It is too early to name a frontrunner for a seat at Red Bull’s premier team.

That is the claim of Franz Tost, the boss of the energy drink company’s junior team Toro Rosso.

Following the ousting of Jaime Alguersuari and Sebastien Buemi, the Faenza based outfit has two new Red Bull youngsters to groom in 2012.

Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne are therefore at the front of the queue to potentially replace Mark Webber at the senior team, even though Red Bull chiefs have appeared to indicate that Australian Webber is staying put for now.

So when asked by Austria’s Laola1 whether Ricciardo or Vergne are winning the race to Red Bull Racing so far, Tost insisted: “We have no thoughts about that.

“The important thing is that they continue to develop in every area.”

So far, Frenchman Vergne has four points compared with Ricciardo’s two.

“Jean-Eric is willing to take more risks,” Tost admitted, “while Daniel has a grasp of the car overall with his extra experience.”

Paul di Resta has emerged as the latest candidate to possibly succeed struggling Felipe Massa at Ferrari.

Britain’s Mirror newspaper said the famous Maranello based team has “made enquiries” about the 26-year-old Scot’s current contract with Force India.

The speculation follows Red Bull’s closing down of rumours linking Mark Webber with the switch, as Christian Horner and Dietrich Mateschitz suggested the Australian is set to continue beyond his 2012 contract.

Ferrari chiefs “are known to be impressed” with di Resta since he moved as the reigning DTM champion to formula one at the end of 2010, the Mirror’s F1 correspondent Byrton Young wrote.

“Paul di Resta would be a very good target for Ferrari because (Fernando) Alonso probably has the best toolkit of knowledge and physically is one the best drivers in the world,” triple world champion Sir Jackie Stewart is quoted by the Daily Mail.

“Alonso is almost at his peak and to have a young driver such as di Resta be an understudy to Alonso is something I’d consider if I was at Ferrari,” he added.

Lotus did not consider employing team orders in order to boost Kimi Raikkonen’s chances of winning the Bahrain grand prix.

The 2007 world champion ultimately finished second and even had a stab at overtaking winner Sebastian Vettel.

And he might have had an ever better chance at challenging the Red Bull had his Lotus team chiefs ordered teammate Romain Grosjean aside at a crucial moment.

“Yeah,” confirmed Finn Raikkonen, “but there are no team orders and we know the rules.

“I tried to get past as quickly as I can but it’s not easy with two similar cars.

“It’s always easy to say afterwards ‘if we had done that’ but in the end we were not fast enough to win and we have to take the second,” he added.

Despite team orders being effectively legal in F1, team boss Eric Boullier confirmed that Lotus does not follow that policy.

“We don’t want to play team orders, so we let them race normally and what happened, happened,” he is quoted by the Mirror.

The most important thing, according to Spanish commentator and former veteran F1 engineer Joan Villadelprat, is that the former Renault team still knows how to win.

“Maybe they don’t have the best car on the grid, because McLaren and Red Bull and Mercedes are probably better, but Lotus have made a car capable of competing with the best in the right circumstances,” he wrote in El Pais newspaper.

Pirelli went on the defensive on Sunday, following criticism in the wake of the Bahrain grand prix.

British commentator Martin Brundle said the Italian marque’s heavily-degrading 2012 product, so difficult to keep alive and in the narrow performance ‘window’, is overly dominating the season so far.

Also critical after Bahrain, where tyre performance fell away rapidly in the desert heat, was Michael Schumacher, who told reporters he wanted to talk with Pirelli chiefs about how to improve the situation.

Faced with that sort of criticism on Sunday, Pirelli’s motor sport director Paul Hembery said on Twitter: “At the end of last year we had huge criticism for conservative choices and races were boring.

“Make your mind up. We are doing what is asked.”

Hembery also argued that how teams tackle their tyre strategies will continue to play a big role for only “a few more races, then like last year all change as they get used (to the tyres)”.

Mahmoud Cherif Bassiouni, a United Nations war crimes expert, thinks Bahrain is ready to host formula one again.
Last year, the Egyptian led the high-profile independent investigation that found the Bahrain authorities were heavy-handed in reaction to the civil unrest.

But now, media outlets including London’s Telegraph newspaper have seen a letter Bassiouni wrote to grand prix circuit chief Zayed Alzayani, who is determined to host April’s Bahrain grand prix at Sakhir as scheduled.

Bassiouni, whose letter was copied to F1 chiefs Jean Todt and Bernie Ecclestone, said the race can be used to promote “national healing and reconciliation”.

He said it will be “an important point of departure for the people of Bahrain to forge ahead in their national efforts towards reconciliation”.

