Fernando Alonso on Thursday said he was calm amid reports more adventurous car designs could set the pace in 2011.

With its radical front-exiting exhausts, the new Renault driven by Robert Kubica set the fastest time of all as the first group test of the pre-season concluded.

“Futuristic projects are not always better than more conservative ones,” insisted Ferrari’s Alonso, according to La Stampa newspaper.

“I have my traditional Ferrari and I’m happy that way,” he added.

The Spaniard had joked earlier that the only thing he has noticed about Red Bull’s new car was its unchanged livery.

Now also asked about the newly Lotus-sponsored Renault, Alonso answered: “One (the Red Bull) has the same colours as before, the other (the Renault) is different.”

Christian Horner, boss of the reigning champion Red Bull team, told Sport Bild that he too is cautious about drawing conclusions.

“Everyone knows that the times are insignificant at the moment,” he insisted.

Of the other main contenders, McLaren’s 2011 car breaks cover for the first time only on Friday, while there have been concerns about the early speed of Mercedes’ new W02.

“What we have on the car now is a long way from what we are eventually going to have,” warned Nico Rosberg. “Right now, I’m not worried.”

And with moving wings, scarce allocations of tyres at the test, KERS and big fuel tanks all in the mix, his Mercedes teammate Michael Schumacher is also not panicking.

“There are so many things to take into account that I don’t care about the times,” said the German.

“Some teams could be close already to what they are going to have at the first race, while for others it is different,” Schumacher is quoted by L’Equipe.

“We will have a clearer picture of the situation in Bahrain for the final test,” he insisted.

Team boss Ross Brawn agrees: “It’s too early to judge, but there is nothing wrong with this car,” he is quoted by autohebdo.fr.

His counterpart at Ferrari, technical director Aldo Costa, also said the pecking order after just three days of testing is unclear.

“I’m not saying we’re stumbling around in the dark, but almost,” he told reporters on Thursday.

At the Valencia test this week, F1′s governing body gave teams more details about the operation of the mandatory moveable rear wings in 2011.

Drivers have been experimenting with the overtaking aid this week, with observers able to visibly see the rear wing open up on the straight to stall the downforce before it is clicked back into place at the braking zone.

It has been feared that if chasing drivers are allowed to press the rear wing button too often, overtaking will become commonplace and uninteresting.

So the FIA has told teams that if the chasing car is within a certain time of his rival – say, one second – he will be allowed to activate the wing only within a 600-metre zone at the end of a straight.

These zones will reportedly be marked out with white lines, and Guardian correspondent Richard Williams reported that the one second gap will be calculated at the corner before the designated straight.

“Further information, going into detail and the various scenarios still has to be clarified,” said Ferrari’s technical director Aldo Costa, adding that the wings for now will not be operated in the wet.

“Then it will be a case of seeing how things go in the race to understand how to proceed,” he added, suggesting that the rules may be tweaked depending on the outcome of the initial races.

The early feedback from the drivers is that, combined with preparing and triggering KERS and watching for the rear wing green light, their cockpit workload is increasingly unreasonable.

“It’s just not enjoyable — pressing buttons, changing gear, pressing and holding,” said Rubens Barrichello.

Of the newer generation, however, Fernando Alonso said he was beginning to get his head around the new functions after a few days in the car.

The old guard is unconvinced.

“It’s not motor racing. It’s calculation,” slammed Swiss ex-driver and German-language commentator Marc Surer.

Team Lotus’ technical boss Mike Gascoyne thinks the FIA is right to flag possible changes to the rear wing rules this year.

“I don’t think we’re going to get it right straight away,” he predicted, admitting his own concerns about the loss of racing’s purity.

“Some of the greatest drives were by people like Gilles Villeneuve, holding off the rest of the field. Are you going to say ‘Well, that’s never going to happen any more’?”

Another fear is that chasing drivers will call off a genuine overtaking attempt on another part of the circuit in order to simply press the button in the designated 600-metre zone.

But F1′s most successful driver, Michael Schumacher, backs the concept.

“It’s a good innovation,” he told Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.

“We know that in F1 we have a problem with cars following other ones. If there is no dramatic change in the ratio between aerodynamic and mechanical grip, you need something else. This might help,” added the German.

And Schumacher said he doubts pressing the button will make overtaking easy.

“There is no button for just driving past someone. It could be that we just close the gap and get in the slipstream to start a fight. Or it could be that it’s not quite enough.”

