Ferrari will not appoint an official reserve driver in 2012, the famous Italian team has confirmed.
The Maranello based team’s former reserve, Jules Bianchi, has stepped up to the Friday role at Force India.

Also on Ferrari’s books are Davide Rigon, Giancarlo Fisichella and Marc Gene.

But in the event Felipe Massa or Fernando Alonso are unable to race at any point this season, Ferrari will “take one of the drivers who are running around the paddock”, a spokesman told Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.

“Last year we saw that Pedro de la Rosa was there and ready to go when Sergio Perez needed to be replaced at Sauber,” the source added.

For example, it is believed ousted Toro Rosso driver Jaime Alguersuari accepted the full-time radio co-commentary role with the BBC in the hope he will be needed by a team at some point this year.

Mercedes, too, will not have its official reserve – Sam Bird – on site throughout the long 2012 season.

“It makes little sense with the test limits to pay for an experienced test driver full-time,” explained Norbert Haug.

Ferrari has set to work to fix a problem at the rear of its troubled F2012 car, Italy’s Autosprint reports.
The report said initial winter testing highlighted problems with the car’s exhaust solution, prompting Pat Fry to order the outlets be moved inwards.

This, however, left the homologated portion of the chassis that housed the original exhausts intact, with modification to require a new FIA crash test.

“I want to understand what is happening, and how many seconds it will take to be fixed,” president Luca di Montezemolo is quoted as having said.

Triple world champion Niki Lauda is alarmed.

“I have never heard comments like this from within a team — this is dramatic,” the great Austrian told Blick newspaper.

However, the Swiss newspaper also said some of Ferrari’s rivals are making similar modifications to their cars that will require new FIA crash tests.

Even so, “nobody at Maranello expected this”, wrote the famous Italian sports daily La Gazzetta dello Sport.

Corriere dello Sport, meanwhile, said the fact Ferrari gagged its drivers for the first time ever recently is “more worrying than the testing results”.

Test driver Marc Gene told Spanish television Antena 3: “This will be a very long world championship, and we will fight to win.

“At the moment we are not at the level we wanted to be.”

It is faintly possible Ferrari is playing an extreme hand of bluff, but Lauda insists that theory is now believed by “only a few”.

“They’ve got a great team,” Red Bull team boss Christian Horner told Sky Sports, “they haven’t fully shown their hand yet. I think they’re more competitive than people believe they are.

“I’m sure the car looks a handful but sometimes a difficult car can be a quick car so it would be foolish to write off Fernando (Alonso) going into Melbourne,” he added.

 A feature of the 2012 Ferrari car has not been seen in formula one for more than a decade, test driver Marc Gene has confirmed.
While the ‘stepped’ noses have been grabbing all the media’s attention, arguably more noteworthy is Ferrari’s decision to design its F2012 around ‘pullrod’ front suspension.

While some F1 teams have been using pullrod suspension at the rear of their cars, it has been essentially absent from the front since the 80s and 90s.

“The system seeks to lower the centre of gravity and improve the entry and operation of the air from the front to the rear to improve downforce,” Spaniard Gene wrote in the El Mundo newspaper.

“It was last seen at the front of Fernando Alonso’s Minardi in 2011,” he added.

After the first day of official testing on Tuesday, Ferrari designer Nikolas Tombazis said: “No one will be able to accuse us of having been timid in the design of this car.”

One word has set Red Bull apart from its rivals McLaren and Ferrari this season: “Innovation.”
That is the claim of Marc Gene, a test driver for Ferrari.

“I have no doubt,” he wrote in his column for El Mundo newspaper. “It was they who came up with the blown diffuser and then hid the innovation from the other teams.

“I can assure you that the difference between running with or without the exhaust is huge.

“Aerodynamic innovations like this have dominated F1 in recent years, like the F-duct as well, and so I hope everything is more equal next season,” added Gene.

The Spaniard is referring to the FIA’s clampdown for 2012.

