory.

"Initially I was quite happy because we caught up with Jenson and I thought we might have a go, but he was too strong. I think you have to respect that and see the fact that he was unbeatable.

"He pulled away immediately [after the safety car] and I was struggling. I think I held up Lewis [Hamilton] at that stage a bit, struggling to get temperature, but after a couple of laps I was back into my rhythm and it seemed alright.

"I think we stabilised the gap to Jenson ahead and pulled away slightly from Lewis. It was a good race after that but surely we had no chance to beat Jenson."

Despite not being able to repeat his victory from last year, Vettel was still pretty happy with the overall weekend.

"I think we had a very good start of the race and I was able to find a rhythm quickly and get past a couple of people, especially the Mercedes because to get them is usually quite tricky. They are usually quite quick on the straights and we've seen that last year a couple of times that many people got frustrated behind them, so that was crucial.

"I think the pace was pretty good and I was happy with the car. It was an important race for us to learn about the car and the potential was there. Surely Jenson deserved to win, so congratulations to him and the McLarens, but to finish ahead of Lewis was great for us."

Pirelli has invited Formula 1 teams to send observers to the first running of its new 2010 Renault test car at Jerez in May, to prove that no outfit will gain an unfair advantage.

F1's tyre supplier spent the winter trying to find a suitable test car, after its previous 2009 Toyota model was too outdated to continue providing useful development data.

After the teams failed to deliver a satisfactory solution, Pirelli eventually agreed a deal to run a 2010 Renault car, which will be operated by independent staff rather than employees of the currently-named Lotus outfit.

The decision to get hold of a more modern car has prompted talk that the Lotus team could benefit from valuable tyre data from the tests. But Pirelli has been quick to deny this.

"We have invited all the teams to send an observer and see what we are up to," Hembery told AUTOSPORT about the May Jerez test. "Just so they that we are doing things in a fair way for everybody."

Hembery said Pirelli chose Renault because it wanted a solid midfield contender - and the identity of the team was partly helped by the French car manufacturer no longer having an official entry in F1.

"We wanted something in the mid range, and it came fifth in the championship that year," he said. "I didn't want to disturb the top teams.

"You may think that we wanted to get the car that won the championship, but if you do that, then it could get wrapped up in a whole lot of politics and drama.

"We felt on that point it had to be avoided. So we have got a solid performer. There are cost elements too, and Renault is not in the sport any more."

Pirelli is still seeking an official test driver for its 2012 plans, with speculation that Jaime Alguersuari could take the role being fuelled after the Spaniard was spotted in deep conversation with Hembery in Australia last weekend.

Hembery said no decision had been taken yet, and it was not totally ruled out that it could keep Lucas di Grassi on board.

"There are lots of people on the list, it is amazing," he said. "There are also some bizarre names there – people who retired 20 years ago! But we have never had a problem with the work done already, so it is not like we are making a change for change's sake. Maybe we will not make a change."

Williams has produced a car that is a 'night and day' improvement over its 2011 challenger, according its top engineer Mark Gillan.

Pastor Maldonado threw away sixth place in the Australian Grand Prix last weekend with a crash on the final lap, having driven strongly throughout the race and put Fernando Alonso's Ferrari under late pressure.

But although the end result was a disappointment for Williams, especially as it would have delivered the team more points than it scored throughout the whole of 2011, chief operations engineer Gillan believes there are still reasons to be happy.

"It was a bittersweet day, but I am generally pleased and proud of the guys for what has been done over the close season," he told AUTOSPORT. "And when you look at the FW34, compared to what we had last year, it is a night and day difference."

Gillan feels that Williams now has a good idea of where its car is stronger and weaker than the opposition, which should allow it to build on its competitiveness.

"Our pace in testing had been good, and we were being very honest in terms of fuel levels," he said. "We knew we were strong and tyre wear had improved, but we were still pleasantly surprised how competitive the car was.

"It was nice to be chasing down a Ferrari and a Red Bull in the race. So, that is a really positive thing to bring forward to Malaysia.

"We just need to capitalise on the car's performance. Last year we didn't have that; this year we have a proper racecar and are really looking forward to the next races.

"We now have a good platform to develop. It reacts well to change and there is a strong direction in the factory, and that feeds through to the next races."

Heikki Kovalainen says he has accepted his penalty for passing behind the safety car in the Australian Grand Prix, and does not think it will make too much difference to his and Caterham's Malaysian GP chances.

The Finn is confident he will swiftly be able to regain the places he loses when he is demoted five places on the Sepang grid.

"I've accepted the penalty I was given for passing [sebastian] Vettel under the safety car - it was definitely a bit harsh but the rules are set and it's just unfortunate I made a small mistake that will put me back five places on the grid at Sepang," said Kovalainen.

"It's not really a problem - we know we can pass the cars that will probably be ahead on the grid and I'll just have to do my best to put myself as far up the grid as I can on Saturday so we can minimise the effect of the penalty in the race."

Team boss Tony Fernandes believes Sepang will give Caterham a better chance to show the progress it made over the winter than the Australian race did.

"We have obviously improved our pace relative to our 2011 speed, but the teams ahead have also improved, so even though we are closer than this time last year we still have work to do to bridge the gap in qualifying," said Fernandes.

"However, in the race I think it looks like a different matter. At the end of last year we were agonisingly close to a number of cars ahead, and this year our race lap times in Australia were on a par with at least three cars ahead.

"With a bit of luck, which obviously deserted us in Melbourne, I think the Malaysian race will give us a chance to show just what we have achieved over the winter, and that gives us good reason to be optimistic about the weekend ahead."

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Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn believes his team's approach of having multiple technical directors is already paying off - and thinks the benefits will only increase in the future.

Although some rival outfits have poured scorn on the Mercedes approach – with the team having Bob Bell, Aldo Costa, Geoff Willis and Brawn all pushing on the technical side – the man in charge is delighted with the way things are panning out.

"They are getting on very well, gloriously well," explained Brawn. "Bob Bell's position was very easy. We didn't have a technical director. I was trying to cover that role, but not effectively enough.

"We have John Owen as chief designer, who is very talented, but needed some support.

"So with Aldo looking after the engineering side and Geoff looking after the aerodynamics, they are natural areas of responsibility. They are able to focus more on taking care of their areas than perhaps they were when they were just technical directors."

Brawn thinks having such a pool of technical talent at his team will also pay off hugely with big regulation changes looming for 2014.

"We have some key projects coming up in the next couple of years, such as the 2014 car, which is quite different from a regulatory point of view, and a completely new engine, and we need to commit resource to that," he said.

"So having the breadth we have then we can dedicate some of our engineering staff to specific projects, and that gives them some autonomy, some freedom if you like with their projects which helps them.

"We've had no ego problems so far, and I don't anticipate any because Aldo, Geoff and Bob are pretty down-to-earth guys, realistic, and they understand what we are trying to achieve and how we are trying to achieve it, and they want to be part of it."

The FIA has confirmed the DRS zone for the upcoming Malaysian Grand Prix at the Sepang circuit.

Unlike the season-opening Australian GP, which had two zones, the Sepang race will have a single DRS zone, with the detection at the end of the back straight and the activaction zone right after the final corner.

The activation zone remains unchanged in comparison to last year's race.

Jenson Button says McLaren's strong form in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix was unexpected, even after a promising winter of testing.

The Briton took a commanding third win in Melbourne to start the 2012 season in perfect fashion, after team-mate Lewis Hamilton had secured pole position on Saturday.

Although McLaren expected a competitive start to the year following a strong pre-season, Button admitted he was not expecting such dominance.

"After the race, people asked me if we'd expected to demonstrate the pace that we did in Australia, and I tell them that it was unexpected," said Button.

"Of course, we'd done our sums after winter testing, but you can never be certain whether another team is running with high-fuel or hiding their true pace.

"So to come away from race one with such a positive result - McLaren took pole, fastest lap and the victory - is a huge relief for the organisation.

The Briton, who beat world champion Sebastian Vettel to first place in Australia, said McLaren's form has been a big boost for the team, something that will make them motivated to push even harder.

"It's also incredibly motivating: we know we have a great car but we're not going to sit still with it," he said. "We have ambitious plans to develop the car and I know that everybody back at Woking is working hard to bring new components to the track, and that all our mechanics and engineers are flat-out to ensure that we maximise the package that we have this weekend.

"I think everybody knows that we are a relentless organisation; we can develop a car as well - if not better than - any other team. The difference this year is that we've started with a winning package; the challenge will be to maintain that, and I know that's something we're all really looking forward to doing."

The McLaren driver is also confident of fighting for victory again in Malaysia this weekend, although he is expecting rivals to be a bigger threat.

"I think the race showed that there are several top teams in Formula 1, and I think we can expect them to be fighting for victory in Malaysia. Both Red Bull drivers were very quick in the race, and I think we can expect further strong challenges from Mercedes and Lotus this weekend.

"Of course, we're not relaxing – and we go to Malaysia ready for a strong fight."

Lewis Hamilton says post-race analysis has helped him pinpoint why he slipped back in the Australian Grand Prix, leaving him in a far more optimistic frame of mind heading into Malaysia.

Having started from pole, Hamilton lost out to team-mate Jenson Button on the run down to the first corner and was then unable to replicate the elder Briton's pace.

He then slipped behind Sebastian Vettel after an adversely timed safety car.

While Hamilton was downbeat afterward - admitting he was baffled by his struggles - he says his debrief has helped him understand where Button was able to gain an advantage.

"After the race in Australia, it was difficult to understand exactly what happened," Hamilton explained. "I was generally happy with the car all weekend, but just lacked a bit of pace compared to Jenson in the race.

"Afterwards, I sat down with my engineers and we went through all the data. There was a small issue with the clutch at the start: it wasn't my fault, but we now understand and know how to improve in the future.

"My race pace was pretty much identical to Jenson's, but he was able to switch the tyres on extremely well, which explains how he was able to pull a gap so quickly at the start and also after the restart.

"It's encouraging and reassuring to understand the reasons for our race pace in Australia, and it puts me in a really positive frame of mind for the race in Malaysia. Plus, it always helps to be back in the car only five days after the last grand prix – you move on so quickly."

Hamilton added that he expected Mercedes and Red Bull to be in the mix at Sepang, but said he was enjoying having the superior machinery after the dominance of the RB7 last year.

"Clearly, we're very encouraged by our pace, both in qualifying and in the race, and I'd like to think we can continue that at Malaysia this weekend," he said.

"I think both Mercedes and Red Bull Racing have performance up their sleeves, and they'll both be very fast in qualifying and the race. As far as McLaren is concerned, it's nice to be the hunted rather than the hunter.

"I think we go into the weekend feeling pretty optimistic because Sepang is quite a high-speed circuit and our car has usually gone well in the high-speed stuff during winter testing.

"I've made no secret of the fact that I'd love to win a grand prix at every circuit I race at. I've not won at Sepang before, but I've had some good races here – and I'd like to put the record straight with a victory this weekend."

Fernando Alonso is not expecting the Malaysian Grand Prix to be any easier for his Ferrari team, saying the Italian squad will have to race defensively again.

The Maranello outfit endured a difficult start to the season in Australia last weekend, with both Alonso and team-mate Felipe Massa qualifying outside the top ten.

Alonso recovered well in the race to finish in fifth, but the Spaniard's pace was no match to that of the leading outfits.

With just one week between the Melbourne and the Sepang races, Alonso is aware that he can't expect things to be easier for Ferrari.

"In Malaysia, we will once again be racing on the defensive," Alonso said on Ferrari's website. "There's no other way we can go about it, given that the F2012 is practically identical to what we ran in Australia. We will have to try and adapt it as well as possible, knowing it won't be easy."

He added: "There are two points we will have to work on with great attention: finding the right compromise in terms of the aerodynamic balance and the tyre degradation.

"Sepang has two real straights where, because they are very long, a lack of top speed carries a higher price than in Melbourne, where the two straights on which you could use DRS were reasonably short."

Alonso also said he is not putting much faith in the forecast for the weekend, which suggests rain will hit the track both on Saturday and Sunday.

"There is no other place in the world, the Formula 1 world that is, where it can go from sunshine to torrential rain in the space of a few minutes," he said. "Not even at Spa is the variability so acute. Those on the pitwall will have to keep their eyes peeled and look at the radar carefully to be ready for any possible change in the weather.

"At the moment, the forecast is for a high chance of rain, both for qualifying and the race, but honestly, I don't have much faith in the forecast. The important thing is to react promptly and grab every opportunity. The only thing you can be absolutely certain of is that it will be hot, very hot."

Felipe Massa will be given a new chassis for this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix as his Ferrari team bids to get to the bottom of his troubles in Australia.

The Brazilian had a disappointing weekend in Melbourne - being comprehensively outqualified by team-mate Fernando Alonso and enduring an incident-filled race before his retirement.

Although the team continues to have faith that Massa can turn his situation around, the outfit has elected to change his chassis with immediate effect – so for this weekend in Sepang he will race with chassis number 294 - to see if it was a factor in his performance.

A statement on the team's website said: "This choice was taken to clear up any doubts about the unusual performance of his car during the weekend at Albert Park."

Marussia is taking this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix as another opportunity to gain valuable data and mileage on its under-developed MR01 chassis.

The team failed to get the car successfully through the FIA's mandatory crash tests in time to make pre-season testing, but followed up a 100km systems check at Silverstone with a trouble-free weekend in Melbourne that witnessed both cars make the finish.

And while Marussia accepts that its car arrives in Sepang largely unchanged from the specification in which it competed at Albert Park, the team sees the race as another opportunity to understand the chassis more fully before adding development parts to it.

"The team and the car faced a tough test in Australia last weekend and both passed with flying colours," said team boss John Booth. "However we are under no illusions that we'll have to work very hard to ensure things continue to go our way this season.

"Our mileage last weekend enabled us to gather plenty of data which has been carefully evaluated over the last few days back at our operational base in Banbury. This will enable us to pinpoint any underlying issues that fortunately did not surface in Melbourne.

"Every new car has its gremlins so we want to get to those as quickly as we can as last year one of our key strengths was our reliability. Once you have a good mechanical baseline - which we have - and a reliable car, that's when you can really start to turn your mind towards development - and we have plenty of that to focus on.

"There won't be any significant changes to the car for this weekend," he added, "given the tight turnaround, but we'll be able to look at optimising the set-up for this circuit."

Marussia's rookie driver Charles Pic is also hoping to continue the trend of gathering extensive mileage.

"I was happy with how things had gone in my first race but there is no time to think about that as we have so much work to do to look ahead for the rest of the season," said the Frenchman. "I learned so much about the new car in such a short space of time and I want to maintain the momentum, so it's good that I don't have to wait two weeks to get back in the car.

"I know this can be a tough race but I'm ready for it and arriving early means I started acclimatising straight away. We will be in a much better position with the car this weekend as we understand more about it."

Force India's long-running legal dispute with Aerolab, Mike Gascoyne and the Caterham F1 team has been settled at the High Court of Justice in London today.

Mr Justice Arnold ruled that the team had "come nowhere near" establishing that Aerolab had systematically copied significant parts of Force India's design when designing the Team Lotus T127.

Aerolab had previously partnered with Vijay Mallya's squad until late July 2009, when it decided to terminate the contract due to unpaid fees. Caterham, called Lotus Racing at the time the dispute occurred, came on board several days later.

A 14-day hearing was held in the Chancery Division of the London High Court, with a number of experts including Frank Dernie, ex-Ligier technical director who has acted as a consultant for both Williams and Toyota in Formula 1.

On the evidence provided, Mr Justice Arnold settled in Aerolab's favour the dispute over unpaid fees to the sum of €850,000.

He awarded Force India €25,000 in compensation in regard to use of its intellectual property rights, which was deemed to have been done as a short cut.

"Such misuse as I have found to have occurred mainly consisted of opportunistic copying of CAD files by CAD designers in order to take a short cut," Mr Justice Arnold added.

Jean-Claude Migeot, Aerolab's managing director, said in a statement he was relieved a verdict had been reached.

"It has taken a long time but I am extremely happy and relieved to see 1Malaysia Racing Team [Caterham F1, then Team Lotus] and Mike Gascoyne cleared of any wrongdoing," he said.

"I have always felt that the case was only initiated by Force India as a means to delay payment for outstanding work. With the Court having now examined the often extremely technical aspects of the evidence and come to the decision it has, my viewpoint has not altered.

"After two years of legal dispute, I am looking forward to once again focusing all of my attention on current and future Aerolab/FondTech projects."

A separate hearing will be held to determine the covering of legal costs associated with the trial.

Aerolab's managing director Jean-Claude Migeot says he is pleased to have proved his company's innocence following a long-running legal dispute with Force India regarding the use of intellectual property.

Aerolab had been a partner of Vijay Mallya's squad, but terminated the relationship in 2009 over unpaid bills.

It then partnered with Caterham F1 - then Lotus – to design the T127 – which proved the centre of the legal dispute as Force India alleged its intellectual property had been systematically copied. At the same time Aerolab pursued the team through the courts with regard to the unpaid bills.

The protracted disputes were settled on Wednesday, when Mr Justice Arnold said Force India had come "nowhere near" proving systematic copying – and at the same time settled in favour of Aerolab's pursuit of €850,000.

"It's been such a long story – so long, and so big, for such a small issue – but I am glad to say it's over," Migeot told AUTOSPORT. "The judge made his conviction on the right side - putting things right is always very satisfactory.

"We are pleased that the truth is out, which was the main difficulty before Force India was trying to demonstrate a huge conspiracy between Team Lotus, Mike and myself, which actually never existed and was never found in any evidence.

"We always thought it was a huge trial for such a short matter, a nonsense. Force India was adamant it had a multi-million case though and there was no way of even opening a discussion and it unfortunately ended in the courts.

"It was a big story brought up to delay the payment they owed us from 2009 – they had hoped to find the perfect excuse."

Migeot's company were ordered to pay Force India €25,000 in compensation for the copying of some intellectual property rights, an act that was deemed an 'opportunistic shortcut' by the judge.

"When we found this, we admitted it – this is all miles before the trial," Migeot said. "But they didn't want to believe it was so little.

"When a customer is finished their contract they have to give a notice period, so when you come down to the last day everything is clean – all the computers are wiped.

"The trouble is I had to throw Force India out due to non-payment, then we started working for Lotus basically the day after – we had no time to clean the computers and in this overlap a few people kept some of their studies

"It's a very fine line between using your knowledge and using someone else's IP, which we don't do. We have contractors and consultants – and people come to us because we have the know-how and experience."

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Lotus and Red Bull Racing's complaints that the DRS-activated F-duct on the Mercedes rear wing is illegal have been rejected by the FIA, AUTOSPORT has learned.

The two outfits wanted clarification on the matter ahead of this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix, with both teams reckoning the duct that helps stall the Mercedes wings for a straight-line speed boost is a breach of the rules that prevents driver activated aerodynamic devices.

Discussions between the FIA and all the teams involved have taken place throughout Thursday in the Sepang paddock, but the governing body has not changed its stance on the matter.

The FIA informed the outfits that it remains convinced that the concept is legal because it is passive, and there is nothing in the rules that outlaws a device that is activated by movement of the DRS.

FIA race director Charlie Whiting, who is head of the F1 technical department, said in Australia last weekend: "It is completely passive. There are no moving parts in it; it doesn't interact with any suspension. No steering, nothing. Therefore I cannot see a rule that prohibits it."

The news means that Red Bull Racing and Lotus - the two teams most unhappy about the design – must now choose to either challenge the matter with an official protest in Malaysia this weekend, or go ahead and develop a similar system themselves.

