It was a breakthrough for Mercedes and Nico Rosberg, but the Chinese grand prix was a “difficult day” for Michael Schumacher.

That is the admission of Shanghai winner Rosberg, whose first race win after more than 100 attempts also delivered German marque Mercedes’ first works victory for more than half a century.

“I felt he was very happy for me,” Rosberg told Auto Bild Motorsport, when asked what seven time world champion Schumacher’s reaction was.

Since returning to F1 more than two years ago, 43-year-old Schumacher – although stepping up his pace in 2012 – is yet to finish a single grand prix on the podium.

Nonetheless, he offered his congratulations “very, very warmly” after China, Rosberg revealed.

“At the same time I know that it was, of course, a difficult day (for him),” he admitted.

Norbert Haug, the team’s motor sport director, recently sounded inclined to keep Rosberg and Schumacher together beyond 2012, despite the fact the older and more famous German’s contract is ending.

He insisted there is “nothing negative” about their relationship.

As for ongoing rumours that Schumacher still enjoys number one status, Haug called that idea “absolute nonsense”.

“Do you know what Nico said to me, before Michael came? He said ‘If you can get Michael (on the team), then try everything for it’.”

Rosberg has not changed his tune.

“There was never a situation in which Michael got anything before I did,” he confirmed.

All this year’s title contenders know after four ‘flyaway’ races in 2012 is that they do not know what will happen in Spain next month.

“The only certainty is uncertainty,” read the German headline at Netzeitung.

With F1 generally regarded in the wider world as a sport with predictable results, this is an entirely new situation.

“The statistics show that it’s been nine years since there have been four different winners in the first four races,” said Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali.

Indeed, the famous Italian team as well as McLaren, Mercedes and Red Bull have won the opening races of 2012, and also with potentially winning pace have been Lotus and Sauber.

“More than that,” continued Domenicali, “you have to go back 29 years to find the last time four different cars won.”

One explanation is that F1 has never been more competitive, with plenty of well-oiled teams and no fewer than six world champion drivers on the grid.

But Domenicali thinks Pirelli is the dominant factor.

And not everybody is happy about that. Michael Schumacher told Bild newspaper that this year’s tyres degrade so fast that rubber “flies from the rim” if he pushes too hard in a corner.

“We drive around like the safety car. It is not a satisfying situation,” the seven time world champion said.

Pirelli’s motor sport director Paul Hembery is unimpressed with the rebuke, insisting that the Italian marque is only trying to “make tyres that make the races exciting”.

“We cannot take individual drivers into consideration,” the Briton insisted.

“It would be dead easy for us to make tyres that don’t break down. Then the top ten would also be the top ten in the race.

“But no one wants to see boring processions,” Hembery claimed.

Agreed the Swiss headline at Blick: “Pirelli is sweeping away the boredom”.

Indeed, not even the other Mercedes driver, Shanghai winner Nico Rosberg, agrees with Schumacher.

“It’s total chaos. You don’t know who is going to be fast at the next track,” he is quoted by DPA agency. “Formula one has become almost unlike any other sport.

“Yes, you cannot drive any laps any more at full throttle. Often, it’s like driving on ice. But that’s a big and an interesting challenge,” said the German.

Undoubtedly exciting for the fans, but the teams are having to adapt quickly. Italy’s La Gazzetta dello Sport said on Sunday that Vettel’s victory could mean Red Bull resumes its dominant grip on F1.

Dr Helmut Marko doesn’t think so. “We don’t even know who our opponents are!” he exclaimed.

Tyres. The political dramas aside, that word utterly dominated the Bahrain grand prix weekend.

Afterwards, Michael Schumacher admitted he was “unhappy” with the situation.

“Sometimes we are driving only 60, 70 per cent through the corners,” he is quoted by Bild newspaper.

Pirelli did not take the criticism lightly, insisting it has made Canada 2010-style, heavily degrading tyres to order, for the benefit of the ‘show’.

Motor sport director Paul Hembery on Monday ‘re-Tweeted’ a message from a follower accusing the seven time world champion of having thrown “his toys out of the pram”.

Moreover, Pirelli said Bahrain is perhaps “the most demanding” on the entire calendar when it comes to degradation.

