Kimi Raikkonen has revealed he would like to contest August’s rally of Finland.

F1′s 2007 world champion returned from world rallying to grand prix racing this year.

“Of course I wanted to do better. But I’m not finished. I want to go back, whether for my career or after I don’t know,” the 32-year-old told Motorsport News, according to the official WRC website.

Earlier, Raikkonen admitted he had sidelined his rallying career for now in order to concentrate on F1. Before the 2011 season, Lotus’ (then Renault) regular driver Robert Kubica was seriously injured in a rally crash, and is still yet to return to the sport.

“I’d like to do rally Finland this season as it fits with the calendar but you’ll have to ask the team if it fits in my contract,” Raikkonen said.

Sergio Perez has ruled out switching to Ferrari this season to replace Felipe Massa.

It is suggested the famous Italian team is growing increasingly impatient with struggling Brazilian Massa’s poor form.

“I think all this hype about a possible switch is massively blown up by the media,” Perez told F1′s official website.

“Should that situation really come about I would reject it as I would not want to make a switch in the middle of a season.”

Nonetheless, 22-year-old Perez is the obvious favourite, as the cream of Ferrari’s driver development programme and already powered by the Maranello team’s engines at Sauber.

“I think that people should not mix up engines and drivers,” he insisted.

The denials, however, are unlikely to dampen the rumours, with Massa under increasing pressure to perform — and some saying Monaco could be his last chance.

“I hope this weekend is where one can consider that my 2012 championship will begin,” the Brazilian said on Wednesday.

“I have had a few difficult times in my career and maybe the start to this season has been the most difficult so far.

“I have had to deal with the technical side of the problem, but also it causes a mental side, as it is not easy to deal with this situation. But if you fix one, then it is easier to fix the other,” added Massa in Monaco.

Perez tipped him to bounce back.

“He (Massa) is a strong driver and he has a great team behind him. Once he’s bounced back all these stories will die at once,” he said.

Marussia needs a KERS system to catch up with its direct rivals.

That is the admission of team boss John Booth, who told the Russian website championat.com that he is looking into adding the energy recovery technology to next year’s Marussia package.

“First of all, I want to say that while it is said it (KERS) is a ‘green’ technology, in reality it’s just a serious waste of money,” he said.

“But in our situation it’s time to start thinking seriously about KERS. Of the gap to Caterham, five or six tenths is due to KERS,” added Booth.

“So we are thinking seriously about it for 2013, but so far there is no decision.”

Both admitted the start of the 2012 season has been a disappointment so far for Marussia, which in its first two years was called Virgin.

He said the team has recently completed a phase of serious restructuring.

“We had a good team of people before, but now we have a good team of designers. Though we have been in F1 for three years, I have the feeling that we were actually born in July 2011.”

Both is undoubtedly referring to the split mid last year with former technical chief Nick Wirth, and the relocation to a new headquarters.

Ferrari has played down rumours it is close to immediately ousting Felipe Massa, insisting it is possible the struggling Brazilian will still be in a red car next year.

On Twitter, the famous Italian team said the latest rumours – including a claim that former Virgin driver Jerome d’Ambrosio is a candidate to replace Massa in 2012 – are “funny”.

But it was Ferrari itself who fuelled the speculation, publishing a statement on its website that read like a warning to Massa.

“It was a very carefully-worded statement, wasn’t it?” said Telegraph correspondent Tom Cary.

“The way this crazy season is going, I really would not be massively shocked if they ditched him mid-season.”

The Swiss newspaper Blick said Monaco next weekend could be the 30-year-old’s last chance to up his game.

And the candidates are lining up.

“Ferrari knows that I’m ready. If they need me or they want me, then they will call me,” Adrian Sutil, who accompanied his manager to last weekend’s Spanish grand prix, said.

The Spanish newspaper El Mundo said some paddock pundits believe “the only reason” Massa still has its seat is because the “name Todt” – a reference not only to Massa’s manager Nicolas but to the FIA president – has a “protective arm” around him.

Ferrari spokesman Luca Colajanni told Brazil’s O Estado de S.Paulo newspaper this week: “Felipe has the full confidence of the team, starting with our president.

“We have not decided who will be our driver in 2013 but Felipe is not ruled out,” he insisted.