Mercedes-Benz motorsport boss Norbert Haug confirmed that his team's car would be unchanged from how it was in the Australian Grand Prix.

"This car passed scrutineering and got the green light," he said in Malaysia.

Sebastian Vettel believes Red Bull Racing needs more track time in order to extract the full potential from its car, which he reckons has no fundamental issues.

Red Bull, the dominant force last season, was unable to challenge McLaren for pole or victory in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix. But while Vettel qualified down in sixth position, but recovered in the race to finish second behind Jenson Button.

The Red Bull driver believes his team will be stronger once it has enough track time to fine-tune the RB8.

"I think we need track time to really understand what is going on in the car," said Vettel at Sepang. "I don't think we have a problem in the car as in we don't understand what is going on, or the front end is weak or the rear is a disaster.

"It is fine tuning here and there. We have seen it in previous years that fine-tuning can make quite a difference if you know exactly what your car needs, to fine-tune it towards the race or qualifying or whatever you may need.

"You get quite a lot of performance out of that so on top of that it is not a secret that if you feel comfortable in the car you allow yourself to be pushed to the limit."

The German said he was still drawing confidence from the Australian Grand Prix, especially after his recovery in the race.

"We had lots of positives from the last race, we were not strong enough to win the race but we got 100 per cent out of ourselves, out of the car so it was a very good start in that respect," said Vettel.

"Surely in terms of performance we would have loved to be stronger, in particular in qualifying but it's a long year so there is no reason to panic.

"I think we are motivated and hungry to make sure that McLaren doesn't keep the upper hand but for now you have to accept that they had a very good weekend and a very good preparation in the winter, so we'll see what happens this weekend."

The world champion admitted he will not be happy to finish second again though if he has the chance to win the race in Sepang, admitting he was pleased with his result in Melbourne only because of the poor result in qualifying.

"Don't get me wrong, I was happy with second because of the way the race unfolded, I think if you start sixth and we couldn't have gone any faster," he said.

"We got everything out of ourselves that we had and then you are quite happy to cross the line and you are happy whereas if you are leading the whole way and you do a mistake and you lose the lead on the last lap and you are second like I did in Canada last year then maybe you are not so happy with second, but ultimately, given the circumstances but the struggle we had the other weekend maybe it was a good result."

Lewis Hamilton has dismissed suggestions that his post-race disappointment in Australia was a sign that he had not banished the off-track issues that affected him last year.

The Briton was hugely downbeat after finishing third in Australia - with a number of observers including David Coulthard suggesting that it was evidence that Jenson Button had gained the upper hand at the team.

But Hamilton himself brushed off such claims – and said that he was fully justified in being so unhappy at failing to convert his pole position in to a victory.

"I had just worked massively hard over the winter, harder than I ever worked, and the result of the race didn't go the way I wanted it to," said Hamilton, who finished behind Button and Sebastian Vettel.

"I think it was fair to be disappointed. I don't feel that I should have to disguise that."

Hamilton explained that a number of factors – including a clutch problem off the line and the wrong set-up – wrecked his chances of battling Button for the win.

"It was a weekend where I started on pole, and there were two or three things that went wrong in the race that were out of my control. I felt I performed quite well and definitely would have liked to have had my car in a slightly difference position in the set-up and race, but I will alter that this weekend so it shouldn't be a problem.

"I had too much oversteer in high speed, and had a different front wing set-up to Jenson, which I had chosen – and it wasn't the right one.

"Qualifying had been great, and the car can definitely be better in the race – which it will be this weekend. It was just a few things that didn't go my way, but that is motor racing."

Hamilton believes that McLaren could be in even better shape in Malaysia this weekend than they were in Australia.

"Our car is quite good in the high speed corners as it was in Barcelona testing, although it is also quite good in the low speed stuff. I think we should be quite competitive this week, and it should feel better than it did last time."

Fernando Alonso says Ferrari must remain calm and focused despite a disappointing start to the 2012 season.

The Maranello squad was off the pace of the leading teams in pre-season testing and Melbourne after admitting it failed to meet the goals it had set for the start of the season. Alonso qualified 12th in Australia and then finished fifth in the race.

The Spaniard admits Ferrari is not in the position it would like to be, but insists there is no other solution but to stay calm and keep on working on closing the gap.

"This is F1," said Alonso in Malaysia on Thursday, "there is not an easy time for anybody so we need to work hard every day and night to normally catch up."

"We have to stay focused knowing we are a little behind, but we stay calm. We see determination in the team, everyone trusts each other, we stay united and hopefully the time will come for us.

"We are not in the situation that we wanted to start the 2012 championship but after 11 years in F1 you understand how long is the championship, what you need when you have the best car and what you need when you do not have the best car, which is sometimes more points or less points.

"We need to score as many points as possible in these next few races and in a short period of time we want to score podiums and win races, and if we manage to do that then we have plenty of time to close the gap. If we do not then it is because we did not do a good enough job."

Although Alonso said that although he is not expecting Ferrari to be any stronger in Malaysia than it was last weekend, given the short gap between races, he made it clear he is not ruling anything out.

"I think we need to wait and see," he said. "We don't have a crystal ball to see the positions. We have to see how competitive we are on this circuit, we don't expect any big miracles here as the cars are identical, but who knows?

"I think in Australia no one expected us to finish fifth - there were a lot of people quicker than us, with different circumstances and with mechanical problems.

"Michael (Schumacher), Grosjean crashed and Kimi was out of Q1, so there were some incidents in the race that helped us to finish fifth, so here with a normal race maybe we finish further behind, and if it rains, or there is a crazy race, maybe we can finish in front. We have to play before we see what we can do."

Felipe Massa is sure that his change of chassis for this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix will help him recover from his poor start to the season in Australia.

The Brazilian's future at Ferrari came under the spotlight again after he suffered a tough weekend in Australia, qualifying only 16th and racing in the midfield until retiring after a collision with Bruno Senna.

Ferrari has given Massa a new chassis for this weekend in a bid to get him comfortable with the F2012, and he says that he is more concerned with the performance of his car than doubts over his future.

"The only thing I care about is the car," he said on Thursday. "To have the car I know [from testing], not the one I had in Australia. [Changing chassis] is the right thing to do.

"I really don't care [about criticism in the media], I have a job. The only thing I am working for is to drive the car and get out of the car 100 per cent convinced that I did the best."

Massa explained that the difference between his car last weekend and in testing was huge.

"Every time I drove the car in testing I never had a problem like I had in Australia," he said. "Every day, and the day after with Fernando in the car, there was never anything strange or different.

"And then you arrive in Australia and see that everything is different. It was the main discussion this week, to improve the situation and to find out what has happened. I'm sure we are fine."

He also praised the efforts of his Ferrari team and the lengths that it has gone to ahead of Malaysia to eradicate any problems with his car.

"We didn't just change the chassis, we changed everything," he added. "We didn't understand, so that is why we change everything.

"The team is very professional, taking away what is not working and improving the performance is good for me and very good for them. I am sure this is the solution to give the best the car can give."

Sergio Perez has vowed to concentrate on his job at Sauber despite Italian media speculation linking him to Felipe Massa's seat at Ferrari.

The Mexican is a member of Ferrari's young driver programme and tested for the Italian squad last year.

Massa has had a poor run of form since his accident in qualifying for the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix. This year's season opener in Melbourne continued the trend, qualifying 16th before clashing with Bruno Senna in the race.

Perez had a successful year in 2011 and is highly rated by the Italian team.

However, Perez poured cold water on the talk of a change, saying: "It was only the first race of the season, so very early to speculate. I am really focused with my team, with Sauber, we have a great car and there is nothing else I can say."

He added: "The rumours... they are only rumours."

Perez's weekend contrasted with that of Massa in Melbourne, with a spirited drive that saw him finish in eighth position after gearbox woes left him to start in last position.

The 22-year old Mexican added: "I feel really fine now in my second year, I know what to expect a bit more, as well I think everybody is very close, the mid teams to top teams are close so in some conditions we can have some surprises, hopefully we can have a stable weekend this time."

Kamui Kobayashi believes that Sauber still has work to do to solve the tyre warm-up problems that blighted its qualifying performances last season.

The Japanese missed out on Q3 in Australia last weekend despite showing potential top-10 pace after struggling with front tyre temperature in Q2.

Although the high track temperatures typical of Sepang should help mitigate the problem, Kobayashi has called on the team to improve its warm-up characteristics, especially given how close it is in the midfield

"We still need to improve qualifying," said Kobayashi. "Still we are struggling with the tyre warm-up. We couldn't get the temperature into the front tyres.

"Even to the top teams, the gap is much closer than last year, which is a good sign. But it's important to be at 100 per cent in qualifying and the race. If we are missing a little bit, we will be down."

Despite the qualifying troubles, Kobayashi is impressed with the performance of the Ferrari-engined Sauber C31, which he took to sixth place in Australia.

He believes that rear wing damage picked up on the first lap meant that his car had more potential than it showed even though he was able to fight with the likes of Kimi Raikkonen and Nico Rosberg.

"We can see that we had good performance, even though I had a damaged wing," said Kobayashi. "It is difficult to say what the performance loss was, because we were always in someone's slipstream, but it was not small.

"Everything is fine with the car and I am very confident. Our target for qualifying is Q3 and then it's about avoiding damage at the beginning to see the performance. Unfortunately we didn't show our full performance in Australia."

Michael Schumacher believes Mercedes will not suffer a repeat of the struggles it had in the Australian Grand Prix, describing its lack of race pace as "a one-off".

Both Mercedes cars seemed set to star in the season opener, as Schumacher and Nico Rosberg showed frontrunning pace in qualifying.

But the team's F1 W03 was surprisingly lacking on Sunday, with Ross Brawn citing high tyre degradation as the cause of the problems. And Schumacher is confident that Mercedes has got on top of the issue.

"We had done quite a few thousand kilometres in winter testing and never had issues," Schumacher said on Thursday at Sepang ahead of this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix.

"We understood in Melbourne that we have to do a better job with race pace. But we understood it and fixed it. It is a one-off."

The seven-time world champion also played down the significance of the controversial DRS/f-duct system Mercedes has started the season with, dismissing suggestions that it will give enough of an advantage in qualifying trim to make the silver cars the favourites for pole position.

"Certainly not," he said. "There is no doubt that we have an innovation that gives us some performance but I don't think it's a huge performance. We will find out.

"The basic positive is that we definitely have a much improved car to last year. We still need to learn it and understand it in all circumstances to take benefit and performance from it.

"As we saw in the race we can improve quite a bit with race pace in particular. I don't think we would have been able to achieve a podium in Melbourne if we went all the way through - maybe fifth was the best we could have had.

"But we have good ideas on what to improve from Melbourne. Whether it means we will be on the podium is another story as there are at least four cars which are very strong with two McLarens and two Red Bulls."

Nico Rosberg believes Mercedes might have to compromise its qualifying performance in Malaysia this weekend to avoid a repeat of the tyre problems it suffered in the Australian Grand Prix.

Mercedes appeared to be in great shape for the season opener after Rosberg and team-mate Michael Schumacher shone in qualifying. But both struggled for pace on Sunday due to excessive tyre degradation.

Schumacher declared the problem as "a one-off" at Sepang on Thursday, but Rosberg believes that in order to make sure it doesn't happen again, Mercedes will have to set its cars up with more focus on race performance.

"It definitely won't be easier here [to look after the tyres], because of the nature of the track," Rosberg told reporters in the Sepang paddock. "We've looked through it, and we are going to be able to improve the situation significantly just with the setup.

"In the race we need to make sure we're doing a better job. But it may mean compromising qualifying a little bit more than we did in Melbourne.

"There is always a compromise between qualifying and the race, and in Melbourne it seems we were a bit to biased towards qualifying. I thought we were looking good, but looking back now I guess we needed to do more for the race."

Rosberg explained that Mercedes had put a lot of work into understanding the problem this week.

"We have been analysing a lot," he said. "There are a lot of ideas and we can help the situation. Some things we may need a bit more time to get on top of but I'm convinced that we can do better.

"It was a very similar problem all the way through the race, whichever tyre we were on. A very general problem. We were working the rear tyres too hard, and that causes a lot of degradation and overheating. But it's not a simple thing."

Kimi Raikkonen will continue to work on improving his Lotus E20's power steering in Malaysia, as he is still not happy with the feedback he is getting in the cockpit on his Formula 1 return.

The Finn missed out on track time in free practice in Australia last weekend as his team worked to give him a steering system that suited him.

In the end it could not find a solution better than the original set-up on the car, so the 2007 world champion had to get through his first weekend back without being totally comfortable.

"We have some things [to try]," Raikkonen told reporters in the Sepang paddock. "It is just a matter of getting it right.

"It is many things. It is not as I have been used to in the past, and it is not as perfect as it should be.

"The team is working hard since we knew about the issue, but it is not the easiest thing to fix. But we have a new one to try and hopefully it will be OK."

The Finn added that overall he was happy with his Lotus, and now he has a race under his belt he doesn't feel much has changed with the performance of Formula 1 cars since he left the sport at the end of 2009.

"The feeling is the same," he said. "The downforce is more or less the same as it was at that time. Maybe we have more now, but handling wise it is very similar.

"In the race it was good. There are areas you want to improve, but it is never going to be perfect. You always want something better."

Raikkonen also said he was surprised at how comfortable he felt with Pirelli's tyres during his first race with the Italian firm's rubber.

"The tyres were really good," he said. "I took it easy, and probably I expected to have more problems with them.

"I didn't have any knowledge, so I was surprised how well it went. The second set [in the race], I think we could have run the whole race with them."

Bruno Senna has no doubts that he will put his poor start to the season in Australia behind him in this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix.

The Brazilian retired from the race after colliding with Felipe Massa. This followed a clash at the first corner that dropped him to the rear of the field and a disappointing qualifying performance.

But Senna is confident that his bad luck is now behind him and he can fight for points at Sepang provided he has a clear run in qualifying.

"The season started last week and all of the bad luck stayed there I hope," he said when asked by AUTOSPORT if he sees this as the real start of his campaign. "If you start in the middle of the grid, the odds of someone hitting you are higher.

"Qualifying was a lottery in Melbourne on my soft tyre run because we didn't really get the mileage before. Things are a bit more straightforward here in terms of tyre warm-up for qualifying."

Senna believes that free practice will be key to laying the foundations for an improved qualifying showing.

Despite having to sit out Friday's first session for reserve driver Valtteri Bottas, Senna is hopeful that he can catch up during the second and third sessions.

"This weekend will be different because Valtteri will drive the first session," said Senna. "We are trying to mitigate it by doing more running in FP2 and FP3, hopefully getting the mileage needed to prepare for qualifying.

"If you look at last weekend, my performance compared to Pastor [Maldonado] on the medium tyres was very similar. Here we have the medium and the hards and I think I've sussed those compounds out.

Senna added that if the team and drivers deliver to the maximum this weekend, it is possible for Williams to pick up points with both cars.

But he warned that given the midfield is so close, the team must live up to its potential if it is to do so.

"The only reason that we couldn't be in the top 10 is if we don't do as good a job as the other guys," said Senna. "Everybody around us has the chance to be in the top 10."

Pastor Maldonado is upbeat about Williams's start to the year despite a disappointing finish to the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

Maldonado had a very strong race in Melbourne and was fighting for fifth place with Ferrari's Fernando Alonso when he crashed out on the final lap of the event.

Despite the disappointment, Maldonado says he is feeling very confident about the performance of his team at the start of the season.

"We have been working so hard all winter, on our performance in the car, I feel very confident with the team, so I am looking forward," said Maldonado at Sepang.

"I think we can still be so competitive, even though it's early to say. But it is a good start in the season and I am looking forward. We in the team are pushing so hard, so feel confident."

Maldonado admitted he was sorry to have missed out on a chance to start the season scoring valuable points, but the Venezuelan has vowed to move on and focus on this weekend's race in Malaysia.

The Williams driver conceded the crash in Australia was purely his fault.

"For sure all the team, even myself, are a bit disappointed because we missed a great opportunity to score some important points," he said. "But this is racing. It was a mistake from my side. We need to look forward, turn the page and I think our car is competitive at the moment.

"We need to keep pushing like that, concentrate, keep focused - this will be a new challenge for us because track is completely different but we need to believe in our performance and hopefully again we will be in top ten and fighting for good places."

He added: "It was a difficult moment for me, because I was chasing Fernando, he was a great fighter and very clean, on the last lap I was too close on the kerb and I just lose the car. It was a shame for the team and myself – but there was nothing to do but I'm looking forward. It is a new change and a new challenge."

Force India is to ask the FIA to look into the use of its intellectual property by Team Lotus, after the British Courts ruled that some of its parts appeared on its rival's cars in the early part of 2010.

After a lengthy court case involving Force India, Team Lotus and the Aerolab company, the British courts dismissed claims that there had been 'systematic copying' of the Silverstone-based team's IP, but did rule that a small number of parts had found their way on to the Lotus car at the start of 2010.

After ordering Aerolab to pay 25,000 Euros in compensation over that matter, Force India issued a statement saying it would now like the FIA to look into the matter - because there are strict rules in Formula 1 banning teams from using the IP of another team.

In the statement, Force India said: "The UK High Court judgement [sic], in respect of the illegal copying, will now be referred for the consideration of Formula 1's governing body, the FIA, whilst the Italian criminal case against Mike Gascoyne, Tony Fernandes and Jean Claude Migeot remains ongoing."

Migeot has admitted that some Force India data was used in the work Aerolab was doing for Lotus, but says it was not intentional.

"When we found this, we admitted it - this is all miles before the trial," Migeot told AUTOSPORT. "But they didn't want to believe it was so little.

"When a customer is finished their contract they have to give a notice period, so when you come down to the last day everything is clean – all the computers are wiped.

"The trouble is I had to throw Force India out due to non-payment, then we started working for Lotus basically the day after – we had no time to clean the computers and in this overlap a few people kept some of their studies

"It's a very fine line between using your knowledge and using someone else's IP, which we don't do. We have contractors and consultants – and people come to us because we have the know-how and experience."

Despite the situation with the IP, Force India was ordered to pay €846,230 in unpaid fees to Aerolab – and looks set to have to pay costs too after declining an out-of-court settlement.

Pedro de la Rosa is optimistic that improvements to his HRT car should help the team qualify for this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix.

The Spaniard and his team-mate Narain Karthikeyan failed to get within the mandatory 107 per cent of the fastest Q1 time in Australia last weekend, on a weekend where HRT was hindered by power steering and cooling issues, plus a lack of DRS.

However, with progress having been made in all three areas ahead of Sepang, de la Rosa is more hopeful about his team's chances this time out.

"It is not only the fact that we will have DRS here, which we didn't in Australia," he explained. "We seem to have found the issues with the power steering, which is massively important. And the whole team has had one more week to build the cars with more attention to detail really, so I am more confident than Australia."

De la Rosa thinks that the addition of DRS alone should hand the team up to one second of laptime.

"DRS itself is approximately nine tenths to one second, so it is quite a big help especially where we are, and what we need to qualify. That extra second could make a difference."

De la Rosa confessed to not being too surprised that the outfit did not make the cut in Australia, having had limited mileage before the first race of the campaign.

"It was not nice and it was tough to not qualify in Australia, because of the mechanics and engineers who made such a super effort to be there," he said. "But that is what was expected actually.

"We cannot dream of arriving there, finishing the car on Saturday morning and then suddenly qualifying. I would have been disappointed if we had been testing all winter, we had DRS, being perfect, everything - and then not qualifying.

