Fernando Alonso is F1′s shock world championship leader, after Malaysian rain shook up the order at Sepang.

“It’s a tough time for us at the moment, but we will remember this day,” said the Ferrari driver, who finished ahead of another surprise podium-sitter, Sauber’s Sergio Perez.

The young Mexican was catching Alonso at a rate of knots when he made a mistake.

“I think the win was possible,” Perez, who has been linked with Felipe Massa’s works Ferrari seat, said after beating the back-to-back 2012 polesitter Lewis Hamilton.

Former Toro Rosso driver and BBC radio commentator Jaime Alguersuari, however, was not overly impressed.

“The team did a fantastic strategy to put Perez on the right tyres at the right moment. For me, that’s it,” said the Spaniard.

Back-to-back world champion Sebastian Vettel had an horror Sunday, cutting a tyre whilst passing an HRT and eventually retiring with what Red Bull described on the radio as an “emergency” technical problem.

The German lies sixth in the drivers’ world championship, four points behind Perez and 17 off the lead.

Title leader Alonso, meanwhile, is not overly happy with the rain-soaked win.

“I think it changes nothing,” he said. “We are in a position that we do not want, fighting to get into Q3.”

Team boss Stefano Domenicali agreed: “I hope this helps the people at home to push, but we were not stupid yesterday and we are not phenomenal today.”

The Italian also denied that Perez’s debut podium is the ideal time to immediately pluck the Mexican from Sauber and put him in struggling Felipe Massa’s red car.

“Not true, not true,” Domenicali told British Sky television.

Another reported contender for Mercedes’ vacant reserve driver slot has been ruled out.

The German marque’s head of marketing Joachim Schmidt this week said Mercedes is talking to potential candidates but seemed to rule out a third German to join Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg.

“We already have two German drivers,” he said when asked if 2010 reserve driver Nick Heidfeld – who later switched to Sauber but was not retained for this year – was in the running.

As Mercedes began testing its 2011 car the W01 at Valencia on Tuesday, motor sport vice-president Norbert Haug confirmed that the Brackley based team is looking for a reserve driver.

“He can do a lot of work in the simulator,” he was quoted as saying in German reports, which named existing simulator tester and BBC radio commentator Anthony Davidson as a contender.

“It should be someone who can get into the points if one of our drivers cannot drive,” insisted Haug.

“It has to be someone who can jump into the car and do a good job quickly.

“We are working on it and expect that we will have a reserve driver,” added the German.

“We have a few ideas of who it will be — there is no contact with Nico Hulkenberg,” said Haug, amid rumours the 23-year-old might split his new Friday-driving role with Mercedes-powered Force India.

“He improved in the past year, and whoever wins in GP2 and is on pole position (in F1) has everything he needs. But we are not negotiating with him,” he insisted.

Jacques Villeneuve has denied he threw away a good chance to return to formula one in 2011.

A French Canadian radio commentator had implied that the 1997 world champion was offered the Indycar drive in Lotus colours this year and would then have progressed to F1 when the sports car marque announced its 2011 tie-up with Renault.

“That was never discussed,” Villeneuve insisted, according to French language Rue Frontenac.

Late last year, the 39-year-old visited Lotus’ Norfolk headquarters for talks with his friend Gino Rosato.

“There was never any discussion of F1,” Villeneuve said.

“Everyone knows how hard I worked on my return to F1. If the only thing I needed to do was spend a year in Indycar, I would have done it!

“The truth is that F1 only came into the plans of Lotus Cars in the last few months,” he explained.

Rosato, who for a long time worked in F1 with Ferrari before moving to Lotus as vice-president of corporate affairs, backed Villeneuve’s story.

“F1 was not in our plans when I spoke to Jacques about Indycar,” he said. “I would have loved for him to race with us. In my head, Villeneuve and Lotus was a natural fit but the planets were not aligned.”

Villeneuve agreed: “It’s true that we talked about Indycar, but Takuma Sato had already been hired as their first driver and I was asked to bring some of the budget that my partners at the time wanted to invest for F1.

“It was not an option,” he clarified. “And Indycar and the Indy 500 — I’ve already done that. And that was before the separation, when the series was more competitive.

“If I have to bring a budget, it will be for a new challenge like NASCAR, not to go back to something I have already ticked off and achieved,” added Villeneuve

Lewis Hamilton kicked off his weekend at Suzuka with a crash.

With big rain clouds reportedly on the horizon, the McLaren driver lost valuable dry track time at the Japanese circuit on Friday morning.