Indeed, while some believe Ferrari has hung a sword of Damocles above Massa’s head, others think the Maranello based team have been patient since the Paulista’s recovery from his near-fatal head injuries of 2009.

“We have no evidence that makes us think that Felipe has slowed down because of the accident. Zero,” Colajanni said.

F1 doctor Gary Hartstein agreed: “An experience like that (Hungary 2009) changes you, but you can’t say that’s why Felipe has not won again.”

Felipe Massa’s formula one career is on the brink of collapse.

Ferrari boss Stefano Domenicali left Barcelona insisting he expects the struggling Brazilian to “fight back starting in Monaco”.

“We absolutely need his points to also fight for the constructors’ title,” he said.

Earlier, the Maranello based team said on Twitter that Ferrari is “disappointed with” the 30-year-old’s performance.

When asked about that comment, a Ferrari spokesman told the Sunday Times: “It was a poor choice of grammar. We are disappointed in the outcome of Felipe but not with Felipe himself.”

But the very latest development is that Ferrari is now making it abundantly clear that Massa needs to up his game immediately.

In a statement posted on its official website, Ferrari said Massa’s teammate Fernando Alonso “has always maintained a very high level”.

As for Massa, his “drop off has made itself felt”, the report stated.

“The Brazilian had picked up 49 points two years ago and 24 the following year, while so far this season he has just 2,” said Ferrari.

“Everyone, he more than anyone, is expecting a change of gear starting right away with the Monaco grand prix”, the statement concluded.

Even Massa’s strongest supporters in Brazil, like the O Globo journalist Celso Itibere, admit the situation is dire.

“He is at risk,” said Itibere, “his decline is progressive, he is failing to react and he runs the real risk of not finishing the season.

“At this time Ferrari has no one to take the job. Everyone they would like to have there – Perez, Kobayashi, Webber – are not available.”

Tuesday’s edition of the Italian sports daily Corriere dello Sport will report that Massa’s ousting is imminent.

And the latest edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport did not even once mention Massa’s name. “It is as though he does not exist,” wrote the Brazilian journalist Livio Oricchio in O Estado de S.Paulo newspaper.

“Yet it is an Italian newspaper, and he is a Ferrari driver.”

When asked if he fears for his F1 career, Massa said in Barcelona last weekend: “No. I live in the present. What will happen will happen.”

Asked if he is afraid another bad performance will seal his fate, Massa insisted: “I’m not afraid of anything, especially criticism. It doesn’t affect me.”

The penalty might be harsh, but the loss of Lewis Hamilton’s pole in Spain is just the latest calamitous mistake by McLaren.

That was the tone of the paddock’s reaction to the news late on Saturday that a McLaren gaffe saw the FIA send Hamilton from first to last on the Spanish grand prix grid.

The Sun newspaper called it a draconian “24-place grid penalty” imposed by the FIA after an “astonishing cock-up” by McLaren.

Hamilton was told on the radio to pull over after his pole lap due to a “technical problem”.

Sporting director Sam Michael argued ‘force majeure’, but the stewards ruled that it had been entirely McLaren’s fault that not enough fuel was put into Hamilton’s car to ensure a scrutineering fuel sample.

Writing in the Telegraph, Tom Cary said the severity of the disqualification “raised eyebrows”, but agreed that “McLaren’s mistake was horrendous”.

He said it has been “a season of errors” by the famous British team, who are yet to get Hamilton’s signature on a new contract beyond 2012.

“Hamilton must be seething,” read an article in the Daily Mail newspaper, while The Times laid out McLaren’s “catalogue of errors”.

27-year-old Hamilton’s “raw talent is being thwarted by mishap and cock-up,” said journalist Kevin Eason.

“McLaren are lovely people but how the hell do they get themselves in this position?” wrote the Mirror’s Byron Young on Twitter.

Even the non-English language media agreed.

“It was another great mistake by McLaren that could eventually cost Hamilton the championship,” wrote Livio Oricchio in O Estado de S.Paulo.

Italy’s La Stampa called McLaren’s fuel gaffe a case of “harakiri”.

Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport added: “It was error number 13 for McLaren since last year”.

While highly critical of McLaren’s own-goal, however, the feeling in the paddock is that the stewards’ penalty – although accepted by McLaren – was overly harsh.

