Dietrich Mateschitz is giving Mark Webber at least an equal chance to get back on terms with his Red Bull teammate Sebastian Vettel in 2012.
After his 2010 title challenge, Webber was utterly dominated by back to back world champion Vettel last year.

But team owner Mateschitz told Kleine Zeitung newspaper that the pair will continue to have equal status this season.

“Our attitude has not changed — there are no team orders,” the Austrian billionaire said. “It starts at zero again, for both of them.”

As for which Red Bull driver will get the upper hand in 2012, Mateschitz is open minded.

“From today’s point of view it is difficult to say. But why not (Webber)? I’m curious to know how hard or difficult or impossible it will be for Vettel to defend his dominance,” he added.

Beyond 2012, however, Webber has no contract, and Mateschitz confessed that “our primary goal is to put one of our juniors in the car”.

He also admitted that rule changes could play against Red Bull for 2012, but still expects Adrian Newey’s car to be on the pace.

“The competition copied from us so much last year that at the end our advantages were no longer the same. But at the last race we still had quite a bit of an edge.

“Of course you take that into the new year.”

Based on the initial Jerez test, however, he said it is too early to say the RB8 is the best car.

“These tests are not to scale,” said Mateschitz. “Everyone drives with their own goals and plans or to meet certain criteria.

“But I do think the balance of power has stayed about the same.”

F1 drivers and engineers canvassed Karun Chandhok for his impression of this weekend’s new grand prix venue in Korea, the Indian has revealed.

Chandhok, 26, contested the first half of 2010 with the HRT team, and was later deployed by Red Bull to the new – then incomplete – Yeongam layout for a demonstration in an F1 car.

So, as the only driver in the world to have completed real laps in Korea, Chandhok revealed to Reuters that title contenders Mark Webber and Jenson Button have asked him about the circuit’s nuances.

“You’d expect people to be calling, really,” said Chandhok, who is not travelling to Korea this week.

The report said technical people from various teams, and his former teammate Bruno Senna, also asked Chandhok questions about his laps in Korea.

“To be fair, a lot of people have very good simulators and they have a lot of faith in their simulators and simulation software,” he explained.

“I think a lot of them tend to believe that more than anything else.”

But he said Australian Webber spoke to him about Korea.

“Obviously he was very curious to see what I thought about the place and what the circuit was like,” said Chandhok.

And a more recent discussion was with Button.

“We were chatting about this and that and he was quite curious about Korea,” added the Indian, revealing that the McLaren driver asked him about the camber of the corners.

“I think some of that stuff is not so apparent until you get there. So he had questions about that sort of stuff,” said Chandhok.

Heikki Kovalainen made the Grand Prix of Singapore at the end once more exciting and put out his blazing Lotus itself
The air seemed to be already out of the Grand Prix of Singapore, as Heikki Kovalainen in the penultimate round again caused a drama. Because after a light touch with the Toro Rosso of Sebastien Buemi, he was suddenly slow – and in the last sector ignited the back of his Lotus!

Kovalainen not turned off the box, but drove over the finish line. However, he was not here for an additional round for the final result was as suspected at first: “I wanted to with such a car will not go into the pit lane, because that would put many people Instead, I saw a fireman at the start and finish and stayed. there are, “he describes the exciting incident.
Curious: Kovalainen rose calmly from the car that was burning brightly in the rear, and still had the overview, to make themselves rich on the pit wall by a Williams mechanic with a fire extinguisher so that it could even lend a hand! “Something always looks dramatic,” he grins. “The car is a bit damaged, but at least no one was injured. That’s the main thing.”
Given that reasoning, it is unlikely that the race stewards will issue a penalty against him. Usually, it is well known, not allowed to drive on with an obviously badly damaged car – especially not when the pit exit would be located on the road. But Kovalainen reasoning makes sense, because it was so actually less risky.

By the way: through the smoke on the finish line and the yellow flags came Sebastian Vettel in the last round again threatening close to leader Fernando Alonso. Alonso, however, kept a cool head and saved his second victory in Singapore over the distance.