"Then I would be really disappointed – but these things happen when you are not well prepared. We are a lot better prepared now, and I think it will grow from here."

Thursday's press conference:

DRIVERS - Pastor MALDONADO (Williams), Jean-Eric Vergne (Toro Rosso), Sergio PÉREZ (Sauber), Michael SCHUMACHER (Mercedes), Jenson BUTTON (McLaren), Fernando ALONSO ( Ferrari)

PRESS CONFERENCE

Q. Pastor, after your performance in Melbourne, are you optimistic you can manage that at all circuits or do you think it was Melbourne-specific?

Pastor MALDONADO: I hope so. I think we did a great start to the season, we've been working so hard from the winter just improving our performance in the car. I feel very confident with the team, so it's looking forward. We can still be competitive though it is early to say but it's a good start to the season and we're looking forward, all of us in the team are pushing so hard, so we feel confident.

Q. You must have been devastated by what happened on the last lap, what exactly did happen?

PM: It was a difficult moment for me because I was fighting with Fernando, it was a great fight and very clean and then the last lap I get too close, I was on the kerb on the wrong side of the track and I just lost the car. I'm disappointed for that because of the team result but nothing to do. I'm looking forward, y'know? It's a new place and a new challenge.

Q. Jean-Eric, first of all tell us about the last lap, but also the first lap, because you had a bit of drama on both the first and last lap – and welcome to your first press conference.

Jean-Eric VERGNE: Thank you. First lap, I thought I had quite a good start. I was next to Mark and I don't really know what happened in the first corner but somebody hit my rear wheel and I went straight in the gravel. I think I lost a lot of positions and I finished the first lap in 17th. And then I made my way up through the field and I had good pace for the rest of the race. And the last lap was a little confusing. Everybody was in the same pack and I guess I tried a little bit too hard to pass a few people. Kimi was in front of me and... I don't even know who was in front of him but I lost position again to Daniel, my team-mate and in the last corner I slid a little bit and didn't have any KERS left and Paul di Resta passed me only by one-tenth.

Q. Obviously looking forward to this race, what have you been doing since Melbourne and how have you prepared for this race?

J-EV: I heard this race was quite tough just because of the conditions, really hot, so I came here quite early, I arrived on Monday night and did some sport with my trainer, visited a little bit Kuala Lumpur and yeah, just getting used to the heat. I'm looking forward to this race. I think we have a good car, the team has me working quite hard and we're looking quite confident.

Q. Sergio, obviously a repeat of last year for you in Melbourne, making the tyre last all the way through with just one stop. How did you make it work and nobody else try the same strategy?

Sergio PÉREZ: To be honest I had no other option after the safety car. It came in the wrong moment for me. It was going really well 'til the safety car came. Then we had no option, because if I pit then I was going to lose many positions, so we decided to stay out and I managed the last 20 laps with really old tyres and it was a shame in the end on the last lap I lost two positions due to clash of Pastor. The track was impossible to go through because of yellow flags, I lift quite a bit and then I had contact with Nico and to the end of the lap I lost two positions with my team-mate and Räikkönen.

Q. Looking at that midfield battle it looks incredibly close, everyone's made a step forward. Have you made a little bit more of a step forward, how do you feel?

SP: I feel really fine now in my second year. I know what to expect a bit more as well, everybody is very close also. The mid teams to the top teams, we are close so in some conditions maybe we can have some surprises from the mid-teams. Hopefully we can have a stable weekend this time, not like Melbourne. It was very difficult to prepare, especially the race. We went out there without knowing what to expect and it was of course difficult conditions.

Q. Michael, the gearbox failure in Melbourne, obviously it wasn't something you expected but do the team think it's just a one-off, or is there a design problem? What's the diagnosis?

Michael SCHUMACHER: Well, it is a one-off. We did quite a few thousand kilometres in winter testing and never had this issue. We understood it though, and fixed it.

Q. And there's no penalty is there?

MS: No, I took the penalty in the race.

Q. Obviously there are a lot of positives from last weekend – what positives did you take from it?

MS: The basic positive is that we definitely have a much-improved car compared to last year. Still we have to learn it and understand it in all circumstances to take the benefit and the full performance from it, as we have seen in the race with Nico, so there is still something to learn, but we're positive that we can improve quite a bit, in race pace in particular.

Q. Jenson, you've won here in the past, you were a winner last weekend, your team-mate interestingly enough said you managed to switch the tyres on, that you seemed to understand the tyres better. Do you think that was your advantage last weekend?

Jenson BUTTON: I really don't know. I think we all try to do the best job we can with the tyres but personally I don't feel the tyres were a big issue for anyone in Melbourne. They seemed to be very consistent and we didn't have degradation like we do at other circuits, like here, so I feel that I had a good balance with the car, I had a lot of confidence in the car and yeah, I think the consistency was pretty good throughout the race. Obviously we had the scare with the safety car for us – it's always tough when you're leading by ten or eleven seconds, to suddenly find a car right up behind you again. But I think we made good use of the safety car in the end and were able to come home and get a very important victory for the whole team.

Q. You've won here from pole and also had your first podium here. It's a circuit you quite like isn't it?

JB: It is. It's so different to last weekend, it's very fast and flowing, very smooth compared to a street circuit and the tyres. It's always more difficult for the tyres around here. But obviously we have the hard and the medium compound and they're both pretty hard compounds, so it shouldn't be too much of an issue. I think it's just the temperature and the humidity that will be the biggest issue for them. And it's one of those places where you really don't know what the weather's going to do. When I previously won here it was cut short, the race, because of a red flag. That's the thing here, normally it doesn't just rain, it chucks it down. So, if it does rain this weekend we hope we can continue racing because it's a great circuit.

Q. Fernando, is that going to make a difference to Ferrari this weekend? Obviously a street circuit last weekend and you qualified some way down but a great race up to fifth. Hopefully the change of circuit will make a difference to you?

Fernando ALONSO: I'm not sure. Hopefully yes but I don't think so, to be honest. We have been testing at different circuits: Jerez, Barcelona and then in Australia with more or less the same car with the same problems on it. The cars are nearly identical for everybody compared with Australia, I guess, so I don't think there will be big surprises here. Let's wait and see, and try to adapt the car to the circuit, the conditions, the heat. Then, yes, as you said, the qualifying. We saw the true performance, we are not as competitive as we want, probably, but then in the race anything can happen. In Australia with a good start and the stops and the strategy you can put yourself in a decent place. We will try to do a similar race here and try to defend as many points as possible.

Q. And this is a circuit where you got your first pole position, your first podium in 2003, you have two pole positions and two wins as well, a circuit you enjoy?

FA: Yeah, definitely. It will be one of my favourite circuits always because your first pole position in Formula One you always remember, the first podium you always remember, and both things happened here in 2003. So, it's a circuit I love to drive. It's quite technical and quite interesting. At the same time, after the accident of Marco [simoncelli] last year racing here will be always sad, a little bit, knowing that one of our colleagues died here. It will be always difficult to race.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q. (Alex Popov - RTR) Two questions for Michael. The first one is about this year, about the new 'W-Duct'. Some people are already saying that due to the very long straights here you already have a pole position, do you agree?

MS: Certainly not. There is no doubt that we have an innovation that gives us some performance but I don't think that it is a huge performance and that we only live from this. We'll find out. I can't really quantify this.

Q. But it will be better than Melbourne?

MS: Well, you're probably talking in terms of nature of the track that it will another slight advantage but I think some get a little bit too excited about this compared to reality but that's the usual story.

Q. And the second question is the story: do you remember well the first grand prix here in 1999?

MS: I do yes. I still have good memories of that.

Q. Are you in touch, from time to time, with Eddie Irvine?

MS: No, not really. I see his sister every so often and I see him maybe once a year and that's about it.

Q. (Andrea Cremonesi, La Gazzetta dello Sport) Fernando, how can you manage the situation at Ferrari? It's the third year for you at Ferrari and the third year you are catching up somebody in front of you. How can you stay calm and relaxed and composed in such a situation?

FA: This is Formula One. There is not an easy time for anybody. We need to work hard every day and night to normally catch up people in these three years. But anyway, you know, the experience has been fantastic. As you all know, fighting for the world championship in the first year and then last year with one win and ten podiums. Obviously, the target is always to win the world championship but it was not possible the last two years. This year we are convinced that we will fight for it. We need to stay focused and work more than the others knowing that we are a little bit behind now. But the championship is long. We stay calm, we stay focused, because we see a lot of determination in the team. We see the team with a very good atmosphere, (we) trust each other in the team, we are very united, so the time will come to us very soon.

Q. (Adrian Rodriguez Huber – Agencia EFE) Fernando, what is your state of mind right now? Are you nervous , are you angry, are you anxious. How do you feel yourself?

FA: I'm calm. Obviously, knowing we need to work, we need to catch up the guys in front. We are not in the situation we wanted to start the 2012 championship but after 11 years in Formula One I think you understand how long the championship is, what you need when you have the best and what you need when you don't have the best car – which is sometimes more points or less points. But as far as our targets and our goals (are concerned) we need to score as many points as possible in these couple of races and in a very short period of time try to be on the podium and win races. If we manage to do that we have plenty of races to recover the gap. If we don't manage to do that it's because someone else did a better job than us. We just need to wait and see but I have 100 per cent trust in the team.

Q. (Ian Parkes – Press Association) A question for Jenson. I presume with these two races between you weren't able to let your down too much these last few days.

JB: What do you mean by that?

Q. Having a good night out.

JB: No, I didn't. I think we're pretty focused on this weekend. It was pretty important to relax after the race because it was a great victory for us. I had a nice evening with friends and family as we all know that's the best way to celebrate a great event. And then Monday/Tuesday I spent a couple of days in Melbourne just relaxing and then arrived here yesterday. It's actually been quite a nice few days. Got here yesterday and thought it was quite important to get used to the humidity, because it's quite different to Melbourne. Yeah, it's been nice, it always is after winning a grand prix and you're always very excited about the next grand prix and obviously your aim is to do exactly the same again.

Q. (Ian Parkes – Press Association) A quick question for Fernando. You touched earlier on Marco Simoncelli here. Do you have any special tribute planned, anything, a black armband, on your helmet, anything?

FA: Nothing planned. We did one picture this afternoon, Felipe and me and members of the team in Turn 11, where the accident happened and I think that will be the memory for him, and the whole Ferrari family and the Italian people will remember him always and that's the most important thing.

Q. Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Fernando, is it true that you have a visibility problem from your cockpit?

FA: No.

Q. (Abishek Takle – Reuters) Michael, we've seen that the Mercedes has pretty strong qualifying pace. Do you think you have the race pace to finish on the podium, given that you and your car seem to be a bit heavy on the tyres?

MS: We certainly understood in Melbourne that we have to do a better job in terms of race pace. I don't think we would have been able to achieve a podium in Melbourne, despite going all the way through. Probably a fifth place would have been the max that we could have had. Nevertheless, we have good ideas how to improve on what we learned from Melbourne. Whether that means we're going to be on the podium or not, that's another story because you obviously have at least four cars which are very strong, with two McLarens, two Red Bulls and then you have quite a big group of cars which are very close to each other. So it's going to be a challenge for all of us.

Q. (Gary Meenaghan – The National) Question for the front row: not sure how closely you follow football but you may be aware that there was a player who had a cardiac arrest on the pitch. I'm just wondering if one of you could outline the health and medical tests you do throughout the year?

JB: Well, we all have a medical test for our licences, that is the only thing that we're obligated to do. Yeah, most of us do a lot of fitness, we keep ourselves in pretty good shape as it is quite a physical sport. That's as far as it goes for me.

Q. (Gary Meenaghan – The National) Obviously professional footballers are very fit as well, but you can't see these things coming. Would that be something that would concern you?

JB: It's very different for a footballer. For us we're obviously racing for quite a long period of time, and it's more endurance. For them, there's a lot of sprinting involved, it's very peaky in terms of heart rate and what have you. It's very different to what we do. I read about it in the newspaper as well. It's pretty scary to see and it's happened quite a few times with footballers. I don't know what the reason for it is. There's no point in even trying to speculate but it's obviously a very physical sport and they're pushing themselves to the limit and I'm guessing that's possibly the reason why.

Q. (Andrea Cremonesi – La Gazzetta dello Sport) A pair of questions for Michael: you drove a lot for Ferrari. How do you explain the situation they are in now? You are very close to Felipe; what do you suggest to him at this very critical moment for him?

MS: First of all, concerning Felipe, if I look at all the winter testing I think it was very clear that the two drivers were very close together. If you look at the optimum lap time achieved in the Barcelona tests, it's again very close. So to see the big difference that we saw in Melbourne, I can only assume there must have been something not right for him. He's been around for so long. He's been fighting for the championship in 2009, he's always been up front so I don't see any reason why he should not be capable of doing so in the future. I trust he will do so, and that the team will do their utmost to give him the support that he needs. The first of your questions: there's no reason to speculate because I'm not inside so I don't know the details and there's no reason for me to comment.

Q. (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Sergio, there have been a few rumours these days of your name linked to Ferrari should Ferrari decide to replace Felipe. How do you take these rumours, and what do you think about them?

SP: Well, it's only the first race of the season so it's very early to speculate. I'm really focused with my team, with Sauber. I think we have a great car and there's nothing more that I can say, just focused on my team, to try to make as many points as possible because we have a very competitive car and I was to trying to make the most out of the car we have. Melbourne was a difficult weekend for me because I had the gearbox issue so I couldn't do a lap in qualifying so I qualified last and finished eighth. So it was a good race, and hopefully this weekend we can manage a good weekend. And as for the rumours… they are only rumours.

Q. (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Fernando, when you say that Ferrari and you are going to defend yourselves in this race, are you aiming for fifth or sixth position, as in Melbourne, or do you think you could do something better or are you looking at Lotus who had a pretty difficult race, and it could be problematic for Ferrari to finish in front of them?

FA: We'll see. I think we need to wait and see at the start of free practice. We don't have a crystal ball to envisage our position. I think we need to see how competitive we can be here on this different circuit. As I said, we don't expect any big miracles from Australia to Malaysia because the cars are identical but who knows? In Australia, no one thought that we could finish fifth. I think there were two McLarens, two Red Bulls, McLarens (he may mean Mercedes), Saubers, Toro Rossos so there were a lot of people quicker than us. In the race, for different reasons, with some mechanical problems as Michael had, Grosjean crashed on lap three/lap four, Kimi was out in Q1 so there were some incidents in the race that helped us finish fifth. Here, with a normal race, maybe we will finish further behind, maybe with a more crazy race or rain or something, we can finish in front, so we have to play before we see what we can do.

Q. (Carlos Miguel Gomez – La Gaceta) Michael, one of the last times you were here with Fernando was in 2003; as you may remember Fernando was a young guy and put his finger up to the rest on pole. Did you believe then that that guy could become a World Champion?

MS: I don't know when I started to think that Fernando might be World Champion, but I think his talent has proved that from early stages onwards… I still remember a very good race that you did with Minardi – I think it may even be the first race in Australia. I think he proved his point straight away.

Q. (Carlos Miguel Gomez – La Gaceta) And the second question is for the poleman of 2003 (Alonso): in which race do you expect Ferrari's big step forward?

FA: I don't think it will be one race in which we change the car. This is up to you that you write that there will be a new car coming. I think at every race we will try to make improvements as we did over the last few years and it won't be just for us; I think everyone will make updates at every race. We just need to make ours work a little bit more. Obviously we have a little advantage from that because our car needs more speed and maybe it's easier for us to find than for some others whose cars are maybe more developed than ours. New parts will slowly come at every race and hopefully they work, but there's not one magic race or one magic moment when we think things can change. I think we will work day and night and as I said before; the team is very focused on that and I see great reaction from everybody, so I expect a strong Ferrari soon.

Q. (Alex Popov – RTR) Pastor, it was a brilliant drive in Melbourne but in the early stage of the race you made contact with Grosjean and people at Lotus are very unhappy about this. Romain said you didn't leave space for him in the corner. Can you describe your point of view of this incident?

PM: I think that I was completely in front. The overtaking manoeuvre was at the entry of the corner and I was quite surprised because the Lotus suspension seemed really fragile because the contact was minimal and it was not intentional. It was a clear movement, so it was a bit disappointing for Romain because he did a very good job, especially in qualifying. The car even looks pretty strong but this is racing.

Q. (Ian Parkes – Press Association) Pastor, you said earlier in the press conference that you're over your last lap accident; has it actually been easy to put that behind you these past few days, because I ask that more from the team perspective because you were on course to take more points in that one race than Williams managed throughout the entire season last year?

PM: Yeah, for sure. For sure all the team – even myself – were a bit disappointed because we missed a great opportunity to score some important points but this is racing. I think it was my mistake and now we need to look forward, turn the page. I think our car is competitive at the moment, we need to keep pushing like that, keep concentrated, keep working, focused. This is going to be a new challenge for us because the track is completely different, but we need to believe in our performance and hopefully we will again be in the top ten and fighting for good places.

Q. (Anno Hecker – Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) This is a political one for the front row: last year's race in Bahrain was cancelled. We all know the reasons why; the government is still in place, in five weeks' time Formula One will race there. What are your thoughts about that?

JB: I think for us, as you know, this is a very difficult subject and personally, from my point of view, we need to look to the FIA – for all of us – for common sense. We will go with what they have to say.

MS: I'm honestly pretty relaxed to go there. From our perspective, one is obviously that we're going to be very well looked after, because they might foresee whatever and will be prepared. I've quite a few good friends over there and I'm pretty sure that for them it's a very important event and they just want to make everybody happy. If you look around the world, you probably find other places where there might be the possibility that we could have the same reasons to think about and we don't. So at the end of the day, I'm pretty sure that they're going to do their utmost and we're going to be OK.

Q. (Andrea Cremonesi – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Jenson, I saw a picture in the newspaper – I don't know if you saw in Australia your girlfriend had a special T-shirt for you which said 'Jenson press all my buttons.' Did you see that after the race?

JB: I actually saw the T-shirt before the race to be fair. It was just after. Yeah, it was a gift from a fan. I think someone was trying to do some publicity for their T-shirt company. She was given it as a gift as we entered the circuit. It's not mine which is quite annoying. Do I push her buttons? I think that one's a little bit too private.

[LUKIE]

The whole issue with the F-Duct was that it was adjustable throughout every part of the race, and manipulated the car several times a lap. If the F-Duct on the Mercedes only works during the opening of the DRS, it's just basically a slightly better DRS system, combining two good technologies.

The whole reason the F-Duct was banned, was because it was deemed dangerous, having something that could be adjusted so many times in a lap.

[Lineker]

The whole reason that Mercedes' system is legal is that it's passive; i.e. it isn't driver-operated. It's a clever way around the rules. No doubt it's a loophole which will be closed for next year though.

Lewis Hamilton continued McLaren's strong form by setting the fastest time in the opening free practice session ahead of the Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang.

The Briton topped the morning by half a second over world champion Sebastian Vettel's Red Bull, with the two Mercedes next up. Melbourne winner Jenson Button was hampered by an oil leak and was back in ninth for McLaren.

Although forecasts of rain later encouraged teams to complete plenty of mileage this morning, it was still half an hour into the session before serious times were set, with Kimi Raikkonen and Michael Schumacher leading briefly for Lotus and Mercedes respectively before Hamilton and Vettel began a battle for first place.

A 1m38.598s put the McLaren in front after 34 minutes, but only for two minutes before Vettel beat it by 0.063 seconds.

