Red Bull is lamenting the limited role that can be played in 2012 by F1′s aerodynamic genius Adrian Newey.

For the past few years, the energy drink owned team has enjoyed its dominance largely because of the airflow magic wrought by Briton Newey.

But in 2012, with reigning back to back world champion Sebastian Vettel just one of the five different winners so far, Pirelli rubber is king.

“I doubt Williams really know why they were so strong,” team boss Christian Horner, referring to Pastor Maldonado’s shock Barcelona pole and win last weekend, is quoted by Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.

Horner insisted that, rather than the winner being the team with the best overall package at each race, success this season is about “understanding the characteristics of the tyre and the window in which they work”.

“It’s not that the midfield teams have made a quantum leap aerodynamically from last year to this year,” Horner insisted. “But from a performance point of view, this is what they have done.”

The logical conclusion is that aerodynamic cleverness has taken a back seat.

So will Red Bull knock a million or two off Newey’s huge annual retainer?

Horner laughed. “Adrian is not just an aerodynamicist, and aerodynamics are still important anyway. But now it’s about harmonising everything, and these tyres are simply remarkably complex.

“Two races ago Nico Rosberg dominated, but in Spain he was almost lapped. It is very difficult to predict what’s going to happen next — a nightmare for the bookmakers,” he smiled. “A lottery.”

The situation has split F1 into two camps: those who love it, and those who do not.

“It has become like a GP2 championship,” Maldonado, the junior category’s 2010 champion, is quoted by The National newspaper.

“The drivers can make the difference and the teams can still work on the strategy and the car.”

The bizarre situation has left everyone scratching their heads, like Jenson Button.

He can scarcely believe that what looked a championship car – his 2012 McLaren – was beaten in Spain by Shanghai winner Nico Rosberg, who was almost lapped.

“The Red Bulls did a better job at the weekend than us in terms of points, but still they weren’t quick when you compare them to Williams, Sauber, Lotus and Ferrari,” he told PA Sport.

“Five different teams winning five different races, we really don’t know what’s going on, and I think that’s the same up and down the pitlane.”

Last Sunday proved that Pastor Maldonado is no mere ‘pay driver’.

“If he was a fool, he would not be with us, no matter how much money he brings,” Sir Frank Williams is quoted by Brazil’s Globo Esporte.

Venezuelan Maldonado, whose links to the state owned oil company PDVSA and president Hugo Chavez controversially deliver many millions to Williams’ Oxfordshire based team, became F1′s fifth different winner of 2012 last weekend in Spain.

It has helped him to shake off the ‘pay driver’ insult, Williams insisting he is now a potential world champion instead.

“Without a doubt. He is very fast and makes no mistakes,” the newly 70-year-old Briton said.

Williams does, however, acknowledge that Maldonado’s money was a key factor in the decision to sign him.

“Yes, it was to some extent,” he said. “I don’t deny that. But he’s also a real driver. He fully deserves to be on the team, with or without money.

“The truth is that if you don’t have money, you don’t get to be in formula one,” added Williams.

Team shareholder Toto Wolff agrees: “If you want to race in GP2, you need a few million pounds. So, the drivers need not only to be fast and talented, but able to attract the sponsors.

“So let’s forget this thing about ‘pay drivers’,” he insisted.

Triple world champion Nelson Piquet, however, has some lingering doubts.

He ran Maldonado in his own GP2 team some years ago, and this week recalled a driver who was often “too aggressive” and made too many mistakes.

“We’re not talking about a guy who shone in his youth, like Nico Rosberg,” said the famous Brazilian, “or someone like Lewis Hamilton, who always had everything he needed thanks to Ron Dennis.

“In GP2, when you don’t stand out in your second year, you begin to be doubted. In Maldonado’s case, he only shone in his fourth year.

“Perhaps because of this he only made it to formula one as a paying driver, without having anything special, apparently. He was perceived as just a good pilot, but clearly no Alonso.

“Now he was at the right place at the right time but he still managed to beat Alonso in Spain as well as another world champion, Kimi (Raikkonen). So hats off to him.”

