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.

Tony Fernandes has given a strident defence of his formula one team, Caterham.

The former Team Lotus outfit, headed by the cheery Malaysian entrepreneur Fernandes, entered its third season with high hopes it was set to join the midfield mix.

Instead, the green cars – whilst still the cream of the backmarker group – are still better only than fellow stragglers Marussia and HRT.

The Finnish broadcaster MTV3′s well-known analyst Mika Salo has advised lead driver Heikki Kovalainen to therefore quit Caterham at the end of 2012.

“Something has been wrong with the car,” Kovalainen is quoted as saying by Turun Sanomat newspaper this week. “We need to see what is not right.”

Fernandes, meanwhile, is looking fervently on the bright side, insisting Caterham has done markedly better than F1′s other 2010 start-ups.

“We are competitive,” he told the Sun, reminding that Caterham was the last 2010 team given its official entry by the FIA a few years ago.

“We’ve blown away Marussia and HRT when in actual fact they have been there six months longer,” insisted Fernandes.

“We are half a second away from the established midfield … you must remember that this team is only two years old.

“When I started, we were nine seconds away from the front. Last year we were about four seconds away from Red Bull.

“This year, on certain laps, we lapped at the same pace as them. So I am very happy and I am strengthening the team all the time,” he added.

But one of Caterham’s direct rivals, HRT, is looking to make a major step forwards this weekend in China, having struggled recently in the wake of team supremo Colin Kolles’ departure.

“We come into this grand prix having had much more time to prepare the cars,” Pedro de la Rosa is quoted by the Spanish news agency EFE.

“We will bring small improvements to China but what we really need is the cars back in Europe and then the team can concentrate at the (new headquarters) Caja Magica.

“Step by step we will improve,” said the Spanish driver.

Pedro de la Rosa has returned to the head of the formula one drivers’ trade union, the GPDA.
The Spanish veteran was the president of the safety-oriented Grand Prix Drivers’ Association between 2008 and 2010, stepping down when he returned to the grid with Sauber after years as McLaren’s reserve.

Nick Heidfeld and Rubens Barrichello were the next to lead the Monaco-based body, but the latter Brazilian veteran has now left formula one to race in Indycar this year.

International media reports, including by the Spanish news agency EFE, said de la Rosa – who will race this year with the back-of-the-grid HRT team – is indeed now returning to the GPDA role.

The report said the GPDA decided last year that in the event of a vacancy, the 41-year-old would once again lead the body.

EFE also said the driver confirmed the news personally.

Maria de Villota insists “there are real possibilities” she will be a regular in the formula one paddock next year.
The 31-year-old Spanish female driver tested a 2009 Renault at Paul Ricard in August, and earlier this month she re-appeared in the car during the World Series race weekend at Barcelona.

She told the Spanish news agency Europa Press that she is getting “closer” to securing a job in formula one for 2012.

“The first test we did in August went so well that it helped to accelerate more possibilities,” said de Villota.

She said her short-term objective is to “be in formula one in 2012″.

De Villota, the daughter of former F1 driver Emilio de Villota, said her Superleague races alongside former F1 drivers Antonio Pizzonia and Enrique Bernoldi had convinced her she is capable of contesting grands prix.

“While I have great respect for them, I do not see an uneven playing field,” she said.

“Physically – yes I know – I have to work harder, but as an athlete and a driver I feel that with proper training and with the experience that I need, I think I can do it very well.”

Sergio Perez felt dizzy on Friday after returning to the wheel of his Sauber.
The Mexican rookie pulled out of the recent Canadian grand prix weekend when he felt dizzy, two weeks after his heavy qualifying crash in Monaco.

But his Swiss employer said on Friday that Perez, 21, will contest the rest of the event on the streets of Valencia.

“At the beginning of the first session I still felt dizzy,” Perez told the Spanish news agency EFE, “but as it went on I felt better and in the end I felt good.

“Tomorrow (Saturday) I hope to be 100 per cent. I think it’s a normal situation as the body gets slowly used to it again. The second session was much better,” he explained.

Perez said he had trained and prepared hard for his Valencia comeback, almost a month after his hospitalisation in Monaco.

“I think we have succeeded,” he added.

There are more than three candidates to race injured Robert Kubica’s Renault in 2011, team boss Eric Boullier has clarified.
Reports on Tuesday said the Frenchman had shortlisted only Bruno Senna, Nick Heidfeld and Vitantonio Liuzzi to become Vitaly Petrov’s new teammate until Kubica is ready to return to the R31.

“Senna, Heidfeld and Liuzzi?” Boullier is quoted by the Spanish sports newspaper Marca.