Hamilton narrowly missed out on reclaimed first place with his next lap, before putting in the 1m38.021s that would keep him ahead for the rest of the session.

Behind Vettel, Nico Rosberg narrowly beat Mercedes team-mate Schumacher to third.

Romain Grosjean took fifth for Lotus despite pitting for checks early on after reporting a strange feeling at the rear of the car.

Mark Webber completed the top six in the second Red Bull, ahead of Raikkonen, with Paul di Resta and Nico Hulkenberg's Force Indias eighth and 10th.

Button managed to complete 15 laps before the issue that left his McLaren parked in the garage for the final part of the session.

Williams test driver Valtteri Bottas made his debut in an official session with 11th place, 0.059s quicker than team-mate Pastor Maldonado.

Ferrari was back in 13th and 15th with Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso.

Problems continued for HRT, as Narain Kartikeyan parked on track with gearbox issues after eight laps, and Pedro de la Rosa was 7.5s off the pace at the back of the pack.

FP1


Pos  Driver                Team                   Time               Laps

 1.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes       1m38.021s            19

 2.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault       1m38.535s  + 0.514   21

 3.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes               1m38.813s  + 0.792   21

 4.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes               1m38.826s  + 0.805   19

 5.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault          1m38.919s  + 0.898   17

 6.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault       1m39.092s  + 1.071   20

 7.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault          1m39.128s  + 1.107   22

 8.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes   1m39.298s  + 1.277   23

 9.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes       1m39.323s  + 1.302   15

10.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes   1m39.440s  + 1.419   19

11.  Valterri Bottas       Williams-Renault       1m39.724s  + 1.703   23

12.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault       1m39.783s  + 1.762   23

13.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari                1m39.896s  + 1.875   16

14.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari         1m39.910s  + 1.889   21

15.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari                1m39.980s  + 1.959   23

16.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m40.099s  + 2.078   23

17.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault       1m40.247s  + 2.226   19

18.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m40.469s  + 2.448   23

19.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault       1m40.857s  + 2.836   25

20.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari         1m41.085s  + 3.064   23

21.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth      1m43.170s  + 5.149   18

22.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth      1m44.580s  + 6.559   14

23.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth           1m45.360s  + 7.339    8

24.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth           1m45.528s  + 7.507   18


All Timing Unofficial[/code]




Lewis Hamilton completed a perfect day's work as he continued to lead the way after the second free practice session at Sepang on Friday.



The 2008 world champion appeared to have put the disappointment of Melbourne behind him as he ended the day more than 0.3s ahead of the chasing pack, his leading pursuers Michael Schumacher and Jenson Button.



Hamilton dominated for much of the session as the two McLarens and the two Mercedes vied at the top of the times.



In contrast to his team-mate Button, Hamilton had a trouble-free day. He set the fastest time early on, then lost the top spot to Daniel Ricciardo's Toro Rosso, before moving back to the top of the times at half distance.



Ten minutes later the 2008 world champion was usurped by Schumacher's 1m38.533s on a low-fuel medium-tyre run. Hamilton re-emerged from the pits and banged in a response of 1m38.513s - also on mediums. He followed that up with a 1m38.172s.



Button was in there too with the sister McLaren, just two thousandths slower than Schumacher, the Briton having lost more time in P2 to a minor brake issue - he spent a period in the pits during P1 because of an oil leak.



Nico Rosberg was the quietest of this quartet, and almost unnoticed he snuck into fourth ahead of Ricciardo, whose best lap was set on mediums.



There was some cheer for Ferrari as Fernando Alonso went sixth quickest, 0.7s second away from Hamilton's pace, and much less from the cluster of cars immediately in front of him.



Mark Webber was only seventh fastest for Red Bull, though his long run was much closer to the sharp edge of the race pace.



Jean-Eric Vergne was eighth fastest ahead of Romain Grosjean and world champion Sebastian Vettel – who didn't appear to be enjoying his day in the Red Bull, radioing into his team at one point that he was struggling with the tyres.



Several drivers complained about a lack of grip and Paul di Resta knew all about that after two separate trips into the grass. The first was caused by a front right brake issue at Turn 15 which necessitated a long pitstop, the second was a driving error at Turn Six as the Force India grabbed a bite of inside kerb.



Kamui Kobayashi spent at least half an hour in the pits with a gearbox issue, but still ended up placing 14th, one position ahead of Lotus ace Kimi Raikkonen. The Finn's former Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa was the next man along in 16th.



The only other incident of note was Narain Karthikeyan's spin at the final hairpin just as the session came to a close.



The feared rain never materialised.





[code]FP2


Pos  Driver                Team                  Time               Laps

 1.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes      1m38.172             28

 2.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes              1m38.533s  + 0.361   34

 3.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes      1m38.535s  + 0.363   29

 4.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes              1m38.696s  + 0.524   34

 5.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m38.853s  + 0.681   33

 6.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari               1m38.891s  + 0.719   27

 7.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault      1m39.133s  + 0.961   29

 8.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m39.297s  + 1.125   33

 9.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault         1m39.311s  + 1.139   22

10.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault      1m39.402s  + 1.230   25

11.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault      1m39.444s  + 1.272   35

12.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes  1m39.464s  + 1.292   26

13.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes  1m39.625s  + 1.453   20

14.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari        1m39.687s  + 1.515   16

15.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault         1m39.696s  + 1.524   29

16.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari               1m40.271s  + 2.099   27

17.  Bruno Senna           Williams-Renault      1m40.678s  + 2.506   34

18.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari        1m40.947s  + 2.775   33

19.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault      1m41.464s  + 3.292   25

20.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth     1m41.681s  + 3.509   20

21.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault      1m42.594s  + 4.422   18

22.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth     1m42.874s  + 4.702   24

23.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth          1m43.658s  + 5.486   18

24.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth          1m43.283s  + 5.561   22


All Timing Unofficial

Mercedes-Benz has sought clarification from the FIA on the behaviour of Red Bull Racing's Renault engines - amid suspicions that the reigning champion could be doing something trick with its mapping.

AUTOSPORT understands that Mercedes-Benz has presented the FIA with audio analysis of Red Bull Racing's car on track - which has led it to believe the team may be cutting more cylinders than is allowed when the drivers are off throttle.

Under the current regulations, teams can cut up to four cylinders on engine over-run used when the cars are slowing down.

There were suspicions that the audio analysis showed Renault could be cutting down to three cylinders.

The FIA has conducted detailed analysis of the audio evidence, as well as looking at the French car manufacturer's engine maps, and has found nothing that suggests there is a breach of the regulations.

Mercedes-Benz motorsport boss Norbert Haug said that the issue going forward was simply of understanding what was happening – and whether teams would now have to embark on a rethink of engine behaviour.

"I think that it is the normal business of F1," he said when asked by AUTOSPORT about the engine situation. "If you sense something that you do not understand, you like to ask for clarification. I can understand people who ask that in the case of the [Mercedes] rear wing. But we are not threatening to protest; we just want to understand what is going on.

"It is also a cost issue and you should not run different modes, which I don't think is happening, but you can achieve other means to achieve something similar. All of it is not good for the life of the engine.

"If it would not give you lap time then you would not do it – so if we have to do it, we have to do it. We just want to understand that this is normal business in F1. And if you are not requesting that clarification then you are not doing your job. This is not a threat of being illegal; it is just clarification. I am very open and straight on that."

Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner believes that rival teams still want further clarification on the legality on the rear wing being used by Mercedes.

Despite confirmation from the FIA that the DRS activated F-duct device on the F1 W03 is legal, Horner said at Sepang today that he and other team bosses are still looking to "resolve" the matter.

When asked if the fact that the Mercedes had been declared legal for this weekend meant it was the end of the matter, Horner said: "Probably not.

"I am not the only one, other [team bosses] here are after clarity going forward.

"Is it something accepted as a clever innovation, and hats off to Mercedes if it is, or is it something that is not permissible moving forward?

"That is the most important thing to resolve and it would be good to come out of this weekend with that clarity."

Horner did concede that the stance of the FIA was unlikely to change, given the fact that the Mercedes had again passed scrutineering this weekend.

"There has been a bit of debate about the Mercedes," he said. "And assuming the car has passed scrutineering, you have to assume the FIA is happy with the configuration the car is in."

Red Bull boss Christian Horner believes it would be wrong for Formula 1 to have the FIA policing the Resource Restriction Agreement.

As reported by AUTOSPORT last week, most Formula 1 teams signed a letter to FIA president Jean Todt asking the ruling body to step in following the breakdown of talks between the top teams on the future of the RRA.

Horner said on Friday in Malaysia that Red Bull had not even seen the letter, but he made it clear he believes the FIA policing costs is not the way to go.

He did insist, however, that Red Bull was in favour of doing all it can to control costs in the sport.

"We didn't see the letter," said Horner. "I can't sign something we didn't see, whether or not we agree with content is something else.

"Red Bull is fully behind cost control in F1, whether the RRA is the right route to achieve is what we question and I believe that letter from what I read requested the FIA to police the RRA, which in our opinion would be the wrong route.

"We believe wholeheartedly in controlling costs and not frivolous spending but we believe there are better ways of containing that through better sporting and technical regulations [rather] than cost constraints. We would be totally open to any discussions that involved cost control through those avenues."

Horner reckons the way to go is to control "tangible, measurable" items rather that using the FIA to limit other areas that are very hard to police.

"There are things when FOTA was first created that were clear and tangible: restriction in personnel, restrictions in engine, amount of gearbox, restrictions in amount of testing.

"They are all things you can see and police and genuinely save costs, and they are the type of things that should be focused on rather than a portion of people's time and equivalency.

"That is something much harder to police especially when there are companies and teams that are subsidiaries of other organisations. We want to keep it simple and go on tangible, measurable items."

Kimi Raikkonen is to lose five places on the grid for the Malaysian Grand Prix after a gearbox change following the second free practice.

Shortly after the session concluded, Lotus wrote on Twitter that an issue with the Finn's gearbox meant it would be changed before the start of the third and final practice session.

The team confirmed the change to AUTOSPORT, meaning Raikkonen looks set to lose five places.

The problem arose after Raikkonen went off the track during the Australian Grand Prix, where his radiator was filled with grass clippings, thus overheating the gearbox during the race.

A post-race analysis showed the gearbox's bearing cage had started to fail and so the team has been forced to replace it as it was unsure it would last another race distance.

The change follows an unhappy qualifying session in Australia, when the Finn failed to make it out of Q1 when he backed off a flying lap in the mistaken belief he had time to make it to the line before the chequered flag came out.

Kimi Raikkonen says his Lotus team has work to do overnight in Malaysia after a frustrating day of free practice at Sepang.

Both Raikkonen and team-mate Romain Grosjean were comfortably in the top 10 in the first session of the day, but the Finn was only 15th in the afternoon with Grosjean dropping to ninth as the team struggled with tyre management.

"It was probably not the best day," Raikkonen told reporters in the Sepang paddock on Friday. "It was difficult to find the balance.

"We have some work to do on the set-up side. The long run was OK, but at the end the car was undriveable. We had some issues with the KERS too."

Raikkonen said that he didn't know if Lotus would be in the top 10 when it came to qualifying, and he added that he was not any happier with his power steering set-up either, describing the feeling as "the same".

Grosjean was slightly more upbeat than his team-mate, but shared Raikkonen's view that the team still had a lot of work to get through.

"It is not an easy track to deal with and finding a setup is quite hard," said Grosjean. "We are working on it between the two cars and have some answers of what we should and shouldn't do.

"We are still looking at the data and working hard to get the best car for tomorrow. If we find the perfect setup I think we can be at the same level [as in Australia].

"If we are still in between the best [setup] and a good one, maybe we won't be as good as we were."

World champion Sebastian Vettel believes Red Bull may be closer to McLaren in terms of race pace in this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix.

The German, however, admitted he was not entirely pleased with his car yet after finishing down in 10th position in this afternoon's practice at Sepang.

Vettel also conceded he was unsure if he will be able to fight for pole tomorrow.

"It is hard to say," he said when asked if pole position was on the cards. "McLaren looked very strong today, morning and afternoon. I haven't seen the long runs, I think we are closer by the looks of it in long-run pace so we will see what we can do."

Vettel, who finished in second place in the season-opening race in Australia, said he still needed to work to get the car ready for qualifying.

"I'm not entirely happy maybe. This afternoon I would have liked to have been further up but it is one lap you are looking at," said the Red Bull driver.

"All in all we had decent running today - but there is still a lot to do. I am not entirely happy yet but it is not as if we expected that all our problems would be solved within three hours today.

"The run was not perfect because otherwise we would have been higher up, but before that and after that it was quite OK. It was a one-off and didn't use the tyre as much as we should have. So I am not entirely happy yet."

Team-mate Mark Webber, seventh fastest, was pleased with his day's work after managing to complete his programme.

"It wasn't a bad Friday. We have plenty to go through tonight," he said. "It is a different venue altogether to Melbourne. It was a pretty productive day. We got through everything we wanted to get through. It was very good in that sense of the team's programme."

Mercedes has faith that it can get on top of the tyre degradation issues that hampered its race performance in the Australian Grand Prix.

Although Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg were contenders for pole position in Albert Park last weekend, the pair were unable to keep that pace up in the race.

The Brackley-based team has expressed some surprise at the way it suffered with its tyres - especially because its long runs in winter testing had been so positive – but is confident that it will be able to address the situation.

Mercedes-Benz motorsport boss Norbert Haug said: "We just need to see what was not optimal and I think the team is looking at it and we will see what we can do here.

"It makes no sense to make any further predictions as we need to see what is happening or what will happen on the racetrack. But we still think the basics are there for the car, we just need to transport that into the race."

He added: "If anything we thought before Melbourne we would struggle on one-lap pace, but we were quite convinced with the long runs we did over the long testing period that we looked quite good there. But it turned out to be the other way around, which is the nature of F1 sometimes. But with a slow car you cannot do a fast lap."

Haug does not think that there is anything fundamentally wrong with the Mercedes W03, and reckons even some set-up changes could be enough to sort out the problems.

"It needs a proper and intense look into the factors that are important," he explained. "Did we over react on changing set-up, or whatever? It is tight sometimes to be spot on.

"Other teams complained that they did not fully get it right for qualifying and they probably got the benefit in the race, and it was the other way around for us. But this is guessing a little bit."

Mercedes duo Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg believe pole position will be out of their reach in Malaysia despite finishing inside the top four in second practice.

The pair also said it is still too early to assess their car's long-run performance despite devoting much of second practice to working on race pace.

The Sepang circuit's long straights is expected to play to Mercedes's strengths - an belief borne out as Schumacher finished second and Rosberg fourth in second practice.

The pair also looked promising in Australia however, and were both considered candidates for pole but struggled in Q3. Rosberg then suffered high tyre degradation in the race.

"We're working towards the race, trying to improve the race pace," Rosberg said. "It was a very interesting day, especially with the tyres. It's so hot out there that the tyres are overheating.

"In general, it has been working out today on the long-runs but I'm not sure how we compare to other people.

"In qualifying, we should be okay - I think we will be somewhere up there near the top. That's not the concern for us; it's more about the race.

"Yes, we've addressed it [the tyre issues]. We are going to struggle, but everybody is going to struggle. It's important that we did it a little bit better, but I don't know how we've done compared to the others on laptimes."

Schumacher echoed Rosberg's sentiments, saying thoughts of pole were too optimistic.

"No. I wouldn't be optimistic to say something," Schumacher said when asked about the prospect of landing pole. ". I think we're going to be fighting for fifth position.

"We had a good day working. In terms of long run performance, we were reasonably consistent but what it is worth, we will find out on Sunday.

"We've been working on the race pace. I don't think we have seen everybody's maximum potential. Honestly I guess that fifth or sixth position is about the maximum for us to achieve tomorrow."

Pirelli believes too much has been made of tyre degradation issues at Mercedes - and reckons deeper analysis of the Australian race shows its issues are not as bad as some believe.

Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg had delivered a strong performance in qualifying in Melbourne, but their race turned into a disappointment – as a gearbox problem and tyre issues hampered both men.

Although Mercedes itself is targeting a better set-up to improve the tyre degradation situation, Pirelli motorsport director Paul Hembery actually thinks its problems looked worse than they are because of the way the Albert Park race panned out.

When asked by AUTOSPORT about what he thought of the Mercedes situation, Hembery said: "I have read a lot of comments about that, and a few people have asked me about degradation in Melbourne – but you have to look at the context of the race.

"I don't think Michael was in a situation that you could judge. He was going extremely well until he stopped [with a gearbox problem].

"And Nico was either in a position where he was attacking cars in front or defending a position. That made him more aggressive than he ordinarily would be, because to try and overtake you have to be very aggressive.

"So you have to look at it under the context of how much pressure he was under. That probably was a major factor in that."

Lewis Hamilton says finding a set-up balance which suits both qualifying and the race will be key to his fortunes in the Malaysian Grand Prix.

After going fastest in both practice sessions, the 2008 world champion said he was already happy with the feel of his car on short runs.

With tyre degradation a major concern due to the humid conditions in Malaysia - and in light of his difficulties matching Jenson Button's pace in Australia – Hamilton said his focus would now shift to long run simulations.

"The car is feeling pretty good, very similar to the last race," Hamilton said. "We made some set-up changes which I am much happier with. The downforce seems to be consistent through low, medium and high speed, so I'm massively happy.

"Now we're just focussing on long run pace. I didn't get too many laps but it definitely feels good at the moment.

"It's incredibly humid, so looking after the tyres is going to be a really tough cal and it's just about trying to find the right balance. I'm working as hard as I can to get a good set-up for qualifying and the race.

"We went out a bit too late on the long run [in the second session], and I went wide a couple of times. Jenson was particularly consistent on the long run though so we have an idea of the balance on high fuel. [it's been a] good day."

After dismissing suggestions that his post-race disappointment in Australia was indicative of a wider issue on Thursday, Hamilton said his reactions stem from the fact he is 'on a mission'.

"I'm here to keep my head down and keep pushing," he said. "I want to make sure I stay focussed for all [19 remaining races].

"I'm always on a mission: that's part of the game, you have to stay focussed."

Jenson Button says he is 'not completely happy' with his low fuel set-up, an issue he feels is of paramount importance given the benefit pole position has on the race's outcome.

As he demonstrated so emphatically in Australia, the Briton says that leading into the first corner can be key to a good race, and that securing pole position is therefore the aim for tomorrow.

After losing time to an oil leak in the first practice session, and then focussing more on long runs in the second, Button says he still has a few issues on low fuel runs.

"On lower fuel [there is] still work to do to be competitive for qualifying," he admitted. "The short runs I'm not completely happy but there are things we can do still and I'm sure we can make progress overnight and for qualifying.

"I'd love to be on pole - it makes life a lot easier and is the key to a good race. You're not always going to get a better start than your team-mate, so starting in a good position is very important.

"We obviously want a good race car because that's where we get the win, and a lot of work for today has been on the race because we know how tough it will be for the cars and tyres.

"You make life easier for yourself though if you put it on the front row or even pole, so you still have to think about qualifying set-up. We're doing a lot of work to make sure we have a fast car over one lap."

Button said he was more satisfied with his long run work, which was also a window into how tough the race would be.

"The afternoon went pretty well – we did good running on both sets of tyres, and ran the medium tyre for a long run and it seemed alright.

"I think we're all pretty good [at nursing the tyres] but unless the circuit improves a great deal could be quite a few stops out there.

"It's tough on both [sets of] tyres I think around here with the humidity and heat, the race will be tough for all of us.

