Jenson Button has dreamed up a new victory salute, after growing weary of last year’s “crooked finger”.
McLaren’s Button, who beat reigning double champion Vettel to victory last week in Melbourne, admitted last year that the German’s winning salute had started to grate his nerves.

“He keeps doing that,” Button grimaced a year ago, demonstrating Vettel’s awkward index-finger salute that always followed the Red Bull driver’s latest pole or victory.

“It would be alright if it was straight.”

At one point, just after yet another Vettel pole, the young German saluted the ranks of photographers with his finger, and Button jokingly attempted to bite it off.

So, after winning in Albert Park ahead of Vettel in the 2012 opener last weekend, Button unfurled a new salute.

Asked if Vettel will now get sick of the two-handed ‘W for winner’ gesture, Button smiled: “Hopefully he will.

“I actually did the ‘W’ with a water bottle in my hand, which didn’t really work very well,” said the Briton.

“I’m sure we will sometimes see the crooked finger but hopefully not very often this year.”

 Christian Horner has admitted Red Bull is keeping its cards close to its chest ahead of the 2012 season.
Under the glare of the F1 world’s eyes, the title-defending RB8 has been in action for four days at Jerez recently.

But when the Adrian Newey-penned car was officially launched, the team refused to host a traditional unveiling ceremony, instead releasing a short animated video.

“We didn’t want it photographed at the first opportunity from every side by our competition,” admitted team boss Horner to Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.

Amid Red Bull’s meteoric recent success, rival teams have copied the blown diffuser and flexible wing concepts, and this year’s ‘step’ noses are all the result of yet another Newey design philosophy beneath the chassis.

“At last year’s launch at Valencia there were 100 photographers all doing their shots from the roof of the pits,” Briton Horner exclaimed.

“In no time at all, everyone knew every dimension of our car.”

So, in 2012, some mysteries about the RB8 continue to exist — one is the real or secondary function of the letterbox-style nose slot, and another is an unlaunched development of the exhaust layout.

“Last year we had to have the blown diffuser out early,” explained Horner, “because we had to find out how the exhaust gases affected the tyres.

“This time, the secret is in the detail, and you don’t want to give your competition too much of a helping hand,” he smiled.

Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso is nursing a minor muscle injury, it emerged from the ‘Wroom’ media event on Tuesday.
When his 2011 teammate Felipe Massa began skiing at the Madonna di Campiglio resort, Spaniard Alonso simply posed for photographers at the top of the slope.

Spanish media reports reveal that the 2010 championship runner-up is suffering from a minor muscle lesion in his right leg.

“Sitting on the couch,” Alonso told La Nueva Espana when asked what it will take for the injury to heal.

In fact, even though the 29-year-old has set aside his racing bicycle for now, the reports insist Alonso has still been working in the gym.

Photos of Bernie Ecclestone giving a middle finger salute are complementing reports on Thursday about the F1 chief executive’s birthday.

F1′s chief executive and long-time ‘supremo’ is turning 80, and Red Bull marked the forthcoming occasion in Korea last weekend with a mischievous present.

It was a zimmer frame, featuring a Red Bull front wing and a special F1-style steering wheel with a range of custom buttons.

One of the buttons was labelled ‘Viagra’, another ‘Nurse’, and yet another ‘Pasquale’ — referring to his ever-present assistant Pasquale Lattuneddu.

Posing at the front of the Red Bull garage with Christian Horner and his favourite driver Sebastian Vettel, Ecclestone greeted the massed photographers with good humour and the obscene single-finger gesture.

And according to Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport, Ecclestone does not intend to mark the occasion of his actual birthday on Thursday.

“I hate parties,” he said.

When asked what he really wants for his 80th birthday, the Briton was quoted a few days ago by the German weekly Die Zeit: “I just want to get there.”

Pedro de la Rosa lost his race seat because he was not consistent enough.

In Singapore on Thursday, photographers clamoured around the Spaniard’s replacement Nick Heidfeld, who is well known to the Swiss team after two separate tenures in the past.

“Nick will help us assess how good our car really is,” team boss Peter Sauber is quoted on Thursday by Auto Motor und Sport.

“When we looked at the first 14 races, Kobayashi and de la Rosa had approximately the same speed, but not consistently enough.

“With (Kamui) Kobayashi you expect that from a newcomer,” said Sauber, who has retained the Japanese rookie for 2011.

“With Heidfeld, we know that he can drive consistently. But I don’t expect marvellous things from him first time out, because he has to get used to the car and tyres.

“He will show us what he can do at Suzuka,” added Sauber.

33-year-old German Heidfeld, however, said he is not approaching Singapore – his first grand prix since Abu Dhabi last year – as a gentle re-acclimatisation to F1.

He is yet to secure a contract for 2011.

“For me this is my chance to show that I deserve to be here,” said the veteran of approaching 170 grands prix.

Heidfeld said his target is to outclass his new teammate.

“F1 is not kindergarten,” he said. “You always have to beat your teammate and you have to believe that you can.

“Who is too slow is gone, and that’s how the sport is.”

Gallery with all happened on this race. McLaren Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton won when he took the chequered at the Turkish Grand Prix. We provide a gallery of selected images – shot by the great photographers from Sutton Images and Hoch Zwei – that capture Lewis’ weekend in Istanbul.

A development of Ferrari’s rear double-diffuser was spotted in the Istanbul pitlane.

The F10 was wheeled out of the garage so that international photographers could see the engine cover logo celebrating the team’s 800th grand prix this weekend.

But a reporter for Spain’s AS newspaper also spotted an upgraded diffuser with enlarged elements “not seen at other races”.

“We know that in Barcelona we had a disadvantage in the total downforce generated by the car and have worked on this issue,” Fernando Alonso is quoted as saying.

But the Spanish driver is not expecting Ferrari to catch the dominant Red Bulls this weekend.

“In Barcelona they were almost a second faster than the others, and in the three weeks since it is impossible to have recovered that difference,” he is quoted by El Pais newspaper.

(GMM)

At 9:30 the single-seaters began to go out to the racetrack of the Jerez de la Frontera circuit, during the first day of the 2010 season’s second official unveiling.

In the morning, Fernando Alonso, started to try out the new parts that arrived all the way from Maranello, with the intention to verify mechanical elements performance, for next week when they expect to have new aerodynamic components.

The rain did not miss the appointment.  Even though it was not intense, it certainly was annoying enough during the performance checkup of the F1 racing cars.  When the rain pour began, all the single-seaters had to be taken to the boxes to make wet condition adjustments.

By the time the cars started to go out again, it was almost 10 AM and Nico Rosberg, with his Mercedes GP, was the leader of the first timesheets, even though it was not significant because he was one of the few who made some time before the rain began to fall.  Later on, the pilots were around 12 seconds higher.

Time went by without any interesting event.  In the circuit were: Ferrari, Mercedes GP, Williams, Red Bull, Force India, Toro Rosso and BMW Sauber. The Virgin VR01 must not be prepared for rain for it did not make any lap.

At midday the rain was heavier and the only thing that caught our eye were again the hard-working mechanics running to cover the diffusers to avoid photographers from pleasing us with the latest in aerodynamic novelties.

It was almost 12PM and nothing interesting happened.  There were almost no single-seaters in the racetrack and everything was extremely quiet.  My laptop (mini) seemed to say, “it’s enough for today.”  “I think a diving suit would be a good idea,” I thought and looked for shelter waiting for the rain to stop.