Two days after winning in Spain, Williams is scrambling to put together the equipment it needs to contest next weekend’s Monaco grand prix.

Mere hours after Pastor Maldonado secured the once-great British team’s first victory since 2004, a huge fire broke out in the pits, leaving one team member still in a Barcelona hospital with burns.

“His family are in constant communication and he is in good spirits,” Williams said in a media statement.

The Oxfordshire based team is now making efforts to ensure it can race in Monte Carlo, having lost a lot of equipment in the fire.

Mercifully, however, Bruno Senna’s car appears to have survived, with the Finnish broadcaster MTV3 saying an initial inspection of the chassis showed no devastating damage.

Maldonado’s winning car was in parc ferme at the time of the incident.

“We had a lot of damage and lost a lot of equipment, including IT equipment,” chief operations engineer Mark Gillan said, according to the Daily Mail.

“Over the next couple of days we will be looking at where we are parts-wise.

“We will have everything we need to run operationally at Monaco, but we may be missing a few of the extras because obviously we don’t carry a complete set of spares for everything,” he said.

It is believed more than one rival team has offered to help Williams by loaning the Sir Frank Williams-led outfit any equipment it needs.

A McLaren spokesman confirmed the Woking based team has offered to help.

Germany’s Bild newspaper said Williams’ damage bill runs into the millions.

Team manager Dickie Stanford denied a rumour the fire was caused by a cigarette in the vicinity of Senna’s fuel tank while it was being emptied.

“We don’t know the cause, but we would never allow smoking in the pits,” he insisted.

Williams and F1′s governing FIA are investigating.

 The debate about Mercedes’ controversial new ‘F-duct’ solution looks set to speed across the Indian Ocean.
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner, and particularly his Lotus counterpart Eric Boullier, had warned in Melbourne at the weekend that they might protest the qualifying and race results.

They are arguing that Mercedes’ technical innovation is not legal, but ultimately the 2012 season opener was run without a protest being filed.

But the threat is merely on the back-burner, as Boullier and Horner seek urgent talks with the FIA and Mercedes’ Ross Brawn.

“We want to sit together at a table with Mercedes and the FIA and find a solution,” Frenchman Boullier is quoted by Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.

Separately, Horner agreed: “We are expecting some pretty heated discussions in the next five days.” By then, the F1 circus will be firmly based at the Sepang circuit, for the second round of the season at Sepang.

McLaren, the dominant winner of Sunday’s season opening Australian grand prix, is staying out of the debate about the Mercedes concept.

“I think the system is legal,” said team boss Martin Whitmarsh.

Auto Motor und Sport writer Tobias Gruner explained: “The reason for (Whitmarsh’s) opinion is simple — his engineers at Woking have been hard at work on a copy for some time.”

Eddie Jordan has advised Lewis Hamilton to stick with McLaren.
With the 2008 world champion’s current contract coming to an end this year, he said recently he would address the issue of his future “sooner rather than later”.

“After the first couple of races it’s something we will probably want to get out of the way,” said Hamilton last month.

For the moment, however, there is speculation, after Bernie Ecclestone said he doubts the 27-year-old will stay with the Woking based team forever.

The major German daily Bild then reported that Hamilton has been earmarked as Mercedes’ ‘plan-B’ in the event Michael Schumacher does not stay in 2013.

But Jordan, a former F1 team owner and boss, believes Hamilton should stay put.

“Given their (McLaren’s) resources and level of investment, can you tell me that Lewis would be better off in another team?” he said on Tuesday at a BBC event.

Jordan believes, however, that the famous British team can do a better job of handling Hamilton.

“I think – and this is in some way a criticism – that they will have learned from their mistakes last season,” he said.

One remedy is the placement by Hamilton’s management of Mika Hakkinen’s former manager Didier Coton, and another is the driver’s move from secluded Geneva to bustling Monaco.

Hamilton has also reunited with his girlfriend Nicole, and had a long winter break.

“McLaren appear to have given him a chunk of time off, to go away and to focus,” former long-time McLaren driver David Coulthard said.

Marussia Racing’s new MR01 finally made its first on-track appearance during a promotional ‘filming’ day at Silverstone, just a few miles from is Banbury base.

The Anglo-Russian team endured a torrid time in its attempts to get the car ready for the third and final group test at Barcelona last week, having skipped the opening session in Jerez to prepare the MR01 for early March, only to fail the mandatory FIA crash tests. Although both Timo Glock and rookie Charles Pic got some miles under their belts in Barcelona last month, it was at the wheel of the 2011-spec car, leaving them preciously short of time in the new machine ahead of its race debut in Melbourne next weekend.