Charlie Whiting has defended the decision in Spain to move Lewis Hamilton from pole to the very rear of the grid.

Although McLaren was widely criticised for making a grave error, the stewards’ penalty was at the same time described by the world’s press as “draconian”.

“Quite frankly I did not expect the penalty that we received,” said McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh.

Indeed, given that McLaren’s fuel indiscretion occurred only in the decisive Q3, why not simply delete Hamilton’s Q3 laptimes, thereby putting the Briton mid-grid for the race?

“We had no room to move,” Whiting, the FIA’s race director, responded to Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport when told that Hamilton’s penalty seemed too severe.

“If there is a violation, it applies to the whole session, not just part of it,” he insisted. “Qualifying begins with Q1.”

Whiting explained that if Hamilton had only lost his Q3 time, a precedent would have been set tempting teams to risk not being checked for the mandatory 1 litre fuel sample in post-qualifying scrutineering.

Auto Motor und Sport said only one or two fuel samples are actually checked after qualifying at grands prix.

Competitors could, therefore, genuinely “run the risk” of using less fuel than is allowed in Q3, if the penalty for being caught is relatively light, Whiting argued.

He recalled last year’s German grand prix, when Sebastien Buemi was sent to the back of the grid because his fuel sample showed irregularities.

As it was not possible to check if the illegal fuel had also been used in Q1 and Q2, the Toro Rosso driver had to be disqualified from qualifying, Whiting argued.

An obvious tension was evident at Mugello when Pirelli’s Paul Hembery was asked about Michael Schumacher.

The seven time world champion had slammed F1′s official supplier after Bahrain, arguing that the 2012 tyres degrade so quickly it makes driving a grand prix car as slow as a safety car.

“We haven’t spoken,” Briton Hembery is quoted by Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport. “I’ve just read something on the net about the tyres from his teammate Nico Rosberg which is very different.”

Asked if Schumacher’s criticism was irritating, he answered: “We built the tyres the way we were asked to.

“The FIA, Bernie Ecclestone, even the teams wanted it this way. The spokesman for the teams at the time was Ross Brawn, Schumacher’s team boss.

“There have been four different winners in the four races so far, which alone shows that we must have done something right,” Hembery insisted. “As a fan I would be thrilled.”

Asked if he can at least understand Schumacher’s frustration, he continued: “The four winners this year have not won by chance.

“They were absolutely the best drivers in those races and all of them were faster than their teammates.

“I can understand that Michael was frustrated at the last race. Among the four winners so far were two Germans, and then you had Kimi (Raikkonen), who in the fourth race of his comeback is on the podium.

“Racers are winners; they’re not happy unless they’re winning.”

Hembery denied that tyres have, in 2012, become more important than the cars or drivers.

“That’s a misconception,” he insisted. “The driver has a huge impact.

“Anyway I’m convinced that at Silverstone at the latest the teams will have the problem under control. Just as they did last year.”

Finally, he insisted that Pirelli is not going to make any knee-jerk reactions.

“If there are 23 drivers satisfied and only one dissatisfied, then I don’t think we need to change something,” Hembery is quoted by Bild newspaper.

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, however, acknowledged a slight frustration.

“For the top teams it’s a bit frustrating,” he told La Stampa newspaper, “when it’s difficult to exploit all your potential.

“It’s like Real Madrid, Barcelona and AC Milan suddenly playing with the budget of Cesena.”

James Key could be the next formula one engineer to join F1′s struggling giant Ferrari.

Multiple media sources, including the authoritative Italian specialist newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport, say the Maranello based team is interested in Key, a 40-year-old Briton.

Key’s career dates back to the Jordan days, continuing through the transition to Force India, and he eventually joined Sauber in 2010.

He was the highly respected technical director at the Swiss team until earlier this year, and was therefore in charge of the impressive 2012 Sauber C31, amid speculation he had headed to Lotus’ sports car project.

But the media reports, including in the major German daily Bild, say Ferrari is now interested, particularly because Key is already familiar with the Italian marque through Sauber’s use of the Ferrari drivetrain.