The cracks in the unity of the formula one teams association FOTA are continuing to show.
After talks broke down in Japan just over a week ago, the next round of meetings will take place in Abu Dhabi next month.

The main bone of contention is the cost-limiting resource restriction agreement, with some teams – but primarily Red Bull – suspected of swerving around the gentleman’s pact.

A recent audit by a company called Capgemini involved visits to the Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari, Mercedes, Sauber and Williams factories.

Auto Motor und Sport reports that after the visit to the unnamed ‘Team 4′, the auditors had to write the words “no information” in almost every column.

“The allegations will only stop when all the teams agree to any inspection,” Mercedes’ Ross Brawn is quoted as saying.

The concern is that FOTA will have to abandon the resource restriction agreement amid turbulent economic times, or even fold the Geneva-based organisation altogether.

Red Bull chiefs last week dismissed the allegations as “gamesmanship”.

“This year it has moved away from the car to the RRA (agreement) which gets a little bit boring after a while,” team boss Christian Horner is quoted by the Guardian.

“It is almost inevitable within the sport that there are those areas of gamesmanship.”

Mercedes’ rivals on Friday admitted the Brackley based team is heading into the 2012 season with “a lot” of technical chiefs.
Although they all now have different titles, former technical directors Ross Brawn (Ferrari), Bob Bell (Renault), Aldo Costa (Ferrari) and Geoff Willis (HRT) will all be involved with the design of Mercedes’ next single seater.

Sport Bild journalist Ralf Bach at Suzuka claimed it is a “new formula one record”.

“Yeah, that is a lot,” agreed McLaren’s Paddy Lowe.

Renault’s deputy technical director Naoki Tokunaga added: “Each team has its own approach and I think we have a different approach.”

A long-awaited summer break, including mandatory factory shutdowns, lies ahead for F1 team members.
But the previously dominant Red Bull, beaten by Ferrari and McLaren at the last three grands prix, is planning a significant upgrade for the RB7 to debut at Spa-Francorchamps later this month.

“McLaren have made the biggest leap in the blown diffuser (area),” team boss Christian Horner told Der Spiegel in Hungary, adding that there is still developmental “potential” in Red Bull’s car.

The report said a new floor and diffuser, to be tested in Friday practice in Belgium, should make the Red Bull three tenths per lap faster.

Brazilian journalist Livio Oricchio said it is a myth that F1′s smartest chiefs will simply lie on beaches in the next few weeks.

“Who really believes that, as McLaren and Ferrari move ahead, Adrian Newey for example says to his guys tomorrow at Milton Keynes: ‘Ok guys, see you in two weeks!’”

Actually, more than 100 points ahead in the constructors’ and 88 points clear of the first non-Red Bull in the drivers’ chase, Red Bull are not panicking.

“We are on a par with McLaren. And we have a head start,” consultant Dr Helmut Marko told Kleine Zeitung with eight races left to run in 2011.

He also confirmed that development of the RB7 is moving ahead.

“We will continue to make the car better,” said the Austrian.

Die Welt headlined after Sunday’s result that second place was “The perfect defeat” for German Sebastian Vettel, whose championship lead actually extended due to Jenson Button winning.

“I definitely can live with P2,” he said.

“Perhaps we don’t have the strongest car at the moment, but we can still achieve good points.”

Rubens Barrichello’s future at Williams remains clouded.
The Brazilian veteran recently admitted he has not yet been offered an extended contract by the famous British team.

He then arrived at the Nurburgring announcing that talks about 2012 with Williams chiefs should be “straightforward”, after bosses Sir Frank Williams and Adam Parr both indicated a deal is likely.

But long-time Blick correspondent Roger Benoit revealed that he asked team principal Williams inside the Nurburgring’s Dorint hotel if the team will line up next year with Barrichello still alongside Pastor Maldonado.

“Not necessarily,” Benoit quotes Williams as smiling.

The wheelchair-bound 69-year-old then suggested that it is not the well-backed Venezuelan rookie Maldonado whose seat is in doubt.

“Many people believed we only have him because of the money. But he (Maldonado) is also super-fast, straightforward and the team loves him.

“With a Renault engine, we can give him a better car in 2012,” added Williams.

F1 figures have admitted they are not keen on proposals to put a roof above the heads of the sport’s drivers.

After the incidents involving Felipe Massa and the late Henry Surtees in 2009, technical chiefs started looking into the possibility of jet fighter-style canopies or polycarbonate screens for the cars’ cockpits.

The FIA has released a video (http://vimeo.com/26098946) showing a F1 wheel being fired at 225kph at a jet-fighter canopy and a proposed cockpit screen.