"I think we did some pretty good running though and we have a pretty good understanding of the tyre now, so hopefully we'll make improvements

"Everyone enjoys a win but you have to get your head right and get down to business again the next weekend. The boys have a smile on their faces and hopefully we can keep that going this weekend."

Felipe Massa is convinced that his change of chassis for this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix has had a positive effect after the first day of free practice.

Ferrari gave the Brazilian a new chassis for this weekend after Massa complained of his car feeling very strange during the Australian GP weekend. And after taking to the track at Sepang, he said he felt much happier with the F2012.

"I started in the morning with a completely different car and it felt good," Massa told reporters in the Sepang paddock. "The car is more normal, so we can be more competitive here compared to [Fernando] Alonso."

He added that Ferrari got a lot of answers about what doesn't work with its car in the second session, which should enable it to make progress ahead of qualifying on Saturday.

"In the afternoon, we tried some different pieces, including pieces we tried in Australia," said Massa. "And everything went in a worse direction.

"So that was positive to understand. The car was completely different to the morning and that can be very positive to find out why things were difficult in Australia.

"Tomorrow, the car can be a big step and much more competitive than what you have seen in terms of lap time [in free practice]."

Massa said that his target overnight would be to improve the handling at the rear of the car.

"We are suffering with instability at the rear, especially in the slow corners," he said. "There are so many things we didn't understand and now we are starting to understand everything.

"We don't have a very competitive car but I hope that we can fight for as many points as possible. I want to get in the car with everything right, the best we have. And that will be tomorrow."

Stefano Domenicali is confident that both Felipe Massa and Ferrari can find improve after troubled starts to 2012.

Amid speculation over Felipe Massa's seat at the team - following poor performances in 2011 and in Australia last weekend - Domenicali said it was important to retain confidence in the Brazilian.

He explained that Alonso and Massa had been on different programmes in second practice, the primary reason why they were more than a second and 10 places apart at the session's close.

The Ferrari boss also said curing the F2012's traction in low speed corners was one of the chief priorities for the team, and that with such a close field even small gains would make a big difference.

"It is important at the moment to have good confidence around him," Domenicali said of Massa.

"In terms of what we see today, we were working in different programmes for the different drivers. Tomorrow we see what the situation is – the work is to make sure Felipe has the best car in the best conditions.

"In order to make Felipe comfortable in this particular moment we took different parts of what we had, so we changed to the spare chassis for Felipe and changed all the pieces to make sure there was nothing wrong with car he used in Melbourne.

"We know what are the problems and we need to tackle them, and make sure these problems that are fundamental are solved as quickly as possible."

Pressed on what the issues were, Domenicali said: "The problems of the car are what I said in Sunday in Melbourne : mainly traction in low speed corners and speed. These are the two fundamental issues that we need to resolve.

"At home we need to push on the development of the car and I am confident our engineers will solve the issues we have as quickly as possible. In such a close field a little step makes a big difference.

"For sure I am disappointed by the performance of the car no doubt, it is an easy answer. But not to be happy does not help, and I ask the engineers to be focused on their job as that is what they have to do.

"In one week, it is important to say we have identified issues on car and we are working at home to resolve it. We need to maximise what we are doing on track and improve it."

Sauber is not concerned about fresh speculation linking its driver Sergio Perez with a move to Ferrari - perhaps as soon as this year.

With Felipe Massa's early-season struggles already placing question marks about his future, and Perez being part of Ferrari's young driver programme, it is logical to suggest that the Mexican would be a target if the Italian team decided it needed to change its drivers.

But despite suggestions that Ferrari may actually have contractual means of moving Perez from Sauber, the Swiss team's chiefs are not worried about the situation.

Sauber CEO Monisha Kaltenborn said: "If there is such a demand for our driver then it is a compliment to us. It is not the first time it has happened.

"But as we have said before, we have announced him as our driver. It is our principle to do it on a yearly basis; that is our position on it. What happens in the future we will see."

Kaltenborn declined to comment on the contractual terms the team had with Perez, but explained there were no worries about her team facing a fight to keep hold of its driver.

"We don't see any tough time coming ahead of us. We know what we have in our contract and we are confident. And I think if we were afraid then this would not be the right business for us to be in.

"We have announced him as our driver. It was in August last year when we announced him, so for us this season it is clear."

Team principal Peter Sauber believes that Perez has made a good step forward with his speed this year – having impressed in the Australian Grand Prix.

"The talent is there," he said. "That is clear. He has the speed, the talent and maybe the possibility to use the tyres very carefully again this year. Without losing speed, that is very, very important. It is a normal process; with more experience he is faster and better."

Paul di Resta believes Force India will have a tough time reaching Q3 in tomorrow's qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix.

The Scot finished in 13th position in second practice after losing valuable track time because of a problem with his brakes.

Di Resta said the car was feeling more competitive than in Australia last weekend, but admitted reaching the top ten in qualifying will be difficult.

"I am not so sure we'll get into Q3, I wouldn't go that far," said di Resta. "At the end of the day Lotus and Ferrari and Mercedes are very strong here so doing that is a very tough ask.

"But I think our pace in relation to Sauber and Toro Rosso is probably a bit stronger than it was in Melbourne."

He added: "I think we look a little bit more competitive than some of the midfield teams. It is very difficult to predict here because obviously tyre degradation is very high. I think we've got an idea about the car and an idea about the direction we want to go."

Di Resta managed 20 laps in the afternoon and conceded the brake problems had been a setback to his plans.

"It's obviously not ideal because we couldn't get back to the garage properly to analyse it. It's nothing major, these things happen, you just have to trust what the guys are saying and get on with it."

Williams test driver Valtteri Bottas said he was pleased to outpace team-mate Pastor Maldonado on his debut in a grand prix weekend session, even if free practice times are not very important.

The reigning GP3 champion stepped into Bruno Senna's car at Sepang for the first of 15 planned Friday outings on F1 weekends this season.

His time of 1m39.724s was fractions of a second quicker than Maldonado's 1m39.783s, and the Finn described their programmes as "quite similar".

"In the end it is only FP1 and FP1 is not normally about laptime," Bottas said at Sepang on Friday. "Of course it is nice [to be quicker], I am still a racing driver and I prefer it that way.

"I wouldn't compare laptimes. I love racing so that's why I do it, and it's nice to be in front but that's not the main point.

"The main point is for the team to get the data and do the setup changes, and for me to do consistent runs and not make a mistake."

Bottas said that his aim over the course of the year was to get through every programme Williams gives him, rather than worry about laptimes.

"For me it is really important to avoid mistakes," he said. "The worst thing would be for me to not go out and run the test plan.

"I think my first practice was quite positive, we ran the whole test plan and everything went well like it was supposed to.

"It was nice that everything worked and there were no problems. I got into a smooth rhythm immediately, but I still have a lot to learn so we'll have a good look at things tonight and learn more."

Daniel Ricciardo is confident that Toro Rosso can be the in the mix for points in Sunday's Malaysian Grand Prix.

The Australian said that while he did not expect his fifth placed time in second practice to be representative, it was nevertheless a sign that Toro Rosso has the potential to challenge for top 10 honours.

"I think today was a good day, and when [that happens] we are always swimming around that top 10," Ricciardo said.

"We finished fifth, so it's not real - I'd be surprised if we qualify fifth, let's put it that way.

"It's promising, but I think a few of the guys we were in front of probably have a bit more in reserve. Hopefully we do too, but I'd imagine they've probably got a bit more - we were in front of both Red Bulls for example so I'd expect both of them to jump.

"It is a close fight though. I think with Ferrari, Force India, Sauber and Williams you'd expect it to be pretty close. Lotus you'd expect to be quicker than us, but I think we are in the ballpark."

Ricciardo also said tyre management was another positive facet of Toro Rosso's opening day in Malaysia, adding: "Studying today I think we are in the group that is doing okay, I don't think we are on the back foot.

"For me it is one of those tracks where you are always going to hope a bit more: you'll come up to lap 10 and hope you can get to lap 15, but then you might not. I think that'll be the case for a lot of drivers.

"Considering the nature of the circuit and the high temperatures, I think we were looking pretty good this afternoon. It's hard to know what fuel everyone is on but I think if we worry about ourselves it's definitely the right thing to do."

Asked about his deficit of just seven tenths of a second to Lewis Hamilton, Ricciardo replied: "It looks very good but honestly I don't expect we'll be within a second tomorrow in qualifying.

"It was what today, seven tenths or something? I'll be a happy man if that's [the case tomorrow] because that'd mean we have a pretty good car this year."

HRT duo Pedro de la Rosa and Narain Karthikeyan are confident that qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix should not be too much of a problem, even though doubts remain about their potential to make it through to the end of the race.

Improvements to the power steering of the car, as well as the arrival of DRS, meant both men were comfortably within the mandatory 107 per cent time of the pace-setters in practice in Sepang on Friday.

However, questions about cooling on the F112 in the hot Malaysia conditions make it more of a question mark about whether they will be able to complete Sunday's 56-lap event.

"We expected to be within 107 per cent, with everything like DRS and the new parts working," explained de la Rosa on Friday. "But we should not be over-confident because you never know what fuel and stuff other people are running.

"I think we are looking okay, but we should not stop here. We have to try to get quicker tomorrow as well, because this is the first running of the car reliably that we have had since this car was born."

When asked by AUTOSPORT if he believed it would be too much to expect the team to be able to finish on Sunday, de la Rosa said: "No. Today I haven't had any problems. On the track we are okay on temperatures today. We don't have a big margin but we can run as many laps as we want. The problem comes when we stop, but when we are running it is okay.

"It should be okay and, if it is not okay, what we have to do is learn about it. If we get into the race on Sunday, it will be our first race, first start, and first pit stops. There so many things that we will learn for sure and we are going to do it in Malaysia with 45 degrees track temperature! It's not the easiest scenario, but we have to take this as a test."

Karthikeyan was happy with the performance step of the car in Malaysia, but said that reliability was his biggest concern - after suffering hydraulics problems.

"Our car is definitely behaving better yes," he said. " It is definitely a step forward performance wise, but if you look at the lap analysis I have done just two continuous laps.

"My problem is I cannot get into a rhythm. That is my problem, and there are still loads of issues to be addressed. The other car seems to be okay, we need to see what they have done so we can replicate it on this car.

"We will qualify - but I need to do the race. That is also important."

Bottas was trending in the UK as #TheManTheyCallBottas - he's becoming a bit of a phenomenon!! Anyway, here's Friday's press conference:

TEAM REPRESENTATIVES - Riad ASMAT (Caterham), Monisha KALTENBORN (Sauber), Gerard LOPEZ (Lotus), Martin WHITMARSH (McLaren), Stefano DOMENICALI (Ferrari), Christian HORNER (Red Bull).

PRESS CONFERENCE

Q. Riad, if I can start with you, just a quick question about Melbourne to here. I think you were perhaps a bit disappointed with the performance in Melbourne – are things going to be better this weekend?

Riad ASMAT: We're hoping so, we found reasons why we were disappointed in Melbourne but obviously that's been sorted. Obviously I still want to second or two definitely, but I think for sure we'll show some good pace for this weekend. We're prepared for tomorrow and we'll see where we go from there.

Q. Does that mean Q2?

RA: We always try, because my head is on the block.

Q. Monisha, first of all the result in Melbourne was what you should have had a year ago I guess. It that the feeling?

Monisha KALTENBORN: No, we don't want to think about a year ago actually. Indeed we have this time a very good start to the racing season. Our drivers showed an excellent performance during the race, we weren't that happy with qualifying but we're glad that overall we could get confirmation on the potential of the C31 and that it's a good basis for developing further, which will be key this year.

Q. Gerard, you have obviously hired Kimi Räikkönen. When he was perhaps going to Williams, allegedly he was asking for a share in the team. Does he have a share in the team at Lotus? Did he ask for a share of the team?

Gerard LOPEZ: No he didn't and no he doesn't. It's that clear. I don't know where that came from. It probably came from his previous negotiations but we would not hire anybody, a driver, by selling shares of the team, that's kind of a nonsense thing.

Q. You wouldn't want to give a shareholding to a...

GL: No, I mean he's a driver, and that's it, so you pay him as a driver. You don't make him a co-owner of the team, that's kind of an odd way of dealing with drivers. It would be for us in any case.

Q. Martin, I mentioned this yesterday to Jenson, it was interesting in the preview to the race Lewis talked about how Jenson had the ability to light up the tyres in Melbourne at the start of the race when he pulled away and also after the safety car. Is that something you've noticed? Is that something that's been manifesting itself in testing?

Martin WHITMARSH: I don't think we've noticed it as a particularly significant phenomena. Clearly it depends where you are with tyre heating but I think in that race both drivers were able to get the tyres going pretty quickly. They're very different conditions from here, obviously. It was pretty good for both of them, I think.

Q. So that's not going to be something that's an issue?

MW: Well I think circumstance here is quite a lot different – I think it's pretty easy to over-heat the tyres here.

Q. Stefano, give us an update today. Have things changed, has anything changed in comparison to Melbourne?

Stefano DOMENICALI: I don't think so, to be honest with you. In one week I think it is important at least as we already said we have identified issues on the car and we are working at home to solve it. At the moment we need to maximise what we're doing on the track and that's it.

Q. So we don't expect anything different?

SD: I don't know. In the race everything can happen, so we need to be focussed then. And of course with no magic stick you can't do anything.

Q. Christian, it's a measure of the team's success last year that we expect you to be at the front all the time. Not today necessarily, and well, you were very close in Melbourne. What about today? Tell us about the results today.

Christian HORNER: Well firstly Melbourne was an exciting race and congratulations to McLaren who put on a great show there. We did our best to try to get amongst it but Jenson drove an excellent race. The McLarens again looked very strong today, I think Mercedes were also looking quick, and it's a tighter field this year. I think the midfield has bunched up as well. We've worked through a programme today. Obviously with the limitation in testing there is, both drivers have worked through different programmes, had a look at the two tyre compounds and tried to do our preparation for the race on Sunday. All the forecasts say it's going to be dry for the rest of the weekend. Occasionally you look up and you think there's a big thundershower coming.

Q. Now, a question for you all but starting with Stefano. Obviously the story of the last few days has been the possible flotation of Formula One and I guess you've had a look at a draft, I guess you've all seen a draft and you know something about it. What are your views on it, looking at Formula One as a whole but also your own particular teams? How is it going to benefit your own particular teams and Formula One? How is it going to affect your own particular teams?

SD: First of all I mean nothing to comment on what are the speculations coming out because you never know what is the reality at the end. What I can see is that there are ongoing discussions that are, as I said, ongoing, going ahead. At the moment the situation seems to be reasonable but nothing more than what I'm seeing now.

Q. Christian…

CH: What are we speculating on? You didn't say…

Q. The floatation of Formula One.

CH: Oh, floatation. I though you said flirtation… at the end of the day it's not down to us, it's down to the shareholders, it's down to CVC and Bernie. It's their business at the end of the day, not the teams.

Q. Will you benefit, you as a team, would it benefit Formula One?

CH: Possibly, possibly. We're not involved in the detail. I heard that there is potential discussion and it's an interesting concept.

Q. Martin…

MW: I don't think it will benefit us as a team. I don't think, but again I have no detail of proposals anyway. But generally floatations and change of ownership aren't done for the benefit of a sport. I think what us as race teams need to concentrate on is putting a show on here and clearly the owners can decide what they do with the asset.

Q. Gerard, your thoughts on that?

GL: As I said, there are no details out there and floatation can mean many things. If you take to the market a minority share it doesn't change anything in ownership, it gives more liquidity to the owners, maybe more money to the sport, so as long as there are no details on what might by IPO'd or not, I don't think there is much to be discussed because it can mean many, many things to many people. It really depends on what you're going to take to the market.

MK: On the flotation itself, we also do not know more, so anything I guess we'd say is mere speculation. As a team, what's important to us is that whoever owns Formula One should prepare the sport to face the challenges, which we all will be (facing), and to create parameters whereby running a team can be sustainable for everyone here.

RA: Mere speculation I guess. On my side, we focus on what we do best and what we're doing right now, and if anything comes along, we'll review it and see what's beneficial.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q. (Adrian Rodriguez Huber – Agencia EFE) A question for Stefano Domenicali. I want to know exactly what the situation is inside your team and I want to know how you feel yourself. Are you concerned, are you worried, are you scared, are you angry? How are you feeling?

SD: For sure, I'm disappointed by the performance of the car, no doubt. But on the other hand what I need to make sure is that at home we need to push on the development of the car because we know what are the problems with this car from the other weekend. Nothing has changed on that. I am confident that our engineers will solve the issues we have as quickly as possible because in such a close field a little step makes a difference, and in such a close battle, when you are in a difficult moment, you need to score points because everything can happen. So that's something, it is clear. Not happy as I said but not to be happy doesn't help, and I've asked my engineers to be focused on the job because that is what they have to do.

Q. (Naoise Holohan – Manipe F1) Another one to Stefano. Can you give us an update on Felipe's situation? Has the chassis change solved the problems he had in Melbourne?

SD: We had a programme today with some changes on the car to verify some different configurations and tomorrow we will have let's say the best package, because in this moment I would say for him it's important to feel the confidence around him. Not only him because the team has a lot of pressure, so that's the status of the art we have done today.

Q. (Andrea Cremonesi – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Today we saw another big gap in the afternoon between Felipe and Fernando. Is it due to the different work that they did, or is it something more? The second question is about if you can describe… we wrote a lot about you travelling back home. Can you describe what is the situation there, what did you and Pat (Fry) did there?

SD: In terms of what we have seen today we were trying to work with different programmes on two different drivers and tomorrow we will see the situation. Today there is nothing I can say that is going to one direction or the other. The work of today was done in order to make sure that tomorrow Felipe has the best car in the best condition. This is the thing we have to give to him.

On the other hand, what we did was to make sure that the focus on the programme has to be there at home with the engineers, mainly in the aerodynamic department. I've asked Pat to be spot on, on the case, in order to make sure that now that there is a lot of meat on the fire, we need to make sure this meat will be delivered as quickly as possible, as there is no time to lose.

Q. (Heikki Kulta – Turun Sanomat) To Gerard Lopez. During your ownership with the team is this the best starting point to a new season with a new car?

GL: Yeah, it really is. In terms of the whole package it's the most complete one we had. We had a good chance last, but then we obviously lost one of our drivers. I think now we have complete drivers, the car's good. We pushed the envelope without going crazy on certain things, it had to be within certain borders. So far we're pretty confident. We said at the beginning of the season that fourth place in the championship is what we're looking for and I think the package right now is probably able to deliver that, but the season's just started. It feels quite OK right now.

Q. (Dieter Rencken – The Citizen) A question for Riad. Are you expecting any repercussions from either the governing body or the legal system regarding the court case with Force India, given that the judge found… I've got a couple of comments and I read through the judgement last night, that your team did actually copy bits of Force India's intellectual property and that parts found their way onto your car?

RA: I've got no comment on that but I think the judge has already given his judgement. If anything were to happen, I can't say for FIA or Force India or whoever it is, if anything happens they'll inform us. But I'm quite clear in terms of where we are with our positioning and we're fine.

Q. (Ian Parkes – Press Association) Christian, I just wondered if you'd managed to speak to Charlie (Whiting) since I spoke to you this morning?

CH: No.

Q. So you've still got no clarification yet on the Mercedes rear wing?

CH: I haven't personally spoken to him. I think there has been a bit of debate obviously about the Mercedes rear wing and you know, assuming the car has passed scrutineering, at the moment you have to assume that the FIA are happy with the configuration that the Mercedes car's in.