However, when asked what truth there is to the Key rumours, Ferrari spokesman Luca Colajanni snapped: “Nothing, nada, niente!”

A spat between two Britons could drive the German giant Mercedes out of formula one, according to a new media report.

F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone recently confirmed he is at loggerheads with Mercedes over the next Concorde Agreement.

But at the same time, he insisted that the Stuttgart marque is “very important to formula one. I have always supported them and I will always,” he is quoted by Auto Motor und Sport.

Indeed, Mercedes has its own and newly-winning works team, powers the marquee McLaren outfit, and also supplies engines to Force India.

Ecclestone’s dispute is with fellow Englishman Ross Brawn, who is the Brackley based Mercedes GP team’s principal.

“I have spoken to the team manager (Brawn) about it (the dispute) and he seems to believe that the team has won a few world titles and about 80 races since the Tyrrell days,” said the 81-year-old.

Sport Bild reports that Ecclestone is refusing to give in to Brawn’s demands for extra Concorde Agreement entitlements for past title successes and history.

The magazine said the relationship has become so intense that Ecclestone has even refused to give a joint interview with Brawn.

“He (Brawn) was never very nice to me,” the F1 ‘supremo’ is quoted as saying.

The German report said there is a risk Mercedes will, as a result of the ‘ice age’ between the British duo, pull the plug on its entire F1 involvement.

Bernie Ecclestone has revealed he was not happy Bahrain organisers used the acronym ‘F1′ in its political slogan for last weekend’s race.

The F1 chief executive was highly supportive of the island Kingdom’s intensely controversial return to the sport’s calendar, insisting Bahrain will retain its grand prix “forever”.

But when asked about the banners around the Sakhir circuit and the island Kingdom that read ‘UniF1ed’, 81-year-old Ecclestone admitted to the Mirror: “We never put it there.

“We told them to take it down, not to use it. I saw other things, not like that.”

But Sakhir circuit chief Zayed Alzayani wore a cap bearing the slogan throughout the grand prix weekend, even when in Ecclestone’s company.

Briton Ecclestone, however, denied the Bahrain slogan only intensified the opposition’s anger.

“Before they started using that slogan there was trouble about F1,” he insisted.

“People make excuses but there are only two sports where politics come into it; us and the Olympics because the profile is big enough.

“There was a big golf match in Bahrain before F1 arrived and there was no problems there.

“We are not here to tell people how to run their country.”

Ecclestone, however, was angry with some of F1′s British journalists in Bahrain, following their harsh criticism of the decision to push ahead with the race.

“I saw Bernie get angry in the press room with some British journalists,” revealed O Estado de S.Paulo newspaper correspondent Livio Oricchio.

“I had never seen him that angry.”

All this year’s title contenders know after four ‘flyaway’ races in 2012 is that they do not know what will happen in Spain next month.

“The only certainty is uncertainty,” read the German headline at Netzeitung.

With F1 generally regarded in the wider world as a sport with predictable results, this is an entirely new situation.

“The statistics show that it’s been nine years since there have been four different winners in the first four races,” said Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali.

Indeed, the famous Italian team as well as McLaren, Mercedes and Red Bull have won the opening races of 2012, and also with potentially winning pace have been Lotus and Sauber.

“More than that,” continued Domenicali, “you have to go back 29 years to find the last time four different cars won.”

One explanation is that F1 has never been more competitive, with plenty of well-oiled teams and no fewer than six world champion drivers on the grid.

But Domenicali thinks Pirelli is the dominant factor.

And not everybody is happy about that. Michael Schumacher told Bild newspaper that this year’s tyres degrade so fast that rubber “flies from the rim” if he pushes too hard in a corner.

“We drive around like the safety car. It is not a satisfying situation,” the seven time world champion said.

Pirelli’s motor sport director Paul Hembery is unimpressed with the rebuke, insisting that the Italian marque is only trying to “make tyres that make the races exciting”.

“We cannot take individual drivers into consideration,” the Briton insisted.

