A favourite for victory this weekend, Pastor Maldonado is reportedly lucky to be gearing up to race in the Principality at all.

Bild newspaper recalls that the Venezuelan, who defied his ‘pay driver’ critics by winning for Williams in Spain two weeks ago, was actually banned after an horror incident on the streets of Monte Carlo seven years ago.

Racing in the Renault World Series in 2005, the then 25-year-old ignored yellow flags before striking and severely injuring a marshal.

Organisers of the Monaco grand prix reacted by banning Maldonado from the street circuit for life.

Germany’s Bild revealed that Maldonado’s wealthy father intervened, promising to pay for the marshal’s recovery and rehabilitation from a broken back.

That intervention saved Maldonado’s future formula one career, as no team would hire a regular driver that cannot participate in the sport’s most famous race.

Maldonado is therefore a favourite for victory this weekend, with his Williams now acknowledged as arguably the best in the entire field when it comes to slow-speed traction.

And in his four seasons of GP2 between 2007 and 2010, Maldonado finished on the podium each time, winning and achieving pole position twice. In 2006, he won in Formula Renault.

Last year, in qualifying for his first Monaco grand prix, he qualified his then struggling Williams in eighth place, comfortably ahead of Rubens Barrichello.

“He is very good at Monaco,” agreed Barrichello.

In the 2011 race, Maldonado was fighting for fifth when he crashed with Lewis Hamilton.

“If the last sector in Barcelona is the marker, then the Williams will be unbeatable in Monte Carlo,” Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport quotes Dr Helmut Marko as saying.

The breakthrough success in Barcelona has piqued the interest of Maldonado’s native Venezuela, having not had an F1 points scorer since the ignominious Johnny Cecotto in 1983.

“My country will be following every second of the next race,” Maldonado is quoted by O Estado de S.Paulo newspaper.

“I love street circuits, this one in particular. My style of driving fits perfectly with Monaco. I am ready to get another great result.”

HRT Formula 1 Team incorporates Kyocera Document Solutions as its Official Supplier through a collaboration agreement for the 2012 season. The Spanish team will count on Kyocera’s services, which include needs for management and printing of documents, both at the team’s permanent offices in the Caja Mágica and at the mobile offices that travel throughout the world during the Formula 1 season.

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Ferrari’s task is to improve step by step, rather than make a quantum leap in Barcelona next weekend.

That is the claim of Spaniard Fernando Alonso, as the famous Italian team disappointed some headline-writers on Tuesday by not launching a ‘B’ car at the Mugello test.

“We have to take a step forward in Montmelo, one in Monte Carlo, another in Canada, and so on,” Alonso is quoted by La Stampa, after topping the rain-affected first day of testing on Tuesday with the improved F2012 car.

He acknowledged that Ferrari cannot win the 2012 season if the performance of the opening four grands prix is repeated throughout the season.

“We have to be qualifying in the top ten, fighting for the top five and having both cars in the points in every race,” he insisted.

Asked if he thinks the title is a realistic goal, Alonso said: “We are optimistic.”

He said he pushed as hard as he could in Australia, Malaysia, China and Bahrain with a sub-standard car.

“It was like walking on a wire a hundred feet up,” said the 2005 and 2006 world champion. “If you do one thing wrong – hit a curb in qualifying or miss a braking point in the race – you’re not in the top ten.

“We do not have the fastest car, but with a team like Ferrari, a good car is enough.

“I’m not the best in qualifying, or in the rain, or on the street circuits, but I try to be a 9.5 in everything.”

The fact F1 has chosen the Singapore exchange for the sport’s high profile floatation does not mean the city-state’s popular floodlit street race is guaranteed.

The night event’s existing five year contract runs out this year, although a two-year notice clause in the deal means Singapore should stay on the calendar at least until 2014.

On the face of it, a new deal seemed a certainty, given it was Bernie Ecclestone himself who chose Singapore as the location for F1′s forthcoming floatation.

“Formula one is known in Singapore, and Asia is thriving. It is a simpler market and not as restrictive,” he said recently.

Talks about a new race deal “are underway”, the local Business Times reported in March, “but it is understood that one sticking point is the sanction fee.”

An unnamed banker commented: “The Singapore government wants formula one to be listed here and for that to happen, it knows the race has to remain here.

“But at the same time, it doesn’t want to pay top dollar again. So the bargaining should continue for some time.”

However, the English language newspaper now reports that F1′s floatation plans, and the expiring Singapore race contract, could be entirely unrelated.

“We are in the process of negotiating a possible renewal of the (race) agreement and the outcome will be announced once discussions are complete,” said a spokesman for race promoter Singapore GP.

Second minister for trade and industry S Iswaran insisted that the mooted floatation will not influence the outcome of the race contract negotiations.

