Maria de Villota is not ruling out appearing during a Friday morning practice session some time in 2012.

The 32-year-old Spaniard made international headlines in March when she signed with Marussia as a test driver.

She subsequently admitted, however, that – despite travelling to all the grands prix with the former Virgin team this year – she is “not the reserve driver”.

De Villota, whose father Emilio is a former F1 driver, also clarified in March that she is not contracted to practice on Friday mornings.

But she is not ruling it out now.

“It depends on the team,” she told the Spanish news agency EFE.

“I am trying to do all my duties well so that they are happy with me. And I think they are,” said de Villota.

“But the car is new and the drivers need the miles to develop it. So it’s up to the team (to decide).

“Hopefully it will happen soon, but what happens this year will happen. There may be surprises, but for now I am getting to do a lot of work in the simulator.”

Meanwhile, she made a bold prediction when asked which team she tips to win the so-far unpredictable 2012 championship.

“I think that McLaren is very strong,” said de Villota.

The last female driver to take part in official grand prix sessions was the Italian Giovanna Amati, who failed to qualify for three races in 1992.

Sahara Force India looks ahead to the third round of the 2012 season in Shanghai, China. To download the full PDF preview or the media schedule for the weekend, please click on the links below.

Vijay’s Vision

After two races the 2012 season appears to have all the ingredients needed to serve up a spectacular year of racing. Already the fans have enjoyed two thrilling races and the intensity of the competition across the grid is sure to capture everybody’s attention.

I said last year that the competition in the midfield was close, but this year it seems to be even more so with the majority of the grid capable of fighting for points. It’s a good situation for Formula One, but it also means points are harder to come by. It’s encouraging that we have scored points in both races and that will be our aim once again in China.

I have to congratulate Paul and Nico on their excellent drives in Malaysia. They are only in their second full seasons of Formula One, but they both showed their maturity in the difficult conditions. At times Paul was one of the fastest cars on the circuit, excelling in the conditions, and it’s clear that we can expect another strong season from him. I was also delighted to see Nico pick up his first points with us after such a strong showing.

In terms of car development, the factory at Silverstone continues to work at full capacity to improve our performance. The first two races have given us a great deal of information to work with and we will put it to good use in the coming races.

Dr. Vijay Mallya

Paul on Shanghai
Following points finishes in the first couple of races, Paul Di Resta sets his sights on more of the same in Shanghai this weekend.

Paul, you must be pretty happy with your start to the season…
I think the whole team is pleased to have nine points on the board after two races and it was important that we picked up some good points on such an unpredictable day in Malaysia. We’ve seen how close all the teams are this year and getting points isn’t easy, so it feels good to start as we mean to continue.

Do you enjoy visiting China and experiencing the different culture?
China is a great place and Shanghai is a city I enjoy visiting. It’s such a big place, there is a lot to see and I enjoy it even more each time I go there.

Tell us about the track…
It has some unusual features. Turn one is very long and feels like it goes on forever. The key to getting it right is how much entry speed you can carry into the corner. You also have to look out for one of the biggest bumps of the year at the corner entry, which makes it difficult.

And what about the overtaking opportunities?
The best chance is turn one or into the very tight hairpin of turn 14, which widens on the entry and makes it difficult to defend. We also saw the effectiveness of DRS last year, which helped produce some good racing and it should be the same this year.

Nico on Shanghai
Nico Hulkenberg looks ahead to racing in Shanghai following his points finish in Malaysia.

Nico, after the disappointment of Melbourne, you finally got some racing miles under your belt in Sepang…
Yes, I’m happy with the race we had in Malaysia, which was basically the first proper race I have done since the end of 2010. It wasn’t an easy race and I was never in any clean air, but it was good to pick up a couple of points – my first points for the team.

Did you learn much about the car given that the conditions were so changeable in Sepang?
You always learn something and a race distance is always valuable for your knowledge of the car, even racing in the wet. The most difficult part of the race was just after the restart when I struggled for balance on the wets and intermediates, but when I switched to slicks the performance was pretty good.

Does the team have a better idea of the pecking order yet?
We’re only at the start of the season – we’ve only had two race weekends, so we still need to wait and see. Because the midfield is so compact nobody can afford to relax. We all need to push hard to improve performance and with 18 races still to go there’s plenty of time to do that.