“It would be dead easy for us to make tyres that don’t break down. Then the top ten would also be the top ten in the race.

“But no one wants to see boring processions,” Hembery claimed.

Agreed the Swiss headline at Blick: “Pirelli is sweeping away the boredom”.

Indeed, not even the other Mercedes driver, Shanghai winner Nico Rosberg, agrees with Schumacher.

“It’s total chaos. You don’t know who is going to be fast at the next track,” he is quoted by DPA agency. “Formula one has become almost unlike any other sport.

“Yes, you cannot drive any laps any more at full throttle. Often, it’s like driving on ice. But that’s a big and an interesting challenge,” said the German.

Undoubtedly exciting for the fans, but the teams are having to adapt quickly. Italy’s La Gazzetta dello Sport said on Sunday that Vettel’s victory could mean Red Bull resumes its dominant grip on F1.

Dr Helmut Marko doesn’t think so. “We don’t even know who our opponents are!” he exclaimed.

With Red Bull the latest to hold a trophy aloft this year, yet another potential 2012 champion has emerged.

In theory, back to back world champion Sebastian Vettel, the Bahrain grand prix winner, was always a contender for a third drivers’ crown this year.

But his RB8 was not a race winner until Sunday, after McLaren, Mercedes and even Ferrari had tasted the first victory spoils so far this season.

It was said that – amid the extraordinary field of 2012 – Adrian Newey’s latest creation was simply in the league of other midfielders including Lotus, Sauber, and perhaps even Williams and Toro Rosso.

But as Dr Helmut Marko remarked at the chequered flag: “Those pronounced dead live longest!”

“We never wrote them off,” McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh insisted to Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport, “because we knew that they had a good car and that they only needed to find the key.

“This season is really crazy; more exciting than we would like!” the Briton admitted. “And now we have to say Lotus are also contenders.”

German Vettel won in Bahrain from pole, but even he admitted that the weekend was a surprise.

“After Australia it seemed that McLaren had a supercar and it would be difficult to beat them, at least in the short term,” he is quoted by O Estado de S.Paulo.

So even the experts are at a loss after the initial ‘flyaway’ phase of the new world championship.

“We know that we know nothing,” beamed Vettel after his victory, referring to the oddly see-sawing balance of power in 2012, blamed mainly on the Pirelli tyres.

“It is almost impossible to predict in advance how the different tyre compounds are going to behave on race day,” he is quoted by Der Spiegel.

“You have an idea, but nothing more.”

Bernie Ecclestone on Sunday confirmed reports France is definitely heading back to the F1 calendar.

Reports earlier this weekend said authorities had “finally agreed” a figure for the sanctioning fee with F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone.

It is expected that the Ecclestone-owned Paul Ricard will share an annually alternating grand prix date with Belgium’s Spa-Francorchamps, beginning in 2013.

“Yes,” the 81-year-old Briton told French daily L’Equipe in the Bahrain paddock on Sunday.

“The deal is done,” said Ecclestone.

“We agreed the financial terms with the sports minister David Douillet, in my office on Tuesday.

“We are still discussing a few things about money: ‘You give me this, I want that’,” he added.

“But, for me, there is no doubt, we will sign it now,” said Ecclestone.

He said the outcome of the forthcoming presidential elections in France will not spoil the deal.

“Whatever happens, I don’t care,” said Ecclestone. “That’s a local issue that doesn’t concern me.”

Ross Brawn has confirmed reports that Mercedes’ 2012 ‘F-duct’ will not be easily copied by rival teams.

We reported on Thursday that while Red Bull and now Ferrari worked quickly to copy Sauber’s clever exhaust solution, they are crying foul over the Mercedes F-duct.

Is it because they really believe it breaks the rules, or is the system simply difficult to copy?

Red Bull designer Adrian Newey was quoted by Brazilian O Estado de S.Paulo newspaper in Malaysia: “In regard to the aerodynamic (F) duct of the Mercedes, and sending the airflow from the back to the front, it is necessary to review the entire project.”

