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.”

Kimi Raikkonen insists he is “not interested” in formula one — except the cars, and winning.

Asked by the reporter for Bild am Sonntag newspaper if the famous Finnish character might remove his sunglasses for an interview, 2007 world champion Raikkonen replied simply: “No.”

At the end of his fourth race since returning to F1 from rallying, the 32-year-old was back on the podium in Bahrain.

“It’s not going too bad,” he said. “I like what I’m doing, that’s enough. I don’t care if someone says whether I’m doing it well or not.

“Still, it’s disappointing when you’re only second. Who knows what’s going to happen at the next race,” the Lotus driver added.

Just after leaving F1 at the end of 2009, Raikkonen said he disliked everything about the sport — except the cars.

Nothing has changed.

“No. I’m only here for racing,” said Raikkonen.

“All the other bulls**t I can do without. If you took away the cars from formula one, I would not be there.

“Formula one plays no role in my personal life. I have a real life! I think for many people, their life is formula one. For me it’s not.”

He may be in Bahrain, but Fernando Alonso’s mind is thinking firmly ahead to Europe as the Spaniard prepares to struggle on Sunday yet again.

Ferrari’s number one driver squeezed into Q3 with the struggling F2012 on Saturday, and is targeting some minor points on Sunday.

“The two McLarens and the two Red Bulls are at the front, and there’s (also) Rosberg,” Alonso is quoted by Auto Motor und Sport, predicting how Sunday’s race will unfold.

“We’re not going to go past them. For us, we are racing behind the top five.”

He is hoping it will be his latest and last experience of life as a midfielder in 2012.

For Barcelona, the first European race of the season mid next month, Ferrari – so disappointed with its start to the season – is planning a major upgrade for the F2012.

An added bonus is that it can be tested at Mugello in early May.

“Despite our problems I am in third place in the championship, and tomorrow (Sunday) I have a chance to score well. That’s more than we expected.

“Next is Barcelona, a most important race for us. I hope the season starts again for me (there),” said Alonso.

Martin Brundle has described Red Bull’s lack of pace as the biggest surprise of the 2012 season so far.

After consecutive world championships with Sebastian Vettel, the energy drink-owned team was universally tipped as the pre-season favourite for yet another F1 title.

But McLaren dominated in Australia before Ferrari and Sauber surprisingly set the pace recently in Malaysia.

Former F1 driver Brundle admitted the struggling RB8 was the surprise of the opening salvo in 2012, but he also acknowledged that the turnaround might have been predicted.

“When you look at how the regulations have changed, it’s almost like they were designed to slow the Red Bulls down,” the Sky television commentator told the website of the BBC programme Top Gear.

“Doubling the torsional stiffness of the front wings, the way Red Bull were ‘flying’ their car down the track with lots of rake, nose close to the ground, exhausts helping to sort the high rear ride height out, it’s all been taken away from them,” added Brundle.

An unnamed engineer at Red Bull has admitted the team was caught on the hop in the winter pre-season, when it became clear McLaren was better prepared for the new rules.

“McLaren came with a (exhaust) system on the edge of legality,” the engineer told Germany’s Auto Bild, “and it was declared legal by the FIA.

“So (Adrian) Newey had to adapt,” he added, referring to Red Bull’s last-minute decision to change tack at the very end of the pre-season test period.

The message coming from the Milton Keynes based team, therefore, is that Red Bull is playing catch-up.

“We need to understand the car better,” admits team advisor Dr Helmut Marko, “which is why for the next race (in China) we will have hardly any new parts.”

So until he’s back at the front, F1′s formerly-dominant Vettel – who lashed out at backmarker Narain Karthikeyan recently in Malaysia – needs to adapt.

Asked if the German was justified in calling his Indian rival an “idiot”, Brundle insisted: “No.

“That’s just an angry man who hasn’t got a front-running car at the moment. He’s just frustrated.”

Michael Schumacher finally returned to the top three’s inner sanctum on Saturday.
“Who would have thought it last year?” the seven time world champion smiled in Malaysia after beating the formerly dominant Red Bulls with his Mercedes.

But the fact he was only beaten by the dominant McLarens in Sepang qualifying does not mean Mercedes is now ready to take on F1′s very best, boss Norbert Haug insisted.

Last weekend in Australia, the German team also performed well on Saturday before the tyres degraded heavily in the race — and in Malaysia, very high temperatures are an added factor.

“We are not equipped yet to take over from the likes of McLaren and Red Bull,” Haug is quoted by Sky Deutschland.

“To be the third force is definitely on the timetable.

“In Australia and also now in Malaysia we were the second force in the qualifying lineup, but the race is what counts,” added the German.