“Full scientific results of the firings … have now been presented to the formula one technical working group,” the video revealed.

1992 world champion and occasional F1 steward Nigel Mansell admitted: “I don’t know if I’d like to see that. It wouldn’t really be formula one,” he is quoted by ennstal-classic.at.

Another former driver Marc Surer agrees: “It would be very warm in there, and then the next problem is needing an air conditioner. And imagine if KERS fails and the vapours get into the cockpit.”

Christian Danner said: “The visibility of the drivers will be affected by the reflection.”

Mercedes’ Norbert Haug told Bild am Sonntag newspaper: “We are always interested in the advancement of safety. It’s an interesting experiment but I feel that a single seater cockpit needs to be open.”

Nico Rosberg added: “It sounds good. Anything that increases safety is a step forward.”

Bosses have reportedly dismissed moves to enclose the cockpits of formula one cars.
Technical chiefs began to investigate the possibility of jet fighter-style canopies for the cockpits in the wake of Felipe Massa’s near-fatal crash in Hungary two years ago.

“You can have covers and you can have canopies, but you also have to be able to get at a driver to extract him. There are a lot of secondary considerations,” said Ross Brawn.

According to the Daily Mirror, F1 chiefs have rejected the idea of a roof over the drivers’ heads.

The report said the FIA had considered “poly-carbonate screens” for the cars, but “drivers fear the device could prevent escape in the event of a car overturning or catching fire”, while spectators would be “at danger from flying debris ricocheting off the screens”.

Robert Kubica has confirmed his desire to return to formula one next year with Renault.
Asked by a fan on the team’s website if he will be ready for the 2012 season and a title fight, the injured Pole answered: “Yes to the first question.

“For your second question, we will have to wait until the first test in 2012!”

There have been rumours recently of disagreements between Renault team chiefs and Kubica’s management, particularly over the timing of the return from his horror rally crash.

“I’m a Lotus Renault GP driver,” insisted the 26-year-old. “Of course, I’m missing not being able to drive this season but I feel that my job in Enstone isn’t finished yet.”

Kubica insisted he is mentally strong but in a physical sense “still a bit weak”.

“But my general condition is quite good,” he said. “My weight has now returned to its normal level and for a few weeks I’ve been able to walk without help. All in all I feel pretty well.

“I am satisfied with how things are proceeding,” Kubica told another online fan.

“The improvement is in line with the expectations, and luckily there are no complications that could affect the recovery time.

“It is still too early to have a clear picture for the timing of my return but the important thing is the final outcome not the hurry.”

Jaime Alguersuari reacted angrily on Thursday after journalists expressed doubt about the health of his formula one career.
The Spaniard had kept cool in the official FIA press conference at Valencia, when reporters asked him about rumours Daniel Ricciardo could replace him at Toro Rosso before the end of the season.

“At the time it was just one more rumour among all the thousands of others.

“But at the end of the press conference I realised for the first time that I’m sick and bored of all the nonsense.

“Apparently the rumour has more weight than the comments of (team chiefs) Franz Tost or Helmut Marko. I’m not worried about my future.

“I am sure of myself and feel the appreciation and the respect of the whole Red Bull organisation,” insisted Alguersuari, 21.

“If someone wants to know more about my future, or Buemi’s or Ricciardo’s, there is only one authority — Helmut Marko. Any other source is not valid.

“It’s stupid and I’m bored of it,” he concluded.

The BBC’s F1 anchor Jake Humphrey has dismissed reports the British broadcaster is looking to drop its coverage of the sport beyond 2013.

The Sunday Times, citing “senior sources”, is reporting that BBC chiefs are aiming to use the money saved by axing its expensive formula one coverage to avoid shutting down a digital channel.

“I have no inside information on its (the coverage’s) future,” host Humphrey wrote on Twitter.

“But I know little else gets the audience share and the millions that we do. BBC F1 is a huge success.”

He added that there were “many inaccuracies” in the Sunday Times article.

After dropping out of contention for the final 2011 race cockpit at HRT, Davide Valsecchi could still be in formula one this year.

The Italian website 422race.com claims the 24-year-old Italian, who has raced in GP2 in the last few years and impressed F1 chiefs with his pace at the Abu Dhabi test last November, is set to join Team Lotus.

Valsecchi will be a test driver alongside young Brazilian Luiz Razia, who was with the Virgin team in 2010.

The Italian report said Valsecchi will get a half-day of testing with Lotus at the Bahrain test in March, and probably then two outings on the Friday mornings of the Australian and Malaysian grands prix.

And Razia, another GP2 driver, will do as many as “five Friday free practice” sessions in 2011, added the report.