Mercedes team boss Brawn confirmed: “The opposition is so fierce (because) there’s a recognition it’s quite difficult to do.”

He rejected the rivals’ arguments about cost, however, insisting Mercedes’ system consists mainly of carbon tubing costing no more than thousands of pounds.

“It’s a very simple, cheap system, but not so easy to implement if you haven’t integrated it into your car,” said the Briton.

“This is at the heart of the frustration of some of our opponents. If someone could put it on their car easily, I promise you we wouldn’t be having these discussions.”

It emerged this week, however, that despite the FIA having consistently sided with Mercedes on the F-duct issue, Lotus’ technical boss James Allison has come up with two new arguments that will be put to Charlie Whiting next week in China.

“We would obviously be extremely disappointed if someone was to take a different view,” said Brawn.

“The FIA have been fairly consistent over their position so we have faith that they’ll maintain that consistency.”

Charlie Whiting has admitted F1′s governing body will likely have to change the exhaust rules yet again for 2013.

Led by technical delegate Whiting, the FIA clamped down hard for this season on the sort of ‘exhaust blown diffuser’ layouts that had become widespread last year.

New exhaust layout rules, combined with new restrictions on engine mapping, have made it much more difficult for teams to achieve an aerodynamic effect from the fast-moving hot gases produced by the engine.

“We are aware, however, that they (the teams) will do as much as they can to direct the exhaust gases down into the area where they want them,” Whiting said in the FIA’s Inmotion magazine.

“I think (the effect) will be 20 per cent of what they had before.”

Among the cleverest and most effective solutions for the 2012 rules has been seen on the Sauber, and so Red Bull has followed suit and it is believed Ferrari will be next.

But Whiting hinted that the 2013 rules will clamp down even harder: “I suspect we’ll have to have another go at it in 2013,” said the Briton.

He admitted, however, that the egg cannot be unscrambled.

Referring to the jet of high-speed gas emanating from the exhausts near aerodynamic surfaces, Mercedes’ Aldo Costa confirmed to Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport: “You can’t ignore a gift like that.”

Whiting explained: “It is a classic case of not being able to unlearn things once they have been invented. The engineers know that there are benefits to be had and there is still some scope for development in this area.

“And we can’t wipe the memories of the engineers like a computer, can we?”

Damon Hill has changed his mind yet again on the controversial issue of Bahrain’s return to formula one later this month.

Amid the debate about the island Kingdom’s return to the calendar in the wake of the cancelled 2011 event, the 1996 world champion said initially: “F1 must align itself with progression, not repression”.

But he changed his tune after travelling with FIA president Jean Todt to Bahrain, insisting the situation on the ground had changed since the 2011 protests.

“The grand prix is of huge economic importance to Bahrain. You’d almost be putting an economic sanction on Bahrain by pulling the race,” said Hill.

But the Briton has now changed his mind again, apparently after the latest reports of violence on the streets and the reaction in the international media.

Hill is quoted by the Guardian newspaper: “It would be a bad state of affairs, and bad for formula one, to be seen to be enforcing martial law in order to hold the race.

“Looking at it today you’d have to say that (the race) could be creating more problems than it’s solving.”

The former Williams driver is scheduled to attend this month’s Bahrain grand prix as a television analyst, but Hill brushed aside any thoughts about his lucrative contract with the British broadcaster Sky.

“Some things are more important than contracts.”

He also expressed misgivings about a recent media briefing in London, in which Bernie Ecclestone and team bosses stood with the Bahrain organisers and insisted the race is going ahead despite the continuing controversy.

Damon said that event was “troubling insofar as it tried to represent the rioting in Bahrain as the result of bad press reporting and as a ‘youth’ issue.

“I hope the FIA are considering the implications of this fully and that events in Bahrain are not seen as they are often sold, as a bunch of yobs throwing molotov cocktails, because that’s a gross simplification.”

Writing in O Estado de S.Paulo newspaper, Brazilian correspondent Livio Oricchio admitted he thinks it would be “almost reckless” for F1 to travel to Bahrain this month.