The Silverstone shakedown, part of a promotional event ahead of the car’s departure for the Australian Grand Prix, will provide both team and driver with vital information on the new machine, which has been conceived after a ground-up re-evaluation of the way Marussia designs its racing cars. As such, the car is almost entirely new, with very few carry-over components from last year’s Marussia Virgin MVR-02.

The desire to make a clean break from the previous CFD-only creations presented the design team, led by technical consultant Pat Symonds, with the challenge of going back to basics to produce a solid mechanical package, whilst maintaining an eye towards achieving the incremental performance steps required to move the team forward.

The starting point for the design programme was a consideration of the people and resources available to the Banbury-based team. The former three-base operation has been consolidated into one site, the Marussia Technical Centre in Banbury, bringing the various elements of the business together to form ‘one team’. In particular, the design department and practices now benefit from far greater integration and collaboration. Furthermore, the aerodynamic department has been completely restructured and the aero methodology reinforced, blurring the boundaries between CFD and experimental work in the wind tunnel, as well as enhancing the fidelity of the team’s aero approach.

The technical partnership forged with McLaren Applied Technologies in July of last year has also been influential in the design process and the relationship is starting to yield benefit as the advanced facilities that the Marussia team has access to have been used to prove the correlation process with the MVR-02. It is however early in the relationship and the MR01 will become a beneficiary of the relationship in due course.

The key design priorities were to address previous aerodynamic deficiencies and, mechanically, achieve greater weight saving. At the same time, a lot of the detail of the car has been refined and the design team have been a little more adventurous than before, stepping closer to the engineering boundaries. The car can best be described as a significant evolution of its predecessors. The relationship with McLaren is also evident, as the MR01 is only the second car launched this season, after the Woking giant’s MP4-27, to eschew the stepped nose concept favoured by the rest of the field.

“We are very pleased to be running the new MR01 for the first time this morning,” team principal John Booth admitted, “It has been a long and frustrating wait for everyone in the team, but we can now get back on track – literally – and start working towards the first race of the season in Australia next weekend.

“Today is the first of two promotional events, so while the drivers will be able to get a feel for the car, they won’t be able to draw any real conclusions until we start running in anger in Melbourne. Nevertheless, this is an important day for us and we’ll enjoy every minute on track with the new car.”

Glock turned the first laps with the MR01, beginning his third season with the team and providing the all-important element of continuity required to keep moving the package forward. He is joined in 2012 by Frenchman Pic, who embarks on his rookie year in F1, having made the step up from GP2 to replace Belgium’s Jerome d’Ambrosio. Both drivers will get track time with the new car over the next two days, albeit running on demonstration tyres as opposed to the Pirelli P-Zeros that they will use once competition starts in Melbourne.

As the blown exhaust row between Red Bull and McLaren subsided late on Friday, the latter team was already working hard to catch up with the ever-changing rules.
GP2 driver Oliver Turvey was in McLaren’s Woking driver simulator after it emerged the Renault teams – including dominant Red Bull – have been allowed by the FIA to use 50 per cent throttle under braking.

Earlier, the FIA intended to limit off-throttle engine blowing to 10 per cent, but the Renault teams argued that they need at least 50 per cent on reliability grounds.

McLaren team figures said they only discovered Renault’s 50 per cent concession during free practice on Friday, when Ferrari boss Stefano Domenicali was heard telling his counterpart Martin Whitmarsh “The (Red Bull) ******* are doing it again”.

“We were saying ‘Wait a second, can we do that (too)?” Jenson Button told AS newspaper.

It also emerges that Mercedes have been allowed to use 20 per cent throttle, based on the engine maps of the pre-exhaust blowing era in 2009.

“I am sure it has put many teams this weekend a little bit on the back foot so we are trying to cope with that at the moment,” said Whitmarsh.

Brazilian O Estado de S.Paulo journalist Livio Oricchio reports that a further rule clarification is due in the wake of yet another technical meeting on the subject late on Friday.

“The climate of the meeting was tense,” he revealed. “Today (Saturday) the final decision of the FIA should be announced.”

McLaren is poised to agree a new multi-year contract with Jenson Button.
The 2009 world champion moved to the famous Woking based squad from Brawn at the end of his title-winning season, reportedly signing a three-year deal.

The French news agency AFP quotes Button, 31, as saying he is happy at McLaren.

“I can’t see any reason to be anywhere else. I’m driving for one of the best teams in the world,” he said.

“It’s a position that most drivers would love to be in and I’ve worked very hard for it. I might be around for three years, five years … I don’t know.”

Team boss Martin Whitmarsh said: “If Jenson says he is totally committed and wants to do ‘x’ more years, then I suspect that we could quickly come to an agreement.

“He’s a tremendous asset to the team and when we get around to that, I hope that it will be a quick and easy conversation,” he added.