Ferrari’s Costa agrees: “Our calculations say that it (600m) is on the edge.”

The Italian marque’s F1 boss Paul Hembery has defended Pirelli after the first test of the 2011 pre-season at Valencia.

Several drivers have complained about the consistency but particularly the poor durability of the tyres supplied to teams at the first of four tests before the 2011 season opener.

Hembery said as the test began that the 2011 compounds are now in a “pretty definitive” specification for the first races.

But the subsequent feedback, at best, was mixed.

“Of the compounds available, some were more consistent than others,” Michael Schumacher told Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.

“I had some awkward moments on the track when I was on tyres that I had not been on for long. It was like driving on ice,” admitted the seven time world champion.

Schumacher, who struggled with departed Bridgestone’s tyres last year, hopes Pirelli is still willing to make changes.

“I think they are still in the testing phase and that they will deal with the situation well,” he said.

Hembery responded to the driver feedback of this week by suggesting that the ambient conditions at Valencia were not ideal.

“The tyres don’t like it too cold,” he is quoted by Turun Sanomat, confirming that Pirelli will make some tweaks ahead of the next tests.

“Another thing we have to remember that all tyres wear out, which is something some people seem to have forgotten in the last few days,” he insisted.

Yet another consideration is that, in the interests of the spectacle, Pirelli was specifically asked by Bernie Ecclestone to produce aggressive tyres for 2011 that force multiple pitstops.

“Some teams here have had a new car, some last year’s car. It is very early to draw conclusions,” Hembery said.

He added: “You can’t make decisions based on one set of comments or data or because someone wants something different, you need to have a general understanding.”

Felipe Massa on Thursday got his 2011 campaign off to a fiery start.
With only a chilly shakedown at Fiorano behind him, the Brazilian was a few laps into his proper test debut in the new F150 at Valencia when oil began to leak onto the exhausts.

Massa stopped at the side of the track but a fire broke out.

“It is unlikely that the car will be back on track much before 3 in the afternoon,” said the Italian team after assessing the damage.

Before completing the first two of the three test days in Spain, Fernando Alonso had been working on adjusting the F150′s setup to the difficult new Pirelli tyres.

“Felipe must now continue this work,” the Spaniard had stridently told his country’s reporters at Valencia late on Wednesday.

Ross Brawn, and an official spokesman for the German marque, have refused to confirm reports that Mercedes is taking over 100 per cent of the Brackley based F1 team.

It was reported on Wednesday that team boss Brawn and his partners had agreed to sell the remaining 24.9 per cent of Mercedes GP to the carmaker and its Abu Dhabi shareholder AABAR.

A Mercedes spokesman did not deny the news but insisted that “We will only inform at a given time when there are facts”.

And Brawn, who will reportedly remain team boss while the cars will continue to be built in the UK, told F1′s official website that the reports were “just speculation”.

“That’s not something I am going to comment on,” he added.

Nico Hulkenberg has confirmed reports that he will be driving the new Force India on the Friday mornings of grands prix all season.
It had been suggested that the former Williams driver’s new long-term deal included the Friday work, but until now there had been no confirmation.

“I’m still in F1,” said the 23-year-old German at Valencia, where he drove his new Silverstone based employer’s 2010 car.

“I will be driving on every Friday in free practice so the good thing is that I can still show what I can do,” added Hulkenberg.

“I have the make the best of it. I have the year to convince the guys at Force India,” he is quoted by the SID news agency.

Replaced at Williams by the well-funded Pastor Maldonado, Hulkenberg has been visibly downcast at Valencia this week.

“It hurt a lot and it’s no secret that I am very disappointed,” he admitted.

“But I’ve had some weeks to get over it. I am trying to put it behind me and look positively into the future.”

A time for “pole position”. In Sepang Dani Pedrosa , who in front of everyone in a Grand Prix in Malaysia had started in 2007-2008, the protagonist returns to MotoGP standing out just 2’00 “770 in the second day of testing. The engine of evolution “has enabled him to make a difference, pulling 6 / 10 of his first follower, the new team-mate Casey Stoner, really doing in the selection list of the times.

For the rider in MotoGP since 2006 with Repsol Honda’s possible to still improve for tomorrow, even if the time is right to be satisfied and confident the new RC212V was born well and seems almost impregnable.

