It is likely a Toro Rosso driver will step up if Mark Webber does not stay at Red Bull beyond 2011, the energy drink company’s motor racing chief Helmut Marko has admitted.
While most key players including teammate Sebastian Vettel, Christian Horner and Adrian Newey recently had their contracts extended, Red Bull Racing is holding off re-signing Webber until his ongoing performance and motivation is gauged.

Already fighting for survival at the junior team Toro Rosso, Jaime Alguersuari and Sebastien Buemi are therefore also dicing for arguably the most coveted seat in F1 at present.

“This is by design,” Marko, the manager of Red Bull’s driver development programme, told the Italian magazine Autosprint.

“We will try to do what we did three years ago with Sebastian Vettel, when David Coulthard retired,” he said.

“Of course, this will not be automatic,” insisted Austrian Marko. “If a driver does not meet all of the professional requirements, we will not offer him the opportunity to drive at Red Bull.”

Ross Brawn has admitted his days as Mercedes team boss are numbered if he cannot power the German marque’s name to the top of formula one.

With the Brackley based team failing to live up to its billing as the reigning world champions with Michael Schumacher in the starring role, there have been widespread rumours about team harmony falling apart.

Brawn insists Schumacher is staying put and denies he is at odds with the German manager Norbert Haug, but acknowledges that he needs to deliver a much better silver car for 2011.

“Fourth position in the championship – and forget 2008 because that was the year I came to Honda and I couldn’t do anything about that – is probably the worst result I have had since I have been in senior management,” he told the Telegraph.

“And if the team continues running at a mediocre level then I probably won’t be running a team for much longer.  But the important thing is that I believe I know where we have gone wrong,” added Brawn.

He has explained this year’s problems as due to fighting in 2009 for the team’s survival as Brawn GP last year, whilst also pushing Jenson Button to the title.

“This business is all about spinning plates on the end of sticks.  And if you stop spinning them they fall off.  A few of our plates fell off last year.  Now we have put them back and we are spinning them,” he said.

Team figures are not hiding the fact that a major restructuring is about to take place, with one example being the rumoured drafting-in of Nico Rosberg’s former Williams engineer Tony Ross.

“My lips are sealed,” the German driver, who is currently engineered by Jock Clear, is quoted by Turun Sanomat newspaper.

“Anyway, we are moving in the right direction and nobody is being kicked out,” Rosberg insisted.

With one swift retort, Colin Kolles extinguished rumours that the Jacques Villeneuve/Durango venture might be rescued by struggling F1 team HRT.

After the alliance missed out on the 13th team entry for 2011, 1997 world champion Villeneuve said another potential route onto next year’s grid was to buy an existing outfit.

The most affordable would most certainly be Hispania Racing, slowest on the 2010 grid and reportedly struggling for survival.

“To be honest, I’m really speechless that you believe this speculation,” said team boss Kolles, when also asked in Singapore about speculation linking HRT with Stefan GP.

“Why should I answer you if you mention the name Durango and the people you just mentioned before?  I cannot make any comment because I never spoke to these people,” he added.

Villeneuve also responded to the speculation on Friday, in conversation with the French Canadian publication Rue Frontenac.

“We have not yet made a formal bid for an F1 team at all,” said the 39-year-old.

“As the deadlines are less pressing than those imposed by the FIA, we are evaluating all our options before making a final decision,” added Villeneuve.

He admitted that turning his attention to NASCAR is perhaps now the most likely outcome.

“We are looking at how the funds that would have been for the F1 side can be transferred to North America to develop a programme in NASCAR,” said the Canadian.

Brawn’s fight for survival affected the design process of the 2010 Mercedes car, according to Michael Schumacher.

Despite aiming for the world championship with the W01, Mercedes GP is a distant fourth in the constructors’ standings, a year after the same Brackley based team won the 2009 titles before being sold to the German marque.

“Ross (Brawn) was busy last year with quite a few other things, like securing the future of the team. So he could not fully concentrate on the development of the (2010) car,” Schumacher is quoted by Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.

“I can live with the situation even if I am not happy about it,” added the seven time world champion. “We have to recognise the reasons.”

Sebastian Vettel declared on the radio he is “back on track” after winning Sunday’s European grand prix.

“Germany one, England nil,” grinned third-placed Jenson Button, before leaving the FIA press conference to watch Germany score the first goal for real as the countries battle for World Cup survival in South Africa.

With his win, pole sitter Vettel snatches third place in the world championship – behind both McLarens – from his Red Bull teammate Mark Webber, who escaped unhurt from a frightening backflip crash.

Caused by the Australian striking the rear of Heikki Kovalainen’s Lotus, the crash mirrored one during the earlier GP2 race, in which Josef Kral was hospitalised.

Some figures, including David Coulthard, slammed Kovalainen’s decision to race Webber’s much faster car, but Lotus technical boss Mike Gascoyne said on Twitter that the Finn was “pissed off with Webber”.

“For all those saying we should not have defended from Webber, when it is for position on track we race,” Gascoyne insisted.  “Always.”

The race was also controversial for other reasons.  Hamilton finished second after a drive-through penalty for overtaking the safety car, while Fernando Alonso did not make the illegal pass and finished just ninth.

“It is really unfair, it is like no penalty,” Alonso’s race engineer Andrea Stella told the angry Spaniard by radio during the race.

And nine drivers – Button, both Williams, both Renaults, both Force Indias, Sebastien Buemi and Pedro de la Rosa – are under investigation by the stewards for driving too fast on their pitstop in-lap while the safety car was out.

If penalised, Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi – finishing behind four of the investigated drivers – could be the big winner, after finishing seventh with an unique race strategy that saw him make a very late single pitstop.

By performing impressive late-race passes on Fernando Alonso and Buemi, meanwhile, the Japanese also rekindled memories of his stirring late debut for Toyota last year.