“The fact that we (Ferrari) won at Silverstone when the blown exhausts were not there makes me think that our car was not so bad,” he explained.

Back to back world champion Sebastian Vettel, however, is not worried.

“No,” he is quoted by O Estado de S.Paulo, “because I trust that our engineering group will respond with a series of interesting solutions.

“They are quite clever,” the German smiled.

Poor starts and qualifying explains Mark Webber’s struggle to keep up with new back-to-back world champion Sebastian Vettel in 2011.
That is the claim of Ferrari’s Spanish test driver Marc Gene, who admitted in El Mundo newspaper that he is a “big fan” of Vettel’s Australian teammate at Red Bull.

Vettel, 24, has won nine races so far in 2011 and wrapped up the championship with four races to spare, while 35-year-old Webber is 130 points adrift in the sister car that is yet to record a single victory.

“I think the big difference has been in qualifying and then the (race) starts,” said Gene. “He hasn’t been as good in those areas and that has been the source of the points difference between the two (drivers).

“In the races their pace is very similar and in Suzuka the team even had to stop him (Webber) having a battle with Vettel.”

Meanwhile, Gene doubts that Vettel and Red Bull will run away with another easy title in 2012.

“I think not,” he wrote. “The other teams have learned a lot this year in their impossible fight with Red Bull and it makes me think it will be a big fight next year.”

Sebastian Vettel should not be worried about his 2011 championship running off track.
That is the view of the Red Bull driver’s rivals as well as pundits and journalists despite a third consecutive defeat for Vettel in Hungary last weekend.

German newsmagazine Focus observed that while Budapest winner Jenson Button “laughed” on the podium, it was the sullen Vettel who had “scored” by actually pulling out his championship lead to a huge 85 points.

“It is really beginning to look like it is a case of when, and not if, he will seal his second world title,” former driver Johnny Herbert wrote in his latest column for The National.

Some pundits believe Vettel needs to worry, however, given that McLaren and also Ferrari look to have caught up with his previously-dominant RB7 car.

“But,” Herbert insisted, “Vettel’s lead is so vast that just finishing in the top four or five regularly should be enough to see him home.”

Also pessimistic is Marc Gene, Ferrari’s test driver who writes a column for the Spanish newspaper El Mundo.

“Our resurgence has been outstanding,” he said, “but unfortunately the championship situation is not changing much.”

Italy’s La Gazzetta dello Sport said the remaining races this season will be closely contested by Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari, but likened the actual championship battle to a runaway leader in the Giro d’Italia bike race.

“It’s too late for the championship as the pink jersey is far ahead,” said the sports newspaper.

“Vettel no longer has a performance advantage but now he can use his head more than his foot, while behind him the protagonists take points off each other.”

Former Renault boss Flavio Briatore told Onda Cero radio on Monday that the world championship “is over” unless “something tragic happens”.

Agreed Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg, who called the Hungarian grand prix with German Sky television: “That (Vettel’s second place) is how he will become world champion.”

For instance, Button – then with Brawn GP – won the title in 2009 with a smaller mid-season points advantage, a smaller and less financially-powerful team, and more pressure given that he was charging for his first title.

“If I had the lead he’s got, I wouldn’t be feeling any pressure at all,” the Briton told The Independent.

Button headed to Hawaii this week to begin F1′s summer break, and Bild newspaper reports that Vettel is Mallorca-bound.

“I need a bit of energy from the sun,” the 24-year-old German is quoted by Die Welt.

Said Italy’s Tuttosport: “Vettel can enjoy his holiday in peace.”

The team has failed to win a race so far in July, but Red Bull remains the favourite for victory this weekend in Hungary.
That is the claim of triple world champion Niki Lauda, who said the energy drink-owned team is usually very fast on the many tight curves of the Hungaroring.

“If normal temperatures prevail, and if everything goes to plan, then yes — he (Sebastian Vettel) is the clear favourite,” the Austrian told APA news agency.