Q. So is that the end of the matter for yourself then?

CH: Probably not. I think the biggest thing for all of us – I'm not the only one – I think there are probably other gentlemen that are keen for clarity going forward. Is it something that's accepted as a clever interpretation, and hats off to Mercedes if it is, or is it something that you know isn't permissible moving forward. I think that's the most important thing to resolve and it would be nice to come out of this weekend with that clarity.

Q. (Gary Meenaghan – The National) I've got a question for all six of you. Could each of you look at the role of the team principal at your particular team? Obviously some teams have a team principal that goes to every race and is very hands on and at other teams he's happy to let other members of the team do different jobs.

MK: In our team, Peter Sauber is the founder of the team, and the team's gone through a quite awkward time, especially since 2010. So I think it's been important for us that since he is the founder he stands for certain stability and continuity, which was important in the last two years. But everyone has seen that over these years he has started to step back a little. He doesn't particularly enjoy going to all the races, and it's of course up to him to whether he will want to change anything, but I guess it's important for us, because of our specific situation, that he is around.

RA: Well, I do have a team principal but he's sort of broken down all rules. Obviously I go to most of the races and I run hands-on with the team that I have and it seems to work. He does it with all his other entities and it seems to be working quite well.

GL: In our case, Eric manages the team as a team principal should, as far as we're concerned, and also for the fact that unfortunately or fortunately, I have other things to do, so I can't devote my time to Formula One, as much as I probably sometimes would. He plays the role and acts as a team principal, which is the way we understand it.

MW: I think in our team the team principal enjoys going to all the races. Whether the race team enjoy him going to all the races I don't know, but I go because I quite enjoy it. We like to think we're hands-on but I suspect they just humour us most of the time.

SD: Of course, it depends on different teams but on my side for sure I'm not really involved in the technical side of it, because I delegate these things to the people that should follow that. The team is an entity where there are a lot of things that have to go on in terms of organisation, in terms of sponsorship, in terms of commercial activity, in terms of administration, so it's really a company – because we are part of a group that is bigger - and that's the way it is. The best situation would be to have a team principal who is not coming to the races because it means that he really has a very very good number two that can delegate everything so that would be the ideal scenario for the future.

CH: We run a pretty old-fashioned structure, I guess, in that I attend all the races. As Stefano says, there are many faculties with a Formula One team these days and you have the responsibility for them on a day-to-day basis, reporting to the shareholders and managing the team on a daily basis. So there's certainly never a quiet moment, and that's part of the involvement and challenge of the role. Every day, you drive to work, you're not quite sure what to expect. It's both a sport and a business and I think the role during a Grand Prix weekend is certainly quite different to during the week back in the factory, so it's a multi-faceted role, certainly in our case.

Q. (Dieter Rencken – The Citizen) Question to all six of you: Mr Ecclestone has, this past week, confirmed that he has suggested or proposed to CVC that they do list Formula One on the Singapore Stock Exchange. Would you, as team principals, be interested in acquiring equity in the listing individually?

MW: Better ask Gerald, he's the only one who can afford it.

CH: Certainly from Red Bull's perspective, we're an entrant, we're a team, we're very happy to be both an entrant and a team and we don't see a necessity or requirement to have a shareholding.

SD: I can copy what Christian said.

MW: I can't afford it. I don't think it's our business. Our business is that we're a race team primarily – we've got a few other businesses as well now – but being owners of Formula One isn't something that's in our plans.

GL: As far as Formula One goes, it might have made sense if all the Formula One teams could afford it, if they all became shareholders in some form or fashion but that's not going to happen, so as far as investing in Formula One, I think it then becomes purely a financial position and then it falls out of the sport. It's like if someone wants to invest or not. It's like any other stuff.

MK: No, I join the gentlemen in front. No.

RA: Definitely not. We've got enough challenges in being a Formula One team. We will focus on that.

Q. (Arianna Ravelli – Corriere della Sera) Mr Whitmarsh, McLaren remains involved in FOTA. Are you afraid that this could cause some disadvantages in the negotiations for the new Concorde Agreement?

MW: No, I'm not afraid. Whether it's through FOTA or by whatever mechanism, I think it's important that the teams work together to really develop our sport, to make sure that we're fit for purpose, make sure that we rise to the challenge that Formula One has. We're a sport, we're an entertainment, there's many challenges in front of us and I think there's been some great examples of co-operation between the teams. There are other challenges that we've struggled with but I think we should continue to try and work together.

Q. (Dieter Rencken – The Citizen) Christian, last week in the press conference, the team principals that were present confirmed that ten of the twelve had signed a copy of the letter to the FIA regarding cost-cutting and policing of the Resource Restriction Agreement (RRA). I believe that your team and your sister team didn't sign; is there a particular reason for that?

CH: Yeah. We didn't see the letter. Simple. I can't sign something I didn't see. Whether or not we agree with the content is something else. Firstly, I think what I would like to make clear is that Red Bull is absolutely fully behind cost control in Formula One. Whether the RRA is the right route to achieve that is what we question. I believe that letter, from what I read, requested for the FIA to police the RRA which, in our opinion would be the wrong route. We believe full-heartedly in controlling costs in Formula One and not frivolous spending, but we think that there are better ways of doing that and containing that through sporting and technical regulations as opposed to a resource restriction that relies on equivalence and apportionment of time and personnel, which is always tricky in subsidiary companies, particularly of automotive manufacturers. So we would be totally open to any discussion that involves cost control that pursued those avenues.

Q. (Ian Parkes – Press Association) Continuing on that thread, why would you not want to be policed when ten other teams would agree to that? That would suggest you've got something to hide in your accounts or the way you manage your finances?

CH: Or it would suggest that we're structured in a different way, as a single entity as a race team, and I think that there are things that, when FOTA was first created, did that: clear and tangible restrictions in personnel, restrictions in the amount of engines, restrictions in the amount of gearboxes, restrictions in the amount of testing that has been permitted. All things that you can see policed and genuinely save costs and we think they're the type of things that should be focused on rather than apportionment of people's time and equivalence which is, in any formula, in any mechanism, is fraught with problems and difficulties. I think it was well intended at the time but I think – as with all these things – when you drill into the detail, it's something much harder to police, especially when there are companies or teams which are subsidiaries of other organisations. So for us we would prefer to keep it simple and go on tangible, measurable items.

Q. (Ian Parkes – Press Association) Following that up with Martin and Stefano, can you appreciate what Christian is saying?

MW: I think the challenge of controlling costs in Formula One is something that we've all had a go at and if you can do it by a simple singular number that you can count, see, feel, touch then it's quite a nice simple thing to do. So I can relate to everything that Christian has said. We've done some of those things, we need to do more, and I think you've to carry on. The fact is at the moment we in this room all know that there are Formula One teams that are struggling to survive which tells us that we're not doing enough and that's why we've got to keep pushing.

SD: What I can add is that for sure that is something that we were discussing. We said – well, we were putting on the table certain conditions for us to be considered part of the general picture, because as we said, this could be a fragment of what is really controlled through the sporting and technical regulations, because that, at the end of the day, is the biggest thing that you can consider tangible and you can see would be some effort in saving money, so I think that overall this is the target we should aim at and I would say that if I have to look at Ferrari's interests, thank God that our financial situation is really good in terms of general financial position for the future. But we know that the situation of Formula One is not so stable. We know that there are a lot of struggles around so we need to put aside our self-interest a little bit, to make sure that we can look ahead in order to make sure that we are a lot competing in Formula One, because this is a very critical period, where everyone is smiling but we know that it's very tough.

Q. (Vanessa Ruiz – ESPN Brazil) So back to Ferrari's situation; Stefano, you just said that you know what the Ferrari's problems are, but at the same time, you've brought different chassis and a new car for Felipe…

SD: No, I didn't say that. I said that in order to make Felipe comfortable in this particular moment, we took different parts of what we have, and so we changed to the spare chassis for Felipe and we changed all the pieces, in order to make sure there was nothing wrong with the car that he used in Melbourne. And with regard to the problems; we know what are the problems and we now we need to tackle them and make sure that these problems that are fundamental, I would say level priority two, will be solved, as quickly as possible, as I said.

Q. (Vanessa Ruiz – ESPN Brazil) Could you clarify what these problems are, because you bring in another chassis which delivers another message.

SD: No, no, the chassis is a part of the car. The problems with the car are what I said on Sunday evening after the race in Melbourne, so maybe traction in slow speed corners and speed. These are the two fundamental issues which need to solve.

Q. (Ralf Bach – R&B) To all you six; I have learned that the problem of the Mercedes F-duct is that it's not that it breaks any regulation but it was only that Ross Brawn, as chief of the technical working group, had more or less broken a gentlemen's agreement. My question is, how can you break a gentlemen's agreement? I think you need gentlemen in Formula One for this.

SD: Pubblicita!

MW: Next question.

Q. (Dieter Rencken – The Citizen) Christian, back to the letter: does it worry you that ten people had actually left the two Red Bull teams off the list of invitees, and secondly, being one who has never really been slow at coming forward, did you not consider getting a copy of the letter and seeing if you would like to append your signature?

CH: Maybe it will be printed on the internet, you never know. Maybe you've got a copy that I can look at later, Dieter. As I've said, cost control is something that is important, it's something that Red Bull fully supports but we don't agree with the current RRA. Within the RRA you've got restricted and non-restricted areas. How on earth can KERS be non-restricted, a gearbox be non-restricted? So open resources and spend allowed on those areas. So that's why we think a more workable solution… and indeed, we've sat down and tried, certainly prior to Christmas, and I don't think our teams are so different in structure that we can't find a solution and hopefully, with some productive discussion, moving forward, a solution can be found, to make Formula One cost control for the top teams, but also, importantly, as Martin says, make it affordable for the teams in the middle of the grid and at the back of the grid. The cost to be competitive in Formula One at present is too high. I don't think anybody will dispute that. The debate is how we achieve it.

Q. (Dieter Rencken – The Citizen) Did you not try and get yourself a copy of the letter?

CH: If I don't agree with the content of the letter then why do I need a copy? Thank you.

And of course, here's the Malaysian GP in quotes.

[MJB]

Really looking forward to the race tomorrow. Schumi always starts well, Vettel on the harder tyre looks strong and Kimi has to fight through the field. Could be a fascinating race.

[Katsuya]

Fucking Lewis

But Michael is third!

[MJB]

Lewis certainly looked to have more time left after his lock up into the final hairpin.

With the straight line speed of the Mercedes and Michael's good starts, it could be a line of three as they enter the first corner.

[Lineker]

Before I post the results...

Lotus has been forced to relocate itself in the Sepang paddock after a fire destroyed its hospitality unit overnight.

In the early hours of Saturday morning, a suspected electrical fault in a fridge caused a fire that eventually destroyed the team's hospitality unit and kitchen facilities.

AUTOSPORT understands that the team was able to save some of its drivers' kits - including overalls and boots - from the private rooms of Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean. One of Raikkonen's spare helmets was destroyed.

With its unit now out of action, Lotus has been forced to move itself next to Marussia at the bottom end of the Sepang paddock - although its marketing and hospitality staff have been left without any equipment.

The team's engineering operation has been unaffected, as it is based in a separate unit attached to the pit building, and the fire will not have any impact on its track efforts.

Lotus issued a statement on Saturday morning that said: "The team asks for forgiveness for certain personnel who have entered the fire-damaged facility as they will be rather smoke-fragranced today. Many team members may also look rather hungry for a short time."

Yeesh. And also very importantly...

Formula 1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone has announced that a 'majority' of teams have committed to the sport beyond 2012.

In a statement issued on his official website shortly before the start of final free practice, Ecclestone said that a number of outfits including Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull Racing had agreed to a new Concorde Agrement.

"I am very pleased to announce that we have reached commercial agreements with the majority of the current Formula 1 teams, including Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull Racing, about the terms on which they will continue competing in Formula 1 after the current Concorde Agreement expires at the end of this year," said Ecclestone.

The news comes after a week of speculation that Ecclestone had offered terms to teams - which included extra payments to Ferrari and Red Bull Racing, plus the possibility of some outfits taking a shareholding if the sport was floated.

AUTOSPORT understands no team has signed a final document yet.

Sauber has confirmed it's one of the teams to have committed to F1 before 2012, with Toro Rosso believed to be on the list too.

Mercedes declined to comment on suggestions that it had not agreed to sign the new deal.

Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali said in Australia: "I think that what I can say is that we are in discussions, and the discussions are going on in the right way. But there is no more than that at the moment."

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner added: "We are in discussion about a future Concorde Agreement. We want to have a Concorde Agreement that reaches into the future and we are in discussion with FOM at the moment. Talks have been progressing reasonably well, so we will see."

Ecclestone cancelled plans to attend this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix at the last minute, but did say ahead of the season opening race in Australia that he was keen to get the Concorde discussions concluded as quickly as he could.

"I don't want it dragging on," he told the Daily Telegraph.

Mercedes-Benz is keeping silent on the reasons why it has not joined rival teams in agreeing commercial terms with Bernie Ecclestone, amid speculation that it is not happy with the way some outfits have been handed a preferential financial deal.

Ecclestone dropped a bombshell on Saturday morning in Malaysia when he announced that a 'majority' of teams had agreed to new commercial terms that will keep them committed to Formula 1 beyond this year.

Although the identity of all the teams involved was not announced, AUTOSPORT understands that the outfits that have reached an agreement with Ecclestone are Ferrari, Red Bull, McLaren, Lotus, Force India, Sauber and Toro Rosso.

That means that those yet to commit are Mercedes, Williams, Caterham, Marussia and HRT.

Although it is understood the smaller teams have not yet been offered terms for a deal, the absence of Mercedes is intriguing because it has been in discussions with Ecclestone for several weeks about the matter.

In public, Mercedes declined to comment about the situation - and refused to divulge any of the background for its absence from the commercial deal.

A Mercedes spokesman said: "We would like to ask for your understanding that our team currently has nothing to say on this matter. We will, of course, inform you immediately at the appropriate time."

Mercedes-Benz motorsport boss Norbert Haug added: "I am not sure who has signed. We put out a short statement and that is what we have to say. We ask for your understanding and we will inform you as soon as we can comment on it."

High-level sources close to the outfit have revealed, however, that the team is unhappy about the deal that has been put on the table, and especially the way that terms being offered to all the front-running outfits are not the same.

A recent report by Sky News, which had been leaked documents relating to the negotiations, revealed that special financial bonuses were being offered to teams that had won the constructors' championship since 2000, teams that had not changed their name since 2000 and an annual 'Double Champions' payment for outfits who had won titles 'in any two or more consecutive seasons including or after the 2008 season'.

Under those terms, Mercedes - which took over the Brawn team for the start of the 2010 season - would comprehensively lose out to rivals like Ferrari, Red Bull Racing and McLaren.

It has been suggested by sources that various options are now being considered by Mercedes, which could include a rethink about its F1 strategy or even a legal challenge under anti-competition law to the commercial terms Ecclestone has offered.

One source suggested that the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which specifically outlaws restriction of competition in Article 101 and the abuse of a dominant position in Article 102, could be used as the basis of a test case to challenge the way in which Ecclestone has offered preferential terms to some teams.

Mercedes refused to comment on whether or not legal action was being considered.

Nico Rosberg set the pace in final practice for the Malaysian Grand Prix, putting Mercedes on top of the times by over four tenths of a second.

The German waited until the final moments of the session to complete a lap using Pirelli's medium tyres, setting the fastest time of the weekend so far with a 1m36.877s.

Rosberg was the only man to lap the Sepang circuit in less than 97 seconds.

The Mercedes driver was followed by Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber, who seemed to enjoy a better session than on Friday. Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean completed the top five for the Lotus team, with Jenson Button in sixth and Pastor Maldonado in seventh with the Williams.

Yesterday's pacesetter Lewis Hamilton had to settle for ninth position after managing just eight laps following the only significant incident of the session, which saw him go off track at Turn 14.

Ferrari has another low-key session, with Fernando Alonso down in 13th and team-mate Felipe Massa in 18th.

Although light rain hit the circuit minutes before final practice kicked off, the start took place on a mostly dry track, but some damp patches made the early part of the session very slow as teams decided not to venture out.

With a track temperature of around 30 degrees Celsius, all drivers completed their installation laps right away, but no one set a time until Bruno Senna completed the first full round of Sepang over 20 minutes into the session.

The Brazilian lowered the benchmark over the following laps and managed to stay on top for a few minutes while other drivers completed their first runs.

Grosjean moved to the top of the times at the 28-minute mark with a lap of 1m40.239s, with team-mate Raikkonen slotting himself in second. On his following lap, the Frenchman was the first man to go below the 1m40s mark, and again was followed by Raikkonen, the Lotus duo staying on top until Senna went fastest again just seconds later.

Vettel jumped to first place with the first lap in the 1m38s with some 26 minutes left, only for team-mate Webber to improve on that when he completed his first run an instant later.

Hamilton was one of the last men to try to set a time, but the Briton lost control of his car at Turn 14 on his flying lap and ended up in the gravel. He managed to return to the track and drove straight into the pits, leaving him as the only man without a laptime.

Webber had no such problems though, and the Australian went even quicker to post the fastest time of the weekend so far: 1m38.145s. With less than 20 minutes left, Vettel set a new benchmark by outpacing his team-mate by less than a tenth of a second.

Maldonado then jumped to the top with the first lap of the weekend in the 1m37s, the Venezuelan going over half a second faster than Vettel.

After several minutes of frantic work by the McLaren mechanics, Hamilton returned to the track with 10 minutes remaining, but the Briton needed just one lap to move into second position using Pirelli's medium tyres as all the drivers took to the track for the last five minutes of action.

Hamilton's team-mate Button and seconds later Red Bull driver Vettel took to the top of the times before Rosberg managed the first lap of the weekend in the 1m36s to put the Mercedes in first by over four tenths of a second over the reigning world champion.

At the bottom of the times, both HRT drivers Pedro de la Rosa and Narain Karthikeyan lapped within the 107 per cent of the fastest time.

FP3


Pos Driver                Team                  Time               Laps

 1. Nico Rosberg          Mercedes              1m36.877             16

 2. Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault      1m37.320s  + 0.443   15

 3. Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault      1m37.338s  + 0.461   12

 4. Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault         1m37.356s  + 0.479   13

 5. Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault         1m37.382s  + 0.505   13

 6. Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes      1m37.404s  + 0.527   12

 7. Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault      1m37.455s  + 0.578   13

 8. Michael Schumacher    Mercedes              1m37.663s  + 0.786   15

 9. Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes      1m37.776s  + 0.899    8

10. Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari        1m37.977s  + 1.100   17

11. Bruno Senna           Williams-Renault      1m38.091s  + 1.214   20

12. Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari        1m38.178s  + 1.301   15

13. Fernando Alonso       Ferrari               1m38.246s  + 1.369   17

14. Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes  1m38.285s  + 1.408   16

15. Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m38.423s  + 1.546   13

16. Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m38.640s  + 1.763   11

17. Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes  1m38.794s  + 1.917   18

18. Felipe Massa          Ferrari               1m39.20$s  + 2.332   16

19. Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault      1m39.704s  + 2.827   15

20. Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault      1m40.189s  + 3.312   14

21. Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth     1m41.901s  + 5.024   14

22. Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth     1m42.007s  + 5.130   14

23. Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth          1m42.464s  + 5.587   14

24. Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth          1m43.378s  + 6.501   17


All Timing Unofficial[/code]




Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button maintained McLaren's 2012 qualifying superiority as they repeated their Melbourne grid result and filled for the front row for the Malaysian Grand Prix.