“We have talked with them, but there are others that we have also spoken with who are in perfect condition to drive the car,” he insisted.

A report by the Spanish news agency EFE said Pedro de la Rosa is one of the others who has been contacted.

“If I were Renault right now I would take Pedro de la Rosa,” said former McLaren driver Mark Blundell on Twitter, “as he has more Pirelli experience than all the current guys.”

But a team spokesman said the Lotus-backed outfit is in no rush to choose from the list of candidates.

“It is too early to talk about it,” he is quoted by Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.

“There is still five weeks until the first race, so we still have some time to make a decision,” he added.

Either Bruno Senna or Romain Grosjean, Renault’s two third drivers, will replace Kubica at this week’s Jerez test.

Team boss Christian Horner has denied claims Red Bull flouted a cost-saving agreement on the way to winning the world championships in 2010.
On Christmas Eve, former FIA president Max Mosley claimed Red Bull spent more than was allowed under the Resource Restriction Agreement (RRA); a document agreed as a compromise to a full-blown budget cap.

On Monday, Italian reports claimed Red Bull’s over-spend was EUR 60 million, amid rumours Mercedes could be set to break the next agreement with its KERS development costs.

At the same time, F1′s smallest budget team HRT quit the FOTA teams association, a spokeswoman explaining that the body is “more for the big teams than the small ones”.

The Spanish news agency EFE speculated that HRT’s departure might be the start of a deeper FOTA split ahead of crucial commercial negotiations with Bernie Ecclestone.

Increasingly isolated is Red Bull, with media sources suggesting that because the team was allegedly over-budget by 60m in 2010, that amount should be deducted from its allowed spending this year.

The situation means Red Bull is currently refusing to sign a new RRA for 2011.

“We’ve worked in accordance with the RRA limits since they were introduced,” Horner told BBC Sport.

He linked the suspicions about Red Bull’s spending with earlier gripes about technical features of the title-winning RB6 car.

“Red Bull has committed its budgets wisely and it’s obviously surprising that people will feel that way, but it’s inevitable, I guess, when you’re at the front and winning races,” added Horner.

Virgin team CEO Graeme Lowden did not refer to Red Bull specifically, but he said that even a breach of the “spirit” of the RRA would be “extremely disappointing”.

Horner confirmed that Red Bull has not yet signed a new RRA.

“The (agreement) needs to be sorted quite quickly because at the moment it is unclear what rules we are working to in 2011 in many respects, so it’s important a solution is found and I think one will be found,” he said.

HRT’s logo has been removed from the website of the formula one teams association FOTA.
There are varying accounts of why the back-of-the-grid Spanish team has left the body, including some claims that FOTA simply suspended Hispania because it had not paid its EUR 100,000 membership fee.

Another explanation is that HRT is no longer supportive of F1′s big teams, particularly with Red Bull reportedly breaching the Resource Restriction Agreement (RRA) in 2010 by some EUR 60 million, according to La Gazzetta dello Sport.

It is also rumoured that Mercedes is unlikely to meet the RRA restrictions on the development of KERS.

The Spanish news agency EFE claims that HRT’s departure could trigger more teams to split with FOTA, thus undermining the power of the body ahead of crucial commercial negotiations with Bernie Ecclestone.

The struggling Spanish team HRT insists it is reluctant to respond to Bernie Ecclestone’s latest scathing comments.

The F1 chief executive said this week that while Lotus is worth keeping in F1 and Virgin should simply invest more money, the sport’s newcomers are “cripples” that have been “an embarrassment”.

When asked about the 80-year-old Briton’s jibe, Hispania’s communications boss Alba Saiz said the team prefers “to work, not respond to everyone who talks” about them.

“We have nothing more to say,” Saiz is quoted by the Spanish news agency EFE.

Ecclestone had said F1 needs “to get rid” of its stragglers, but the HRT official said the team is pushing ahead for 2011.

“We are working and already thinking about next year, and in that way we have just announced a partnership with Williams for two years.

“In a couple of weeks we will make a further announcement,” added Saiz.

Despite earlier expressing some reservations, Jaime Alguersuari is now sure he will be at the wheel of a Toro Rosso in 2011.

When boss Franz Tost initially said the Faenza based team’s current drivers would both be retained next year, both Alguersuari and Sebastien Buemi seemed unconvinced that owner Red Bull was also fully in agreement with the news.

Then in Japan less than two weeks ago, Austrian Tost repeated his announcement that Toro Rosso’s driver lineup is not changing for 2011.

“I have great respect for Sebastien Buemi,” Alguersuari, 20, is quoted as saying by the Spanish news agency EFE.

