A third team has decided to join Red Bull in Abu Dhabi for the young drivers’ test.

Due to the calendar congestion at the end of this season, and also to cut costs, most teams have opted to drop the Abu Dhabi option in favour of testing young drivers in July, at Silverstone.

But Red Bull, and its second team Toro Rosso, are sticking with the original November plan, amid criticism July is too early to be assessing young drivers.

McLaren is now following suit.

“Our plan at McLaren at the moment is to test in Abu Dhabi,” said the British team’s sporting director Sam Michael, who said another factor against Silverstone is that teams are only half-way through their engine mileage allocations in July.

“Engines is a significant factor,” the Australian explained.

“If you want to test at the end of the year, you have so many part-mileage engines that all have a little bit of mileage on them so you can effectively do it for free, in terms of your race engines,” said Michael.

“If you try and do that in the middle of the year, you can’t use your race engines so you have to prepare a special test engine.”

Nick Heidfeld on Monday said he is losing out on the straights compared with his teammate Kamui Kobayashi.

The pair are driving identical Sauber cars, but the speed traps usually show Japanese Kobayashi with better ultimate speed in a straight line.

Heidfeld, 33, joined the Swiss team after serving test driving roles with Mercedes and Pirelli this year, and he is currently on the lookout for a full-time job for 2011.

In his three races alongside rookie Kobayashi so far, the German has been out-qualified two times, and is yet to finish a race higher than the Japanese.

Heidfeld said on his official website nickheidfeld.com that his speed deficit compared with Kobayashi is due to his “engine situation”.

He took over ousted predecessor Pedro de la Rosa’s allocation of eight engines for 2010, after the Spaniard suffered several problems with his Ferrari units.

“Therefore the remaining engines have to cover a lot of extra miles,” said Heidfeld.

“This unfortunately leads to an engine power loss due to having ‘older’ engines, which is the reason for losing out on acceleration and top speeds,” he added.

Fernando Alonso’s engine situation is not as dire as it appears on paper, according to a German publication.

On the face of it, the championship leader is well into his allocation of eight engines for 2010, facing a ten-position grid penalty if he needs to use a ninth unit before the finale.

In fact, this weekend’s Brazilian race will be the last the Ferrari driver will have to tackle with a high-mileage engine, Auto Motor und Sport explained.

One of Alonso’s eight engines has very low mileage, but has been unable to be used because it was replaced after qualifying at the Bahrain season opener.

The rules prevented Ferrari from re-deploying this engine for anything other than free practice sessions, after it was replaced in Bahrain as a precaution due to the F60 almost overheating.

But because Abu Dhabi is the season finale, Alonso is allowed to use any engine in his allocation there, and the Bahrain qualifying unit is extremely low on mileage.

As well as improving the F10′s pace and fending off the World Council’s wrath next month, another headache for Ferrari could be in the engine department.

The next race, Monza, is among the toughest on engines, and at Spa-Francorchamps on Sunday, the newly-installed Ferrari engine in Pedro de la Rosa’s Sauber had to be replaced.

With seven races to go, the unscheduled change tipped the Spaniard over his allocation of eight engines for the season, resulting in a grid penalty.

And a cursory look at the allocations of F1′s other cars at Spa shows that while most drivers are now on their fifth new engine, Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa have used six.

“I see no reason to worry,” said Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali.

Paul di Resta will not be driving the Force India during Friday morning practice at Hockenheim.

The team announced that the decision to sit out its reserve driver in Germany is due to the extreme allocation of Bridgestone’s hardest and softest tyre compounds.

“It’s a shame but I completely understand the decision,” said the rookie Scot.

“It’s a decision that’s been taken relatively late but it’s better to err on the side of caution at such a crucial stage in the season,” added di Resta, 24.

Force India is currently sixth in the constructors’ world championship, 42 points behind Renault and just 16 points ahead of the improving Williams team.

“I’ll be back in the car in Hungary, replacing Tonio for free practice 1,” di Resta revealed.

Mark Webber has played down suggestions his allocation of chassis for the British grand prix demonstrates he is not treated equally with his teammate.

After his Barcelona and Monaco-winning car was damaged in his spectacular Valencia crash, the Australian will drive ‘Luscious Liz’ at Silverstone — the chassis humorously named by Sebastian Vettel at the beginning of the season.

But after sub-standard performances in May, Vettel was given a new car in Turkey.

Red Bull has now repaired Luscious Liz.

“There was nothing wrong with it. It’s fine. It’s all we’ve got anyway,” Webber told reporters at the team’s Milton Keynes factory on Wednesday.

Also fully fit for this weekend’s race is the Australian himself, despite some minor injuries caused by his backflip crash with Heikki Kovalainen’s Lotus.

“I had a bit of whiplash, and I bashed my right foot pretty hard on the top of the chassis,” he revealed.

“I knew straight away that I’d hit my big toe pretty hard (but) you could injure yourself more in your lounge room.”

Meanwhile, Webber made clear his opinion after Lotus technical boss blamed him for the Valencia crash.

When British reporter Byron Young, of the Mirror, virtually launched his car whilst driving the Red Bull simulator, Webber observed wryly: “You didn’t even have any shitboxes to avoid.”

Red Bull’s Christian Horner this weekend accused a “naughty” Ferrari of breaching the “spirit” of the agreement by testing its new exhaust layout at Fiorano last week.