McLaren has denied speculation it is set to drop its traditional silver livery for the 2011 season.
Reports had linked the team’s launch of mainly black and red official clothing for this year with rumours McLaren may want to differentiate itself from former works partner Mercedes, who now compete with a similarly silver-liveried car.

“Black livery? Er, no,” McLaren said via its official Twitter feed TheFifthDriver.

The Woking based team, still powered by Mercedes engines, added that the 2011 livery will be “the same Rocket Red and chrome finish that you’ve grown to love since Vodafone McLaren Mercedes was born in 2007″.

“That’s official, btw (by the way),” McLaren confirmed.

Lewis Hamilton has admitted it “would be fantastic” to have his teammate’s support in his quest to win a second drivers’ title in 2010.

Fellow McLaren driver Jenson Button is the reigning world champion, but with a bad race in Korea last Sunday his points deficit fell to 42 points with just two races to go.

In the sister MP4-25, Hamilton is 21 points off Fernando Alonso’s championship lead, sparking suggestions the time is nigh for Button to play a Felipe Massa-like supportive role for the rest of the season.

Woking based McLaren, however, operates a strict policy of driver equality, even though boss Martin Whitmarsh said before leaving Korea that a team strategy will be discussed internally “before we get to Brazil”.

When asked about his and Button’s approach with now just the Interlagos and Abu Dhabi rounds to go, Hamilton said: “We both push as hard as we can to score as many points as we can for the team.

“Clearly we’re both far behind, him further than me. I’m 21 points behind, so I’ve got to get a lot of points.

“I don’t know what will happen. You will have to speak to Martin on what he thinks he will have to do.

“All I know is I have to get as high as possible and it would be fantastic to have Jenson with me,” added the 25-year-old Briton.

Button said in Korea that he will only voluntarily fall in line behind Hamilton when he is “mathematically” no longer in the hunt. He also said he is confident he “won’t be asked” to support Hamilton until then.

“Lewis is still very much in the hunt. Mathematically, it’s not impossible for Jenson, but it looks quite tough, very difficult for him,” said Whitmarsh.

A striking new front wing for McLaren’s 2010 car almost didn’t make it to the Singapore circuit at the weekend.

Managing director Jonathan Neale travelled from the team’s Woking headquarters to the Asian city-state with the brand new pieces in his luggage.

But Neale admits he began to worry when the new part did not emerge with his other luggage.

“First, one of Adrian Newey’s (Red Bull) parts came out, but not our case.

“Because the wing was packed so well, the guys at the airport thought it was equipment for the aircraft rather than luggage.  So they left it on the plane.

“We had to wait for a few hours to get it,” he explained.

The new front wing was visibly different to its predecessor, and credited for allowing Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button to split the Red Bulls in qualifying.

“It is a bit different,” Neale agreed.  “We haven’t seen its full potential yet.  On the fast circuits it should give us even more.”

McLaren needs to get creative if it is to claw back its lead in the 2010 world championships, according to boss Martin Whitmarsh.

With clearly the faster car, Red Bull has taken over at the top of the points tables, but McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton is only 4 points shy of leader Mark Webber.

In recent weeks, Woking based McLaren has been working on emulating Red Bull’s blown floor concept, but Whitmarsh said the team’s engineers also need to be more creative during the ongoing development of the MP4-25.

“We have not suspended the diffuser project, but we hope to invent something new,” he is quoted by Autosprint magazine.

Creativity is at the heart of the current front wing flexibility controversy, with Red Bull expecting to pass even the more stringent scrutineering tests at Spa-Francorchamps next weekend.

Whitmarsh said McLaren has an understanding about the regulations that may not be shared by some of its competitors. “The FIA needs to make this area absolutely clear,” he said.

“If clarity does not come, we too can become very inventive and creative,” the Briton is quoted as saying.

Jenson Button insists his latest criticism of McLaren’s 2010 car is “positive”.

The British team’s group chairman Ron Dennis publicly scolded the reigning world champion and his teammate Lewis Hamilton recently for pointing out the weaknesses of the MP4-25.

But after qualifying two seconds off the pace in Hungary, and finishing the race eighth as both the drivers and the team lost their championship leads, 30-year-old Button insists his current comments are just a statement of fact.

“We’re not as quick as the Red Bulls at this moment in time,” he said.  “You can see that on the circuit.  It’s not a negative thing.  It’s a positive criticism.”

Button said he is not being critical of the team, but instead is urging McLaren to work together to bring the car back onto the pace.

“The position we’re in is not about pointing the finger.  When I say our car isn’t as quick as another car, I mean it is not as quick,” he explained.