 With one race down out of twenty, F1 teams are now hopping from Australia to Malaysia where the new pecking-order will be immediately tested on a more conventional circuit.
Some paddock cynics suspect McLaren – having dominated qualifying in Melbourne before Jenson Button cruised to victory – played a deft hand of bluff in the winter season in order to persuade Red Bull its former dominance remained intact.

New 2012 championship leader Button, however, insists the British team was surprised in Australia.

“It wasn’t bullshit at all,” he said late on Sunday.

“I actually did pinch myself in the race just to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.

“After qualifying I looked across at Lewis (Hamilton) and said ‘Did you think we would be that quick?’, and he was like ‘No’.”

Another possibility is that, while quick, McLaren may not be dominant.

“We knew from winter testing that McLaren were competitive but I think our race pace was every bit the equal of theirs today,” said Red Bull’s team boss Christian Horner, after a betting showing for the reigning champions on Sunday compared to qualifying.

“Malaysia is a very different prospect from here. Here it is short turns, bumpy, not a lot of high-speed corners.

“But Malaysia offers that variant, so I think it will be interesting to see how quick they are in Malaysia,” he added.

Mark Webber was also relieved on Sunday, after a troubled earlier evening.

“It’s never nice to know you might be out of the ball game,” said the Australian, referring to Red Bull’s qualifying performance, “but clearly we are not.”

Yet another possibility is that McLaren will extend their winning streak into Malaysia.

“The Barcelona test showed us that we are better than Red Bull in the fast corners. Their (Red Bull’s) advantage is in traction,” McLaren’s Martin Whitmarsh is quoted by Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.

Agreed Mercedes’ Ross Brawn: “We could see that the McLaren improved significantly with the introduction of their new aerodynamic specification in Barcelona.”

But the German team’s Norbert Haug warned before leaving Melbourne: “We could see something quite different in Malaysia.”

Livio Oricchio, the correspondent for Brazil’s O Estado de S.Paulo newspaper, agreed: “It is prudent to wait and see what happens now in Malaysia.

“It’s a permanent circuit, much more in line with most of the circuits on the calendar.

“But it seems unlikely that we will see something radically different to what we saw in Australia,” he conceded.

Paul Hembery has admitted Pirelli’s new soft tyre might not degrade quick enough in 2012.
The sport’s new supplier was lauded at the beginning of 2011 for spicing up the action by bringing tyres that quickly degrade.

But by the end of the season the teams had essentially solved the mysteries of the rubber, and in recent winter testing it seemed apparent that the 2012 tyre generation is not as inherently heavily-degrading as the last.

Motor sport director Hembery admits: “The soft tyres are not degrading quite as much as we would like.

“But you have to remember there will be 50 degree track temperatures in Malaysia. Also, the cars are still being developed, and over the course of the season will pick up downforce.

“If we have to heat up the show, we can always bring the super-softs,” he told Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.

One positive aspect of the 2012 tyres, on the other hand, is that they are producing far less discarded rubber litter on the edge of the racing line.

“That should make it easier to overtake,” Hembery said.

Another positive is that the new tyres are easier to get up to temperature.

“Last year, only the two Red Bulls and Hamilton could get the hards to work,” agreed the Briton.

An eventful and marathon inaugural Korean grand prix, beginning in boredom and ending in darkness, has changed the face of the 2010 world championship fight.

Championship leader Mark Webber lost his 14-point lead with a crash on the slippery track, and his Red Bull teammate Sebastian Vettel failed to pick up the pieces because of a Renault engine failure.

“Totally my mistake,” admitted Australian Webber after his crash, which also took out Nico Rosberg.

The result means Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso – who laughed hysterically on the radio at the chequered flag – is the new championship leader, 11 points ahead of Webber with two races to go.

“Nothing has changed really,” said the Spaniard. “We all know the new points system. Anything can happen.”

After driving through the carnage and finishing second, Lewis Hamilton is now third in the championship, 21 points behind but four ahead of Vettel.

“It’s obviously not a nice moment,” said Vettel, the pole sitter and leader until his failure, as the race finished in near-darkness.

Jenson Button, 12th at the finish and among the slowest cars on track, is now a distant 42 points behind.

“I’m not really in it anymore,” said the reigning world champion on BBC television.

With three races left to run in 2010, McLaren’s title-winning rhetoric has turned a corner.

After Suzuka, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button are now 28 and 31 points respectively behind the leader Mark Webber, moving Hamilton to admit that even a winning streak through to November’s Abu Dhabi finale might not be enough now.

“Podiums won’t do it,” he said after a nightmare weekend in Japan, having nursed a second gearbox problem of the event to the chequered flag with an ear infection.

“Wins will get it if the others have problems.  But if Red Bull finish all the races then it’s a walkover,” added Briton Hamilton.

Button is also downbeat about defending his world championship after Japan.

“If we don’t turn up in Korea with some good improvements to get us near the Red Bulls, it is almost impossible,” he said.

