Flavio Briatore’s was a familiar face in the Monaco paddock on Thursday.
Currently banned from returning to F1, a reporter for Spain’s AS newspaper took the opportunity to ask the flamboyant Italian when he might be seen again at the sport’s circuits.

“I’m here now, do you not see me?” he laughed.

“Seriously I miss the relationships with the people, that sort of thing, but I am in constant contact and that’s fine,” added Briatore.

“What I don’t miss is travelling to China.

“Formula one is a great sport, and I’d love to be a part of it because I’ve good friends here,” he is quoted by Britain’s Daily Mail.

“But at this moment I don’t have any plans to come back at all.”

Briatore has, however, been linked with Bernie Ecclestone as well as Ferrari, and the latter team is in a restructuring phase after parting company with Aldo Costa.

Fernando Alonso immediately had a surge of form in Monaco but Briatore insists there is no connection with Costa’s departure.

“A single person can not be expected to improve everything, but there was some kind of restructuring needed,” he said.

Briatore was also asked about the criticism Michael Schumacher has been receiving lately as his comeback continues to disappoint.

“For him it (returning) was a lifestyle choice and we can’t criticise that,” he said.

“This is what he chose and I hope he has fun — sometimes more, sometimes less, but we have to respect it.”

Fernando Alonso played down Ferrari’s apparent surge in form at Monaco.

The Spaniard was setting the pace in Thursday practice, mere days after technical director Aldo Costa was ousted following a dire performance for the 150 Italia car in Spain.

“You do not turn around the world in five days,” insisted Alonso.

“The truth is that the aerodynamics are less important on this track because we go slower, but the engine, suspension and mechanicals are equal if not superior to the others.

“That’s why we look good, but for pole and the race, I expect the Red Bulls (to be fast),” he is quoted by La Gazzetta dello Sport.

The tyre situation is also vastly different this weekend; the super-soft compound is being supplied for the first time while degradation was much lower on Thursday than has been seen elsewhere in 2011.

“It’s amazing,” said Pirelli’s Paul Hembery, according to Auto Motor und Sport. “We think a two-stop strategy will be possible.”

Runaway championship leader Sebastian Vettel, meanwhile, is expecting Ferrari to remain strong all weekend.

“They were very strong last year here as well,” the German is quoted by Speed Week. “It’s close.”

Boss Vijay Mallya has admitted Adrian Sutil could lose his Force India race seat due to the Shanghai nightclub incident of last month.
The Force India team owner revealed to reporters in Monaco that German driver Sutil would be in breach of contract if Renault co-owner Eric Lux, injured in the neck with a broken glass, successfully prosecutes for criminal assault.

But Mallya insists that, as yet, Lux has not taken the matter beyond a press release.

“We have not heard of any formal complaint being registered in any country for any sort of misconduct by Adrian,” he said. “So it would be highly inappropriate for us to presume that he did something.”

Mallya admitted, however, that Force India will take “appropriate action” if a complaint about Sutil is formally filed.

“You know, contracts do not supercede misconduct so unless I’m convinced that there is misconduct the contract shall prevail,” he said.

“I don’t know what happened there (in China), none of my people know what happened so there’s a due process of law.

“If and when he’s charged, I will assess the situation,” he added.

Sutil’s manager Manfred Zimmermann confirmed in Monaco that they are yet to hear anything official from Lux, his lawyers or any authorities.

“The situation is unchanged,” Zimmermann, who last addressed the media in Spain a week ago, is quoted by DPA news agency.

“We are still awaiting a response from the other side. So far we have not heard anything.”

It is commonly referred to as the ‘rest day’, but Friday in Monaco is not universally popular among the F1 drivers.
Unlike elsewhere on the calendar, the drivers practice on Thursday in the unique Principality before resuming the weekend with qualifying two days later.

“For me, I’d rather we practised on Friday and went straight into qualifying,” said Jenson Button.

His argument is that the gap day actually creates more work for the drivers, who usually spend time at the circuit anyway with engineers, media and sponsors.

“Usually we have events,” Michael Schumacher agreed.

Added Rubens Barrichello: “It’s kind of a boring Friday, really, because you can’t sleep because other people are driving on the track.”

“Basically in your mind,” explained Nick Heidfeld, “you’re just looking forward to the next day, you want to get into the car and get on with it.”

Said Jarno Trulli: “We spend one more day in such a chaotic situation, a day that most of the time is spent doing PR or media or anything like that.”

But not every driver rues ‘gap Friday’ in Monaco.

“For me, it’s a quick engineer meeting and then straight to the pool with friends and have a good time and relax,” said Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg.

Added Trulli: “I hope I can get a ride on my bike and then lay down by the pool but I’m sure I will have to come here and do some work.”

After first accusing Michael Schumacher, Lewis Hamilton has now pointed the finger at the Toro Rosso drivers for holding him up in Spain last weekend.

Hamilton had said Schumacher, a friend and countryman of Sebastian Vettel’s, blocked him during the rivals’ fight in Barcelona for victory.

Schumacher, however, denied favouring his friend over the similarly Mercedes-powered Hamilton, while a McLaren spokesman agreed “There is no conspiracy”.