“As a result, knowing how to manage the tyres and contain thermal degradation was a vital skill” on Sunday, the Italian marque said in a statement.

On Twitter, The Times’ correspondent Kevin Eason called Bahrain an “excellent race, although I am not sure we haven’t moved from tyre management to lottery”.

The roulette wheel didn’t spin up for McLaren – the team with arguably the best overall car so far in 2012 – on Sunday.

“Nobody has added a second to their cars in just a week after China,” lamented Jenson Button, “but here we were a second off the pace.”

His boss Martin Whitmarsh told Auto Motor und Sport: “Maybe it was the pressures, maybe the temperatures. We really don’t know.”

The German reporter said Whitmarsh’s comment indicates an “uncomfortable realisation” for such a scientifically meticulous team.

Whitmarsh agreed: “It is now more important to understand the tyres than to find a bit more downforce.”

The tyre marque’s test driver Jaime Alguersuari told Mundo Deportivo newspaper that Pirelli deserves credit, not criticism.

“Pirelli is largely responsible for making F1 the most spectacular it has been in a decade,” said the young Spaniard.

Pirelli went on the defensive on Sunday, following criticism in the wake of the Bahrain grand prix.

British commentator Martin Brundle said the Italian marque’s heavily-degrading 2012 product, so difficult to keep alive and in the narrow performance ‘window’, is overly dominating the season so far.

Also critical after Bahrain, where tyre performance fell away rapidly in the desert heat, was Michael Schumacher, who told reporters he wanted to talk with Pirelli chiefs about how to improve the situation.

Faced with that sort of criticism on Sunday, Pirelli’s motor sport director Paul Hembery said on Twitter: “At the end of last year we had huge criticism for conservative choices and races were boring.

“Make your mind up. We are doing what is asked.”

Hembery also argued that how teams tackle their tyre strategies will continue to play a big role for only “a few more races, then like last year all change as they get used (to the tyres)”.

Nico Rosberg’s F1 breakthrough proves he is ready to fight even for the world championship.

That is the view of former grand prix winner, team boss and co-owner Gerhard Berger, following Rosberg’s first pole and win in China last weekend.

“It surprised not me, but all the others who had doubted him,” the Austrian told Auto Bild Motorsport.

“It was about time. I was worried,” Berger smiled, “because I have always said I thought Nico was faster than Michael (Schumacher).

“Now he is finally where he has belonged for a long time — in the same league as Vettel, Hamilton, Alonso and Button,” he insisted.

“And when the (Mercedes) car is good enough, he is already ready for the world title.”

Berger, then as BMW motor sport director, said he was instrumental in 2002 in convincing Sir Frank Williams to give the then 17-year-old Rosberg his first F1 test.

Also welcoming Sunday’s breakthrough is Nelson Piquet junior, another son of a world champion who actually went to kindergarten with Rosberg in Monaco.

“It’s funny how in F1 things can take so long to happen,” the Brazilian told Globo.

“It took him more than six years to get his first victory, which for me is a long time considering how good a driver he is,” added Piquet, now in Nascar.

 Rumours are swirling in the Melbourne paddock that Red Bull and Lotus are preparing to lodge a post-qualifying protest.
“I’ve heard something like that,” confirmed Mercedes’ motor sport director Norbert Haug to German Sky television.

They are reportedly unhappy with the new ‘F-duct’ solutions seen on the W03 car.

British television Sky confirmed that team boss Eric Boullier has confirmed that Lotus will protest the outcome of Saturday afternoon’s qualifying result.

“The FIA has its opinion and so do we,” Haug added.

“I remember the noise made about the double diffuser; a noise, incidentally, that came from the same place,” said the German.

Pirelli would have preferred to test with a 2011-specification car this year, Paul Hembery has admitted.
After writing off the 2009 Toyota as too outdated, F1′s tyre supplier struggled to find a solution with the teams as it pushed for a newer car for private tyre testing.

Ultimately, Pirelli acquired a 2010 Renault.

“We would have liked to have had a 2011 car,” Pirelli motor sport director Hembery told Auto Motor und Sport. “So we are one step away from being happy.”

He said it is no mistake that the chosen 2010 car is a Renault, not a title-winning Red Bull.

“We wanted a midfield car — there probably would have been too many complaints about the world championship-winning one.