“I would like to think we don’t have to hope Red Bull crash or have reliability issues and we have a car to challenge them.  But when they have the pace they had here, they can cruise it,” added Button.

Closer to Webber’s lead – and level-pegging with Sebastian Vettel’s 14 point deficit – is Fernando Alonso, who remains confident of winning his first title at the wheel of a Ferrari.

“We are convinced that this was the worst track of the remaining races for us,” said the Spaniard after finishing third in Japan.

“To be world champion I need one more win and two podiums,” Alonso is quoted by La Stampa.

Also smiling after Suzuka is pole sitter and winner Vettel, despite admitting that his Australian teammate is now tantalisingly close to the title.

“His 14 point lead is of course an advantage,” he said, referring to Webber.

“If he wins again, it will be difficult for all of us,” German Vettel is quoted by Auto Motor und Sport.

“But anything can still happen.”

The 23-year-old’s confidence was boosted by the apparent ease with which he won in Japan.

“Without sounding arrogant,” he said, “I would say I always had Mark under control.

“I could see him all the time,” Vettel told Bild newspaper.  “He was one, two or three seconds behind.  Every time he came a bit closer, I went on the gas a bit more.

“It’s looking okay.  If I win the next three races, everything will be fine, so that must be my goal,” he said.

A warm weekend of weather might be expected at Silverstone for the forthcoming British grand prix.

The weather has been nice in England so far this week, with the mid-twenties temperatures forecast to persist through to the formula one event on July 9-11.

But there has also been some cloud in the skies, and more possibilities of light rain are predicted for next weekend and an event that is so often blighted by bad weather.

“I’m sure when we go racing the clouds will come in like every year, and it will start to rain,” laughed German driver Adrian Sutil, who drives for the locally-based Force India.

Briton Lewis Hamilton won his home race in 2008 but last year, like the rest of the field, was annihilated by the dominant Red Bulls.

And despite leading the world championship, the 25-year-old is expecting Red Bull to again lead from the front.

Hamilton, whose British countryman Jenson Button also drives for the British team McLaren, said: “It’s going to be tough.  We can’t go into it thinking we’re the favourites because the Red Bull, as it stands, is definitely the fastest car.”

Red Bull still had the F-duct fitted to its RB6 on Saturday morning in Valencia.

According to the BBC, the Milton Keynes based team has confirmed the downforce-stalling device will also remain on the Renault-powered car for qualifying and the race.

Sebastian Vettel topped the final 60 minutes of practice at the sunny street circuit, with his teammate Mark Webber third, split by Renault’s Robert Kubica.

The two Force Indias were fourth and seventh, with the team having ironed out the problems with its F-duct version.

“(It) is working very well now and it makes a real difference,” said German Adrian Sutil.

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso was fifth, while the McLarens were just ninth and tenth, and Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg 11th.

“There are a lot of quick cars out there,” said Jenson Button.  “The Ferraris look very fast, so do the Red Bulls, Renaults and Mercedes.”

Little more than half a second separated runners for five different teams as Friday’s practice running concluded at Valencia.

The only car inside the top six without a so-called ‘blown rear diffuser’ was Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren, as Fernando Alonso led the pace with the heavily revised Ferrari.

Close behind were the Red Bulls, followed by Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg, while the Renault of Robert Kubica was sixth quickest featuring an impressive emulation of the Red Bull-style rear exhaust layout.

“I can’t talk in high enough terms about it,” BBC pit reporter Ted Kravitz said on Friday, adding that the R30′s solution “is wonderful”.

After Red Bull earlier looked set to walk the 2010 title, before McLaren looked to have taken the upper hand more recently, victory in Valencia could be hotly contested.

“The cars are merging together, we’re not seeing one or two teams moving into the distance.  It’s very exciting,” said British commentator Martin Brundle.

(GMM)

After two double victories in a row, the McLaren duo Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button tip lies in the Formula 1 World Championship, but Sebastian Vettel wants a new car in Valencia back to the place in the sun. “We can be back in front after the next Grand Prix,” said Vettel’s team boss Christian Horner before the Grand Prix of Europe. The bulls want to “keep up with the new R-bay system and without problems in reliability even local hero Fernando Alonso at bay.

The confidence in the camp of Red Bull is based on several pillars. On the one copied from the “inventor” McLaren F-shaft system, which is not satisfactory after a test in the free practice in Istanbul for the first time in the race and used in the simulation is to represent a time savings of three tenths per lap. “We hope an ordinary leap forward,” Horner said in the journal ‘Speedweek’.
was distributed to the other, the team hopes that repeat the transmission problems of Montréal and the defect is not the devil, who followed the team and especially since the start of the season Vettel. “Yes, we had defects, but every mistake only once. We are all the quirks to the bottom left. It’s just incredible bad luck, which happens especially in Sebastian this year, everything,” said Horner.