“Back of the grid? Way, way too harsh”, said the Mirror’s Young on Twitter.

“Draconian penalty in my view,” agreed PA Sport’s Ian Parkes. “Dropping Q3 time would have sufficed.”

Sky commentator Martin Brundle added: “(I) feel they should have deleted that (Q3) laptime only which would have put him sixth”.

And excluding Hamilton from Q3 altogether would have put him 11th. Now, he will be “lucky to score a point”, Auto Motor und Sport predicted.

In the Independent, however, David Tremayne noted: “Welcome to the draconian world of F1.”

David Croft, the lead Sky commentator, said the FIA stewards had acted correctly.

“A good rule should be one that covers all eventualities with a penalty that acts as a deterrent which in this case is what happened.

“Too little fuel can’t be tolerated,” he added. “It seems harsh but had Lewis taken pole by one thousandth of a second, would it be harsh then?”

The Spanish fans – not Hamilton’s biggest supporters dating back to his spats with Fernando Alonso in 2007 – were happy.

Asked on the El Mundo website whether the penalty was fair, 76 per cent answered yes.

Paul di Resta has played down media speculation linking him with a high-profile switch to Ferrari.

The reports suggested the famous Italian marque has been impressed with the Scot’s one and a half seasons with Force India and sees him as a potential replacement for the struggling Felipe Massa.

“I have not heard anything about it,” the 26-year-old, who is managed by Anthony Hamilton, said in Barcelona.

“I am just concentrating on the job I have to do for Force India. That is my only focus,” he is quoted by the Scottish Sun newspaper.

However, di Resta is widely regarded as having outshone his highly-rated teammate Nico Hulkenberg so far in 2012.

But he denies he is the number one driver.

“(There is) equal opportunity and everybody seizing his chances,” di Resta told F1′s official website.

As for his dominant position over Hulkenberg, he insisted: “That would be for Nico to answer.”

Hulkenberg said on Thursday: “The first four races have been quite tough but I’m looking forward — I’m bedding in well with the team.”

Romain Grosjean has admitted he didn’t try to keep his teammate Kimi Raikkonen behind him at the recent Bahrain grand prix.

In the wake of Lotus’ podium breakthrough, it was suggested Frenchman Grosjean was the victim of team orders.

Team figures, including boss Eric Boullier and 2007 world champion Raikkonen who finished the race second ahead of rookie Grosjean, denied the charge, even though team orders are fully legal.

But it emerged this week that, just before Grosjean was passed by Raikkonen, the French driver was told on the radio: “Kimi is faster than you.

“Do not hold him up,” the radio message, broadcasted for the first time by F1′s official website this week, ended.

Onboard footage of the move also showed Raikkonen briefly waving to his teammate as he completed the easy pass, ostensibly to thank him.

“I think that if I had closed the door on Kimi, or if we had fought, then I could have lost a wing,” Grosjean said this week.

“We knew that we could have a podium as a result and I didn’t want to make a mistake. I didn’t race at my best level,” he admitted to RMC.

Internet hackers have threatened to wreak havoc as they sided against formula one over the sport’s decision to push ahead with the highly controversial Bahrain grand prix.

The well-known ‘hacktivists’ Anonymous brought down F1′s official website on Friday, slamming Bernie Ecclestone as “evil” and threatening the “worst sh**storm” if the track action continues to proceed this weekend in the troubled island Kingdom.

“Attacks on their (the teams’) computer servers could prevent the race taking place,” the Daily Express newspaper speculated.

Anonymous also took control of another specialist website, posting a statement that accused the sport of supporting the Bahrain government despite the country’s “human rights situation” and saying F1 will now “be punished”.

In an awkward official press conference on Friday, team bosses continued to support the sport’s decision to press ahead with the race.

“Ultimately we’re a race team,” said McLaren and FOTA’s Martin Whitmarsh. “We’re here to go motor racing and that’s our number one priority.”

Group Lotus will no longer sponsor the formula one team that bears its name.

But – as F1′s perpetually bizarre ‘Lotus’ saga takes another twist – the Enstone based team, formerly Renault, will continue to be known as Lotus in the coming years.

