Even amid the chaos of the 2012 pecking order, the star performer is obvious.

That is the view of former F1 driver Christian Klien, who confirmed to the Austrian news agency APA that one of his current roles is a simulator driver for the sport’s latest winning team, Williams.

“It (2012) is very open,” he said, “but for me Fernando Alonso stands out.”

Equal with Sebastian Vettel, Spaniard Alonso is at the top of the drivers’ world championship, a full eight points clear of Lewis Hamilton.

The Spaniard’s car has been the struggling Ferrari F2012, but he has never finished a race this season lower than ninth (China).

He has therefore scored points at every opportunity, even finishing first and second in Malaysia and Spain respectively.

“Alonso has an inferior car,” Klien explained, “but he uses every single little opportunity.

“He is the most complete driver who gets the most out of the package he has.”

Triple world champion Sir Jackie Stewart agrees that, among arguably the most competitive grid of drivers since the late 80s, Alonso is the standout performer.

“Right now we have the best generation of drivers we’ve had for a while,” the famous Scot told the Spanish sports daily AS.

“Everyone talks about Vettel, who is a great driver, and also Hamilton of course, but there is also Button, Schumacher, Kimi — all champions.

“There are others like Webber who also have the quality to win, young drivers coming up, many of them are very good, but also it is true that Alonso is fantastic.”

Asked why the Spaniard has not added a title to his tally since 2006, Stewart said: “The explanation is easy — he hasn’t had the luck to get the best car.

“Now he has one that isn’t good, but it’s in those circumstances that you see even more the quality that he has,” said Stewart.

Given Alonso’s push to the top of the championship with a sub-standard car, therefore, all the talk about Ferrari writing off the 2012 championship has been silenced for now.

“We have to keep developing the car,” Stefano Domenicali, Ferrari’s team boss, said after Barcelona, where significant upgrades were brought to the F2012 package.

“We are not yet fast enough to consistently fight for the podium, but that is the only option if we want to be in contention for the title,” he insisted.

Well-known Brazilian commentator Reginaldo Leme has defended Felipe Massa, amid the Ferrari driver’s career crisis.

Massa’s Ferrari seat hangs in the balance, and according to his boss Stefano Domenicali, he will have to improve in order to simply stay on the F1 grid with any team next year.

But Leme has pointed the finger of blame at Ferrari’s struggling F2012 car.

“It is very difficult to give an explanation for any driver’s bad phase,” Leme acknowledged on the Redacao Sportv programme.

“The car is very bad. The fact that Alonso is always scoring (points) just shows that the Spaniard is the best driver of this generation.

“No other driver, however good, could get anything out of that car.

“I think that’s what’s happening with Massa,” said Leme.

Massa will drive Ferrari’s heavily updated Barcelona-spec car at the Mugello test next Wednesday, while Alonso will drive on Tuesday and Thursday.

Turning his attention to the 2012 championship, meanwhile, Reginaldo Leme said consistency is more important than ever before, with four separate teams having won races so far.

“Look at Webber — he has been fourth four times and is third in the championship. Hamilton has been third three times and is right in contention.”

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.

Kimi Raikkonen has a simple theory as to why his return to formula one was much smoother than fellow former champion Michael Schumacher’s.

After two less competitive seasons in 2010 and 2011, seven time title winner Schumacher, 43, is finally back up to speed this year.

Finn Raikkonen is more than a decade younger than his German rival and he was off the grid for only two years, not three.

But he thinks there is a simpler explanation as to why he has returned immediately to the pace, while Schumacher took more than two full seasons.

“It’s just about whether you have a good car or not. It has made life much easier for me,” said Raikkonen, who has returned with Lotus.

“He (Schumacher) was not so lucky,” the former McLaren and Ferrari driver told Germany’s Sport Bild.

“The (Lotus) car is good,” the 2007 world champion added, referring to his black and gold E20. “Whether it’s good enough for victory or not, I don’t know.

“At least we are not far away from the top.”

Raikkonen insists not much has changed in F1 since he left for a world rallying foray at the end of 2009 — not even his friendship with Sebastian Vettel.

“He has won two titles since then but it didn’t change him,” said Raikkonen.

“Sebastian is a great racing driver but he’s also a really nice guy,” he added.

As for himself, Raikkonen insists he is just the same.

“Maybe people see me as more relaxed, which I think is down to the (Lotus) team,” he said.

“It’s a different atmosphere to what I’ve experienced before.”

F1′s governing body has played down claims Sebastian Vettel faces a penalty for his behaviour during the Malaysian grand prix.