Ferrari argues that the run was allowed because “filming and promotional” activities were taking place, and FOTA chairman Martin Whitmarsh on Saturday said the teams association will react.

“I didn’t think they (the rules) needed clarification, but for some they clearly do,” he said.

“It isn’t ambiguous in my English interpretation of it, but others obviously thought it was.

“That’s why we have to remove that ambiguity, and I think we are going to do the correct and honourable thing.”

Whitmarsh made clear that, like Ferrari, teams including Mercedes and Renault have also made “some arguable decisions” with regards to the rules about in-season testing.

“Once one does it then everybody feels ‘well, if that’s how you are going to interpret something, then I’ll push it to the limit’,” said the Briton.

He made clear that when McLaren tries its Red Bull-like exhaust layout next week, it will do so with one of its allocation of straightline test days.

Whitmarsh also thinks it is time F1 relaxed its approach to in-season testing.

“We had to take significant measures given the crisis involving the economy and formula one,” he said.

“I think now, as we can see signs of the economy improving, we can go back to testing.”

Bridgestone is taking a radical approach to next month’s German grand prix.

After extreme degradation and graining was credited for spicing up the recent Canadian grand prix, many paddock regulars suggested that it is the sport’s approach to tyres that that should be targeted for producing more exciting races.

F1′s sole tyre supplier announced on Monday that for the Hockenheim round late next month, the compounds on offer will be vastly different.

Both supplied compounds must be used at least once during grands prix, and in Germany, they will be the Montreal-spec ‘super soft’ as well as Bridgestone’s hardest tyre.

It is the first time there have been two hardness steps between the supplied compounds.

“The characteristics of the Hockenheim circuit allow us to bring the compounds from the extremes of our softness range,” confirmed head of development Hirohide Hamashima.

“This will give us very good data for evaluation and will be interesting for those who have called for a bigger difference between the allocated tyres.”

He explained that a similar approach was not possible for the subsequent Hungarian, Belgian, Italian and Singapore rounds.

“The Hungaroring requires a softer allocation as finding grip is always a target there.  Spa and Monza are high speed tests for cars and tyres, needing a harder allocation because of the heat durability requirements.

“Singapore is a high-speed street course where the softer allocation is suited,” said Hamashima.

Bridgestone said the compound allocation for the final five rounds of 2010 will be made later in the year.

(GMM)

Mark Webber on Friday played down the significance of his engine failure in afternoon practice.

Towards the end of the second session at Istanbul Park, the Australian’s RB6 stopped on track with a failed Renault V8.

But although Red Bull has suffered several reliability problems in 2010, the joint championship leader said the engine fitted to his car was high on mileage.

Drivers are allowed to use any of their allocation of eight engines on a Friday, with one engine only needing to be used consecutively on Saturday and Sunday.

“We were expecting it to be right on the edge,” said Webber.

(GMM)

Apr.22 (GMM) Ferrari may ask the FIA for permission to make changes to its formula one engine on the grounds of reliability.

Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport magazine on Thursday said the Italian team’s recent engine problems – including two failures for Fernando Alonso – have been identified.

Reportedly, the problem – which could cost Alonso grid places later this season if he runs through his allocation of eight engines – is with the pneumatic valves.

The report said too much air is escaping from the engine during the races, and because of the new regulations there is not enough time during the single pitstop to replenish the 2.4 litre V8s.

Auto Motor und Sport said that if Ferrari can prove to the FIA that the engine is suffering a general reliability flaw, it may be granted a temporary exemption from the ‘freeze’ on engine development.

The engines already used by Alonso and his teammate Felipe Massa, however, may not be altered.

Danica Patrick who finished 6th in the ARCA 200-mile race last Saturday, February 6^th,  will participate Saturday’s Camping World 300 NASCAR Nationwide Series race.

Beyond Daytona, Patrick’s 2010 campaign is confirmed starting with the Feb. 20 race at Auto Club Speedway and the Feb. 27 race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Following Vegas, Patrick will take a four-month hiatus to focus on her IndyCar Series responsibilities before returning to drive June 26 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway

ARCA stock cars are almost identical to Nationwide Series cars. Patrick’s ARCA start Saturday was the first race in a stock car for the Roscoe, Ill., driver, who in 2008 became the first woman to win an IndyCar event.

Her participation in the Camping World race was contingent on her performance on the high-banked Daytona track. Patrick veered off track after contact with a car driven by former Formula 1 driver Nelson Piquet, Jr., and slid sideways through the grass into Turn 1.

Her car sustained minor damage when it struck the 31-degree banking of the corner, but she rallied from the back of the pack and ran as high as 5th before the checkered flag waved.

JR Motorsports will still field two cars for the Nationwide Series season opener. Due to sponsorship reallocation for the upcoming season, Dale Earnhardt Jr. will drive the No. 88 Chevrolet in place of Kelly Bires in what is the first of two scheduled races for the JRM co-owner. Bires will return to the seat of the No. 88 Chevy the following week at Auto Club Speedway and could be called upon to drive the No. 7 Chevrolet at Daytona should Patrick not compete in that event.

“We want to give Danica the best opportunity to compete at Daytona, and that includes making sure she is 100 percent comfortable in that driver’s seat,” said Kelley Earnhardt, JRM co-owner and general manager.