And the Singapore tourism board’s Aw Kah Peng added: “You’ve got to see whether the deal is right in every way.

“We’re hoping everybody sees value in it and we get a so-called good deal for Singapore, in terms of whether all the numbers can work out and everybody takes home something — a kind of a win-win proposition.”

Monaco has made changes to its famous street circuit in the wake of Sergio Perez’s high-speed crash last year.

Ahead of his debut Monaco race, Mexican Perez lost control of his Sauber on the exit of the tunnel in qualifying, sustaining concussion when he hit the chicane barrier.

Perez sat out the subsequent Canadian grand prix and later admitted it had taken him most of the rest of the season to recover completely.

L’Automobile Club de Monaco, the organisers of the annual race in the Principality, have announced that the severity of the bumps on the approach to the harbour chicane have been carefully reduced ahead of late May’s event.

And the ‘Tecpro’ wall that Perez hit has been moved back by almost 15 metres, the Spanish sports newspaper Marca added.

Organisers of the New York street race have hit back at Bernie Ecclestone’s claim the inaugural 2013 date might be delayed a year.

The F1 chief executive had announced a race on the streets of New Jersey for 2013, and recent photos showed that work on the main pit building is well underway.

But Ecclestone told the BBC this week: “Maybe the New York race will be 2013. It’s a (question of) when. 2013 or 2014.”

Some sensed that the surprise news might be a diversionary tactic by Ecclestone, who is under intense pressure to cancel this weekend’s highly controversial Bahrain grand prix.

Indeed, a spokesman for the 2013 New York street race has reacted to the 81-year-old’s news with surprise.

“There’s nothing to it,” the spokesman, Stephen Sigmund, is quoted by NJBiz. “The race is on, as scheduled, for 2013.”

The race site is predominantly in the Port Imperial development, owned by Roseland Property Co.

That company’s managing partner Carl Goldberg said: “As the primary land owner for the race site, we continue to plan and prepare for a June 2013 race.”

Construction of the facilities for the 2013 New York grand prix is speeding ahead.

At the same time, there remain grave doubts about the Texas project, despite the permanent Circuit of the Americas venue being scheduled to host its inaugural US grand prix in November.

The Austin American Statesman newspaper has this week quoted county commissioner Sarah Eckhardt as saying: “It appears they (the organisers) don’t have the cash flow to prepare the site for the event.”

It is a very different story so far at Port Imperial, where the American grand prix will take place mid next year on the streets of West New York and Weehawken, amid the Manhattan skyline.

Wheels.ca published a photo depicting the advanced construction of the pit and garage building, which will reportedly house the F1 teams in June next year.

Argentina looks set to replace Korea on the 2013 formula one calendar.

That is the claim of Italy’s Autosprint magazine, reporting that the Argentinean national government will sign a three-year contract next month.

President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner said last month that the 2013 Argentine grand prix, last held at the ageing Autodromo Oscar Alfredo Galvez in Buenos Aires in 1998, will take place on the streets of the coastal city of Mar del Plata.

Autosprint now quotes Argentine tourism minister Carlos Enrique Mayer as saying: “The national government accepts the challenge of organising the grand prix of Argentina to promote our country to the world.

“In May, the three year contract between all the parties involved will be signed,” he added.

The report said Hermann Tilke will be responsible for the 5 kilometre city layout.

Autosprint also reported that next year’s calendar will remain at 20 races, so with the addition of Argentina as well as New Jersey, two current grands prix will need to give way.

One place will likely open up due to a new alternating scheme in Spain, with Valencia to wait until 2014 for its next race.

And Autosprint added: “The grand prix of Korea no longer seems able to honour the financial obligations agreed with (Bernie) Ecclestone.”

Damon Hill has changed his mind yet again on the controversial issue of Bahrain’s return to formula one later this month.

Amid the debate about the island Kingdom’s return to the calendar in the wake of the cancelled 2011 event, the 1996 world champion said initially: “F1 must align itself with progression, not repression”.

But he changed his tune after travelling with FIA president Jean Todt to Bahrain, insisting the situation on the ground had changed since the 2011 protests.

“The grand prix is of huge economic importance to Bahrain. You’d almost be putting an economic sanction on Bahrain by pulling the race,” said Hill.

But the Briton has now changed his mind again, apparently after the latest reports of violence on the streets and the reaction in the international media.

Hill is quoted by the Guardian newspaper: “It would be a bad state of affairs, and bad for formula one, to be seen to be enforcing martial law in order to hold the race.

“Looking at it today you’d have to say that (the race) could be creating more problems than it’s solving.”

The former Williams driver is scheduled to attend this month’s Bahrain grand prix as a television analyst, but Hill brushed aside any thoughts about his lucrative contract with the British broadcaster Sky.

“Some things are more important than contracts.”