But Hamilton has now accused Toro Rosso duo Jaime Alguersuari and Sebastien Buemi of letting fellow Red Bull stablemate Vettel easily pass last weekend before getting in his way.

“Definitely there was some of that – all of a sudden moving in my way – which caused a bigger gap,” the Briton alleged. “I hope the stewards are aware of it.”

According to the Telegraph, Red Bull boss Christian Horner answered “no way” when asked if Toro Rosso is playing tactical games on the senior team’s behalf.

A Toro Rosso spokesman added: “The suggestion we would have held up any other car to favour a Red Bull is preposterous, and would never have happened.”

Hamilton, meanwhile, said audaciously before Monaco that if he was sitting in a Red Bull this season, he would be quicker than Vettel.

And Bild newspaper published comments by Hamilton claiming he “works on a higher level” than Vettel, and insisting that “the only one who can beat him is me”.

“I guess Lewis said it all,” responded Vettel in an interview with F1′s official website. “If that is what he thinks, that’s fine with me.”

The possible rescheduling of the 2011 Bahrain grand prix was still uncertain after a meeting of the F1 teams on Thursday evening.

F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone, however, emerged with a positive message about the ability of the island Kingdom to host a safe race this season.

“They are all nice people there and I don’t think we’d have any problem,” said the 80-year-old.

He admitted there might be some opportunistic protests if the race goes ahead “But I don’t think from a safety point of view there is anything to worry about.”

June 3 is the final deadline for Ecclestone to propose the rescheduling of the race during the Barcelona meeting of the World Motor Sport Council.

It is believed the proposed solution of reshuffling India to December 4 has been ruled out by teams on the grounds of logistics, while bosses are also concerned about pushing out the calendar beyond its current late November finale.

“It’s difficult with all the working people,” Ecclestone acknowledged. “The problem is the date.”

FOTA chairman Martin Whitmarsh, whose McLaren team is part-owned by the Bahrain government, admitted that December “makes it a very long season”.

HRT owner Jose Ramon Carabante has vowed to solve the awkward situation whereby phantom ‘sponsors’ adorn the Spanish team’s 2011 car.

The F111 was launched with logos featuring enticements to potential backers, including ‘This could you be you’, ‘Your logo’ and ‘This is a cool spot’.

“We’re still alive, which in these times is no small feat,” Carabante told the financial news agency Bloomberg. “The car’s message is striking but we hope it disappears soon.”

59-year-old Carabante, who revealed his team receives $10 million annually from the F1 television rights, said he is in talks with two potential Spanish sponsors but he would not identify them.

He also said HRT’s staff is fully committed.

“When we need to work 10 hours instead of eight they do it,” he insisted. “If they have to work 24 hours a day, then they do that too.”

F1 drivers will be keeping an eye on the repaired track surface at Ste-Devote when they tackle the first corner at Monaco early on Thursday.
A major truck fire earlier this week burned the asphalt in the braking and turn-in zone for the famous corner, and circuit organisers have laid a new patch of track in record time.

“I walked the circuit and it looked ok. It looked like they did a good job,” said Nick Heidfeld.

Nico Rosberg thinks the only issue will be the seeping of oil because the asphalt is not fully cured.

“We have to see if it rains,” added Rubens Barrichello, “but I don’t think there’s any prediction of that.”

Paul di Resta, who witnessed the fire as he recorded a circuit guide with British broadcasters BBC, also admitted he is slightly concerned.

“With the heat we have now, with temperatures not going much below 20 degrees and with track temperature at 45 during the day, you have to wonder at how that’s going to cure,” said the Force India driver.

Red Bull has changed its procedures after claiming Ferrari spied prior to crucial pitstops in Spain last weekend.
Team boss Christian Horner backed away from Helmut Marko’s allegations of “espionage”, but he does agree that Ferrari was somehow able to emulate the timing of Red Bull’s pitstops.

“We’ve just changed our procedure to be less transparent,” said the Briton in Monaco.

“There were some comments (by Marko) about Ferrari spying on us which I think have been misinterpreted,” said Horner.

“I don’t know whether mechanics were putting their hands in their pockets at the wrong time or somebody was picking a tyre up,” he added, speculating about how Ferrari managed to know about the timing of the stops.

“I think that is probably (the) most likely (explanation), which is absolutely allowed.”

He acknowledged that “hacking” into a rival team’s radio system “would be very difficult”.

Said Ferrari’s Felipe Massa: “For sure, we cannot intercept the communications of other teams.”

Red Bull will decide whether to use KERS for the rest of the Monaco grand prix weekend after Thursday’s practice sessions.
The technology has caused problems for the otherwise dominant team so far in 2011, and at Monaco its influence is questionable due to the many tight corners and absence of significant straights.

The energy-recovery unit in Sebastian Vettel’s car functioned only intermittently en route to a narrow victory over Lewis Hamilton in Spain last weekend.

“I was playing around with the buttons and the brake distribution so it wasn’t an easy race and obviously McLaren and Lewis especially gave us a very, very hard time,” he said.

His teammate Mark Webber told Auto Motor und Sport in Monaco: “We will test with it on Thursday.”

