Australian F1 fans are this week rejoicing in local hero Mark Webber even more than usual.

Pressure applied by the Red Bull driver was reportedly instrumental in returning the sport to the live television airways in Australian capital cities.

Fans were outraged with Australian broadcaster Ten’s decision to take formula one from its high definition channel One, which in turn meant viewers in Perth and Adelaide had no live coverage at all.

Angry fans bombarded Ten’s Facebook and Twitter pages with criticism abuse, and urged Webber to help their cause.

Webber obliged.

“Come on (Ten), I hear our great Australian motor sport fans are not happy with rescheduling of timings of the GPs,” he wrote on Twitter.

“Let’s go live.”

Within an hour, Ten reinstated Perth and Adelaide’s live broadcasts — and in full HD.

“The next time Ten wants to tangle with its motor sport audience, perhaps they should ask Mark Webber first,” read a report at The Australian newspaper.

Fernando Alonso on Thursday insisted he would accept not winning in Brazil this weekend so long as he finishes ahead of his championship rivals.

With two races left to run, the Spaniard is 11 points clear of Red Bull’s Mark Webber, meaning that both Alonso and Ferrari will be happy if local hero and Interlagos specialist Felipe Massa wins on Sunday.

“He (Massa) will want to show his fans what he can do so I expect him to be very much up for the fight,” said team boss Stefano Domenicali this week.

“He will be very quick, which is exactly what we need right now to reach our goals,” added the Italian.

Alonso told reporters on Thursday that the important thing for him in Brazil is a strong result ahead of his title rivals, not necessarily the race win itself.

“I think the best thing for us will be to have Felipe winning the race because he takes 25 points from everybody else,” he said.

When everything is rosy red, with black and silver one looks for Red Bull Hockenheim is not brilliant. The Grand Prix of Germany was the great show of Ferrari. Fernando Alonso put in a hard battle over 67 rounds through with difficulty, hardship, great determination and the kind assistance of the team to his stable mate Felipe Massa. Sebastian Vettel was in third place in the fight for victory do little.

Massa had laid the foundation for a beautiful duel by a rocket launch. When the box was sent to the great journey, Vettel and Alonso blocked in the battle for the top one another, the Brazilian shot by loosely at his side. The Heppenheim also got second place even to his Spanish rival, the Ferrari-train could pull away again.

Behind the leading trio, Lewis Hamilton had the better top speed may push past the McLaren in the first round to Mark Webber. The Briton made his Australian opponent in the braking zone before the hairpin, no chance. For Webber, the already difficult race was later complicated. Even Jenson Button came through a better strategy yet by him.

Front left Alonso in the fight for the victory of patience in the meantime. On lap 20 his efforts culminated in an attack on Massa, who fought but successful. “This is ridiculous”, sparked fury of Asturias to the pits. He had hoped that one on him vorbeilotst Brazilians – but not yet. Alonso was unnerved to fall back to three seconds later to start a new hunt.

With fast laps he pushed himself up again to Massa. It was clear who is the faster Ferrari man. About 25 laps later Alonso finally got his way. With a few well-concealed position request to exchange Massa was slowed, the ostentatiously went to the hairpin on the gas and pull Alonso did. “Sorry,” were the words of Massa engineer Rob Smedley to his protege sad.

“Adjutant” Massa had the remaining 15 laps, only one job: controlling Vettel. The Red Bull Local Hero had been able to conserve his tires for a long time and threatened to catch up to the top. While Alonso was able to free forward well, made the German more and more pressure on Massa. Vettel was the last Rendrittel many fast laps, but was again thrown back lapping at something. Massa thus saved second place before the Germans.
While the British silver arrows drove into Hamilton ahead of Button in order to Paarflug places four and five, the concerns of the German Silver Arrows were clearly visible. Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher caught behind Mark Webber (Red Bull) and Robert Kubica (Renault) in the stands while eight and nine points, but were overtaken both! Mercedes was in phases two seconds slower than the top.

The last point landed Renault rookie Vitaly Petrov at number ten. could do little, the two Williams drivers Rubens Barrichello and Nico Hulkenberg, both of which fell back immediately at the start and were later able to make little impression. Adrian Sutil had to make three pit stops and ended up in 17th place, Timo Glock was with his rank behind Virgin’s best driver of the three new teams. The Swiss Sébastien Buemi (Toro Rosso) was eliminated early after a collision with his teammate Jaime Alguersuari.
TMS

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.”

Lewis Hamilton was the big loser as Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya hosted the Spanish grand prix on Sunday.

The McLaren driver was running second behind dominant winner Mark Webber when a tyre failure pitched him into the barrier on the penultimate lap.

It means he is now just seventh in the drivers’ championship, 21 points behind his teammate and title leader Jenson Button, who had a bad race in Spain stuck behind Michael Schumacher.

If Hamilton’s tyre had held on for another two laps, the Briton would now be just three points off the lead.

“It could have been (caused by) debris caught in the rim,” McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh speculated.

Webber aside, the big winner on Sunday was the local hero Fernando Alonso, who not only benefitted from Hamilton’s failure but also Sebastian Vettel’s brake problem.

Alonso is just 3 points behind championship leader Button, with Vettel and Webber driving a dominant car but just third and fourth respectively in the standings.

“Overall the weekend has been so-so for us but in terms of results it’s fantastic,” said Ferrari’s Alonso.

(GMM)

Locking out the front row of the grid, the RB6s driven by pole sitter Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel were approaching a full second quicker than their closest rival on Saturday afternoon.

McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton, the fastest non-Red Bull runner, was more than eight tenths slower than Australian Webber.

“I don’t think anyone expected them to be so fast,” he told the BBC.

Local hero Fernando Alonso shares the second row of the grid with Hamilton, mere hundredths ahead of championship leader Button.

“This should be a walk in park for the Red Bulls,” said the reigning world champion.

The Red Bull camp has been playing down their inevitable dominance throughout the weekend so far, but Webber suggested the team knew their car would be easily the fastest.

“(Team boss) Christian (Horner) said before the session ‘you probably won’t get to drive a car like this around this track very often so go and enjoy it’, and I did. It was a sensational quali session,” said the 33-year-old.

Michael Schumacher, meanwhile, confirmed his step forward with his updated car by qualifying sixth, two places ahead of the sister Mercedes.

May 7 (GMM)  A new war of words between former bitter McLaren teammates Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton is threatening to break out.

It is three years since the pair clashed so memorably at the British team, and two years since the ugly racist incident during winter testing at the Circuit de Catalunya.

It is at Barcelona that Hamilton, 25, has chosen to respond to local hero Alonso’s claim that the 2008 world champion is now on the verge of receiving penalties by the stewards.

The Spaniard said last week that some of Hamilton’s driving this year has been “punishable”, adding that “if he does something in the next race, however little, there will be penalties”.

Hamilton has responded by pointing to Alonso’s move three weeks ago in China, when his Ferrari teammate Felipe Massa ended up on the grass in the Shanghai pitlane.

“I’ve never done that, and it’s definitely not in my nature to do what he did,” the Briton told PA Sport.

“That could have turned out really badly for Felipe.  He could have been out of the race.”

The ill feeling towards Hamilton was back on display in Barcelona this weekend, with a poster of the Briton slashed across the face in a circuit access tunnel.

“People say I’m aggressive, but I don’t know why.  I just drive with the most passion.  I’m more passionate than aggressive,” he said.