Flavio Briatore has hit out at formula one by suggesting “any top driver” would have won last year’s title with the 2011 Red Bull.
“It’s only a real show now when it rains,” the former Renault team boss told Italy’s Sky Sport 24.

Briatore, 61, blames the huge role played by technology.

“If you were to take GP2 cars and put the 6 world champions in them, it would be more fun,” he insisted.

“The car is now made in the wind tunnel, the engineers aren’t even at the circuits and they spend 200 million euros making identical machines.

“Last year, the championship was over after the first race, and this will be the same; McLaren are two tenths from Red Bull, Mercedes three, and Ferrari and Lotus 4 to 7.

“Two tenths is like 2-0 behind in a football game. In F1, the Messi is Alonso, but if his car is not competitive, he is going nowhere.”

 A stray dog delayed the first ever practice session at India’s new Buddh circuit early on Friday.
The black dog caused a five minute delay until it was chased down by officials at the smog-affected venue.

In 2008 in Turkey, Bruno Senna struck and killed a dog at speed with his GP2 car, damaging his suspension.

Another point of note on Friday was fastest driver Lewis Hamilton’s helmet, which unusually featured a picture of Bob Marley on the top.

A day after the 2008 world champion confirmed his split with girlfriend Nicole Scherzinger, many wondered if the Briton was referring to the Marley song ‘No woman no cry’.

In fact, the reference was to the song ‘One love’, featuring the lyrics ‘Let’s get together and feel all right’.

Hamilton told reporters on Thursday: “These times are sent to try you. And it’s about how you pull through them.”

Karun Chandhok will test the 2011 GP2 car this week in France.

The Indian driver has been asked by his old team ORT to give the new car its maiden test in Paul Ricard beginning on Thursday.

“I really hope my experience in formula one and in GP2 will be helpful to the team,” he said.

“My goal for 2011 is to remain in formula one, but for the time being it’s good to have the opportunity of knowing the new GP2 car,” said Chandhok, 26.

The new GP2 car has been designed by Dallara, who also penned the Hispania that Chandhok raced early in 2010.

Chandhok wrote on Twitter that the Paul Ricard test is a “good chance to try (the) Pirelli tyres and knock the rust off!”

It is now clear that next year’s formula one tyres will be identical to the ones used in the feeder series GP2.

We reported last month that, as Nick Heidfeld began testing Pirelli’s F1 prototypes at Mugello, also running the tyres for the Italian marque was a GP2 car driven by Briton Ben Hanley.

Pirelli’s track programme continued last week at Paul Ricard, where this time alongside Heidfeld’s 2009 Toyota was Giorgio Pantano in the GP2 Dallara.

“We were using the same tyres as Heidfeld with the 2009 Toyota,” confirmed GP2 technical director Didier Perrin, according to Germany’s Auto Bild.

“This is good news because it means you can use the same tyres in both series, which is important for Pirelli and GP2.

“For the GP2 drivers, it means them racing on the same tyres as in formula one, which would be very useful for their futures,” Frenchman Perrin added.

Kimi Raikkonen could be asked to test formula one tyres for the sport’s new exclusive supplier Pirelli.

It has emerged that the Italian company will supply two sets of tyres to each team at a special Abu Dhabi test immediately after November’s season finale.

But Pirelli is also keen to do some testing before then, and – after initially running with a GP2 car – is considering using either an old BMW or Toyota car.

As for the driver, Nick Heidfeld had been touted, but this might have handed an unfair advantage to Mercedes.

According to Finland’s Turun Sanomat, Pirelli’s racing boss Paul Hembery proposed in Valencia that Finn Raikkonen could be an option.

The 2007 world champion left Ferrari at the end of last year and currently drives full-time in the Pirelli-shod world rally championship.

“I don’t know whether Kimi Raikkonen would be interested,” Hembery is quoted as saying.

The 18 grand prix winner’s manager Steve Robertson said: “Currently, Kimi is totally focused on what he is doing.

“But if Pirelli approaches us, of course we will discuss it.  Then, it would depend on whether Kimi is interested in this sort of challenge, and how it would fit into his schedule,” he added.

(GMM)

Entering formula one will not cause Pirelli to increase its budget, chairman Marco Tronchetti Provera said on Thursday.

The Italian company has won its bid to succeed the sport’s departing exclusive supplier Bridgestone in 2011, but its boss played down suggestions the sport is still extremely expensive for participants.

Tronchetti Provera confirmed that teams are paying Pirelli for service over the next three years, adding that the cost to the marque “will be zero compared to our budget”.

And “the advertising campaign … will be switched from other races where we’ve reduced our presence, first of all rallying, where there are new rules starting next year”, he is quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.

“We’ll reduce our budget in other racing (categories) and be fully dedicated to formula one,” he said, although Pirelli will also supply GP2 and GP3 next year.

Meanwhile, Pirelli’s director of motorsport Paul Hembrey played down reports the unraced 2010 Toyota car will be used by the marque for F1 tyre testing.

Revealing that a GP2 car will be used instead, he said as “a test-bed, particularly for integrity reasons, reliability and stability, it’s probably a good starting point”.
(GMM)

It rained shortly after the second practice session in Monaco.

As the GP2 cars qualified at the Principality, moderately heavy rain was falling, following a few drops during F1′s final 90 minutes of Thursday practice.

But Mercedes reserve driver Nick Heidfeld told Germany’s Sky television: “A low probability of rain is predicted for Saturday and Sunday.”

Friday is always a rest day in Monaco.

(GMM)

Michael Schumacher says he ground his first day of trying in a GP2 car useful preparation for his Formula 1 return, even if wet weather meant he couldn’t complete any serious running on dry tyres.

With the returning seven-time champion unable to get back in F1 machiney until the testing ban is lifted at the start of February, his new team Mercedes GP managed to get permission from the FIA for the 41-year-old to carry out three days worth of track testing in the GP2 Series’s next-generation car at Jerez this week.

Schumacher, who has spent the past three years in retirement, hadn’t been behind the wheel of single seater since driving a two-year-old Ferrari last summer as part of his preparations for a temporary comeback bid which he soon had to abort due to a lingering neck injury.

The opening day of his GP2 test, however, in southern Spain was hit by poor weather, meaning the track was too wet to complete running on slick tyres.

However despite the rainy conditions and the fact the GP2 car doesn’t put his now-healed neck through the kind of g-forces he will experience in an F1 cockpit, Schumacher says he still happened the day invaluable – particularly as it proved to him his peerless wet-weather skills were still intact.

“The day today was good especially because after a long time I could drive again in a car that came almost close to a current Formula 1,“ he said on his personal website.