At the very least, the Heppenheim, which is before the ninth of 19 World Championship races in the championship behind Hamilton (109 pixels), Button (106), Webber (103) and Alonso (94) with 90 points in fifth for Valencia to be transmission probably can not change. The new device has “lost a bit of oil,” Horner gives as reason that Vettel was in the final stage in Canada are clearly lying in fourth place from the gas, “he can use it again in Valencia. Team-mate Webber, who lost by Vettel finished fifth behind the championship leader, had lost in Montréal by an unscheduled gearbox change shortly before the race five starting slots.

The Aussie, who recently was quickly four times in a row in qualifying wants to beat Vettel in Valencia again. “That he can create. For if he was behind it, it’s because of a defect, as in Turkey, due to a driving error like in Montreal or he was beaten only a tenth of a second,” said Horner.

imagine Despite the current benefit, the McLaren drivers not in security: “It’s a surprise that the Red Bulls are not in leadership. They were at every race so fast, but we have more made of it,” said defending champion button that as Webber and Hamilton this year has already celebrated two victories. Hamilton also sees its first championship lead since winning the title in November 2008 “not granted” on.
The Mercedes team with Nico Rosberg and world champion Michael Schumacher, who is the first time since 2004 on an unfamiliar route hopes in Valencia placements at less concerned with the tires and thus better. Meanwhile, Alonso is Ferrari’s home race at a comprehensive revised version of the B-F10 available, which also has an R-bay system and has taken some of the bonds in the aerodynamics of Red Bull. With the new car he was allowed to drive even at short film, Alonso will now shine on home soil – and to inspire both the Spanish and the Italian fans.

“The Italian mentality, and the Spanish are similar, and the habits of life. We both also have the same passion for the race,” Alonso describes in the ‘Sport Bild’, why he feels so comfortable at Ferrari. “We might have to say: There are two grown together, which somehow belong together forever. I have the impression that the people enjoy this combination in the world. Especially in Spain and Italy, the mood is downright enthusiastic about it. It makes me proud.”

Jun.12 (GMM)  Lewis Hamilton cracked Red Bull’s run of qualifying dominance on Saturday by securing pole position for the Canadian grand prix.

But the McLaren driver was using a different tyre in the decisive Q3 segment — the fragile ‘option’ or softer compound, as opposed to the harder ‘prime’ fitted to the next-best Red Bulls of Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel.

The three prior practice sessions at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve proved that Bridgestone’s products are struggling this weekend; particularly the option.

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said earlier in Montreal that it had fallen apart “like cheese” in Canada, moving some to surmise that by qualifying with it on Saturday, McLaren is gambling on an early safety car.

9 of the previous 12 Canadian grands prix have seen the safety car appear.

“We would hope for an early-ish safety car, but I think the quickest way to run the race anyway is to start on the soft tyre, run a short (first) stint, and run on the prime for most of the race.

“If there’s a safety car it’s a very strong strategy,” team boss Martin Whitmarsh told the BBC after qualifying.

However, Vettel told reporters that he thinks Red Bull is beginning the race on the “right tyre”, because the softer one lasts only “a couple of laps”.

Hamilton acknowledged that the option “goes off quite quickly” but raised the high “possibility of a safety car”.

The 25-year-old Briton had to be delivered to parc ferme in an FIA car, after his engineer told him to stop on the circuit on the in-lap so there is enough fuel left in the tank for a mandatory fuel sample.

“The FIA don’t take kindly to you not having enough fuel to get into the pits at the end of the lap — they’ll be taking a look at that,” predicted BBC commentator Martin Brundle.

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso is fourth ahead of the second McLaren of Jenson Button, while Vitantonio Liuzzi qualified sixth in what Brundle describes as a “career saving performance”.

Jun.11 (GMM)  The McLarens fell off the pace in Canada on Friday afternoon, despite looking competitive in the initial practice session.

The buzzwords of the final 90-minutes of running for the day were extreme tyre degradation and graining, with the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve’s newly-resurfaced corners giving up precious little grip.

Many runners had to call off planned long runs on the softer ‘option’ tyres because they lasted no more than a few laps.

“Everyone is struggling with the same thing, so I think it will be a pretty interesting race to see what happens with strategies,” said Jenson Button, who was just 11th quickest in the afternoon.

His teammate Lewis Hamilton added: “I think a lot of people had the same experience, except perhaps the Red Bulls, so it’s going to be an interesting one.”

Indeed, having trailed the Mercedes engines and F-ducts in the morning, Sebastian Vettel set the afternoon’s fastest time, with Ferrari’s next-best Fernando Alonso also not complaining as loudly as the McLaren drivers.

“Friday’s result is not that important, but it’s looking not too bad,” said Red Bull runner Vettel.

“I think we are quite competitive, so let’s see.”