What are your thoughts ahead of this weekend’s race in China?
It’s not my favourite race of the year, but they’ve done a good job to build a really impressive facility and it’s a fun track to drive. It’s difficult to predict how well we will do there, but given how close the grid is at the moment I think it should be a good show for everyone who is watching.

A respected F1 correspondent is expecting F1′s 2012 calendar to shrink to eighteen races this year.

Livio Oricchio, who writes for Brazil’s O Estado de S.Paulo, thinks the sport is now on the verge of cancelling next weekend’s visit to Bahrain.

And he also thinks November’s US grand prix, scheduled to take place at the brand new Circuit of the Americas in Austin, is in doubt.

“The construction has fallen way behind,” said Oricchio, “and there are serious problems between the promoter and the Texas government.

“Each side is looking to the other on the obligation to pay the fee, estimated at $18 million, to FOM (Formula One Management).

“So the championship that should have 20 races will most likely have only 18,” he concluded.

At least publicly, however, the Circuit of the Americas is continuing to take shape.

This Thursday, a private ceremony is scheduled to take place as circuit contractor Austin Commercial celebrates the milestone of completing the full height of the main three-storey pit building.

The Austin Business Journal reports that “several business and civic leaders are scheduled to attend”.

 Former boss Colin Kolles and his Greding-based company is no longer involved, but there remains a strong German input with the struggling team HRT.
A report in the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper reveals that the new Cosworth-powered F112 car, which failed to qualify in Melbourne last weekend, was designed and built in Augsburg, a city in the south-west of Bavaria.

It is there that, since November 2011, the Holzer-Gruppe company has been frantically building up the Cosworth-powered cars for Pedro de la Rosa and Narain Karthikeyan.

“Under our management almost everything has been made here in Bobingen,” said Gunther Holzer.

“For the wind tunnel we used the Mercedes facility in Brackley (UK),” he added.

Eight of F1′s 12 teams are based in England, with the others either in Italy (Ferrari and Toro Rosso) or Switzerland (Sauber).

HRT uses Williams’ gearbox.

“We wanted to go our separate way, not like almost everyone else who are all within a few miles of Oxford,” said HRT chief executive Saul Ruiz de Marcos.

The team’s longer plan is to be solely based in Madrid, but for now Holzer will lead the development of the F112.

“For the start of the European season in Spain we are planning the first improvements to the car,” said Marcos.

Holzer explained: “The car is designed first for safety and so is heavy compared to the competition. For the future we are focused on making it lighter.”

Before the lighter car debuts in Barcelona, HRT faces three more challenges – Malaysia, China and Bahrain – at which the sport’s 107 per cent rule will be a major hurdle.

“The goal is to qualify, there is no other,” admitted de la Rosa. “Race reliability is something else we need to work on, but first we have to qualify.”

 Despite a difficult winter for the Marussia team, Timo Glock is in a positive mood as he travels to Australia for the 2012 season.
The former Virgin squad struggled to get its new car through the FIA’s mandatory crash tests, which according to new rules meant the MR01 was grounded throughout the official pre-season period.

Indeed, the Russian website F1News quotes technical consultant Pat Symonds as saying the “last two months were the most difficult of my 20 years in formula one”.

Due to a testing loophole allowing some running on demonstration Pirelli tyres, the Cosworth-powered car finally made its debut over two days of ‘promotional filming’ early this week at Silverstone.

“The basis is definitely good; the first test miles were really good,” German Glock is quoted by the German-language Speed Week.

“The car did exactly what we expected from it. The data we recorded corresponded exactly to what we had calculated previously,” he added.

The report said Glock will travel to Australia on Friday, with his 30th birthday set to coincide exactly with the start of the new season.

Symonds added: “There is still much to be done, but it is a long term project and so I hope that we move forward step by step.”

Marussia Racing’s new MR01 finally made its first on-track appearance during a promotional ‘filming’ day at Silverstone, just a few miles from is Banbury base.

The Anglo-Russian team endured a torrid time in its attempts to get the car ready for the third and final group test at Barcelona last week, having skipped the opening session in Jerez to prepare the MR01 for early March, only to fail the mandatory FIA crash tests. Although both Timo Glock and rookie Charles Pic got some miles under their belts in Barcelona last month, it was at the wheel of the 2011-spec car, leaving them preciously short of time in the new machine ahead of its race debut in Melbourne next weekend.