Michael Schumacher produced the best qualifying performance of his Formula 1 comeback as he took third for Mercedes, while world champion Sebastian Vettel chose to run the harder tyre and will start fifth for Red Bull.



Just as had been the case in Australia, Hamilton's first pole shot in Q3 was sufficient to secure the top spot, as his 1m36.219s proved unbeatable.



Button was second fastest after those runs, but was pushed back by Schumacher. Mercedes had left it late in Q2 and looked in danger of being eliminated before surging into the top 10, and then went for just one run in Q3.



That meant Schumacher was back in the pits by the time Button launched his retaliation, the McLaren edging the Mercedes off the front row by just 0.023 seconds. Schumacher beat his team-mate Nico Rosberg by five places and a little under 0.3s.



The Q3 battle was incredibly close, with just 0.4s covering pole to eighth place.



Red Bull was not a pole threat again - Q1 pacesetter Mark Webber qualifying fourth, and Vettel choosing the harder Pirelli and setting the sixth-quickest time. They were split in the results by Kimi Raikkonen, but the Lotus - which was fastest in Q2 - will drop to 10th on the grid due to its five-place penalty for a gearbox change. Raikkonen's team-mate Romain Grosjean was seventh quickest.



Against the team's own expectations, Fernando Alonso got Ferrari into Q3 - although he could only manage to beat Sergio Perez's Sauber to ninth. Felipe Massa was closer to Alonso's pace than he had been for most of the Melbourne weekend but he missed the Q2 cut and was 12th.



Several of the underdog stars of Melbourne qualifying fell back into the midfield in Malaysia. Pastor Maldonado briefly got into the top 10 despite an early trip through the gravel in Q2, but he was pushed back to 11th as the Mercedes delivered their late laps. Maldonado will start two places ahead of Williams team-mate Bruno Senna.



There were no Force Indias or Toro Rossos in Q3 this week either. The closely-matched Paul di Resta and Nico Hulkenberg claimed 14th and 16th for Force India, just 0.013s apart and split by Daniel Ricciardo, whose Toro Rosso team-mate Jean-Eric Vergne locked-up in Q1, flat-spotted a tyre and consigned himself to 18th. Kamui Kobayashi's Sauber brought up the rear of the Q2 pack.



Both HRTs made the 107 per cent cut this time, and will not even start last, as Heikki Kovalainen's penalty for passing under the safety car in Australia will drop the Caterham from 19th to last.



[code]Qualifying


Pos  Driver                Team                 Time         Gap   

 1.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes     1m36.219s

 2.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes     1m36.368s   + 0.149

 3.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes             1m36.391s   + 0.172

 4.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault     1m36.461s   + 0.242

 5.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault        1m36.461s   + 0.242

 6.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault     1m36.634s   + 0.415

 7.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault        1m36.658s   + 0.439

 8.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes             1m36.664s   + 0.445

 9.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari              1m37.566s   + 1.347

10.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari       1m37.698s   + 1.479

Q2 cut-off time: 1m37.477s                                   Gap **

11.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault     1m37.589s   + 0.874

12.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari              1m37.731s   + 1.016

13.  Bruno Senna           Williams-Renault     1m37.841s   + 1.126

14.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes 1m37.877s   + 1.162

15.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m37.883s   + 1.168

16.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes 1m37.890s   + 1.175

17.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari       1m38.069s   + 1.354

Q1 cut-off time: 1m38.437s                                   Gap *

18.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m39.077s   + 1.905

19.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault     1m39.306s   + 2.134

20.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault     1m39.567s   + 2.395

21.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth    1m40.903s   + 3.731

22.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth    1m41.250s   + 4.078

23.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth         1m42.914s   + 5.742

24.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth         1m43.655s   + 6.483


107% time: 1m43.974s


* Gap to quickest in Q1


** Gap to quickest in Q2

Ross Brawn believes that if rival teams are so concerned about the legality of the rear wing on the Mercedes F1 W03 then they should make an official protest before a grand prix weekend gets underway.

The Mercedes system, often referred to as a DRS activated F-duct, has been the subject of much talk since the season kicked off in Australia last weekend.

The FIA has so far said that it sees no reason to ban the device, but that hasn't stopped rival teams continuing to speculate about its legality. And Brawn said he was tiring of the issue dragging on through race weekends as it was again a point of discussion after qualifying in Malaysia on Saturday.

"The correct time to bring these issues to a head, if you want to, is on a Thursday," said Brawn. "It is everybody's right to protest.

"As soon as scrutineering is finished [pre-event], if you wish to protest a system then that is the fair time to do it because you can bring it to a head before you get into qualifying, get into racing.

"Even in a business as competitive as we have there is some protocol, I believe."

Brawn said he had no problem with teams questioning a clever device on a rival's car, but he was disappointed with the way the issue is being handled.

"I can understand people are frustrated because they haven't thought of the idea, or they don't believe it's correct," he said. "And that's their right.

"But I've seen lots of things on racing cars where I've wondered at the interpretation, and that is the nature of our business.

"Bang a protest in on Thursday if you want to get it done, and leave the stewards to try and resolve the issue. Don't do it after qualifying or the race and spoil the event."

He added that Mercedes has come in for unfair treatment over the issue, as every team is trying to find clever ways to maximise performance with the DRS.

"There are a massive amount of things we can do with DRS, so to pick on one thing and say 'we don't like that very much because we haven't thought about it' is wrong," he said.

"We're optimising everything to get the best out of the car, and that's what the regulations encourage you to do.

"It says the purpose of the DRS is to improve overtaking, and that's what we're all trying. Good luck to anyone who can get the most out of it."

Michael Schumacher was optimistic that Mercedes could carry its qualifying form into the Malaysian Grand Prix after securing his best starting spot since returning to Formula 1 as he went third quickest at Sepang.

The seven-time world champion was beaten only by the two McLarens, and held a provisional front row spot until deposed by an improvement from Jenson Button.

Mercedes ran third and fourth early in the Australian GP but struggled with high tyre degradation. Schumacher was halted by an early gearbox failure, while his team-mate Nico Rosberg dropped down the order before a last-lap collision with Sergio Perez's Sauber consigned him to 12th.

Asked if he was worried about another slump in race pace on Sunday, Schumacher replied: "I guess all of us have certain concerns because these temperatures are pretty new to us.

"We had some preparation yesterday. We have done a decent job. We have learned a lesson in Australia, reacted and the boys in factory have done a great job so I am looking forward to tomorrow."

He added: "I feel good about it and we have chosen a car that should work better in the race - that is the situation that I hope will play out tomorrow."

Schumacher said that no matter what happened in the race, Mercedes' pace so far in both Australia and Malaysia proved it was in substantially better shape than a year ago.

"It is quite an achievement to see who is behind us," he said. "We still have to catch up a bit forward.

"We are reasonably close, not miles away like we were last year so it is up to us to have a good development programme, work methodically and stay focused and let's see what the season will bring us."

Lewis Hamilton believes that managing his tyres correctly will be the key factor in deciding Sunday's Malaysian Grand Prix, after taking pole position for the race.

Hamilton claimed his second straight pole of the 2012 season and will again share the front row with his McLaren team-mate Jenson Button, who leads the championship after his victory in Australia last weekend.

But after having no answer for Button's race pace in Melbourne, a circuit at which degradation was minimal, Hamilton believes he will be much closer at Sepang, a track that places far greater demands on rubber due to its succession of long corners and warm track temperatures.

"It is [crucial at Sepang]; positioning and tyre management," he said. "In these conditions you never know what is going to happen, and these tyres are having a seriously hard time around here, so it's going to be interesting.

"This is a very tricky circuit with the temperatures and humidity outside. It will be massively tough tomorrow, so we just have to put ourselves in the best place we can."

Hamilton's pole, which came by 0.149 seconds, was the 21st of his Formula 1 career, an achievement that only 10 drivers in F1 history have beaten.

He said that despite this, he had not been entirely happy with his best effort in Q3.

"The first lap was quite good, but I lost a bit of time in the last corner. And in the first corner I had a small oversteer moment, but it didn't cost me much time. The rest of lap went quite well and fortunately I was able to minimise the amount I lost."

Australian Grand Prix winner Jenson Button reckons that quick thinking in the pits and being flexible on strategy will be vital in Sunday's race at Sepang, after admitting that he still does not know which Pirelli tyre compound will perform better in the race.

Button, who once again qualified second to McLaren team-mate Lewis Hamilton by just 0.15s, said that the extreme heat and humidity has made it impossible to predict the rate of tyre degradation on the medium and hard tyres Pirelli has brought to Malaysia.

"It's a tough one for us," he said. "Physically it's tough, but also it's tough on the tyres, and for strategy because the humidity and the heat is so high that you really don't know how long the tyres are going to work.

"So you really have to be thinking on your toes, and I think we are pretty good at that.

"Going into the race it is so difficult to know what to do in terms of the set-up, in terms of the front wing, the tyre pressures. You can get it so wrong and then you are screwed really, and that's not down to looking after the tyres, it's down to having the wrong balance.

"So a lot of hard work tonight to work out where we should be for tomorrow's race. And strategy we have really got to think on our toes because at the moment we don't know which tyre we should be using for most of the race."

Button added that while he naturally felt confident of his chances of making it two from two starting as he is from the front row, he feels that the unpredictable nature of the race and the blend of strategies around him means that he doesn't know how much of a factor his ability to manage tyre degradation will be.

"It is something that I work on but I am not the only driver that works on tyres to try and control degradation so we will see," he said. "These are very different tyres to what we've run before and it's so hot here so we will see what happens.

"And there are some different strategies up and down the grid. Sebastian Vettel will be on the prime tyre. When it gets to the first pitstop who knows what tyre we are going to put on? We don't.

"There are so many different strategies that could play out during the race and because of the temperature we don't know which tyre is quicker yet in race trim. It's going to be about thinking on your toes and whoever does that and is really confident in their decisions is the team that is going to win the race tomorrow."

Button said that he wasn't too disappointed to miss out on pole to Hamilton and revealed that he knew exactly where he had lost the time.

"Obviously it's always a shame when you are so close and yet so far from the guy that's on pole and also your team-mate," he said. "Lewis as we all know is extremely quick and I just couldn't get that tenth and a half.

"I know exactly where it is and it's been there all weekend - at the exit of Turn 2 – and I just can't find the pace there. For some reason I just can't go around that corner!"

Sebastian Vettel is hoping his tyre strategy will pay off in the Malaysian Grand Prix after another difficult qualifying session for him.

The Red Bull driver was the only man in the top ten to use the harder Pirelli tyres for his final run in Q3 after struggling with his car's handling on the medium compound rubber.

Although Vettel said that he hadn't opted to go with the hard tyres for strategic reasons but because he was quicker with them during qualifying, the world champion is still hoping it will be beneficial for him.

Vettel qualified in sixth position, the same place where he had qualified in the first race in Australia, but will start from fifth because of a penalty for Kimi Raikkonen.

"I didn't feel comfortable on the soft, and we decided to go on the hard," said Vettel. "Hopefully tomorrow that will be an advantage, we'll see. Hopefully I can go longer and that gives me a bit of flexibility in the first stint. We'll see where we are in the pack and then we do our best and go from there."

Vettel, who finished in second place in the season-opening grand prix, is optimistic Red Bull's race form will be stronger than it was in qualifying.

"I think in terms of race pace we should be quite a bit better off than today. But in terms of qualifying they are at the front and so they are the ones to beat. They have a competitive car. They had a solid winter and they are in good form. All this makes it difficult for everyone to beat them.

"I think we have as many new tyres as the other top cars in front, so it should be a good race. We were much closer on Friday in terms of race pace and also last weekend, so that gives us confidence for tomorrow."

Fernando Alonso suffered a KERS failure in the final part of qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix, but the Ferrari driver does not believe it cost him any places on the grid.

The Spaniard set the ninth fastest time in Q3, meaning he will start eighth thanks to Kimi Raikkonen's grid penalty for a gearbox change.

Despite making it through to the final part of qualifying, which his team-mate Felipe Massa again failed to do, Alonso does not believe that a fully functional KERS would have enabled him to climb any higher up the order.

"It was a good qualifying, because I think we got everything we could out of the car," said Alonso.

"I had a KERS problem on my only run in Q3. I don't think it cost me any places, but it would definitely have made the gap to pole [1.3 seconds] look more realistic."

Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali praised Alonso's efforts in the F2012 in difficult circumstances."We should regard this result as a glass half full," he said. "Once again today, Fernando did a great job and it's a shame that he had a KERS problem, the first in a long time.

"This prevented him from doing a much better time on a track where this system delivers a significant benefit.

"We know that we are in difficulty in this early part of the season, therefore we have to look at limiting the damage on track, while working to make the F2012 more competitive in as short a time as possible."

Fernando Alonso was positive about Ferrari's progress after qualifying in ninth position for the Malaysian Grand Prix.

The Spaniard had started from 12th place in the opening race in Australia, but he made it in to Q3 in today's grid-deciding session at Sepang and will start from eighth place following a penalty for Lotus's Kimi Raikkonen.

The Ferrari driver said he was encouraged to see his team was closer to the front during the second qualifying segment.

"I think it's a step in the right direction," said Alonso. "We were one second off pole position in Q2 and today we were sixth tenths and a half, so I think these three tenths is quite encouraging for us and quite a positive sign that we are moving in the right direction."

The two-time champion, who finished in fifth place in Melbourne, is expecting to have stronger race pace again on Sunday, although he conceded Ferrari has to improve fast if it is to stay in the championship fight.

"Qualifying I think went well for us. Even if the result is the maximum we can achieve for now, it's not enough for our expectations. We need to improve quickly," he said.

"In the race in Melbourne we saw a better pace than during the rest of the weekend. We know the degradation is quite high here in Sepang and in Melbourne and during winter testing perhaps we had a little bit more degradation than our main competitors. We start in eighth, but we have Kimi behind and he's much quicker than us so it will be tough.

"But in the race we normally are in a better place and hopefully tomorrow will repeat the performance."

Felipe Massa believes he has finally got a Ferrari he feels comfortable with after making more changes ahead of Malaysian Grand Prix qualifying.

The Brazilian failed to join his team-mate Fernando Alonso in Q3 at Sepang, instead having to settle for 12th on the grid. However, he believes that the progress he made with the F2012 ahead of qualifying will enable him to make more gains in the race and for the rest of the season.

"It was positive to make a normal qualifying, to have the car we expect to have," Massa said on Saturday afternoon. "We changed everything we could to have the car we expected, and qualifying was the first time I drove the car as it is supposed to be.

"If you see everything that has happened from Australia to here, it was definitely a good effort and now we are in a good direction to have the best that we can with this car.

"Now I'm looking forward to improving what I have. This is the first time since we started the season that I had what I expected from the car."

Massa added that his problems with the F2012 since the season kicked off have taken priority over any question marks over his future.

"The biggest frustration is when you go in the car and you don't feel what you know," he said. "You don't know what is going on.

"I don't get frustrated with the pressure, all the comments and all the rumours. That's not my problem.

"It's frustrating when I cannot do what I know I am able to do. That's why I am more happy now, and now we need to go forward."

Kimi Raikkonen believes his Lotus had the potential to be inside the top two in qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix, had not made a mistake on his Q3 flying lap at Sepang.

Raikkonen will start from 10th on the grid in Sunday's race after the team was forced to change his car's gearbox, but Raikkonen believes his pace was good enough to contend for pole; on paper, at least.

Asked by AUTOSPORT if he could have been one of the two fastest drivers in qualifying, the winner of this event in 2003 replied: "Yeah for sure. It's [his time] a tenth away from the top three and for sure we lost that easily.

"I got out of shape in two places and lost maybe a tenth or two, and on a perfect lap for sure it could have been two tenths faster, but it's not often that you get everything right like that so..."

The Finn also revealed that he was happier with his car after overnight changes to the floor and repairs to his KERS, which hadn't functioned properly during Friday's practice.

"It worked today, so I mean it didn't work yesterday, we had some issues with KERS and all sorts of things," he explained. "Now it is normal and it's fine. I don't think in Melbourne... it didn't feel something

. We ran the same floor, and then we changed the floor yesterday because we had some issues and suddenly it's like it was in testing."

The 2007 world champion was quick on race pace on his return to F1 at Melbourne last week, where he finished seventh, and though he hopes to be able to achieve a similar speed on Sunday, he was cautious about predicting a podium place.

"I don't know," he said. "I'll tell you tomorrow. I mean the cars in front of us, they are fast, but I think we were pretty good in the race in Melbourne in the long runs. Yesterday I had a good speed in the long runs so we will see.

"It depends, a lot can happen in the first two corners, if you can get through clean and with no problems. That's why it would have been nicer to start closer to the front.

"Yesterday in my long run the car was pretty good, even though we didn't have KERS and the car probably wasn't perfect overall. But then the soft I don't know.

"If it is the same like yesterday I think we have a pretty good car."

Toro Rosso maintained that its comparatively poor qualifying result in Malaysia was not any cause for concern, despite failing to match the performance it had produced in Melbourne a week ago.

After taking 10th and 11th on the Australian Grand Prix grid, at Sepang Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne will start 15th and 18th.

But Toro Rosso's chief engineer Laurent Mekies said the result showed how close the midfield is, rather than indicating a slump for his team.

"We are racing in the same midfield group with Williams, Sauber and Force India and while in Australia we were at the top end of that group, here we are not," said Mekies.

"We are only talking about two to three tenths of a second from one end of the group to the other. That means we still have every chance to do well tomorrow.

"In Jean-Eric's case he did not really get to do a time, as he locked a wheel and that's part of the game. Daniel did what he had to, but as it's so tight, a couple of tenths made the difference. In Melbourne we started ahead of this group and after only one lap, we were at the back, so let's hope it's the other way round tomorrow..."

Ricciardo was similarly sanguine about the result.

"I think we are more or less where we thought we would be, as we expected Q3 to be a more difficult target here than in Melbourne," said the Australian. "I am reasonably happy with the lap I did, which was pretty clean and I am not kicking myself thinking I could have done better.

"Hopefully, we have a good package for the race and I will be trying to nose into the points. We've got 56 laps to make up position and yesterday, our long run performance wasn't bad. But if it rains, then it's anyone's game and there will be more opportunities, so that could help."

Vergne added that his Q1 exit was entirely his fault.

"I made a mistake at the first corner, having a massive lock-up on a front wheel. That created so much vibration that I had to come back to the pits and that was my qualifying over," he said.

"Looking for something positive, at least it means we have saved one set of new option tyres for the race. There's also a chance of rain for tomorrow so anything could happen, but whatever the conditions, I feel our car can be competitive in race trim."

Pirelli is predicting a three-stop strategy for frontrunning teams in the Malaysian Grand Prix - with there being a high chance some drivers may opt to qualify on the harder tyre to leave them in better shape for the race.

With the heat and track characteristics of Sepang leading to high tyre degradation, practice has suggested that there could be a benefit to using the hard compound when the car is fuelled up at the start of the race.

Under the current rules, drivers who qualify in the top 10 on the grid must start the race on the same set of tyres that they set their fastest time on.

Speaking about the tactical options, Pirelli motorsport director Paul Hembery said: "We are looking at a three-stop strategy. That is the most probable - although how you compose that is unknown yet.

"Some teams may want to consider starting on the hard to have a better balance with the full fuel load – but you will probably not do that if you want to get pole position.

