It’s “too soon” to say Sebastian Vettel has run away with the 2011 title. That is the claim of Ferrari’s test driver Marc Gene, despite Fernando Alonso admitting at Valencia that his 99 point deficit to the leading Red Bull is now too big to bridge. “What should you do when the gap is 99 points? When it no longer depends on you, there is no choice but to go race by race,” the Spaniard is quoted by El Mundo newspaper. “The truth is that we (Ferrari) are fighting face-to-face and that’s good news. Alonso was on the pace for the whole (Valencia) race and they (Red Bull) had to push hard. “I did wonder how much was due to the street circuit so I think at Silverstone we will see things clearer. “Will Vettel be champion? That kind of talk is premature. He is three race wins ahead of Button so it’s clear that his dominance is overwhelming. “At other times they’ve experienced difficult situations. I don’t think Ferrari will give up. We must continue to develop. They are not champions yet, and to see them as such would be a mistake,” added Gene.

Michael Schumacher’s manager insists the seven time world champion is staying at Mercedes next year.

After a strong race in Canada, speculation about the 42-year-old’s future returned when he finished a lowly seventeenth last Sunday at Valencia.

At the Spanish port venue, team boss Ross Brawn was quoted as suggesting Schumacher’s contract actually covers only 2010 and 2011, with the famous German in control of a one-year ‘option’ for 2012.

But Schumacher’s manager Sabine Kehm told DPA that the subsequent media reports were wrong.

“The interpretation that has been applied is wrong,” she said.

“Michael’s contract for 2012 is secure — he has a three-year contract.”

Mercedes’ motor racing vice-president Norbert Haug agreed: “Michael has said it himself that he has signed a three-year contract with Mercedes GP, and I acknowledge that.”

Mark Webber has been linked with a shock move to Renault.

Red Bull insists it is “very happy” with the Australian driver, but his contract expires this year and Lewis Hamilton has been flirting with a switch from McLaren.

Renault team boss Eric Boullier admits he has spoken with Webber, 34, about moving to Renault, whose undisputed number one driver Robert Kubica is currently recovering from horror injuries sustained in a February rally crash.

“I really like Mark and have known him for a long time,” the Frenchman said in Valencia.

“We have discussed it from time to time but we have never pushed him to ask what he wants to do because that decision is up to him.”

Webber is managed by Flavio Briatore, Renault’s former long-time team boss.

Sergio Perez felt dizzy on Friday after returning to the wheel of his Sauber.
The Mexican rookie pulled out of the recent Canadian grand prix weekend when he felt dizzy, two weeks after his heavy qualifying crash in Monaco.

But his Swiss employer said on Friday that Perez, 21, will contest the rest of the event on the streets of Valencia.

“At the beginning of the first session I still felt dizzy,” Perez told the Spanish news agency EFE, “but as it went on I felt better and in the end I felt good.

“Tomorrow (Saturday) I hope to be 100 per cent. I think it’s a normal situation as the body gets slowly used to it again. The second session was much better,” he explained.

Perez said he had trained and prepared hard for his Valencia comeback, almost a month after his hospitalisation in Monaco.

“I think we have succeeded,” he added.

Pirelli has many ideas about how to maximise its involvement in F1 as the sport’s official tyre supplier.
That is the claim of the Italian marque’s British motor sport director Paul Hembery, who spoke to Auto Motor und Sport at Valencia, the eighth race since Pirelli took over from the now departed Bridgestone.

He said the first idea is about the supply of wet-weather tyres.

“If the first two practice sessions are wet, then we need an additional set of intermediates for the rest of the weekend. We have agreed that this should come in to the regulations for next year,” said Hembery.

As for the basic construction and compounds, he said Pirelli is fairly happy even though the target is “two to three pitstops per car” rather than four as has been seen on occasion this season.

“We wanted to wait for the mid season. After Silverstone we will get together and show the teams a few things,” he said.

Hembery said the plan is then to make significantly faster tyres in 2013.

“The aerodynamics will be reduced so we want to give the teams a little boost on the laptime,” he revealed.

“There are many things. Maybe we will increase the number of different tyres; maybe we’ll bring three compounds to a race, maybe with a total of six to choose from.

“I don’t know yet. There are lots of ideas,” said Hembery.

Another idea is for a “super sticky” qualifying tyre that lasts for only one lap.

“In the end for something like that the decision is with the teams. They might say no,” he explained.

A spokesman has denied the wind is falling from the sails of the 2012 US grand prix.
The Texas official who approved the state funding for the Circuit of the Americas project is being sued, and the Austin City Council on Thursday delayed a vote on the receipt of the money.

Now, the local Austin American Statesman newspaper reports that construction efforts at the site of the formula one circuit have “slowed noticeably”.