The Silverstone shakedown, part of a promotional event ahead of the car’s departure for the Australian Grand Prix, will provide both team and driver with vital information on the new machine, which has been conceived after a ground-up re-evaluation of the way Marussia designs its racing cars. As such, the car is almost entirely new, with very few carry-over components from last year’s Marussia Virgin MVR-02.

The desire to make a clean break from the previous CFD-only creations presented the design team, led by technical consultant Pat Symonds, with the challenge of going back to basics to produce a solid mechanical package, whilst maintaining an eye towards achieving the incremental performance steps required to move the team forward.

The starting point for the design programme was a consideration of the people and resources available to the Banbury-based team. The former three-base operation has been consolidated into one site, the Marussia Technical Centre in Banbury, bringing the various elements of the business together to form ‘one team’. In particular, the design department and practices now benefit from far greater integration and collaboration. Furthermore, the aerodynamic department has been completely restructured and the aero methodology reinforced, blurring the boundaries between CFD and experimental work in the wind tunnel, as well as enhancing the fidelity of the team’s aero approach.

The technical partnership forged with McLaren Applied Technologies in July of last year has also been influential in the design process and the relationship is starting to yield benefit as the advanced facilities that the Marussia team has access to have been used to prove the correlation process with the MVR-02. It is however early in the relationship and the MR01 will become a beneficiary of the relationship in due course.

The key design priorities were to address previous aerodynamic deficiencies and, mechanically, achieve greater weight saving. At the same time, a lot of the detail of the car has been refined and the design team have been a little more adventurous than before, stepping closer to the engineering boundaries. The car can best be described as a significant evolution of its predecessors. The relationship with McLaren is also evident, as the MR01 is only the second car launched this season, after the Woking giant’s MP4-27, to eschew the stepped nose concept favoured by the rest of the field.

“We are very pleased to be running the new MR01 for the first time this morning,” team principal John Booth admitted, “It has been a long and frustrating wait for everyone in the team, but we can now get back on track – literally – and start working towards the first race of the season in Australia next weekend.

“Today is the first of two promotional events, so while the drivers will be able to get a feel for the car, they won’t be able to draw any real conclusions until we start running in anger in Melbourne. Nevertheless, this is an important day for us and we’ll enjoy every minute on track with the new car.”

Glock turned the first laps with the MR01, beginning his third season with the team and providing the all-important element of continuity required to keep moving the package forward. He is joined in 2012 by Frenchman Pic, who embarks on his rookie year in F1, having made the step up from GP2 to replace Belgium’s Jerome d’Ambrosio. Both drivers will get track time with the new car over the next two days, albeit running on demonstration tyres as opposed to the Pirelli P-Zeros that they will use once competition starts in Melbourne.

 Lotus team owner Gerard Lopez has hit back at suggestions Kimi Raikkonen’s public image is an accurate reflection of the true 2007 world champion.
While the winner of 18 grands prix with Ferrari and McLaren is undoubtedly among F1′s most naturally gifted drivers ever, he also has a reputation for being lazy, unmotivated and uncooperative with the media and sponsors.

But after signing the 32-year-old Finn – who is nicknamed the ‘iceman’ – for his return to F1 in 2012 after two years in world rallying, Lotus insists it is more happy with Raikkonen so far.

“We feel very good with him and he clearly feels at home,” team owner Lopez is quoted by the Sun.

“He smiles a lot when he’s with us. But most importantly he says he feels like part of the family.

“I think Kimi has a public image that honestly from what we’ve seen does not translate into how he really is.

“He’s a very hard worker, very good at providing feedback and has a good team spirit.”

Lopez hinted, however, that he and team boss Eric Boullier did have some doubts about Raikkonen when they were considering their 2012 lineup.

But “Once we talked to him, once we understood why he was coming back to F1, we really felt comfortable,” he insisted.

“If you look at what happened at the (Jerez) test nobody can say he’s not on the pace.”

While the smiles in the Lotus pits are obvious at Jerez, the same cannot be said of ‘grandee’ outfits Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull.
Lewis Hamilton had his first try of the MP4-27 on Thursday and said the new McLaren felt “pretty good”.

“My initial feelings are pretty positive,” he added. “The car feels reasonably quick.”

But with every other 2012 car featuring a radical ‘step’ in its front nose, some reports believe McLaren may have missed a trick by opting for a conservative solution.

“It is not a trick or a loophole that we did not spot,” said McLaren’s technical director Paddy Lowe.