Lauda added that 24-year-old Vettel is “still clearly on course” for the 2011 title, despite Red Bull losing to Ferrari at Silverstone and then McLaren last weekend in Germany.

“He still has a big gap in the standings,” said Lauda. “He need not worry.”

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso agrees that the championship is still heading Red Bull’s way.

“We did very well in Britain, McLaren won in Germany, but Red Bull is always on the podium, if not with one driver then the other,” he is quoted by La Stampa newspaper.

“They are good on all circuits, so in Hungary they will be competitive. We are the ones who must make further progress,” added Alonso.

At McLaren there is a mix of confidence and trepidation, with Lewis Hamilton winning at the Nurburgring amid the suspicion the MP4-26 might revert to struggling in hotter temperatures.

“We might get to Hungary and be massively off because we might overheat our tyres,” he said.

Paradoxically, Ferrari is looking forward to better weather in Hungary.

“It should be a good race for us to be able to go on holiday after a formidable July,” predicted test driver Marc Gene in El Mundo newspaper.

Hamilton is pushing for a better ‘DRS’ rear wing system for his McLaren, with boss Martin Whitmarsh telling Auto Motor und Sport it will not be ready until Spa after the summer break.

“We don’t have a DRS as efficient as the others,” Hamilton said. “That’s what we need to work on.”

Whitmarsh, meanwhile, thinks McLaren and Ferrari need to unite to combat their common enemy.

“Ferrari is in the same situation as us; we need each other to take points off Red Bull,” the Briton is quoted by Corriere dello Sport.

Ferrari leapfrogged not only McLaren but also Red Bull at Silverstone, but the question now is whether the Italian team will maintain its pace in Germany in two weeks.
Fernando Alonso’s winning pace in Britain coincided not only with a new package for the 150 Italia car, but also changeable weather and the fact that the Spaniard did not have to use the hardest compound tyre en route to victory.

But also significant is the fact that Silverstone was the debut of the FIA’s full clampdown on off-throttle exhaust blowing.

Der Spiegel reports that, when unfettered blowing was allowed in Valencia and earlier, Ferrari-powered teams were only able to rev their engines to 50 per cent at the most when the driver was not on the throttle.

And unfortunately for the famous Maranello based team, the regulations will return to Valencia specification at the Nurburgring and beyond.

So will the 150 Italia lose its advantage in Germany?

“I think it would be unfair to say that. I think there will be people who conclude it,” said McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh.

“Ferrari have been pushing this year, pushing hard, they deserved a win.”

Ferrari test driver Marc Gene said that at Silverstone, where the regulations changed multiple times, the improved 2011 car was consistently competitive.

“We were good when we were blowing 50, 20 or 10 per cent,” the Spaniard told El Mundo newspaper. “There are teams who think we benefit the most but it (the better pace) has nothing to do with it.”

Niki Lauda, however, thinks the discussion is moot, given Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel’s huge championship points advantage.

“Sebastian is clearly on course for the championship,” the triple world champion told Germany’s N-TV.

Sebastien Buemi is now the Toro Rosso driver under pressure after two strong races by his teammate Jaime Alguersuari.

Alguersuari was besieged at Valencia by widespread speculation that he will soon lose his race cockpit to the promising Australian Daniel Ricciardo.

But he ran strongly to eighth place in both Canada and Spain, and the AS and Blick newspapers now believe it is Swiss Buemi who is most at risk of losing his seat.

“With these two races he has secured his year and his future,” the Faenza based team’s boss Franz Tost is quoted as saying, referring to Alguersuari.

Veteran Blick correspondent Roger Benoit wrote: “Must the Swiss (Buemi) now tremble?”

Ferrari test driver and Alguersuari’s countryman Marc Gene agrees that the Spaniard has looked stronger of late.

“Previously his big problem was understanding the behaviour of the tyres, but his pace is now impressive. Valencia was a super result when he needed it the most.”