“Also, the costs played a role,” added Hembery.

Missing now is a driver for Pirelli’s R30 Renault.

“There are a lot of names on the list,” revealed Hembery. “Even some that you wouldn’t have thought of.

“Ideally we want someone with experience from the 2011 season — so that reduces the number of candidates a bit.”

Pirelli will use the former Renault team’s 2010 car for private track testing this year, the sport’s official tyre supplier announced on Wednesday.
Until now, the Italian marque has tested with Toyota’s 2009 car, the TF109, which was deemed now too outdated to use for the next generation of Pirelli tyre.

“The Toyota is no longer able to generate the same sort of forces that we need to simulate in order to meet the current requirements of formula one,” said motor sport director Paul Hembery.

Another reason is that the Toyota’s fuel tank was not big enough to simulate a race-load of fuel, for the current regulations that came into force in 2010.

Pirelli said the Renault R30, originally raced by Robert Kubica and Vitaly Petrov, will be run in plain black carbon, driven by a test driver whose identity will be revealed “later this month”.

The car will be adapted to simulate this year’s regulations, and run by Pirelli’s own technicians, “with no team member connected to a current formula one team” in order to “ensure complete impartiality”.

Pirelli said it will test four or five times this year, beginning in May, with an observer from each F1 team invited to attend.

Paul Hembery has admitted Pirelli’s new soft tyre might not degrade quick enough in 2012.
The sport’s new supplier was lauded at the beginning of 2011 for spicing up the action by bringing tyres that quickly degrade.

But by the end of the season the teams had essentially solved the mysteries of the rubber, and in recent winter testing it seemed apparent that the 2012 tyre generation is not as inherently heavily-degrading as the last.

Motor sport director Hembery admits: “The soft tyres are not degrading quite as much as we would like.

“But you have to remember there will be 50 degree track temperatures in Malaysia. Also, the cars are still being developed, and over the course of the season will pick up downforce.

“If we have to heat up the show, we can always bring the super-softs,” he told Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.

One positive aspect of the 2012 tyres, on the other hand, is that they are producing far less discarded rubber litter on the edge of the racing line.

“That should make it easier to overtake,” Hembery said.

Another positive is that the new tyres are easier to get up to temperature.

“Last year, only the two Red Bulls and Hamilton could get the hards to work,” agreed the Briton.

 Tongues were wagging in the Barcelona paddock on Thursday when some drivers hit the Spanish circuit wearing odd-looking Pirelli tyres.
Some of the tyres, whose compounds are normally visibly differentiated with coloured branding, featured significantly different markings.

The big rumour was that, now just two weeks before the start of the season in Australia, teams had requested the blank tyres in order to hide their test programmes from their rivals.

According to France’s Auto Plus, motor sport director Paul Hembery cleared up the matter by explaining that the blank tyres were in fact “prototypes”.

They had been manufactured not at Pirelli’s usual F1 factory in Turkey, but elsewhere, in the event that a natural disaster forced the tyre supplier to change its plans at the last minute.

Hembery also answered the criticism that, after Pirelli’s initial 2011 tyres spiced up the racing early last year, the new generation might not be aggressive enough.

“We need data from the races to judge that,” he insisted. “It’s far too early.”

He also confirmed that Pirelli is close to announcing the identity of its 2010-specification test car, and a new test driver.

It is believed former Force India driver Adrian Sutil is a candidate.

 Amid all the ‘ugly’ talk, Alan Jones doesn’t mind the look of F1′s field of 2012.
With McLaren the notable exception, every team has incorporated an awkward ‘step’ into its nose design as the optimum solution to new FIA rules.

Paul Hembery, Pirelli’s motor sport director, recently decried the look as “pig ugly”.

But 1980 world champion Jones doesn’t think so.

“I don’t think aesthetics matter, and anyway I don’t really find them (the 2012 cars) particularly ugly,” the Australian told GMM.

“There’s a couple of interpretations of the new nose that aren’t as nice as some of the others, but there are a few out there that don’t look too bad at all,” said Jones.

“And I’ve never seen an ugly car in the winner’s circle,” he smiled.

Meanwhile, another former world champion – 1982′s Keke Rosberg – described McLaren’s solution as aesthetically pleasing, but hopes the British team has not made a mistake by going a different route to the rest of the grid.