German Vettel admitted that removing KERS from the RB7s after practice is an option.

“If we have some problems again, we need to consider if it makes more sense to concentrate fully on the driving,” he said.

December 4 has been ruled out as a potential date for a rescheduled 2011 season finale.
Bernie Ecclestone admitted last weekend that the inaugural Indian grand prix could be moved from October to December to make room for Bahrain to be slotted back into the calendar.

“Yes, we are having a look at it. Everything’s possible,” he said in Spain.

But according to Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport, December 4 for India has been deemed “impossible” from a logistical point of view.

That date is just days after Brazil’s Interlagos race, and according to the teams “it is logistically impossible to fly the F1 cargo within days from Sao Paulo to Delhi”.

December 11 is the next available Sunday, but that is a full two weeks after the currently scheduled finale in late November. In 2009 and 2010, the calendar concluded in early and mid-November.

According to Ross Brawn, the trend for ever-longer F1 calendars risks alienating the sport’s hard-working staff.

“We won’t keep the people,” he is quoted by the Telegraph. “They will get fed up. Their families will get fed up and it will all prove to be too much.

“We have to think about it very carefully because we are reaching a limit on what we can subject our people to,” added Brawn.

Bernie Ecclestone could be plotting his next move to retain control of his formula one circus.
The 80-year-old, who has bought and sold the commercial rights several times since revolutionising the sport decades ago, is rumoured to be considering buying back full control from F1′s current owners CVC.

The move follows Ecclestone’s rejection of the interest shown by News Corp and Ferrari shareholder Exor, after it emerged the other major teams might be interested in adding weight to that consortium.

Auto Motor und Sport reports that CVC’s managing partner Donald MacKenzie made a rare visit to the Barcelona paddock last weekend.

The report said he was in Spain amid rumours Ecclestone could be heading a new consortium intending to bid for F1.

Part of the consortium could be Paddy McNally, the recently retired head of trackside advertising company Allsport, who like Ecclestone is among the richest men in Britain.

Another powerful player potentially in the mix is Aabar, the Abu Dhabi state-owned investment vehicle that already owns part of Mercedes-Benz and its Brackley based F1 team.

Aabar stepped up its F1 involvement in recent days by sponsoring the Toro Rosso team through its Swiss bank Falcon Private.

“Is Aabar/Abu Dhabi looking to buy another team?” wonders Telegraph correspondent Tom Cary.

Gerhard Berger on Wednesday dismissed rumours he is set to return to formula one as a boss.
The great Austrian, who after retiring from formula one spent time as BMW’s joint motor sport director before co-owning the Toro Rosso team, has been linked with Ferrari as well as his friend Dietrich Mateschitz’s Red Bull outfit.

“I have no plans to move back to Austria — on the contrary,” he told the
Austrian newsmagazine NEWS, addressing the Red Bull rumours.

“I love Monaco, where I have my office,” he added.

It is believed the rumours were triggered by his separation with his long-term wife Ana.

“The truth is I have lived away from my wife for one and a half years,” he insisted.

He told the Kurier newspaper earlier this month that he does not particularly miss formula one, and – despite visiting the Barcelona paddock last weekend – he intended to leave town to avoid the chaos in Monaco.

“Although I have many friends who call me and we talk about formula one, I’ve not hungry any more,” he said.

“There are days I want to be back in the middle of it, and others where I just want to sit on a motorcycle or a kart and have fun.”

Michael Schumacher has denied blocking Lewis Hamilton in Spain last weekend to help his friend, countryman and championship leader Sebastian Vettel win the Barcelona race.

British media said McLaren’s Hamilton alleged the seven time world champion blocked him after letting Vettel, his regular teammate for the end-of-season Race of Champions event, easily pass while being lapped.

“I won’t speak to him (Schumacher) about it,” said Hamilton. “I don’t want to waste my time or my breath.”

Responded Schumacher: “That certainly must have been a misunderstanding. I try to get out of the way for anybody.

“It’s true that Sebastian and I are friends,” he told the German news agency SID, “but on the track, I’m not for or against anybody.”

Agreed a McLaren spokesman: “There is no conspiracy.”

If teams do not sign a new Concorde Agreement, they could be charged exorbitant entry fees by Bernie Ecclestone, the sport’s chief executive has warned.

Teams reportedly want their share of the F1 revenue pie to increase to 70 per cent after the current commercial contract expires next year, with Ferrari warning that a ‘breakaway’ series is possible if their demands are not met.

“I don’t even care if we don’t have a Concorde Agreement,” Ecclestone told the Daily Express.

“What we might do is run the championship and ask the teams for money to enter,” he added.

F1 teams already pay entry fees to the governing FIA, but Ecclestone argues that it is logical they should also pay fees to the owner of the commercial rights.

“If I want to enter a horse in the Derby, I pay a whacking great entry fee,” said the 80-year-old.

He hinted that teams who sign up now for 2013 and beyond will not have to pay the new fee.

“If you are late with an entry in the Derby,” said Ecclestone, continuing the horse-racing analogy, “you have to pay a chunk of money to enter the horse.

“If teams don’t want an agreement, we will put more money in our bank,” he warned.