Last year, and in 2010, ‘Lotus’ was the name of the team that is now called Caterham, but a bitter dispute soured that relationship as the Proton-owned car company Group Lotus ended the naming license and made its own bid to enter F1.

Group Lotus’ new foray blossomed in 2012 with Renault’s renaming to Lotus, amid speculation team owner Genii was keen to get more involved with the iconic sports car marque.

When asked recently about his team’s relationship with Lotus, Kimi Raikkonen answered clumsily on the Top Gear motoring programme: “Well it’s, er, it (the car) is not a Renault. Lotus is just a sponsor.”

The Autosport website revealed on Good Friday that the sponsorship deal has been “terminated”.

However, “We are happy to carry the Lotus name as we believe it is a good name for F1,” explained team owner Genii’s Gerard Lopez.

“So Lotus are still Lotus despite no longer being sponsored by Lotus?” the Telegraph’s Tom Cary wittily surmised on Twitter.

And in yet another twist, Lopez refused to rule out a scenario in which Genii actually takes over Group Lotus.

“We don’t know yet, because we really do not know what the new owner wants to do with it,” he said.

Sauber is in a race for money after discovering its 2012 car is up to speed with F1′s richest teams.

As ever in formula one, world championships are won not on the basis of a clever initial design, but on a team’s ability to continue to develop it throughout a long season.

According to O Estado de S.Paulo newspaper, the formerly BMW-owned Sauber team’s chief executive Monisha Kaltenborn admits that the Hinwil based outfit cannot compete on that front with the likes of McLaren, Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull.

“It’s a shame,” she is quoted as saying.

“I hope we can show enough potential so that some companies decide to invest in our project,” said Kaltenborn, with the Brazilian newspaper estimating that Sauber’s budget is EUR 80 million this year.

In contrast, the top four teams’ budgets are believed to be all above EUR 220m.

Kaltenborn told F1′s official website recently that Sauber would back a push to impose a budget cap — an issue that triggered the big teams’ bitter political war with former FIA president Max Mosley a few years ago.

“We … have also openly said that we are not satisfied with our sponsor situation because we have high targets and to achieve them you need appropriate funding,” she continued.

“We still need to work on that side of things, as of course the more funding you have the more you can develop — and it shows on the track.

“I have said before that when we look back we practically never had enough money to do what we really wanted to. The question is always how big the gap is — sometimes it is bigger, sometimes it is smaller.”

The FIA appears to have waded back into the ‘F-duct’ debate, indicating that the Mercedes-style solution is fully legal.

We reported on Monday that the saga looked set to continue into China next weekend, with some teams – notably Red Bull and Lotus – questioning the legality of the aerodynamic innovation.

It had emerged that Lotus technical director James Allison has come up with another argument against the technology that will be posed to the FIA’s Charlie Whiting ahead of scrutineering in Shanghai next week.

Christian Horner insists Red Bull and Lotus’ concerns are shared by others.

“Believe me it’s not just Red Bull, I think there’s half the paddock that’s been looking at this,” he told British television Sky Sport’s The F1 Show.

The Red Bull team boss revealed that Whiting left Malaysia wanting “to have a think about it”.

So, the latest development is the re-release via the FIA website of an “edited version” of the technical briefing that Whiting gave to reporters in Australia last month.

It is believed the complaining teams’ main objection to the Mercedes system is that it arguably uses ‘driver movement’ – the pressing of the DRS button – to be activated.

Under the heading “Pressing the DRS button and the issue of ‘driver movement’”, the media briefing quotes Whiting as stating simply: “This is specifically allowed (in the rules).”

Mercedes’ Ross Brawn is quoted by the BBC: “We call it the DRS, because that’s all it is. The purpose of the DRS is to improve overtaking and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

Whiting’s stance in China, however, may not be the end of it.

“Then the teams are faced with alternatives,” Horner explained. “Either accept it and get on it and maybe look at your own solution if that fits your car.

“You’ve got the opportunity to protest if we were to feel – or any other team were to feel – that we didn’t agree with Charlie’s interpretation,” he added.

Sergio Perez insists he is “100 per cent” committed to Sauber, but revealed he would like to be with a “big team” within two years.

After his strong second place in Malaysia recently, and amid Felipe Massa’s struggle for form at Ferrari, speculation has linked Mexican Perez with an imminent move to the famous Maranello based team.