“At Sepang,” he wrote, “many team members were very concerned. They said their insurance companies had expressed concern about going to an Arab country in a belligerent state.

“Personally, I don’t think we will be attacked, but it is the goal of the protesters to do anything so that the grand prix is not run.

“The Arab Spring is very much alive in this small country in the Persian Gulf,” he admitted.

And the Times of London’s Kevin Eason wrote on Twitter: “I have been thinking F1 should give Bahrain a chance but I am not convinced now that safety can be guaranteed.”

Jenson Button has revealed he will “definitely” remain loyal to McLaren for the next few years.

It was reported this week that the 2009 world champion received an “offer” from Ferrari last year to replace the struggling Felipe Massa.

According to the Brazilian news agency Agencia Estado, those talks took place prior to October last year, when the 32-year-old Briton signed a new ‘multi year contract’ to stay at McLaren.

“I had a listen to what some of the other teams could offer me,” Button confirmed.

He also appeared to leave the door open to a Ferrari move in the future, admitting it would be “exciting” to be paired with Spaniard Fernando Alonso.

But Button has now insisted that he is perfectly happy at McLaren, despite the common paddock perception that the British team lacks the sort of “passion” seen at Ferrari.

“We have a great atmosphere, everyone thinks it’s a very cold, very grey team,” he is quoted by the Daily Mail.

“People talk about Ferrari and them being very passionate, and they are. But I don’t think most people realise how passionate this team is, and how much they want to achieve.

“So I’m very happy here, and you never know what’s going to happen in the future,” said Button.

“I’m not going to sign my life away, but I’ll stay here for the next few years, definitely.”

Button also lived up to his promise to “hurt” himself after a poor result in Malaysia recently, finishing sixth overall in the Waikoloa Lavaman triathlon in Hawaii.

“Yeah, I did (hurt myself),” he smiled immediately after the event. “My gluts are killing me. “They say that means you are riding the bike correctly, but it hurts.”

Fernando Alonso’s win was a complete surprise, but the name of another team was on more paddock-dwellers’ lips after Malaysia — Sauber.

“Only one team could do consistently good laptimes on all the tyres and in all the conditions, and it was Sauber,” confirmed Martin Whitmarsh, whose McLaren team had travelled to Sepang with arguably the fastest car.

Also in Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner agreed: “They (Sauber) have somehow managed to get all of the tyres to work perfectly, which at the moment is the key to success.

“The (tyre) window is so small that it’s very easy to not be in it,” added the Briton.

And Sepang winner Fernando Alonso, whose victory was only ensured by a late-race mistake by Sauber’s Sergio Perez, admitted: “No doubt about it, they were quicker than us.”

Some believe it was only the Malaysian weather chaos that brought the Ferrari-powered C31 to the top of F1′s form-guide, but the Sauber was in fact also fast in Australia.

“Our cars were severely damaged at the start (in Melbourne),” explained chief designer Matt Morris. “At the front for Perez, the rear for Kobayashi.”

Nonetheless, both finished inside the top eight.

“The race in Malaysia showed very clearly how fast our car is,” insisted team boss Peter Sauber, writing in Blick newspaper.

“After two very different tracks, we have the assurance now that the C31 is a success.”

The next question is precisely how the small Hinwil based team has managed to build a pace-setting car.

One possible answer is the end of the blown diffuser era, and the fact that Sauber’s 2012 solution has already been copied by F1′s formerly-dominant Red Bull.

Italy’s Autosprint, meanwhile, claims Ferrari is next, mischievously suggesting that the updated F2012 might aptly be called the ‘Ferrauber’.

Referring to the FIA exhaust clampdown, Morris admitted: “We had to give up less than our opponents.”

Peter Sauber added: “When I saw that Red Bull had chosen a similar route to us, I was sure that we were right.”

Another trick on the C31 is a clever use of the loophole allowing an opening at the front of the car for driver cooling.

“It’s no match-winner,” Morris insists, “but it gains us some (lap) time.”

And Autosprint reports that another “trick” on the Sauber is located in front of the rear wheels, exploiting yet another “grey zone” in the regulations.