“And the official and final confirmation of our continuing contracts in 2011, confirmed in Japan both for Buemi and myself, will make us stronger,” added the Spaniard.

Alguersuari insists he has developed at a great rate since debuting in Hungary last year with no experience at the wheel of a F1 car.

He said he has gone “from being the biggest rookie in history to feeling at 20 years old almost like a veteran”.

“I feel very happy with Toro Rosso, which is like a big family, and I’m very proud of myself,” added Alguersuari.

He also said Toro Rosso’s 2010 car is the “only one” among the existing teams not yet using an F-duct in races; a development he expects will add “half a second” to the STR5′s pace when it is finally ready.

Pedro de la Rosa has been signed up as another Pirelli tyre tester.

After many consecutive years at the grand prix circuits, the 39-year-old Spaniard will watch this weekend’s Singapore action on television from his Zurich home.

He has been ousted at Sauber by Nick Heidfeld, who was previously incoming official supplier Pirelli’s permanent tyre tester.

It had been expected that de la Rosa, with years of experience as a test driver at McLaren under his belt, would immediately replace Heidfeld.

But this week’s Monza running in the Pirelli-shod 2009 Toyota was conducted by Romain Grosjean.

Spanish news agency Europa Press said the Swiss-born Frenchman is staying on board, to share the role from now on with de la Rosa.

“So far, our work has been done by Nick Heidfeld, but since he has returned to racing, he will be replaced by Pedro de la Rosa and Romain Grosjean,” confirmed Pirelli chief executive Francesco Gori at the Turkish factory where the F1 tyres will be made.

“They (de la Rosa and Grosjean) will test until the Abu Dhabi grand prix, and after that the teams will use the new tyres,” he is quoted in the EP report.

HRT owner Jose Ramon Carabante has confirmed that the struggling Spanish team is set to collaborate with Toyota.

Team boss Colin Kolles admitted at Hockenheim that working with Toyota Motorsport, the Japanese marque’s former F1 arm based in Cologne, is a “good option” for Hispania.

Driver Bruno Senna, however, indicated that agreements are not yet signed.

But reports suggest HRT, whose partnership with 2010 car builder Dallara has been terminated, will use Toyota’s headquarters and wind tunnel, staff and the designs of its unraced TF110 car.

Carabante has now confirmed the deal by playing down fears in Spain that HRT will no longer be based in Murcia, the autonomous region that is also a sponsor of the team.

In a report by the Spanish news agency EFE, Carabante said that notwithstanding the arrangement with Toyota, the team will remain in Murcia “because the project was born here”.

The report said the deal is worth EUR15 million, with Carabante insisting it “will strengthen Hispania in the battle to be the best of the new teams, which is our first goal”.

EFE said HRT’s technical contract with Toyota Motorsport will be for the 2011 and 2012 seasons.

Fernando Alonso has warned that he is not necessarily the favourite to take pole position for the Monaco grand prix.

As the paddock and media centre fill up despite Friday being a ‘rest day’, the world of formula one is contemplating Alonso’s dominance of the initial 180-minutes of free practice.

But Ferrari’s Alonso told the Spanish news agency EFE: “Pole position is still far away.

“There has only been Thursday practice and we have seen many sessions this year dominated by McLaren and we were also high up, and then Red Bull surprised everyone in qualifying.

“So we have our feet on the ground, knowing only that we have started the weekend well,” he insisted, also predicting that McLaren will be “very strong” in Monaco.

McLaren’s Jenson Button added: “The Ferrari looks very quick, and I’m pretty sure Red Bull are hiding their pace.”

(GMM)

Apr.26 (GMM) Fernando Alonso on Monday declared “false” reports that Ferrari’s engines problems in 2010 have been narrowed down to a general flaw of the pneumatic air system.

We reported late last week that the Italian team might ask the FIA for permission to make changes to its 2.4 litre V8 design on the grounds of reliability.

But when asked about the problems during a sponsor media event near Madrid on Monday, Spanish driver Alonso insisted he is “calm” and “not worried” about the technical problems.

“The car will be good,” said the 28-year-old, referring to next weekend’s Spanish grand prix at Barcelona.

“It was good in the early races and for one reason or another we did not get all the points we wanted, but I think we will have a good car at Montmelo,” added Alonso.

He confirmed that Ferrari has identified the problem that has been causing engine failures this year.

But, according to the Spanish news agency EP, he insisted: “The things written about the valves and the air intake system are false. In Barcelona and all the other races we will try now to run with one hundred per cent reliability.”

Alonso admitted that he does not know if Ferrari has written to the FIA to request legitimate changes to the engine amid the current development freeze.

“What I do know is that the engine technicians are committed to solving the problems, which were not about one thing in particular,” he said.