Alguersuari, 21, is quoted by El Mundo newspaper: “My goal is to finish races, score points and be ahead of my teammate.”

It’s “too soon” to say Sebastian Vettel has run away with the 2011 title. That is the claim of Ferrari’s test driver Marc Gene, despite Fernando Alonso admitting at Valencia that his 99 point deficit to the leading Red Bull is now too big to bridge. “What should you do when the gap is 99 points? When it no longer depends on you, there is no choice but to go race by race,” the Spaniard is quoted by El Mundo newspaper. “The truth is that we (Ferrari) are fighting face-to-face and that’s good news. Alonso was on the pace for the whole (Valencia) race and they (Red Bull) had to push hard. “I did wonder how much was due to the street circuit so I think at Silverstone we will see things clearer. “Will Vettel be champion? That kind of talk is premature. He is three race wins ahead of Button so it’s clear that his dominance is overwhelming. “At other times they’ve experienced difficult situations. I don’t think Ferrari will give up. We must continue to develop. They are not champions yet, and to see them as such would be a mistake,” added Gene.

Ferrari test driver Marc Gene has denied the team supplies superior equipment to Fernando Alonso.
Spaniard Alonso, with a new long-term contract, is widely regarded as the famous Italian team’s number 1 driver, particularly with Felipe Massa struggling to keep up over the past two seasons.

But Gene, also a Spaniard, told El Mundo newspaper: “I can confirm 100 per cent that both Felipe and Fernando have the same materials at their disposal.

“If the results of Fernando have been superior it is because of his very high level.

“I cannot judge what he did in his time at Renault and McLaren but I have worked with world champions Schumacher, Villeneuve and Raikkonen and Fernando is the one who impresses me the most,” said Gene.

“Before he arrived at Ferrari I had great expectations, and now that I’ve seen and studied and worked with him, I can say he has exceeded all of the expectations.”

Gene, meanwhile, said he does not believe it would be the right move for Ferrari to abandon work on the 150 Italia car in order to ensure a more competitive start to 2012.

“It is true that the gap to Red Bull is significant, even if there are many races left. But no gap is unbridgeable, especially for a team like Ferrari.

“Also, if it is right that the regulations for next year do not change much, it is still useful to develop the current car because these improvements can also apply to the next one.

“Ferrari’s philosophy is to not give up while the maths do not prove otherwise,” concluded Gene.

Luca Badoer is leaving Ferrari after a long tenure as test driver.

The almost 40-year-old Italian has been in the role since the late 90s, and according to Autosprint magazine he accumulated more than 130,000 kilometres at Fiorano in Ferrari’s F1 cars during that period.

But Badoer was heavily criticised for his lack of competitiveness when he replaced the injured Felipe Massa in the Brazilian’s race cockpit mid last year.

Autosprint said Badoer, who raced 58 other times for minor Italian teams throughout the 90s, is now leaving the team.

The magazine said his last laps in a F1 car were during the recent Valencia celebrations, when he reaquainted with the F60 he raced three times in 2009.

Ferrari announced last month that 21-year-old Frenchman Jules Bianchi has been signed as a test driver for 2011.

Also contracted in test roles are Giancarlo Fisichella and Marc Gene.

Jules Bianchi has been named by Ferrari as an official F1 test driver for the 2011 season.

But a spokesman insisted that the Italian team’s full plans for its support driver programme for next year have not yet been divulged.

Frenchman Bianchi, 21, who raced in GP2 this year and was a frontrunner, was already under long term contract to the Maranello based team as a development driver.

Ferrari announced on Thursday that he will be a “test driver” for the F1 team in 2011, and will contest the two-day young driver test in Abu Dhabi next week.

But the third/reserve role is different, and in 2010 it was fulfilled by Giancarlo Fisichella and Marc Gene. Luca Badoer is also a Ferrari test driver.

Bianchi is managed by Felipe Massa’s manager Nicolas Todt.