” This morning, after only 4 laps I was able to do this time , “says Dani Pedrosa. ” I was not trying time, but the weather, with some fresh, allowed me to push, do not think I’ve ever shot so strong on this track.

Traveling to the limit you can understand at what point is the bike and the goodness of the changes made, and this can be met. Today I tried the new engine, chassis and shock absorber settings: tomorrow will compare the two bikes available, the goal is to get a choice of chassis and engine in preparation for upcoming tests on the calendar . “

Whether a genuine hint about his future or a mischievous reference to recent speculation, Sebastian Vettel caught the attention of Italian reporters with a single comment on Wednesday.
After the reigning world champion answered a question asked by Italian television RAI at the Valencia test, the reporter urged the 23-year-old to repeat his answer in Italy’s native tongue.

“I’ll speak Italian when I go to Ferrari,” the Red Bull driver quipped.

Vettel had earlier met at the Spanish circuit with the energy drink Red Bull’s boss and owner Dietrich Mateschitz.

The war of words between championship contenders Red Bull and Ferrari has continued this week.
The teams’ new cars have been trading places at the top of the timesheets at the Valencia test, following on from the recent exchange of barbs in the media.

That sparring continued on Wednesday, when the boss of an Italian shoe brand said he decided to sponsor Red Bull rather than Ferrari in 2011.

“We decided to go with a young team that wins,” Geox’s Mario Moretti Polegato is quoted as saying in La Stampa newspaper.

That quote caught the attention of Ferrari’s press department, which occasionally publishes on the internet a stinging column under the ‘Horse Whisperer’ guise.

The columnist revealed that when he heard about Red Bull’s new Geox deal, he recalled “persistent offers” to Ferrari in 2010 “backed up with significant amounts of cash made on numerous occasions by the very same Moretti Polegato”.

The column said Ferrari turned down the deal because of its existing footwear deal with Puma.

“Ferrari deemed the (Geox) proposal to be incompatible with a brand of this level: could this be why Moretti Polegato has fallen back on the energy drink manufacturer’s company?” wrote the unnamed columnist.

Pedro de la Rosa looks likely to remain Pirelli’s primary test driver this year.
The Spaniard admitted this week that, contrary to reports, a return to McLaren as reserve driver is unlikely, having failed to compile enough sponsorship to return to the grid with HRT.

It was also reported that his back-up plan for 2011 was to stay with F1′s new tyre supplier Pirelli, even though the Italian marque has not decided how to replace the ageing 2009 Toyota.

“Yes,” answered Pirelli’s Paul Hembery when asked at Valencia if de la Rosa, 39, is staying on board for 2011.

“(He will stay) unless he gets a drive somewhere else in F1, which is not looking likely at the moment.

“He is a great test driver, we’re delighted with what he’s been doing with us,” added Hembery.

Hembery also denied that Pirelli has already decided to visibly distinguish the different compounds this year by using different coloured branding on the sidewalls.

“That is still under discussion with the marketing people,” he insisted.

Meanwhile, contrary to reports that Karun Chandhok has definitely signed to be a reserve driver with Team Lotus this year, the Indian clarified that he has in fact not yet reached a deal.

The former HRT driver was at Valencia wearing a Lotus jacket on Wednesday, but boss Tony Fernandes said he was just a “guest” of the team.

Lewis Hamilton had a sharp-eyed return to formula one on Wednesday after a long winter break.
The McLaren driver was in action at the Valencia test at the wheel of the team’s 2010 car, with the MP4-26 only to be unveiled in Berlin on Friday.

As well as adapting to the new Pirelli tyres, Briton Hamilton admitted to casting an eye over his rivals’ new cars at the Ricardo Tormo track.

“Our car looks different to others and I hope it reflects on its performance,” he is quoted by BBC Sport. “Ferrari and Red Bull look more like an evolution of last year’s car.”

Another change for the 2008 world champion this year is that his father will be back in the grand prix paddocks.

Hamilton, 26, dumped his dad as manager last year but Anthony Hamilton will this season be in the Force India garage with his new charge Paul di Resta.

“He (Anthony) has done a fantastic job to get Paul in and clearly he’s very gifted at getting drivers to formula one,” admitted Lewis.

At the same time, he said he is close to appointing a new manager to work on his image and brand, particularly in new markets like the US.

“Hopefully in the next couple of weeks I’ll be able to let you know what’s going on,” Hamilton told reporters.