He also expressed misgivings about a recent media briefing in London, in which Bernie Ecclestone and team bosses stood with the Bahrain organisers and insisted the race is going ahead despite the continuing controversy.

Damon said that event was “troubling insofar as it tried to represent the rioting in Bahrain as the result of bad press reporting and as a ‘youth’ issue.

“I hope the FIA are considering the implications of this fully and that events in Bahrain are not seen as they are often sold, as a bunch of yobs throwing molotov cocktails, because that’s a gross simplification.”

Writing in O Estado de S.Paulo newspaper, Brazilian correspondent Livio Oricchio admitted he thinks it would be “almost reckless” for F1 to travel to Bahrain this month.

“At Sepang,” he wrote, “many team members were very concerned. They said their insurance companies had expressed concern about going to an Arab country in a belligerent state.

“Personally, I don’t think we will be attacked, but it is the goal of the protesters to do anything so that the grand prix is not run.

“The Arab Spring is very much alive in this small country in the Persian Gulf,” he admitted.

And the Times of London’s Kevin Eason wrote on Twitter: “I have been thinking F1 should give Bahrain a chance but I am not convinced now that safety can be guaranteed.”

 Singapore’s street race could be the key to the stock market floatation of formula one.
The Business Times reports that with the sport apparently wanting to float on Singapore’s exchange, the first step will be a new contract for the Asian city-state’s annual night street race.

The current race contract expires this year.

“Negotiations are underway but it is understood that one sticking point is the sanction fee,” the report said.

The Business Times said the Singapore government currently pays about $40 million for its race every year; a figure “roughly twice” the amount paid by Malaysia.

“The Singapore government wants formula one to be listed here and for that to happen, it knows the race has to remain here,” an unnamed banker said.

“But at the same time, it doesn’t want to pay top dollar again. So the bargaining should continue for some time.”

The banker added that F1 chief executive Ecclestone also holds a strong negotiating hand.

“(He) knows Singapore needs him because the SGX (exchange) hasn’t had any big names in recent years. Being the shrewd businessman that he is, he will play hardball.”

 Singapore, the southeast Asian city-state and the scene of F1′s annual street night race, could be at the centre of the sport’s plans for the future.
Sky News reports that Temasek Holdings, one of Singapore’s principal sovereign wealth funds, has been approached by F1′s majority owner CVC with a proposal to buy into the sport.

It is also rumoured that F1 could be floated on the Singapore stock exchange.

F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone admitted last November that, “It would be better (for CVC) to float the company in Singapore than sell it”.

The Singapore Exchange (SGX) would not comment.

“It is not our practice to publicly comment on our dealings with individual entities,” a spokeswoman told the AFP news agency.

 Sepang will not modify its circuit in order to organise a formula one night race, organisers of the Malaysian grand prix said on Friday.
Melbourne – in a similar timezone – is coming under increasing pressure from Bernie Ecclestone to install floodlights and host its race at night, to better serve the core live television audience back in Europe.

But Razlan Razali, Sepang chief executive, said the F1 chief executive is putting “no pressure” on Malaysia, whose 2012 race will be held next weekend.

“Why do a night race when most other circuits do not do it?” he told reporters.

Already, Singapore hosts its annual street race under lights, while the Abu Dhabi grand prix begins at twilight and concludes at night.

Argentina is close to returning to the formula one calendar, the president of South America’s second-largest country has revealed.
EFE news agency quotes Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner as saying it is likely an Argentine grand prix, last held at the ageing Autodromo Oscar Alfredo Galvez in Buenos Aires in 1998, will take place in November or December 2013.

She said next year’s race would take place on the streets of the coastal city of Mar del Plata.

“For us this is very important,” she said, “because after football, motor racing is the second favourite sport of Argentina.”

Fernandez said the deal would be initially “for three years, in 2013, 2014 and 2015″.

Spain will host only one formula one race per season beginning in 2013, F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone has announced.
The country’s current two hosts, Barcelona and Valencia, had already admitted the impact of the European crisis and said alternating a single annual race date was a possibility.

And there were rumours Valencia had not yet paid the race fee for this year’s June street race.

“All is well and everything is paid,” Ecclestone told Radio Valencia-Cadena Ser.

“There is no doubt there will be formula one at Valencia on June 24,” said the Briton.

And Ecclestone said that from next year, there will be only one Spanish grand prix per season.

“Both Valencia and Barcelona have agreed that it is best to alternate, so now we are trying to choose the dates,” he said.

As for whether the economic crisis is affecting him personally, the billionaire answered: “No, because I don’t need or spend much money anyway.”

Lotus team owner Gerard Lopez backed the news about Spain.

“It’s better than having no races, which would be a pity,” he told DPA news agency.

Spanish driver Pedro de la Rosa said it is “normal” for each country to have one race per season.

“Having two is what is not normal,” he insisted.