“Some people have some interesting ideas around the use of that step, and we are looking with interest at all of that stuff,” he told the Mirror.

Actually, the McLaren was not far off the pace of Sebastian Vettel’s new Red Bull, but the pair were a long way from Romain Grosjean’s impressive Lotus E20, and the 2011 Mercedes driven by Nico Rosberg.

Vettel, also getting his first taste of his 2012 machinery on Thursday, admitted there are “question marks” about all of F1′s regular pacesetters.

Nevertheless, “We are where we want to be,” the reigning world champion smiled. “It feels fine and as we expected.”

Agreed team owner Dietrich Mateschitz on a rare paddock visit: “It looks quite good but anything else would have been a surprise as the car is a development.”

Much more worried is Ferrari, after the aggressive 2012 Ferrari on Thursday looked no more impressive in Fernando Alonso’s hands than it had under Felipe Massa’s control earlier this week.

Britain’s Daily Mail said the F2012 is “ugly in more ways than one”.

“I can only say that it is going to take a lot of analysis to put all the pieces of the jigsaw together,” said Ferrari’s British technical director Pat Fry.

“I am not happy with where we are at the moment.”

Arguably even less happy on Thursday were Force India’s Jules Bianchi and Nico Hulkenberg, after the French test driver crashed the new VJM05 before setting a laptime.

There were not enough parts to repair the car and so Hulkenberg’s scheduled track debut was postponed.

“I’m very sorry,” said Bianchi, “because my mistake has cost the team a lot of time and effort.”

Nick Heidfeld on Monday said he is losing out on the straights compared with his teammate Kamui Kobayashi.

The pair are driving identical Sauber cars, but the speed traps usually show Japanese Kobayashi with better ultimate speed in a straight line.

Heidfeld, 33, joined the Swiss team after serving test driving roles with Mercedes and Pirelli this year, and he is currently on the lookout for a full-time job for 2011.

In his three races alongside rookie Kobayashi so far, the German has been out-qualified two times, and is yet to finish a race higher than the Japanese.

Heidfeld said on his official website nickheidfeld.com that his speed deficit compared with Kobayashi is due to his “engine situation”.

He took over ousted predecessor Pedro de la Rosa’s allocation of eight engines for 2010, after the Spaniard suffered several problems with his Ferrari units.

“Therefore the remaining engines have to cover a lot of extra miles,” said Heidfeld.

“This unfortunately leads to an engine power loss due to having ‘older’ engines, which is the reason for losing out on acceleration and top speeds,” he added.

F1′s travelling circus is arriving in South Korea, and the first reports are mixed.

BBC television anchor Jake Humphrey summed up the Yeongam venue as satisfactory but “far from finished”.

“Things look pretty ready to go,” said Virgin driver Lucas di Grassi, “with some beauty work still to be finished but the main structure is ready.”

Others talked about their long journeys from the huge Seoul airport to Mokpo, the closest city to Yeongam, in the impressive high-speed KTX train with free wi-fi.

Photographer Darren Heath was less impressed with the journey, tackled by many in buses.  “F1 in Seoul?  Nah, let’s have it in the middle of nowhere 100s of miles from anywhere,” he wrote on Twitter.

Veteran Swiss correspondent Roger Benoit, writing in Blick newspaper, said the F1 track itself is an “enormous construction site”, and his hotel room one of the ones usually rented by the hour.

“No joke,” he said.

Reportedly so unimpressed was Williams with the local accommodation on offer that the British team has committed to a 3 hour round trip every day in order to stay in a nicer hotel.

“Dominating the venue are the excavators, debris and waste,” wrote Benoit, who said a bridge over the front straight is still littered with scaffolding and hard-hatted workers.

Sauber’s team manager Beat Zehnder complained about the cost of the team buildings, with the rent costing $40,000.

“Whoever wants to use the upper floor must pay another 20,000,” he said, “but everyone has decided to just use the ground floor!”

Said Benoit: “I’m already looking forward to the final races in Sao Paulo and Abu Dhabi!”

Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport said rolling machines are still working on the recently-laid top surface of asphalt, with the paint for the starting grid yet to be sprayed.

“Only on Friday will we know whether the surface will withstand the stresses of formula one cars,” read the report.

“Everything on the sandy site is under construction.  Next to the pitlane is a large pile of sand.  Whoever didn’t know that F1 is running here in a few days would think it’s not happening until next year,” it added.