He is already the cream of Ferrari’s development driver ‘academy’ and linked with an eventual move to the Italian squad.

“I think we have to assume that Massa won’t be there in 2013,” British commentator Martin Brundle told the BBC programme Top Gear’s website.

But at present, 22-year-old Perez insists it is all hot air.

“There is nothing (to the rumours),” he is quoted by the EFE news agency. “I am one hundred per cent committed to Sauber, and it’s probably the same with Ferrari and Massa.

“We’re just focused on having a great season,” added Perez.

He admitted however that his goal within two years is to be “in a big team”.

Perez acknowledged that Sauber was criticised for “lacking aggressiveness in the strategy” at Sepang, including when his engineer advised him to ‘be careful’ in his attack on the eventual winner Fernando Alonso.

“They could have risked more,” he said, “and my team was criticised, but it was an important result. The conditions were difficult and we could have lost everything.”

Martin Brundle has admitted he is surprised HRT is still struggling so much at the start of its third season in formula one.

Better known then as ‘Hispania’, the Spanish team was founded by Adrian Campos after former FIA president Max Mosley opened up three new places in pitlane for the start of the 2010 season.

But last year, the team’s second group of owners – the Carabante family – passed the baton yet again to Thesan Capital, who have rebuilt HRT in the wake of the management and infrastructure that was brought by former boss Colin Kolles.

Even so, the highly respected British commentator and former grand prix veteran Martin Brundle is surprised that Pedro de la Rosa and Narain Karthikeyan are struggling so much with the team’s Cosworth-powered 2012 car.

“Somebody’s got to be at the front, somebody’s got to be at the back,” the Briton told the BBC motoring programme Top Gear’s website.

“(But) the HRT is particularly poor at the moment, and it confuses me why in year three it’s worse than it was in year one.”

Carlos Gracia, an FIA vice-president and head of Spain’s motor racing federation, doesn’t fully agree.

Speaking to the sports newspaper Marca, he explained that veteran de la Rosa faces a “handicap” as the Spaniard races with HRT this year.

“He knows where he is; in a brand new team, although some people believe it is their third year.

“They have begun again, but it seems that they are in a situation where they have only just started and yet they have to clean up the image of the other years.

“That’s his handicap, but the team will have credibility because of Pedro and also because of a good business investment,” added Gracia.

Martin Brundle has described Red Bull’s lack of pace as the biggest surprise of the 2012 season so far.

After consecutive world championships with Sebastian Vettel, the energy drink-owned team was universally tipped as the pre-season favourite for yet another F1 title.

But McLaren dominated in Australia before Ferrari and Sauber surprisingly set the pace recently in Malaysia.

Former F1 driver Brundle admitted the struggling RB8 was the surprise of the opening salvo in 2012, but he also acknowledged that the turnaround might have been predicted.

“When you look at how the regulations have changed, it’s almost like they were designed to slow the Red Bulls down,” the Sky television commentator told the website of the BBC programme Top Gear.

“Doubling the torsional stiffness of the front wings, the way Red Bull were ‘flying’ their car down the track with lots of rake, nose close to the ground, exhausts helping to sort the high rear ride height out, it’s all been taken away from them,” added Brundle.

An unnamed engineer at Red Bull has admitted the team was caught on the hop in the winter pre-season, when it became clear McLaren was better prepared for the new rules.

“McLaren came with a (exhaust) system on the edge of legality,” the engineer told Germany’s Auto Bild, “and it was declared legal by the FIA.

“So (Adrian) Newey had to adapt,” he added, referring to Red Bull’s last-minute decision to change tack at the very end of the pre-season test period.

The message coming from the Milton Keynes based team, therefore, is that Red Bull is playing catch-up.

“We need to understand the car better,” admits team advisor Dr Helmut Marko, “which is why for the next race (in China) we will have hardly any new parts.”

So until he’s back at the front, F1′s formerly-dominant Vettel – who lashed out at backmarker Narain Karthikeyan recently in Malaysia – needs to adapt.

Asked if the German was justified in calling his Indian rival an “idiot”, Brundle insisted: “No.

“That’s just an angry man who hasn’t got a front-running car at the moment. He’s just frustrated.”