Repeating a common error by F1 drivers at Suzuka, Briton Hamilton ran wide at Degner and hit the barriers at the other side of the notoriously small gravel trap.

It caused big damage to the left side of his MP4-25, but arguably bigger damage in the eyes of the media, after promising reporters on Thursday that he would be pushing hard after crashing out of the last two grands prix.

The Daily Express headline read “Hamilton will not go easy”, the Guardian said the 2008 champion had vowed “to go hell for leather” at Suzuka, and the Daily Mail said he pledged to “go over the edge” this weekend.

Indeed, the 25-year-old had insisted he would maintain his aggressive style even though two consecutive crashes at Monza and Singapore have dented his championship chances.

“If you are walking down the street and you keep tripping over the sole of your shoe because it keeps flapping, then you change your shoe,” said Hamilton on Thursday.

“I haven’t got anything that is flapping off.”

Former F1 driver BBC radio commentator Anthony Davidson said Hamilton’s practice crash is a setback that he will recover from.

“It’s not a great position to be in,” he said.  “Lewis has to get himself out of this downward spiral.  As a racing driver you can get yourself worked up and it can become a vicious circle.

“But he’s made mistakes like this before and he’s picked himself up.  I am sure he will do that again.”

McLaren reserve driver Gary Paffett added: “It’s not the best thing to do because obviously you lose dry testing time but Lewis looked pretty fast before he crashed and he’ll be encouraged by that.”

The drive-through penalty that cost Sebastian Vettel victory in Hungary shows he still has much to learn.
That is the assessment of the German’s own Red Bull boss Christian Horner, after Niki Lauda scolded 23-year-old Vettel for not simply admitting to “screwing up”.

Vettel vented his anger by gesticulating from the cockpit whilst serving the penalty, and while driving into parc ferme after the race hit the marker board with his front wing.

The German was penalised for falling too far behind the safety car at the restart, and while waiting to go onto the podium pleaded with FIA officials that his mistake had been “not intentional”.

“Somewhere in the first stint I lost the radio connection. (And) I didn’t see the lights (on the safety car go out),” he explained.

“Also Mark (Webber) — usually the leader when he does the re-start tries to drop back and then dictates the pace,” added Vettel.

Boss Horner responded: “It’s premature to blame the radio for this one. He’s obviously frustrated after today but it’s part of a learning curve and there’s seven races to go.”

Former Super Aguri driver and now BBC radio commentator Anthony Davidson blamed both Vettel and his team.

“He clearly didn’t know about the safety car rule but it’s the team’s job to make sure the driver knows the rules,” said the Briton.

Bild newspaper described the mistake as “damlich” (stupid).

Plans for adjustable ‘proximity’ rear wings next year are not set in stone, according to FOTA chairman Martin Whitmarsh.

The idea, giving chasing drivers the ability to reduce drag and therefore better mount overtaking moves, was championed by the teams association and recently rubber-stamped by the FIA.

But there has been some opposition since the announcement; primarily by those who think it is an unnecessary and artificial ploy, and also those who are concerned about safety.

“We will see whether people are convinced by it or not,” said Whitmarsh, also the McLaren team boss.

The Briton admitted the proximity wing was developed due to “fan-based pressure” to improve the spectacle of overtaking, but said it is not certain the innovation will actually debut.

“I think we have got to do a little bit more work on deployment and the sporting regulations that accompany it, and if we get that right we’ll give it a go,” said Whitmarsh.

He confirmed that if “it detracts, isn’t right, it’s easy to take it off”.

“But let’s have a look at it; it’s a bit of an experiment.”

Former grand prix driver Anthony Davidson is not confident the wings will ever be seen in action.

“I think teams just like to see what people like us think about it before it actually gets put forward,” said the BBC radio commentator.

(GMM)

Jenson Button was critical of Felipe Massa after qualifying for the Monaco grand prix.

With Fernando Alonso already out of the session due to his practice crash, the other Ferrari could also now be penalised by the stewards for the incident that occurred in the final ‘Q3′ shootout for the top ten grid placings.

McLaren’s Button, the world championship leader, had to abandon his first timed lap when he encountered a slow-moving Massa in the final Anthony Noghes corner.

“I don’t know what he was doing,” the Briton told the BBC.

“There were only ten drivers on the track so it should have been easy (to get out of the way),” said Button, adding that the Brazilian “blatantly slowed me down”.

During qualifying, former grand prix driver Anthony Davidson spotted Button also being held up by Sauber’s Pedro de la Rosa.

“I would be furious if I was Jenson Button — he totally held him up,” said the British radio commentator.

(GMM)