German Sky television pundit Marc Surer reports in Speed Week that the seating in some grandstands is not complete.

“Much remains to be done, but as for the track itself, I am surprised that it is ready,” he said.

“Whether it can withstand hours of practice and racing, however, is another question.”

Lotus Racing has today announced that it is throwing open the doors of its factory in Hingham, UK, for fans to take an exclusive look behind the scenes of the inner workings of the fastest new team in the Formula One™ World Championship. Paying guests now have the chance to take a tour of the team’s Norfolk home in 1½ hour tours, where they will see each of the key areas of the factory, including the Design Office, Composite and Machine Shops, Race Bays and the Race Team workshops – everything needed to build and run a modern F1™ team. In addition, guests will also have the opportunity to see the T127 race car up close and meet the people who make it all happen.

Guests will be shown around by dedicated tour guides, who will ensure that every visitor will be leave with a detailed understanding of all the processes that go into making a modern Formula One™ car¸ as well as a unique gift bag that will add to the lasting memories of their day at the team’s home. The factory is less than ten minutes from the original Lotus factory in Hethel, only 15 miles from Norwich and 105 miles from London, so it can be reached in less than three hours from the UK capital. As they are already experts in travelling to and from their UK base to races around the world, the team can also provide advice and assistance with transfers to and from Hingham, and local accommodation requests, at additional costs.

To ensure the race cars are in the factory, limited dates are available right now, and requests will be accommodated on a first-come, first serve basis. Three tours will take place each day, for groups of ten, and times can be arranged to suit each group. The first dates available now are listed below – more dates from August and through to the end of the year will be announced shortly:

Wednesday June 30th, Thursday July 1st, Friday July 2nd, Monday July 5th, Tuesday July 6th

Tuesday July 13th, Wednesday July 14th, Thursday July 15th, Friday July 16th

Wednesday August 4th, Thursday August 5th, Friday August 6th

Prices are £80 per person, with under-17’s half price at £40, and under-12’s go free – fantastic value for a once in a lifetime opportunity to take a look at the inner workings of a modern Formula One™ team.

The competition between the development departments of the Grand Prix teams will be played with the same intensity as the position of duels on the track. Indeed, the pressure to succeed, under the working Formula 1 specialists in recent years grown more and more: Who wants to stay competitive and at the top, must evolve continuously. The cars are compared to the season opener in Bahrain has become consistently faster by about one second.

“The racing teams have realized that the incessant development is during the season just as important as the conceptual design of the next car,” said James Allison, Technical Director at Renault. “Today we hold for our R30 to each Grand Prix, a new package ready parts, whose size is roughly equivalent to those improvements we have introduced in the past, every third or fourth race.”
“We are there but no exception. Every team that wants to stay at the top, must rise to this challenge. This means for our colleagues in the workshops that they have to work so hard, and at such a high time pressure than ever before . The new front wing, which will celebrate its debut in Valencia, provides an ideal example of this: He is already the eighth variant, which comes this year for use – in the ninth race of the season! ”

But where does this escalation? A major factor provided by the new technical regulations, which came at the beginning of last year in force, so is still relatively young, always – and therefore much room for improvement, provides the enabling virtually every week important development steps. This applies in particular to the aerodynamics. Furthermore: Since modifications of the engine are not allowed to search for possibilities for improvement focused almost exclusively on the chassis of the cars.
“As further develop all vehicles on the grid with incredibly high speed, always, we need to bring any improvement found immediately able to use in order to remain competitive,” says Allison. “Previously, we have combined the optimization of a package, which is then flowed into a stage of evolution of the car. This we can not allow today. Each Grand Prix that you wait means lost performance.”

“The heavy workload meets each individual,” said Allison. “The workshop is constantly under the high pressure, constantly develop and produce new parts and need. We are therefore constantly faced with the difficult task of finding a healthy balance between major stages of development and reasonable workload.”

It seems almost an irony of fate that this once again increased rates of development associated with the prohibition of testing during the season goes. But while earlier, thousands of miles on the Grand Prix circuit in Barcelona have been scrubbed to run the team today in the central simulation computer at full speed to check for new parts and votes for their usefulness.
“Thanks to this advanced tools we can use the advantage that we bring some modifications on the track, set with an accuracy that is different from the real output by less than 0.5 percent,” said Allison. “For mechanical parts, we rely on computer simulations, whose results are then verified on test stands. With special durability testing arrangements, we can expose those individual components of loads and forces that occur in the context of a Grand Prix.”