“But it’s a team effort.  We win together and we lose together.  It’s as much about me giving as much input as I can to improve the car as it is about the guys back at the factory making the car go quicker in their way.

“It’s like me saying I made a mistake out on the circuit.  That’s my fault.  So me saying the car’s not quick enough — it’s not quick enough, but I’m going to try everything I can to ensure it gets quicker,” added Button.

He backs the Woking based outfit – the winner of 12 constructors’ and 8 drivers’ world championships – to improve.

“You do have peaks and troughs in formula one and when you are fighting at championship level,” said Button.

“At the moment we are not in a trough, but we are not as strong as the Red Bulls.

“But I’d be surprised if this team didn’t pull something out.  I have every confidence they will.”

Norbert Haug has joined McLaren’s Martin Whitmarsh in admitting he is not a big fan of the August shutdown.

Due to a cost-reducing agreement between the teams, every outfit in pitlane must close their factories for a full two-week period during the month-long gap between Hungary and Spa-Francorchamps.

“I would love not to have a shutdown and be ploughing on,” Whitmarsh admitted in Hungary on Sunday, in the hours before the team’s Woking headquarters closed its doors.

Also keen to keep working on its 2010 car is Mercedes GP.

“This is actually a forced vacation,” the German marque’s competition director Haug is quoted by DPA news agency.

“Particularly when you’re in a catching-up phase, you do not want to be interrupted,” he said.

Williams’ Nico Hulkenberg does not agree.

“The summer break is the same for everyone,” said the rookie.

“I will have a little holiday, a little bit of time at home and a little bit of training,” added Hulkenberg.

And Adrian Sutil said his colleagues at Force India deserve a break.

“I think it’s good because the team works so hard.  It’s a tough job for the engineers and mechanics and extremely tiring.  It’s good for them,” said the German.

Nico Rosberg is planning to use his spare time to make his triathlon debut.

“I’ve never done one before,” said the Mercedes driver.  “It’s a new passion.”

But unlike Jenson Button, who is raising money for charity with his participation in the London Triathlon this month, Rosberg wants to keep his passion under wraps.

Asked how spectators can watch him in action, the 25-year-old answered: “I don’t want to say.”

Lewis Hamilton has vowed to contribute to McLaren’s off-track efforts ahead of the final seven races of 2010.

The team’s factory is currently closed for a mandatory two-week shutdown, so the Briton headed from a difficult race in Hungary for a holiday.

But when Woking’s doors re-open, Hamilton vowed to “be on the tail of all the team, all the engineers, making sure they don’t miss anything” ahead of Spa-Francorchamps late this month.

“If we were not going on holiday I would love to go straight to the factory,” he said.

“I’m not an engineer but I would drag the chief designer down to the wind tunnel, question him many times and try to understand it because that is what I do.

“Things I have suggested in the past have worked.  I don’t think I am going to come up with the idea this time, but the more you ask, the easier you get to the solution,” added Hamilton.

The 25-year-old lost his championship lead with a gearbox failure at the Hungaroring, but the MP4-25 was off the pace all weekend.

In-season testing is banned, but Hamilton says there are other ways he can influence McLaren’s push to improve.

“I feel it’s just as much my job to kick them as it is for them to kick me,” he said.

Ferrari is “wise” to have poached an experienced engineer from McLaren, according to former grand prix driver Jos Verstappen.

Briton Pat Fry, McLaren’s former joint chief engineer who was with the Woking team for 17 years and recently working on the 2011 car, will start his new role at Ferrari next week as assistant technical director.

“Getting Pat Fry is a wise move,” Verstappen wrote in a column for the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf.

“Like last season, you could say again that Ferrari’s performance has not been good enough.

“It is not the drivers’ fault — in particular, I estimate Alonso very highly.

“But in recent years Ferrari has lot some very important people and I think they are still affected by that,” he added.

(GMM)

His McLaren job involved a much higher salary, but Pedro de la Rosa is not keen to go back to mere test driving.

At 39, the Spaniard returned with Sauber to the formula one grid this year after a long spell helping McLaren develop its cars.

The C29, however, has not been a good car, and de la Rosa said after the Canadian grand prix that he is “available” for future employment “even if I have to go back testing or as a reserve driver”.

But in interview with El Pais newspaper, de la Rosa insists he is much happier with an actual race seat, even if he is paid “three times less” than he was by McLaren.

“I have enough goals … I want to be the oldest champion in history,” he said.  “Fangio won at 45, and (at that age) was just as good!”

Salary aside, there are other ironies: such as the fact that when he was at McLaren, he learned the layout of the Valencia circuit on the Woking based team’s state-of-the-art simulator.

But now that he actually has to race on the streets of the port city this weekend, Sauber does not have a simulator.

(GMM)