Provisional Race Result -  27 June 2010

Ferrari insists it would only “waste time” to respond to Max Mosley’s latest controversial claim.

As Ferrari celebrates its 800th grand prix in Turkey this weekend, the former FIA president is quoted by British newspapers as saying Luca di Montezemolo last year urged him to abuse his power and fix the outcome of the double diffuser appeal case.

“He was on the phone every day saying, ‘you have got to sort the Court of Appeal out and make sure we win’,” Mosley, referring to Ferrari’s charismatic president, is quoted by the Daily Mail.

“He didn’t put it as baldly as that but that is what he said.  I said, ‘Luca, I’m sorry, but first of all they wouldn’t take any notice and secondly I am not going to do it’,” he added.

A spokesman for the famous Maranello based team responded: “We don’t want to make any comment.  It is better to look ahead and not waste time talking about what is – luckily – old and gone.”

With 70-year-old Mosley indeed departed and the sport generally enjoying Jean Todt’s new regime, one team boss in Turkey insisted that the good work of the former FIA president is not forgotten.

As Williams’ Adam Parr told reporters that the Grove based team recorded a small profit in 2009, he credited Mosley for the team’s mere survival.

Referring to rule changes including the testing ban and long-life components, he is quoted by The Times: “Whatever you say about Max, the only possibility of an independent formula one team existing is because of what he did.”

(GMM)

At Monaco, the less competitive pace of the new Lotus, Virgin and HRT teams has been the main topic of conversation, with frontrunners worried about being held up on the short and twisty layout.

F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone has admitted that HRT is struggling for survival, while David Coulthard insists that the sport needs “quality, not quantity”.

“If teams are not competitive they will not stay on the grid for long anyway as sponsorship is driven by results on track,” the Scottish veteran wrote in his Telegraph column.

But fellow veteran Trulli, who now drives a Lotus despite previously working with big teams including Renault and Toyota, insists that the new teams have a place on the grid.

“Without us, it would have seemed that F1 had just a handful of teams,” he is quoted by Finland’s Turun Sanomat newspaper.

“I would be more cautious in asserting that we are not worthy of our place in F1,” the Italian added.

HRT “have got problems” and will struggle to make it through the 2010 season.

That is the admission of F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone, who told the Daily Telegraph he is working to help the new Spanish team.

“HRT have got problems.  I will sort it out.  I’d like to see 12 teams finish the season because they have made the commitment to come in.

“We might lose one of them.  But I’m doing my bit to make sure it doesn’t happen,” said the 79-year-old Briton.

In the same interview, Ecclestone also spoke about Michael Schumacher, Lewis Hamilton, Jean Todt, Max Mosley and Flavio Briatore.

On Schumacher, despite his teammate Nico Rosberg outpacing him in practice on Thursday, Bernie said the seven time world champion looks in “good shape”.

“People were too quick to write him off.  Why pick on him?  His return has been brilliant for formula one.”

On the other hand, Ecclestone thinks 2008 world champion Lewis Hamilton has been “disappointing” so far in 2010.

“People praise his overtaking but you don’t get any points for passing cars,” he said.

Flavio Briatore is watching from the vantage-point of his luxury yacht in Monaco, and after a party on Thursday night Ecclestone admitted he regrets the Italian’s paddock ban.

“He is good company and he was good for this sport.  People associated him with F1.  He was a character.  We miss Max, too.  Max got a lot more right than wrong.”

On the other hand, Ecclestone sounded happy with the quieter role being played by Mosley’s successor Jean Todt.

“We don’t need the president getting involved in stuff that doesn’t concern him,” he said.

“The biggest problem that Max had was that he couldn’t package things in a nice way.  You tell people to take it or leave it and it doesn’t work.  It’s quieter now at the FIA, which is how we like it.”

(GMM)

(GMM)  Costs in formula one must be further cut so that the sport’s newly arrived teams do not fall at the first hurdle, Jean Todt said on Tuesday.

While announcing that he is pushing for KERS to return to the grid in 2011, the FIA president vowed to support new teams Virgin, Lotus and HRT, on the same day he intended to visit the Spanish headquarters of hopeful entrant Epsilon Euskadi.

“We must ensure the survival of those teams who have just entered the championship,” the Frenchman is quoted as saying by La Gazzetta dello Sport.

“That doesn’t mean I’m thinking about a spending cap for each team.  There are many ways to reduce costs,” added Todt.

A report in El Universo newspaper said Todt is hoping the reintegration of KERS will make F1 “the ambassador of new technology” and entice sponsors to return.

He admitted that Ferrari is never likely to support budget caps but said “there is obviously great disparity” in the funding of the current teams.

He also said drastic changes to the aerodynamic regulations must accompany the sport’s new engine formula for 2013.

Spain’s Diario Sport quotes Todt as saying: “These (current) rules give excessive prominence to aerodynamics and make overtaking too hard.

“Unless there are difficult weather conditions, then the car in front stays there throughout the race and this is mostly due to the aerodynamics,” said Todt.

The formerly high-profile Williams, McLaren and Honda technical boss, who left Red Bull in the middle of last year, said in Malaysia that he was “disappointed” with the Dallara car and unsure whether significant progress could be made. It was reported from Sepang last weekend that the 50-year-old Briton, who began working with the new Spanish team as a consultant during its pre-season struggle for survival, was considering whether to now leave the outfit.

It was said he will make a decision about his future around the time of next weekend’s Chinese grand prix.

Finland’s Turun Sanomat, as well as Italy’s Autosprint, report that Willis’ departure is likely.

It is said that Briton Willis could switch to Force India, in the wake of technical director James Key’s move to Sauber.

Key was replaced in February by Mark Smith.
(YF1)