“At least it’s nice looking and I wish the others would have done the same,” said the Finn.

“Jenson Button is quite a big guy and he has said he is sitting significantly lower than last year.

“If it (McLaren’s solution) suddenly becomes a problem for them, with the chassis already homologated then that’s just what they’ve got,” he told the MTV3 broadcaster.

 Pirelli is closer to finding a solution to its current lack of a F1 test car.
In the past two years, the sport’s Italian supplier has used the last car raced by defunct team Toyota to develop its tyres.

But Paul Hembery, Pirelli motor sport director, has said the 2009-spec TF109 is now too outdated and has been retired.

It is believed the marque initially intended to find an agreement to run a competitive 2011-spec car, but the new plan could be to acquire a single seater from the 2010 season.

“We do most of the work in the simulator,” Hembery told the El Pais newspaper, “but it’s more difficult to work on the compounds because it requires the interactivity with the asphalt.”

The Briton admitted that, so far, the teams have been unhelpful in terms of agreeing a solution for a new-specification car, because of the potential performance advantage that could be gained by the chosen team.

Hembery, however, used the example of the common electronic unit which is supplied to all teams by a McLaren subsidiary.

“They all have it and no one complains,” he said.

“But we have asked for help and they tell us that we should continue with the Toyota, and that’s nonsense,” added Hembery.

He said talks are still taking place.

“We have to find a car that was competitive in 2010, which was reliable and that allows us to incorporate all the systems that allow us to do our work.”

F1′s field of 2012 reminds one expert pundit of a supermodel without her best assets.
Former driver Hans-Joachim Stuck wrote in his German column for Eurosport that he dislikes the look of this year’s formula one cars.

“The tyres are too narrow, the rear wing too small and the front wing too big, and the nose is a complete failure,” he said.

“It’s like imagining Heidi Klum without her nice behind and bosom, and that’s unfortunately what they’ve done with the new cars.

“Let’s hope that they’re fast, at least.”

Tyre supplier Pirelli’s motor sport director Paul Hembery recently slammed the new cars for being “pig ugly”.

He told The Sun it could be a turn-off for potential new fans and sponsors.

“It is what a lot of people will say who are maybe not as intimately involved as we are,” said Hembery.

 Mercedes regards Michael Schumacher as an integral part of its push for success in formula one, boss Norbert Haug said this week.
Currently, the seven time world champion is committed to the German marque – and his return to F1 – only until the end of next season.

2012 will be the third year since Mercedes took over Brawn GP, with motor sport director Haug insisting that a push to the top of the sport takes longer than that.

“We are going to keep establishing our new Silver Arrows works team in formula one,” he told Eurosport Deutschland.

“Our development and our learning will bring as upwards gradually, step by step, from the fourth power at the moment to third, second and ultimately to position number one,” added Haug.

“This can be achieved only through years of hard and focused work. The current world champions (Red Bull) took five years before their first success.”

And Haug insisted that Mercedes has the right drivers – Schumacher and his German countryman Nico Rosberg – for the project.

“We are completely satisfied with them, as once we give our drivers a winning car, they will win with it,” he said.

“Michael is a motivator through and through. He has a plan just as he had one at Ferrari, where he fought for five years for his first (Ferrari) title.

“He has the same bite as ever and remains one of the very best drivers in the field,” added Haug.

Gerhard Berger has criticised the latest high-profile appointments by Mercedes’ formula one team.

With Renault’s former chief Bob Bell already on board, the Brackley based team announced last Friday that Geoff Willis and Aldo Costa will start their new roles in November and December respectively.

Willis was leading HRT’s technical team until very recently, while Italian Costa was ousted by Ferrari earlier this season.

Former F1 winner, joint BMW motor sport director and Toro Rosso co-owner Berger questioned the appointments, which are the latest in a recruitment push by the works Mercedes team.

“It looks to me as though Mercedes are shooting with a shotgun in the hope of landing a hit,” the Austrian told Auto Bild Motorsport.

Italy’s Autosprint magazine, meanwhile, wondered if it is “credible that, to strengthen his technical staff, Ross Brawn turns to someone considered a loser by Ferrari?

“Frankly, it’s not,” the report concluded.