He is the grandson of Mauro Bianchi, a GT world champion, and the nephew of Lucien, Le Mans winner and competitor at 19 grands prix in the 60s.

The Ferrari spokesman said more announcements about F1 testing roles for the 2011 season are scheduled for later this year.

After crashing out of the consecutive Italian and Singapore grands prix, Lewis Hamilton has vowed a different approach to the remaining races in 2010.

Before his terminal crash into Felipe Massa at Monza, and then Mark Webber last Sunday, the McLaren driver was considered a favourite for the world championship.

But he is now 20 points adrift with four – or three, depending on embattled Korea’s fate – races to go.

“I’ve changed my attitude,” he said in an interview with Salzburger Nachrichten newspaper.

“I’m not looking at the world championship any more.  I will try to win the next races but above all I want to enjoy my racing,” added the Briton.

Hamilton’s new attitude may also be explained by the nature of the forthcoming races, with Red Bull and Ferrari expected to set the pace at Suzuka next weekend.

“The types of corners (at Suzuka) will be most favourable to Red Bull,” Ferrari test driver Marc Gene wrote in his El Mundo column.

“It wouldn’t surprise me to see them better than the rest and very difficult to beat.  But we will have improvements so you can’t rule us out for the win,” added the Spaniard.

While Ferrari has undoubtedly closed the gap to Red Bull, Sebastian Vettel said recently that the Japanese venue was so suitable for the RB6 that it seems John Hugenholtz “made Suzuka for us”.

“And all the other tracks should suit our car as well.  Korea is the only unknown one, but that’s the same for everyone,” the German told Bild newspaper.

McLaren’s Jenson Button, now the lowest-ranked of the five contenders and 25 points behind leader Webber, said before returning to the UK for simulation tests: “Hopefully Korea goes ahead.”

Another concern for Ferrari is engine usage, given that if Fernando Alonso needs to fit another unit before the Abu Dhabi finale, he will take a ten-place grid penalty.

“There is no reason to think too much about it,” a Ferrari engineer is quoted by El Pais newspaper.

“In Singapore Fernando used an engine that had already done two races,” he explained, adding that the difference between a new and old engine is “not much more” than 2 horse power.

Sebastian Vettel should not have been penalised for losing control at Spa-Francorchamps.

That is the opinion of an unlikely supporter of the 23-year-old Red Bull driver: Marc Gene.

Spaniard Gene is Ferrari’s occasional test driver, who said the drive-through penalty after Vettel crashed into Jenson Button on Sunday “was totally disproportionate”.

“It is true that he was too aggressive, but for there to be a penalty … he did nothing wrong, it was an incident of the race,” Gene wrote in his El Mundo newspaper column.

Niki Lauda’s is a harsher critique, predicting that one more mistake for the young German will end his 2010 title chances.

“You’re an absolute super-talent but you’ve taken excessive risks,” the former triple world champion wrote in Bild newspaper.

“One more mistake and your world championship will be over. Then you will have to drive for your teammate, which would be the ultimate penalty,” said Lauda.

He thinks Vettel is struggling with the pressure.

“You’re in the fastest car,” Lauda said, addressing Vettel personally. “The pressure can be paralysing, because everyone expects you to be in front and everything else is a disappointment.”

Lewis Hamilton, who according to British commentator Martin Brundle is driving better today than in his championship year in 2008, said Vettel’s lack of experience is showing.

“The older I get, the more I understand about experience. Mark (Webber) is a very mature man and that definitely helps,” said the McLaren driver.

David Coulthard advises his Red Bull successor Vettel to get used to the criticism, observing that “the knives seem to be out for him” now.

“I want to make it clear I am not trying to excuse Sebastian’s recent high-profile errors,” he wrote in the Telegraph.

“I see a young man who is suffering from his first spell of growing pains,” added the veteran of almost 250 races.

“I am not excusing them (the mistakes) – as I have said before, F1 is no finishing school – I’m just saying they are understandable,” said Coulthard.