Valencia will not be on next year’s F1 calendar, Bernie Ecclestone said on Saturday.

He confirmed that, starting in 2013, an annually alternating deal between the Spanish port city and Barcelona will begin.

Barcelona, the scene of this weekend’s Spanish grand prix, will host the race in 2013, before Valencia returns to the schedule in 2014, the F1 chief executive told Reuters.

Less secure, meanwhile, is France’s touted spot on the 2013 calendar, particularly with the country’s new anti-F1 president Francois Hollande now taking power.

Until recently, the F1 chief executive was saying Paul Ricard was set to join the 2013 calendar, annually alternating a race date with Belgium’s Spa Francorchamps.

As for the state of the deal now, the 81-year-old admitted: “I have no idea. No idea what they (France) are doing.

“It’s a funny arrangement they were making anyway. So I just don’t know.”

Ecclestone is also working on a new deal for the popular Canadian grand prix, having told promoter Francois Dumontier that the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve needs to be upgraded.

“There are two ways of looking at it,” Dumontier, in the paddock of the Circuit de Catalunya, is quoted by La Presse newspaper.

“Either Bernie requires an annual fee windfall, or he will charge a reasonable fee and ask in return for investment in the infrastructure.”

He said the contract on the table is for 10 more years, taking Montreal’s existing deal through 2024.

Ecclestone said on Saturday that he is sure an agreement will be reached, because Canada is one of F1′s most loved destinations.

“I remember saying to Bernie, ‘New York, Austin, I don’t know why you want to go there. Your sure bet is Montreal’. He knows that.

“He’s been in Montreal for 34 years. And in the 22 years of the grands prix in the United States, they’ve had eight different cities.

“He said ‘You’re right’,” added Dumontier.

Another rumour, repeated by The Times’ Kevin Eason on Saturday, is that the planned 2014 Russian grand prix in Sochi “is doomed”.

Magny Cours is still in the race to host France’s return to formula one.

But according to RMC, the race’s former host – having run the French grand prix between 1991 and 2008 – has been handed a much higher price-tag than Paul Ricard.

Just before Nicolas Sarkozy lost the recent presidential election, the basis of an agreement to annually alternate a French GP with Belgium’s Spa Francorchamps was agreed.

The 2013 host would be Paul Ricard, the Bernie Ecclestone-owned circuit, and the race fee EUR 22 million.

Politics, it seems, have intervened.

Francois Hollande, France’s new president, is not a supporter of the grand prix, and vowed to re-evaluate the sport’s return to the country.

RMC reports that officials at Magny Cours have used the opportunity to “repeatedly” contact F1 chief executive Ecclestone in recent days.

The Nievre region is politically aligned with the new administration, but Ecclestone is reportedly “asking EUR 10 million more” for a race at Magny Cours.

Politics, however, could also be on Paul Ricard’s side, with Citroen’s former world rally boss Olivier Quesnel reportedly lined up to lead the F1 project.

Quesnel is reportedly close to FIA president Jean Todt, and the pair apparently met earlier this week.

France’s return to the 2013 formula one calendar is not quite at the finish-line.

Many expected prime minister Francois Fillon’s visit to the Paul Ricard circuit last Friday to coincide with an announcement about the revival of the French grand prix next year.

Some think that was indeed the intention, but ultimately a couple of details were missing at the last hurdle.

The first was the identity of the host circuit that will annually alternate the race date, amid reports Belgium’s Spa Francorchamps is not yet ready or able to agree.

“The formula one management has approved the plan without indicating who would be the other country,” Fillon is quoted as saying in local reports.

Another problem is on the financial side, with Fillon admitting that – politically – there can be no direct government subsidy other than a mere “bond”.

The difference between a deal and no deal between Bernie Ecclestone and the Le Castellet organisers, then, is “about two million euros”, Fillon revealed.

“The formula one organisers’ proposal is reasonable enough,” he said, “but we have to make them remove the ‘enough’,” he added.

“Symbolically it would not be acceptable (for the government) to subsidise a grand prix,” he insisted, “as was the case in the past with Magny Cours.”

Magny Cours, the former French GP venue, reacted with shock and anger, accusing the prime minister of “bias in favour of Le Castellet”, where temporary grandstands will have to be erected to host spectators.