It is believed that 19 Entertainment, IMG and Creative Artists Agency are the frontrunners to represent Hamilton.

Williams’ stock market floatation is close to being realised, according to an authoritative newspaper.
The British team announced recently that the option is being examined because it is the “best way to secure” its future.

A report in the Wall Street Journal this week said up to 28 per cent of the Oxfordshire based team will be floated on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange later this month.

Williams’ new car for 2011, the FW33, features radically low rear packaging and a small gearbox, but it has failed to impress the Valencia test timesheets so far.

And the car’s plain interim livery, and the fact that the race trucks and team uniforms are bare, have also raised concerns about Williams’ financial health.

“We have a full budget for 2011,” insisted technical director Sam Michael.

“The mechanics are wearing a basic uniform because we aren’t launching the race livery until the end of February and don’t want to ruin the surprise!” he said.

Helmut Marko has scoffed at claims Red Bull is now formula one’s biggest spender.
Some reports have said the energy drink-owned team, who won the championships in 2010 and are tipped to once again set the pace in 2011, spent EUR 300 million on F1 last year.

“Those figures are completely wrong; the truth is less than half of that,” team consultant Dr Marko told Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.

The Austrian implied that the false numbers were released maliciously.

“Either someone spread these false figures deliberately, or he cannot read a balance sheet,” said Marko.

He said Red Bull Racing actually ranks as the fourth-highest spender in pitlane, with Auto Motor und Sport claiming the team’s true budget is closer to EUR 160m.

There is some bad feeling in the paddock at present, as Red Bull is accused of breaking the Resource Restriction Agreement last year.

With the disagreement not yet resolved, the team is refusing to agree to a new agreement for 2011.

“We are not opposed to saving, it’s just that it can’t only benefit the teams that are not good enough by only restricting the aerodynamics.

“We say yes to savings, if the engine areas are affected in the same way,” insisted Marko.

He said Red Bull is also opposed to financial penalties being paid to the other teams to “supplement their budgets”, arguing that those found guilty of breaking the agreement should instead pay fines “for the promotion of the sport, or to charity”.

Fernando Alonso has reacted cautiously to those predicting a stellar season for him in 2011.
Bernie Ecclestone and Mark Webber are reported to have tipped the Spaniard for title contention with the new F150 Ferrari, which was three tenths faster than reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel’s new Red Bull at the Valencia test on Wednesday.

“I have nothing to say about it,” Alonso told Spanish reporters when asked about the championship predictions.

“Expectations are naturally high but it’s the same for all the drivers with the big teams,” he said.

“What gives you some peace of mind is that you know that a bad year at Ferrari or McLaren will have you fifth, while at some other teams you might not be in Q3,” added Alonso.

“So that’s not something we have to worry about.

“I like the car but it’s too early to know if it’s good enough to win,” he said.

Alonso also tempered his earlier criticism of the Pirelli tyres, whilst many drivers are speaking about high degradation, inconsistency and handling problems.

“It is true that they degrade but it was worse on the first day,” said Alonso.

“We have made some setup changes that have helped us, while others have improved maybe less.

“The truth is that adapting the car to the tyres is one of the main challenges.”

He also dismissed reports that Renault’s new exhausts which exit near the sidepods is set to be the must-have innovation of 2011.

“There are new things with each team; Renault have that and the others have something else,” Alonso answered coyly.

Dr Helmut Marko is defiantly confident after the first two test days in the life of Red Bull’s 2011 car.
Wearing the number 1 on the nose for world champion Sebastian Vettel, the RB7 has been impressive so far at the Ricardo Tormo track near Valencia, Spain.

Wednesday’s action was watched on by the team’s owner Dietrich Mateschitz, but it was his right-hand man Marko who gushed the loudest.

“If a race were held now, we would lap everybody,” the Austrian told Bild newspaper. “How our car goes through the corners is amazing.”

Even the usually-reserved Mateschitz sounded very confident.

“This will be our third strong year in a row,” the billionaire energy drinks magnate predicted.

Said 23-year-old driver Vettel: “I cannot complain as I’m satisfied so far, but all the cars will still change considerably. Whether we’re ahead or not is hard to say.”

Mercedes’ Norbert Haug said: “I don’t think they’re looking too bad.”

And seven time world champion Michael Schumacher jokingly agreed. “The new Red Bull?” said the German. “Looks good. The colour, I mean …”