After the race, the reigning world champion dismissed HRT’s Narain Karthikeyan as an “idiot” following their on-track collision.

On-board footage subsequently proved that Red Bull driver Vettel, 24, twice showed his Indian driver a ‘middle finger’ salute.

Reports in Germany suggested the behaviour was a breach of the stricter code of conduct under FIA president Jean Todt, with the German theoretically facing anything from a warning to the revocation of his superlicense.

“My understanding is these matters are dealt with by stewards at each grand prix,” an FIA spokesman told us. “I am not aware of any other action being contemplated.”

Karthikeyan, who was penalised after the clash, told the Hindustan Times newspaper that the stewards favoured world champion Vettel’s explanation.

“They (the stewards) didn’t care about what I had to say because Mr Vettel told them god knows what when he went and talked to them,” he said.

But Red Bull team boss Christian Horner defended Vettel, telling the Mirror that it is “Karthikeyan’s responsibility to get out of the way for the leaders”.

Force India driver Nico Hulkenberg, meanwhile, partly excused Vettel’s outbursts.

“I think Vettel was just emotional at that point of time. At the end of the day, he is just human and sometimes you get emotional,” the German is quoted by the Times of India.

Former driver Adrian Sutil goes even further.

“I can understand him (Vettel),” he told Die Welt newspaper in Germany. “I was often angry when I was lapping people, when they make no room for you while they are fighting for places that have almost no significance.

“Karthikeyan ended up influencing not only Vettel’s race, but also Jenson Button’s. They (backmarkers) have to understand that as well.”

Jaime Alguersuari has ruled out following his former Toro Rosso teammate Sebastien Buemi to Le Mans.
The pair were axed at the end of last season, leaving Swiss Buemi with the reserve role at Red Bull and a one-off drive in the fabled Le Mans 24 hour race.

21-year-old Alguersuari, on the other hand, will remain in the paddock this year thanks only to his new British radio co-commentary role, amid rumours he could become Pirelli’s test driver.

Le Mans, he insists, is not an option.

“No, that’s avoiding F1,” he told the BBC. “I am working for the radio and I will do some go-kart races to help with my physical training.

“Racing elsewhere is just starting another career. It’s doing something that’s not F1.”

It is clear Alguersuari is keeping his diary clean in the event an opportunity arises to quickly return to the grid.

“In F1 you never say never. Anything can happen,” said the Spaniard.

The BBC is also acutely aware of its acquisition’s real ambition.

Radio 5 Live controller Adrian van Klaveren said: “We are going to make the most of Jaime’s first hand experience right now knowing he could well be driving for one of the teams again in the near future.”

Meanwhile, Alguersuari slammed his former bosses’ explanations as to why he and Buemi were ousted.

“I respect the situation that they don’t want my work anymore, but what they’ve said is absolutely not acceptable,” he told the Daily Mail.

“They said we are good drivers, but we are not winners. It doesn’t make sense if you give me a car that is not capable to be in the top ten.”

Two authoritative sources have admitted they doubt Adrian Newey was telling the whole truth about the air inlet in the ‘step’ nose of Red Bull’s 2012 car.
Designer Newey, the pioneer of the now-banned blown diffuser solutions seen throughout last year’s grid, insisted that the mysterious letterbox-slot gap in the RB8 is simply to cool the drivers with air.

But the aerodynamic expert’s explanation was met with some initial scepticism, amid speculation the monocoque air could also be flowing elsewhere for a performance benefit.

“The drivers are going to get their feet wet when it rains,” a suspicious unnamed engineer smilingly told Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.

Also unconvinced is Joan Villadelprat, a veteran former formula one engineer who has worked at McLaren, Ferrari, Benetton, Prost and – most recently – heading the operations of the sports car team Epsilon Euskadi.

He wrote in El Pais newspaper: “Personally, I don’t believe Adrian Newey’s explanation that the opening is to refresh the drivers.

“If that’s what they need then Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber must drive half-asleep,” the Spaniard joked.

Italy’s La Gazzetta dello Sport speculates that the RB8′s inlet directs air underneath the floor, as per Ferrari’s innovative nose-slot of 2008.

When Adrian Newey said a mysterious ‘letterbox slot’-shaped air inlet in the stepped nose of his new RB8 car is for driver cooling, a wave of speculation eased.
But not everyone inside the F1 paddock was entirely happy with that answer.