On the other hand, Magny Cours has “all the facilities, infrastructure and expertise needed to organise such an event”, insisted Patrice Joly, president of the conseil general of the Nievre department.

“Contrary to what you would expect from the head of government, the prime minister strives to implement a solution based on partisan considerations and personal issues away from the general interest,” he added.

New media reports have contradicted claims French PM Francois Fillon will on Friday announce the country’s 2013 return to the formula one calendar.

Le Parisien newspaper on Thursday said Fillon’s visit to the Paul Ricard circuit on Friday is to confirm the successful end to long negotiations to revive the French grand prix.

Those negotiations were for Paul Ricard to annually alternate a race date with Belgium’s fabled Spa Francorchamps.

But the French-language RMC insists that Belgium is “not ready for the alternation”.

“If France has received a contract to organise a grand prix every other year, this is not the case for the Belgian promoters, who are still waiting for the document to send to the government of Wallonia,” the report read.

RMC said the hold-up could be because Spa is having trouble paying its sanctioning fee for this year’s race date in September.

The French magazine Sport-Auto agrees, insisting that Fillon “will not announce the return of the grand prix de France on Friday”.

“The prime minister will travel to the (Paul Ricard) circuit,” an official close to Fillon is quoted as saying by AFP news agency, but Fillon “will not announce the return of the grand prix to the calendar in 2013″.

The official, however, said Bernie Ecclestone as approved “in principle” France’s presence on the calendar every other year, beginning in 2013.

But “It (the alternation) will not necessarily be with Belgium,” the report added.

In an interview to be published by the Nice-Matin newspaper on Friday, Fillon is quoted as saying a grand prix is crucial to France.

“Bernie Ecclestone has just sent us a draft contract,” said the prime minister, “which is the result of negotiations that began several months ago.

“We now have a concrete basis for discussions,” he added.

The race to put the French grand prix back on track will be over in three weeks.
That is the claim of Nicolas Deschaux, the president of the country’s motor sport federation who admitted concern the deal to put Paul Ricard on the 2013 calendar is not yet done.

France has been missing from the calendar since Magny-Cours last held a grand prix in 2008, but efforts have been made to annually alternate a race between Paul Ricard – a track in Le Castellet, near Marseille – and Belgium’s fabled Spa Francorchamps.

Deschaux told RMC the project needs to reach the finish-line within three weeks.

“We have always been working very hard,” he said. “We have arrived in the home stretch, where either we come to finalise within three weeks, or we will go on a path that forces us to postpone.”

Bernie Ecclestone is leading the negotiations as France tries to return to the formula one calendar.
The country’s government is pushing hard to include Paul Ricard on the 2013 calendar, with a deal to alternate annually a single race date with Belgum’s Spa Francorchamps.

RMC Sport reports that Paris has formally requested Ecclestone, F1′s chief executive, send them the contract.

But the report said a crucial detail is missing: the necessary race fee.

As those negotiations begin, it is revealed that Eric Boullier – the Lotus team’s French team principal – met with Ecclestone in London on Wednesday to talk about it.

Boullier had tried to “speed things up”, the French language report said.

RMC added that Spa-Francorchamps’ Belgian promoters currently spend EUR 22.5 million per race on the grand prix, a figure neither they nor France are willing to pay in 2013 and beyond.

“Both have set a maximum of EUR 15 million per race,” said the report.

The responsible Belgian minister, Jean-Claude Marcourt, declined to comment.

The local Walloon government is seeking clarity about the future of the fabled Belgian grand prix at Spa-Francorchamps within “four or five weeks”.
Jean-Claude Marcourt, the government’s economics minister, was responding on Tuesday in a parliamentary committee, following media reports that France looks set to return to F1 in 2013.

Those reports suggested France’s Paul Ricard circuit will share a single alternating annual date with Spa, the fabled Belgian venue.

Marcourt explained that, in a bid to reduce costs, the government had last year begun to look into possibly alternating its grand prix with another European host.

A “non-binding document” with France was circulated, with an answer necessary by the end of 2011.

“On January 1 there was nothing,” Marcourt is quoted by RTL Sport Belgium. “Now the French seem to be catching up.

“In four or five weeks, we have to clarify everything. I do not want things drawing out so that we get to the end of the contract not knowing what is going to happen.

“We are awaiting the response from France,” he added.