And investor Bobby Epstein warned: “If things get delayed any more, job layoffs are a certainty and construction spending will stop.”

But project spokesman Jeff Hahn moved to play down those kinds of fears, explaining that the Circuit of the Americas is quieter at present simply because the excavation phase of the construction has wound down.

Charlie Whiting on Friday denied the FIA’s mid-season clampdown on blown exhausts is a political move aimed at slowing down the dominant Red Bulls.
“I am aware of some stories being written but to be frank with you I know it is not a political one,” the governing body’s technical delegate told reporters at Valencia.

Red Bull team figures including Adrian Newey, Christian Horner and the drivers of the RB7 have been pointing out that earlier innovations, like the F-duct and double diffusers, were banned only at the end of a season.

“I know it is a purely technical intervention from our side and I feel perfectly comfortable with that,” insisted Whiting.

A distinction between the F-ducts and double diffusers and the blown exhaust issue is that while the FIA deemed the former as clever rules interpretations, it believes using the engine as an aerodynamic aid is illegal.

“What we are doing is stopping people breaking the existing rules,” said Whiting. “We are not changing the rules; they’re staying the same.”

And he clarified that changing engine maps between qualifying and the race has not been completely banned.

“They (the drivers) are allowed to change things that they can do with a switch, on the steering wheel for example,” he said, explaining that connecting laptops to the cars to change the settings is now forbidden.

Mercedes team boss Ross Brawn backed Whiting’s action and said it has probably prevented some teams from lodging official protests.

“And that (protests) wouldn’t be very good for formula one,” said the Briton. “The stewards would probably find it quite a difficult argument to resolve and it would probably end up in the appeal courts and that’s no good.”

Michael Schumacher on Friday paid tribute to Juan Manuel Fangio, the Argentine legend whose record of five world championships he matched and then broke earlier this decade. Friday, the scene of practice for this weekend’s European grand prix, was the 100th anniversary of the late and great Fangio’s birth. Speaking at Valencia, seven time world champion Schumacher recalled the early 90s, when he actually met Fangio at a DTM race a few years before he died. “I was struck by how youthful he still looked, even though he was already into his eighties,” the 42-year-old told Germany’s motorsport-magazin.com. “From his physical coordination and the alertness of his eyes, you could see what a great racing driver he must have been.” Of Fangio’s 51 grands prix, Fangio started from the front row on 48 occasions and won 24 times. He died aged 84 in 1995.

Nico Rosberg quickly backtracked on Friday after insulting women sports stars as well as disabled athletes.
The Mercedes driver had been asked about the FIFA Women’s World Cup soccer tournament, which kicks off in Germany on Sunday.

When asked if he watches women’s football as well as men’s, he answered: “Yes, it’s like the Paralympics — people who are not quite as good but overall it’s still exciting.”

Later realising his comments had been interpreted as offensive, the German said “the level (of premier women’s soccer) is really high. I am going to watch it and I think the Germans are the favourites.”

At least Rosberg, 25, knew the World Cup is about to kick off. According to Abendblatt newspaper, both Sebastian Vettel and Sergio Perez drew a blank when also asked in Valencia about the tournament.

“Women’s World Cup — is there such a thing?” Mexican rookie Perez enquired.

Sebastian Vettel has urged Red Bull to finally solve its KERS glitches.

The otherwise dominant RB7 has been slowed multiple times in 2011 as the team grapples with a custom KERS system that is smaller and less powerful than usual in order to maximise the car’s aerodynamic packaging.

And with the blown exhaust clampdown now taking effect, while McLaren has come closer to the Red Bull’s pace culminating in Vettel’s last-lap loss to Jenson Button in Canada, the championship leader has told his team to finally get on top of KERS.

“The competition has caught up, as we have seen again,” said the German on Friday, when Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso was quickest in Valencia practice.

“The last races have all been close. The time has come where I need the extra power (from KERS),” Vettel is quoted by Bild-Zeitung.

Austria’s laola1.at quotes him as adding: “There is no guarantee that it (KERS) will work here.”

Button, who won in Canada two weeks ago when Vettel made a mistake on the final lap, thinks the 23-year-old is showing signs of cracking under pressure.

“That last race will have hurt him mentally. Hopefully that will play on his mind and give us a chance this race,” said the Briton.

“It makes me smile because it shows what can happen if we put them under pressure.”

It is believed Sebastian Vettel on Friday morning was testing for the blown exhaust clampdown, set to take effect in two weeks at Silverstone.
The runaway championship leader, driving the apparently identical Red Bull, was a huge 2.5 seconds slower than his teammate Mark Webber in the first session at Valencia.

“There is a fairly simple explanation,” team boss Christian Horner told the German broadcaster Sky.