When the 2012 Red Bull was launched recently, it was apparent the ‘step’ nose design differed from its rivals in the form of a sizeable inlet where the monocoque meets the new mandatory lower nose height.

Some surmised it must be for KERS cooling, or perhaps even an F-duct style channel through to the diffuser.

Amid suggestions Mercedes has come up with an F-duct style channel in its 2012 front wing, Red Bull designer Newey explained that the nose slot is in fact simply to cool the drivers.

“Traditionally the driver cooling slot is at the front of the nose,” explained Newey, “but really for styling as much as anything we moved it to where you now see it to break up the aesthetics of the ramp.”

There are, however, doubts about that explanation, particularly with close-up images showing that the main inlet is actually divided into two channels at the middle.

Indeed, the Telegraph last week quoted Newey as having said the slot is “primarily” for cooling, which suggests that it might have another use.

According to Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport, “the competition is suspicious”, having already been outsmarted by Newey in past years in the area of flexing wings and blown diffusers.

When asked about Newey’s driver-cooling explanation for the big letterbox slot-style inlet, an unnamed rival engineer smiled: “Then the drivers are going to get their feet wet when it rains.”

Asked last week about the ‘cooling inlet’ amid Jerez’s cold temperatures, Mark Webber reportedly grinned to Autosprint: “The toes are a bit too cold now actually.”

McLaren or Force India have been earmarked as possible new employers for Bob Bell.

The 52-year-old Ulsterman has left Renault after a long post as technical boss, and having acted as team principal amid the crashgate scandal.

According to Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport, some insiders think he might soon reappear in Force India colours.

The Silverstone based team has been struggling recently, with some experts pointing as an explanation to the departures of James Key to Sauber and Mark Smith to Lotus.

The report also said a return to McLaren is possible, where Bell worked for 15 years as an aerodynamicist before moving to Enstone based Benetton/Renault.

“He’s certainly a very capable guy,” said Williams chairman Adam Parr at Suzuka.  “I hope he will get a job very soon.”

Pedro de la Rosa has vowed to catch up with his former team boss Peter Sauber at the end of the season.

The Spaniard raced with the Swiss team in 2010 until last month’s Italian grand prix, whereafter he was replaced for the last five races by Nick Heidfeld.

Sauber said he made the decision in order to gauge the true pace of the Ferrari-powered C29 car.

De la Rosa has told Spanish radio Cadena Ser this week that he will catch up with the 67-year-old after the Abu Dhabi finale “to see if it was the right decision”.

He admits that Sauber’s explanation that it was de la Rosa’s consistency that motivated the decision “hurt me”.

But he said German Heidfeld is a “good driver, but the quality all the way through the field is very close”.

39-year-old de la Rosa also admitted that the occupant of the sister car, Kamui Kobayashi, is “much better than you think”.

He also said that if he had strong sponsors, “I would still be there”.

On the three-race championship fight, de la Rosa tipped countryman Fernando Alonso “but I don’t know if that’s my brain or my heart speaking”.

He also said the layout of the Korean circuit looks “mixed”, with the tighter sections favouring the Red Bull, and the Ferrari to be better on the long straights.

At Hockenheim, the two top teams Red Bull and Ferrari have particularly impressive in qualifying with an incredible speed. Neither McLaren nor Mercedes, Renault or Williams had a chance against Vettel, Alonso and their teammates. “I wonder where you now herbekommt seven tenths of a second” says Champion Jenson Button had been surprised on Saturday afternoon after the time of hunting.

The Briton was no explanation that his team suddenly has such a significant backlog. The declaration could possibly in the front wings of Red Bull and Ferrari to be hidden. According to information received by ‘Motorsport-Total.com’ the solutions of the two teams by the Automobile Association FIA be viewed critically.
The FIA expects the two teams on the possible explanations flexible front wing. The allegations that had been triggered by photographs that show a significantly small distance between the road edge and wing while driving. When one of the cars, the distance seems to be much larger. In the regulations, a corresponding minimum distance is fixed.

“Photos must be taken as a basis always dangerous,” wards off the Red Bull team boss Christian Horner. “You never know whether the camera has moved, or how much petrol, for example just in the vehicle.” The head of Sebastian Vettel is certain: “Our car is in all respects with the applicable rules. Whoever wants to can protest, yes.”

With a special stress test checks the FIA, the maximum deflection of aerodynamic components. These tests have Red Bull and Ferrari have to pass, as all other teams. Now there will be further reviews of the elements. Should the part of Red Bull and Ferrari prove to be legal, have other teams like a new construction site: The front wing would have to be imitated.