 If Paul Ricard gets the green light to host France’s F1 return in 2013, the circuit in Le Castellet could bring in more than 70,000 spectators.
That is the claim of the track’s director Stephane Clair, amid reports French prime minister Francois Fillon is poised to approve a deal to see the country alternate an annual spot on the F1 calendar with Belgium’s Spa-Francorchamps.

Previously, a drawback of installing France’s race at Paul Ricard – officially called the High Tech Test Track – was the fact its current layout is not designed to host more than a few thousand VIPs.

But Clair insisted in a French-language AFP report: “It would be a great event to unify people with attractive prices thanks to funding provided by public and private partners.”

He said the project would include the addition of 50,000 temporary seats at Paul Ricard, with another 20-30,000 spectators able to watch from the hills “as in the past”.

He said Paul Ricard now needs the official go-ahead “before the end of the first 2012 quarter”, in order to comply with the requirements for planning, permits and environmental compliance.

 France’s return to the F1 calendar is now so close to confirmation that even a provisional race date has been set.
It emerged just before Christmas that, with the historic French grand prix having been last held at Magny Cours in 2008, the country’s return to the calendar is likely to take place at Paul Ricard in 2013.

The Nice-Matin newspaper had said the Bernie Ecclestone-linked circuit will thereafter alternate a single annual calendar slot with Belgium’s fabled Spa-Francorchamps.

The news follows last year’s establishment of a French grand prix working body by French prime minister Francois Fillon.

“The case is currently on Fillon’s desk,” said a report in the Paris daily Le Figaro.

“He has only to give the green light to sport minister David Douillet and to Nicolas Deschaux, the president of the federation francaise de sport automobile (FFSA).

“The (first) race would be held on 1 September 2013″, Le Figaro revealed, adding that the spectator capacity of the circuit will be lifted to 50,000.

Lewis Hamilton thinks he was knocked unconscious after crashing out of the recent Belgian grand prix.

Cockpit replays of the incident, where the McLaren driver actually dented the Spa-Francorchamps barriers after clashing with Kamui Kobayashi, showed Hamilton completely motionless for 15 seconds in the wake of the impact.

The 2008 world champion admits it is possible he was knocked out.

“I don’t really remember much from hitting the wall,” the Daily Star newspaper quotes him as saying at Monza.

“It’s possible I was out for a couple of seconds, I’m not really sure.”

The crash was the latest incident in a series for Hamilton this year, and he told the BBC 2011 might go down as the “worst” in his F1 career so far.

“I have got to find my way, learn from any mistakes and try to smooth out the creases through these last seven races,” he is quoted as saying by the Guardian.

Hamilton, 26, said he has managed to avoid all the media speculation about his aggressive driving style since Spa.

“I don’t read them, but I hear there are pretty bad stories written about me, so I am thinking it will be good to give you guys something good to write about me,” he told reporters ahead of the Italian grand prix.

“I guess I’m an easy target at the moment because I’m always in trouble.”

Some of his rivals defended Hamilton on Thursday, including Sauber’s Kobayashi, who insisted F1 drivers “need to be aggressive”.

Agreed Mark Webber: “He’s not that aggressive, he’s ok. He’s just had a tough run in the last few races.”

Hamilton’s own McLaren teammate Jenson Button, however, admitted he doesn’t always agree with his countryman’s methods.

“I personally feel it’s better to talk to the team than talk though the media, but we are built differently,” he said.

Jaime Alguersuari hopes his best ever qualifying performance will stop the speculation about his future in formula one.
With Red Bull’s next up-and-comers Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne knocking loudly on the door at Toro Rosso, driver manager Helmut Marko has said he will only consider the 2012 lineup after the end of this season.

Spaniard Alguersuari, still just 21, qualified on the back of the third row at Spa-Francorchamps, five places ahead of his Swiss teammate Sebastien Buemi.

“I hope now that all the people (reporters) stop asking me about this nonsense,” he told Spanish newspaper El Mundo Deportivo, referring to the constant speculation about his future.

Another boost to Alguersuari’s future could be the reported title sponsorship deal between Toro Rosso and Abu Dhabi’s petroleum investment company (IPIC), with links to Spanish oil brand Cepsa.

AS sports newspaper reports that Alguersuari has even been in direct contact recently with Khadem Abdulla Al-Qubaisi, the managing director of IPIC.