“We were running different programmes on the cars. We tried several different parts and got some good information.

“We are no longer allowed to test during the season so we only have a chance on Friday to try some things, particularly the first session,” added Horner.

He would not specifically confirm that the parts tested by Vettel in P1 were related to the Silverstone spec exhaust and diffuser, admitting it is “impossible” to know what impact the FIA’s clampdown will have.

“We know what benefit we get but not what benefits the others get. In reality the same teams will probably be at the front, but until Silverstone it’s not possible to predict,” added Horner.

Mike Gascoyne has vowed to end his career with Team Lotus.

The 48-year-old was once the highest paid engineer in formula one, earning reportedly $8 million at Toyota in 2005.

The Briton has also worked with top teams McLaren and Renault, his aggressive management style earning him the nickname ‘the rottweiler’.

But he has curiously never been part of a world championship campaign, instead earning the reputation of a figure who can turn around a struggling team’s flagging fortunes.

“My career has been built on the ‘go-to guy’ when you’re eighth, ninth, tenth and you want to become third,” he told the New York Times.

Gascoyne speculated that he has never won a title “because I have always been head-hunted”.

“I always used to describe it as the border town that gets the sheriff to come in and clean out the outlaws. And once they have got rid of all the outlaws you don’t need him anymore and he moves on to the next sort of lawless town, and that has sort of been my career,” he admitted.

But he insists that Team Lotus, the best of the new 2010 teams owned and headed by Malaysian entrepreneur Tony Fernandes, is different.

“I think now there is much more of a sense of belonging and it being my team. I certainly will retire at this team.

“Now it is a sense of belonging and wanting to take the team all the way,” said Gascoyne. “I think for me it will be a tremendous sense of satisfaction to have taken the team from one bloke sitting on his own in an office to the winner’s podium.”

Timo Glock will race on at Valencia this weekend despite nursing a deep cut on his left index finger.
Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport reports that the Virgin driver cut himself whilst slicing break earlier this week.

“I did it on Tuesday. It’s a pretty deep cut — I thought I had cut it (the finger) off,” he laughed.

“I have to use the steering wheel slightly differently because I can’t really bend it, and I will use the gear shift paddle with the three lower fingers.”

The 29-year-old admitted Virgin has bigger problems than his sore finger.

“Hispania have taken a giant step,” said Glock in Valencia. “I’m afraid that they will be in front of us here.”

A dark cloud of uncertainty has gathered above preparations for the 2012 US grand prix in Austin. Shortly after it emerged that the Texas comptroller is being sued by a group of taxpayers over the Circuit of the Americas’ state support, the Austin City Council met on Thursday to vote on the release of the funding. But local news outlets KXAN, KVUE, YNN and the American Statesman report that the vote has been postponed for a week, by which time a new council member who is opposed to the F1 project may be able to cast the deciding vote. “We felt we had support going into this meeting,” said the F1 circuit’s president Steve Sexton. “We thought we would get the necessary approval today to move forward, but any support is welcomed and encouraged. “For a $300 million economic project, we would hope to gain support certainly next Wednesday and move on,” he added. The F1 project’s lawyer Richard Suttle admitted he is also nervous. “I can’t say it any more emphatically that we are now nervous from a daily basis. If you push it, it gives us great trepidation on this thing pulling off,” he said. Suttle added during the meeting that a delay is “a major concern”, while Austin mayor Lee Leffingwell said it could “kill the project”.

F1 engine supplier Renault is happy with the new engine rules for 2014, despite recently threatening to quit if four-cylinder rules did not debut a year earlier than that.
With Bernie Ecclestone and all of F1′s other engine makers opposed to Jean Todt’s original plan, the F1 Commission this week agreed on a turbo V6 formula.

But even Renault is happy with the compromise, customer Lotus-Renault GP’s team boss Boullier is quoted by autohebdo.fr.

“Everybody is willing to have the V6 as the base for 2014, including Renault, who support the project,” said the Frenchman. “But there is still a lot to do to finalise the project.”

Boullier admits he likes the idea of a V6 much more than Todt’s now-scrapped inline four.

“V6 is more interesting than four cylinder from a technological point of view. Also for the image of formula one, which has to be a showcase of technology,” he added.

Meanwhile, it might be said that Mercedes-Benz is not keen on the idea of new engine rules, because its current V8 is regarded as the very best on the grid.

Mercedes GP’s Michael Schumacher insists: “I don’t think it makes a big difference whether it’s six, four, eight or ten cylinders. The rules are the same for everyone,” he told Auto Motor und Sport.

As for the possible erosion of Mercedes’ advantage, the German added: “Whoever builds the best engine now can build the best engine in the future.

“I can see Mercedes out the front again, and actually it could even mean a step forward,” said the seven time world champion.