"So it's a difficult choice. Although you can overtake here, track position is still very important and people don't want to be having to overtake. Running behind cars is still something to be avoided and if you are a top team you want to start in front of your nearest competitor."

With Pirelli having promised a challenging time for the teams in Malaysia, Hembery says that the high degradation experienced so far is in line with what had been expected.

"It is what we wanted to see," he said. "We knew this would be an aggressive choice of compound and that this would be one of the most extreme races."

Bruno Senna believes that anybody making proper use of a two-stop strategy during Sunday's Malaysian Grand Prix will have a big advantage over those stopping three times.

Formula 1 tyre supplier Pirelli is expecting most drivers make three stops during the race, with the heat and humidity at Sepang causing high levels of degradation to the medium compound rubber.

But after qualifying, Williams driver Senna said that if a car can be set up to look after its tyres well, then the time gained through not making a third stop will more than off-set any pace loss during a stint.

When asked by AUTOSPORT whether a two-stop strategy was possible at Sepang, Senna said: "It will depend on the tyre wear. We have a good car in terms of tyre management and if you can gamble and make a two stop work then it can be a big advantage.

"We know that an extra [third] stop is a penalty, so we now have to sit down and check with the strategy guy whether we'll be able to do it or not. It's a tough call, just like trying to do one stop in Melbourne, but if you can make it work, it will pay off big time."

Senna will start Sunday's race from 13th on the grid - two places and 0.3s behind his Williams team-mate Pastor Maldonado.

He said that he was unconcerned after being outqualified by his former GP2 rival for a second race in a row, adding that the race is all that matters in terms of championship points.

"We understand that Pastor's been here for a year and he's very good at getting a quick lap out of the car, so there's no particular pressure on that," Senna said.

"They're expecting us to be very close to each other in the race, and that's what I think will happen as well. But qualifying is a very special affair. Having a good relationship with the engineers and knowing the team well has an impact on the decisions you make for qualifying and the race. We're getting there."

Pedro de la Rosa hailed HRT's step forward after qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang on Saturday.

The Spanish squad, which had failed to get its cars on the grid for the season-opening race in Australia, will start the Sepang event from 22nd and 23rd positions.

De la Rosa, who outqualified team-mate Narain Karthikeyan, praised the team's progress since Australia.

The Spaniard, however, is under no illusions for the race, which he reckons will be very hard for HRT.

"It was a good day," said de la Rosa. "From the first lap in the morning I felt that the car had improved notably and we improved our times significantly. We've lowered our time by more than a second from yesterday to today and every time we modify something new we're going quicker.

"We could have improved our times even more during the qualifying session. I was only able to do one lap but it was enough. The important thing was to qualify and we did. The team has proved that in a short amount of days it managed to have the DRS ready and improve the power steering and other aspects of the car.

"We've taken a huge stride and I'm very satisfied because of that. Now we have to see how tomorrow goes in long distance because it will be the first time we string so many laps together, which won't be easy in this weather."

Karthikeyan was also pleased with his day despite some overheating problems - the Indian hoping for rain in tomorrow's race in order to ease the team's worries over this issue.

"The conditions changed a lot from the morning and the track was much more slippery but we qualified for the race, which was our first objective for this weekend and a positive step from Australia," he said.

"We had to change our strategy a little bit today because of some heating issues, and it worked, but now we must focus on overcoming those issues and aim to finish the race. It would be good for us if it rained because that keeps the car a bit cooler but, no matter what, we'll have to give it our best and try to put in a good performance."

Post-qualifying press conference:

TV UNILATERALS

Q. Lewis, a first pole for you and McLaren here in Malaysia but a continuation of the team's fine start to the season today.

Lewis HAMILTON: Yeah, it's been a good weekend so far. I think it's been a tough day to be honest with the changeable weather conditions and the temperatures climbing. Made some set up changes to the car, nonetheless we still managed to do some good times but obviously got these guys pushing very hard behind but the guys in the factory are doing a fantastic job.

Q. How aware are you that everyone is pushing so hard behind you and how much pressure does that put on you going into a qualifying session?

LH: I think everyone's under the same amount of pressure. We all put a huge amount of pressure on ourselves and obviously a lot of partners and sponsors are relying on us as well, so it's very intense and probably the most exciting part of the weekend but it's something, at least speaking for myself, that I really enjoy.

Q. Jenson, for you the wait for a first McLaren pole continues but less than a tenth of a second between you and Lewis just shows how competitive it is at the top.

Jenson BUTTON: Yeah, I think it was a little bit more than that but qualifying has been pretty good to me the last two races so I can't complain too much. I think it's good for us as a team to be on the front row again. It's always nice when your engineer keys-up and you can here all the mechanics in the background cheering because of a one-two. You obviously want it the other way around though but Lewis did a great lap at the start of Q3 and we edged closer but couldn't quite get there. And you didn't do too badly from second last week. There's a long run down to Turn One, it could be quite an explosive start.

JB: I think it'll be an exciting start and not just for us two on the front row but the Mercedes is renowned, especially Michael, for getting good starts so it's going to be a fun Turn One I think.

Q. Let's turn to you Michael. It's been a long time since we saw you in the top three for qualifying. Is this a welcome return or could this have been pole and even better today?

Michael SCHUMACHER: No, I mean this was the maximum that was available. We managed to work the car very well over the whole weekend, we obviously showed potential in Australia, not so much in the race, so focus was obviously to try to find the best compromise and I guess we have achieved this. We're third here, a very tight business if you look who is behind us, and how close everything is going, we can be more than happy about what we have achieved and look forward now for tomorrow. Is there a concern about the race given what happened in Australia last week?

MS: I guess all of us have concerns because those temperatures are pretty new to us. We have had some preparation yesterday but I guess we have done a decent job. We have learned quite a lesson in Australia, we have reacted, the boys in the factory, and all the team have done a really superb job. I'm more than happy about the progress and how we understand the car and I look forward for tomorrow.

Q. Finally to you Lewis, you're in the best place possible to start tomorrow's race. But there'll be different strategies, it's going to be hot, it's going to be a race of attrition out there - how do you view what's going to happen?

LH: I don't know if it's definitely the best place to start here, it's a long haul down to Turn One, but no, I think there are going to be interesting strategies tomorrow and the key is looking after your tyres. So hopefully we'll have a car in a much better position for the race tomorrow, so excited for that.

PRESS CONFERENCE

Q. Lewis, a phenomenal first lap in Q3. Tell us about it, as I think there was a lock-up at the first corner. It was phenomenal, substantially quicker.

LH: Yeah, I think the first lap was quite good. I think I lost a bit of time in the last corner but the first corner was fine. I think I had a small oversteer moment but it didn't cost me any time. Then the rest of the lap seemed to come together quite well. I pushed probably a little too much in the last corner and went a bit wide, but fortunately I was able to minimise the amount I lost.

Q. And is it all about tyre management tomorrow in he race itself?

LH: It is. It's positioning and it's definitely tyre management. This is a very tricky circuit because of the track temperatures and obviously the humidity outside. It's going to be tough tomorrow but we juts have to make sure we prepare ourselves in the best way we can.

Q. This is your first time on pole position here. You've actually finished all your Malaysian Grand Prix, which has go to be a good omen for you. Your thoughts on tackling it tomorrow, as it is one of the toughest Grand Prix of the year?

LH: It is, definitely. It's a very long haul down to turn one. Just in the conditions, you never know what's going to happen, the changeable conditions. I hope it stays dry. But these tyres are having a seriously hard time around here, especially under 150 kilos of fuel. It's going to be interesting. I don't know how it's going to go but I'll do everything I can to make sure we're as competitive as possible.

Q. Jenson, quite a last gasp to get on the front row there.

JB: Well, actually, it's quite normal in the end of Q3 to put in your fastest lap, so I think it was the way for most of us, though obviously not for Lewis. I was pretty happy with the lap. I think with the heat it is very difficult to get a good lap out of the car as the car is moving around a lot but I was pretty happy but obviously not as happy as the guy sitting alongside me.

Q. But this is a circuit you really enjoy. Do you still enjoy it, in spite of the heat?

JB: I think we all do. This is a fast, flowing circuit and a circuit that is tough in many ways: for the car, for the tyres and for us as well sitting in the cockpit as well. It's a long, hot afternoon tomorrow. But I'm looking forward to it. I think we have a good race car. Difficult to know how good but I think our long-run pace yesterday showed some reasonable consistency. So, we have to hope for that tomorrow.

Q. You were a winner here in 2009. Has your lady come up with any good omens for tomorrow?

JB: No, but I think as a team we have a lot of confidence at the moment in what we're doing. I don't think we've too overconfident. I think we have to be very good with everything. The pace has to be there, the consistency, the pit stops need to be key, because these guys are very quick – Mercedes – and also the Renaults and Red Bulls. Their pace seems to be better in race trim than in qualifying, so it's going to be a busy afternoon for the strategy guys and the engineers and obviously for us out on circuit.

Q. Michael, a three time winner here in the past, and so close to the front row today. What would that have meant to you?

MS: Naturally, you would rather be further forward than I am, but quite honestly, from where we have come, I think it's quite an achievement to be third, so I have no regrets, just feeling good about it, particularly knowing that we have chosen a car that should work much better in the race. I would rather be compromised for qualifying; that's a situation which I hope will pay back tomorrow.

Q. And of course a home race for Petronas as well.

MS: Absolutely, we would like to do well for a very important partner and supporter of ours, because we definitely take a performance advantage from Petronas delivering as our partner and we are very keen to pay them back for that.

Q. In third place, you're obviously knocking on the door of the front row, knocking on the door of Vodafone McLaren Mercedes. Is that going to come soon?

MS: We'll take it as it comes, honestly. I think it's quite an achievement if you appreciate who is behind us; who would have thought that last year? That's the way I want to see it, not that we still have maybe to cover up a little bit in front. We are reasonably close, we are not miles away as we have been last year basically, so it's up to us now to have a good development programme, work methodically and focused and then let's see what the season brings us.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q. (Frederic Ferret – L'Equipe) To all of you, are you surprised that Red Bull is longer any good in qualifying?

LH: It's quite clear that last year they had a huge advantage with the blown diffuser and they don't have that now. Everyone's a lot more equal.

JB: Well, they're not bad, they're fourth and fifth on the grid so it's not terrible. We definitely had an advantage today, it was a lot smaller than in Melbourne and we did a very good job today. If they've got everything out of the car, yes, we're two tenths quicker than him. It's small, it's not the advantage that we've seen over the last couple of years. And the race is a very different thing, I think they proved that in the last race. Obviously Sebastian Page 4 of 4 got a bit lucky with the safety car but still, their pace was good in the race so we expect that again.

MS: It's a tight business and Red Bull, as Jenson mentioned, looks a bit stronger in race conditions rather than in qualifying conditions, because it's all very close together, it's not so surprising. It's surprising that there are quite a few other teams close around, like us. I wouldn't have expected to be that close, glad I am here as well as in Australia because those are two completely different tracks and that is obviously a good indication for the rest of the season.

Q. (Marco Degl'Innocenti – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Michael, you said you were surprised because some other teams are closer but one team is a little less close now. Are you surprised at Ferrari?

MS: I think we all expected – or we still can expect - Ferrari to be back up there on top. It's obvious that they're not at the moment. I guess they understand their reasons but whenever you have a reason, it will take time to fix and it's just a matter of giving them this time, but I have no doubt that sooner or later they will be back up there.

Q. (Michael Schmidt - Auto, Motor und Sport) Lewis and Jenson, Sebastian Vettel qualified on a hard tyre today, can that be an advantage?

JB: I don't think so. I think the tyres are pretty close in terms of lap time. They obviously see a positive in it, otherwise they wouldn't have done it, so somebody obviously thinks there is a reason for doing it, and thinks that it's an advantage. But you've still got to run the option tyre and who is to say that it's slower or the degradation's worse? It's difficult to know, really.

[Lineker]

McLaren team-mates Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton say they will have no qualms about racing each other this season if their team continues to be Formula 1's pacesetter.

The British duo will share the front row for a second race in succession in Malaysia, with Button having won in Australia, where Hamilton finished third.

Asked if he thought racing his polesitting team-mate into the first corner on Sunday would be tough, Button said he expected it to he something they would get used to if their current form continued.

"I don't think it's hard, we've been close together a lot over the last couple of years so you know, as long as we are both qualifying well this isn't going to happen in just this race and the last one," said Button.

"We are going to be fighting each other a lot. But that's what we've been doing for most of our lives and we're pretty good at it.

"We both obviously want to get into Turn 1 first, but it's not just about Turn 1 this race, it's a very long tough race. And it might not even be us, it might be Michael [schumacher] that gets the jump on us."

Hamilton was equally sanguine about the prospect of a tight season-long battle with Button, who got the jump on him at the start in Melbourne last week.

"It's not the first time I've been in this position," said Hamilton. "Obviously when I was racing with Fernando [Alonso] that was massively challenging and anytime you have a quick team-mate who is consistent both in qualifying and also in the race and is hungrier than ever, you have just got to be able to match it or do better.

"Jenson has done a fantastic job so far and I have just got to continue to push him as he will continue to push me. What will be, will be."

[Lineker]

Yes, no safety car start! Intermediates are definitely the way to go though.

The FIA has confirmed that it is in talks with Bernie Ecclestone and Formula 1 teams about a future Concorde Agreement, even though it was not mentioned in a statement issued by him over the Malaysian Grand Prix weekend.

Although there has been speculation over the past few weeks that Ecclestone may try and take more control over F1 from the FIA, the governing body has revealed that it remains party to the ongoing negotiations.

"All matters relating to a new agreement between the commercial rights holder and the teams are clearly still at a discussion stage and that the FIA is engaged with all the relevant parties as part of this discussion," said the FIA's head of F1 communications Matteo Bonciani.

"Of course, these matters have been under discussion for quite some time, and due to their complexity, it is best not to speculate until a clear direction has been agreed."

McLaren, which is one of seven teams that has agreed terms with Ecclestone for new commercial terms, said in Malaysia that it thinks it vital that the FIA remains a part of any new Concorde Agreement.

Team principal Martin Whitmarsh said: "We have to have a Concorde that involves the FIA, the teams competing and the commercial rights holder. Bernie's trying to put the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together. And I sense it's heading in the right direction."

Whitmarsh also made it clear that his team had not signed any final agreement with Ecclestone - and that there was still some way to go before matters were officially signed off.

"In Formula 1 there's always a chance that contractual matters become long and drawn out," he said. "Bernie hasn't said that the majority [of teams] have signed, he's said that he's reached an agreement with the majority, which must be seven or more, I guess.

"I don't know what anyone has signed. McLaren hasn't signed any document at the moment with Bernie and the commercial rights holder... [and] until something's signed, you haven't got an agreement.

"But I think we're in constructive discussions and I think others would say the same thing. I believe other teams are having those same sorts of discussions at the moment."

Martin Whitmarsh has defended the decision of FOTA members to agree unilaterally to commercial terms offered by Formula 1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone, even though he originally pushed hard for teams to stick together on the subject.

Before Ferrari and Red Bull quit the organisation at the end of last year, FOTA was determined that its members remained united to give themselves a better bargaining position against Ecclestone.

In an email that Whitmarsh sent to FOTA members at the end of 2010, a copy of which has been seen by AUTOSPORT, he wrote: "If the teams are able to reach an agreement on distribution we will undoubtedly, collectively be able to secure a more favourable overall total for the teams.

"Each team of course has its own views on what it might be able to negotiate individually and it may be that in particular circumstances individual teams may be able to secure favourable arrangements. There is little doubt however, that in so doing, such actions would limit the total distribution and in all probability reduce the individual distribution to each team."

That unified push became impossible once Ferrari and Red Bull set about negotiating their own terms, however, and FOTA chairman Whitmarsh explained in Malaysia that there was little point in his outfit holding out alone under such circumstances.

"The majority of the teams are finding an agreement and you can either stick your head in the sand or say let's find an agreement," explained Whitmarsh when asked about the reasons behind McLaren's decision to agree a deal.

"We're having constructive dialogue now, which we weren't having a few weeks ago."

Whitmarsh believes that Ecclestone elected to go public with the progress of his negotiations because he wanted to highlight how much progress was being made.

"I think Bernie wants to deliver a positive news message for F1," he said. "At the moment the fact that we're probably not in the middle of a war with each other is good news for Formula 1.

"There are positives clearly, we've had two great championships and I think we'll have another, and that entertainment counts for a lot. We have to try a lot to attack costs in Formula 1, but we still have a lot of work to do and I believe we still today have a number of teams here that don't have a viable long-term business model.

"We have to continue to work together to make sure we have sustainable business models for the majority of the teams in Formula 1."

McLaren has vowed not to interfere with any on-track battles between Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button - even though the pair look set to fight it out for another victory in Malaysia.

For the second race in succession, the British pair has taken the first two positions on the grid, and another strong result at Sepang would put McLaren in a strong position for championship glory.

But although there are always dangers of team-mates taking points off each other, or even colliding, McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh says he is happy to let Hamilton and Button deal with matters themselves.

"It's quite difficult to call off the fight between drivers," he explained. "We haven't done it traditionally. They both very strongly want to win this race, and they know it's a free race.

"On the pit wall over the last few years there have been a few moments when I've been getting lots of advice on what they should be doing. But generally we've allowed them to race and that's what people expect of us and what our drivers expect of the team."

Whitmarsh has also urged caution about the strong situation McLaren is in this year, and well aware that nothing is yet won in Malaysia.

"It's been an encouraging start, but we're only one race down. So let's not get ahead of ourselves.

"We've won one race and currently have not scored any points in Malaysia this year and we have 56 hard, hot, sticky laps ahead of us with all the challenge and the weather thrown in. We'd like to have a dry race, but this is Malaysia and things happen with the weather."

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner has urged his team to keep faith that its work will help it get back to the front in Formula 1, with rivals McLaren having seized the advantage at the start of the campaign.

McLaren delivered it second consecutive front row lock-out in Malaysia this weekend and, with Red Bull struggling to recapture the form that helped it secure back-to-back titles in the past two seasons, it is clear that the outfit has a big fight on its hands for the current campaign.

But rather than believe that a rethink is needed to get back on terms with McLaren, Horner is sure that Red Bull's current approach will be enough.

"We just have to keep working in the manner we always have," said Horner ahead of the second race of the season. "We're working methodically to add performance to the car.

"We are leaving some performance on the table at the moment. Both drivers feel that, but we have some good stuff in the pipeline. First of all let's see what happens in the race here."

Horner concedes that McLaren appears to be F1's pace setter right now, but he also believes that a more detailed analysis of everybody's performance is needed - because form seems to fluctuate quite dramatically.

"What is interesting is that at different stages different teams are looking hugely competitive," he said. "Kimi Raikkonen's lap in Q2 here was a big lap. Pastor Maldonado in P3 on the hard tyre looked tremendously quick. The Toro Rossos on Friday were fast...

"It's moving around a lot at the moment, but I think it's a healthy thing for F1. It stimulates a lot of interest. It's all about developing the car and moving it up through the season."

Horner said that the decision to put Sebastian Vettel on a different tyre strategy for the race, with the world champion qualifying on the hard tyres, was because the team knew it would not be able to overhaul McLaren on single lap pace.

"I think we felt it was unlikely we could outqualify the McLarens in a straight shootout, so we decided to try something different," he said. "I was surprised how close Mark [Webber] got.

"It was decided on his [Vettel's] in lap in Q3. It was something we decided. Strategically… he was keen to do it, so we went for it."

[hugobomb]

Safety car, absolutly hammering it down out there