Said Toro Rosso team boss Franz Tost: “Both our drivers performed very well throughout the (Spa) weekend.”

Gerhard Berger has scolded Mercedes for apparently imposing team orders during last weekend’s Belgian grand prix.

Shortly before Michael Schumacher passed his teammate Nico Rosberg at Spa-Francorchamps, the younger German was told by the pitwall to conserve fuel.

Former grand prix winner Berger told Servus TV that the position switch was conceived deliberately to give Schumacher a grandstand finish on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of his debut.

“It should have been a race and not a commercial shoot,” the Austrian groaned.

Team orders are legal in 2011 but Berger believes that “in the circumstances it is totally wrong for Mercedes to do such strategies”.

“They should be putting more thought into making a winning car,” he said.

Berger also commented on McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton, who was involved in two crashes last weekend at Spa.

“He is extremely aggressive and the best overtaker in the field, but at times he overdoes it.

“If he was sitting in the Red Bull, he would not have to take so many risks and so he would get into a lot less mischief,” he said.

The appointment of Bruno Senna has already delivered two new sponsors to the Renault team.

With Nick Heidfeld contentiously stepped down before Spa-Francorchamps, Senna fended off speculation his sponsors had paid for the race seat.

“If you look at the team then there are no new logos on the car or on myself,” he insisted.

But that was before Sunday, when on the grid Brazil’s Globo Esporte spotted two new logos.

One belongs to the major Brazilian oil company OGX, headed by business baron Eike Batista da Silva who is the eighth richest person in the world.

A spokesman for Senna, the nephew of Brazil’s famous triple world champion Ayrton Senna, confirmed the deal with the holding company EBX.

The other new logo on the black Renault in Belgium was the razor brand Gillette.

Globo said both sponsors “were negotiating with (Senna) for the 2012 season” but the Heidfeld replacement “accelerated the deals”.

After impressively qualifying seventh at Spa, Senna finished outside the points due to smashing into Jaime Alguersuari at the first corner and receiving a drive-through penalty.

He will definitely race at Monza next weekend.

GP2 frontrunner Giedo van der Garde’s manager has revealed talks about the 2012 season with three formula one teams.

Last weekend at Spa-Francorchamps, where the Dutchman emerged in second place behind the new GP2 champion Romain Grosjean, 26-year-old van der Garde was linked with the 2012 Williams seat currently occupied by Rubens Barrichello.

Media reports said he has “the most” sponsorship money to offer a potential F1 employer.

“That (F1) is the goal, yes,” NUsport quotes van der Garde as saying. “My management is in talks with three teams, so there are possibilities. There is no plan B.

“So there are some free places but it (F1) is a strange world.”

Van der Garde’s case is indeed unique, with his manager Jan Paul ten Hoopen doubling as the commercial director of the F1 sponsor McGregor, a Dutch fashion house.

And van der Garde’s father-in-law is billionaire Marcel Boekhoorn.

The Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reports that Boekhoorn may be interested in buying into the Renault team, and van der Garde has also been linked with Virgin.

“The real conversations (with teams) don’t take place until October, or at least after the Italian grand prix,” said manager ten Hoopen.

Red Bull will travel to high speed Monza next week with less-than-expected levels of trepidation.

The championship leading team was expecting its Renault engines to suffer on the long straights of Spa-Francorchamps, but Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber – with blistering tyres – delivered a one-two finish instead.

Italian grand prix venue Monza, meanwhile, is an even higher speed venue, and without many of the kinds of corners seen in Spa’s sector two that suited Adrian Newey’s RB7.

“In the last two years it (Monza) has not been a good track for us, so we’ll see,” Briton Newey is quoted as saying by Autosprint after accepting the constructors’ trophy on the Belgian grand prix podium.

Runaway points leader Vettel is happier with the prospect of racing at Monza after winning last Sunday.

“The car felt so fantastic (at Spa) and the balance was fabulous so it (Monza) should be manageable,” said the German.

Team boss Christian Horner admitted the Belgian result was a surprise.

“In many respects it was, yes, because power is a dominant factor and we thought it would perhaps favour some of our opponents more,” he said.

The RB7 was wearing a noticeably thin rear wing profile at Spa and the bespoke item will return to the car next weekend.

“I think that if we want to get close to certain engines on the straight we have to run a bit less wing,” confirmed Horner.