Besides the incessant improvement of the current Grand Prix racer to run the latest from the beginning of summer and work on for next year seater. “We stand every time a difficult compromise on how much we already want to invest in the future without losing its competitiveness in the current season,” says Allison.

In the midst of reports that New York was Bernie Ecclestone’s favoured location, the sport announced late on Tuesday that Austin, Texas will in fact stage its first race in 2012.

The 10-year contract is for a “purpose-built” facility, F1 chief executive Ecclestone said in a statement, although details including an actual site, cost or race date were not released.

A report of the AP news agency said the venue would be built “within 10 miles” of Austin airport.

The promoter is Full Throttle Productions, headed by Tavo Hellmund, who Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts Susan Combs revealed has a “30 year relationship with Mr Ecclestone”.

“We have been diligently working together for several years to bring this great event to Austin, the State of Texas and back to the United States,” said Hellmund.

“We realise that over the last 30 years there have been one or two missing pieces from the previous editions of the formula one United States grand prix,” he added.

Never on a purpose-built circuit, previous US grands prix have been held at Watkins Glen, Long Beach, Las Vegas, Detroit, Dallas and Phoenix.

Between 2000 and 2007, the famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway hosted the event, and spokesman Fred Nation on Tuesday questioned whether the “business deal” between F1 and Austin is a sound one.

“Since 2007, we have been asked many times about having formula one return, and our answer has been the same each time: if the business deal is right, they are welcome back.

“If such a deal is in place in Austin, we wish both the city and formula one success for a race in the United States,” he said.
(GMM)

The Spanish driver for Toro Rosso, Alguersuari drove his Formula 1 car, the sand of a beach in the Dominican Republic, more than 180 miles per hour moved Catalan Ruanillo the beach at Cap Cana, marking history a show of the team.

“I am very happy and excited, I want to thank the entire team that has made it possible to meet this challenge,” the Spaniard said after shooting Alguersuari to more than 200,000 spectators.

The first F1 driver wearing a car on a beach, luckily it got out into the water.
source: ligasmotor.es

Well that’s how it panned out as the reigning F1 World Champion delivered a well judged and much deserved drive to notch up his second victory of the season. Prior to the start of the Chinese Grand Prix, at Shanghai International Circuit, few would have predicted a Jenson Button win, fewer would have waged odds on a McLaren 1-2.

The race under heavy Shanghai skies had everything: a dry spell, a semi-wet phase, wet with rain fall, first lap mayhem, a jump start and generous doses of overtaking.

It was by no means plain sailing (excuse the pun) for Button who took the lead on lap 19 and controlled the race from that point on, well almost, as in the final laps he faced a relentless challenge from team mate Lewis Hamilton who again was the star of the show with a gritty drive to second place.

Nico Rosberg, again showed impressively, bringing his Mercedes GP home third making it an all Merc powered driver podium. Rosberg flew the flag for the Silver Arrows as his illustrious team mate Michael Schumacher could only manage 10th place in an afternoon in some high profile battles which alas saw him come out second best in just about all of them. Twice he was overtaken with remarkable ease by Hamilton, Vettel and Webber, lost a battle with a rookie late in the race and was taken by a Ferrari on the very last lap which relegated him to tenth.

Fernando Alonso brought his Ferrari home in fourth, which was an impressive feat considering that the Spaniard was given a drive through penalty for jumping the start. It was marginal but replays showed the scarlet car edging forward before the lights went off. Hence he led briefly from the start. Team mate Felipe Massa was nowhere near Alonso’s pace all weekend and scrapped his way to ninth, well and truly overshadowed.

Renault again were impressive with Robert Kubica taking fifth place in yet another strong drive for the team and crowning a good day with rookie Vitaly Petrov having an action packed day with a  number of excursions, but also a number of duels with some big names and seventh place was a just reward for the Russian who clearly revels adverse conditions.

Sebastian Vettel who started on pole in his Red Bull will be wondering where it all went wrong. A win in conditions that he thrives in was almost a foregone conclusion prior to the start. But it was not to be and sixth is scant reward for a race that somehow escaped the team. Mark Webber who shared the front row defied his experience with some silly mistakes which saw him come home eighth. There will be few smiles in their garages.

YF1