Fernando Alonso is F1′s shock world championship leader, after Malaysian rain shook up the order at Sepang.

“It’s a tough time for us at the moment, but we will remember this day,” said the Ferrari driver, who finished ahead of another surprise podium-sitter, Sauber’s Sergio Perez.

The young Mexican was catching Alonso at a rate of knots when he made a mistake.

“I think the win was possible,” Perez, who has been linked with Felipe Massa’s works Ferrari seat, said after beating the back-to-back 2012 polesitter Lewis Hamilton.

Former Toro Rosso driver and BBC radio commentator Jaime Alguersuari, however, was not overly impressed.

“The team did a fantastic strategy to put Perez on the right tyres at the right moment. For me, that’s it,” said the Spaniard.

Back-to-back world champion Sebastian Vettel had an horror Sunday, cutting a tyre whilst passing an HRT and eventually retiring with what Red Bull described on the radio as an “emergency” technical problem.

The German lies sixth in the drivers’ world championship, four points behind Perez and 17 off the lead.

Title leader Alonso, meanwhile, is not overly happy with the rain-soaked win.

“I think it changes nothing,” he said. “We are in a position that we do not want, fighting to get into Q3.”

Team boss Stefano Domenicali agreed: “I hope this helps the people at home to push, but we were not stupid yesterday and we are not phenomenal today.”

The Italian also denied that Perez’s debut podium is the ideal time to immediately pluck the Mexican from Sauber and put him in struggling Felipe Massa’s red car.

“Not true, not true,” Domenicali told British Sky television.

Niki Lauda has slammed the “farce” of the Silverstone exhaust blown saga, questioning the motivation of the governing FIA.
Throughout the British grand prix weekend, the rules about off-throttle engine exhaust blowing changed several times, with many observers wondering if the dominance of the Red Bull team was being directly targeted.

“If that was so, it would be the greatest insolence. You can not punish someone just because he is better,” triple world champion Lauda told Germany’s N-TV, referring to world championship leader Sebastian Vettel.

As for the Silverstone scandal, the great Austrian said it was “the biggest farce ever”.

“Why change the rules in the middle of a season? The crucial thing is that absolutely no one was protesting; the practice (of exhaust blowing) was tacitly accepted by all the teams.

“Suddenly the FIA and Charlie Whiting had the idea to change the rules in the middle of the season. I personally don’t understand it.”

Lauda said he was relieved when, late on Sunday, it emerged that the FIA had accepted the teams’ unanimous request to return to the pre-clampdown rules of Valencia.

“I very much hope that this absurdity stops now and we and the audience know at the Nurburgring in two weeks exactly what the rules are,” he added.

World Championship leader Mark Webber will leave nothing to chance in South Korea and will work in a fresh Yeongam Renault unit
Mark Webber advantage in South Korea? The Australian racing driver and his Red Bull gave RB6 already in free practice for the Grand Prix in Yeongam clear the pace, now sets the championship leader once again for: in qualifying and the race is the 34-year-old resort to its last new engine. This should Webber on the long straights a little better on the road.

The Red Bull driver is in fact the only one from the ranks of the five remaining candidates for the title, which can still rely on fresh power – both Fernando Alonso (Ferrari), Jenson Button (McLaren), Lewis Hamilton (McLaren) and Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull must) in the final sprint of the season to make do with second hand units. Quite easily ran the kick-off for Webber not.
In free practice, the championship leader but classified in the first place, was spotted during the session but for some time with a stationary front wheel in the air. This did not deter the Australians, however, continue to attend consistently fast laps. In the press conference admitted team boss Christian Horner finally one that a defect had occurred.

“There was a problem with Mark’s car, we were able to fix during the session. He was even on three wheels in a position to mark a very competitive time,” Horner replied to the question of ‘motor-Total.com’ expert Marc Surer, who had believed in stabilizing the cause. “This presumption of truth comes pretty close,” said Horner. “It was no big deal.”

The world championship leader Jorge Lorenzo, Fiat Yamaha rider, ended Friday in free practice on the Sepang track with the third fastest time, preceded by team-mate Valentino Rossi and Andrea Dovizioso (Honda HRC).

The Spaniard ran into difficulties, as well as for the heat and dirt on the track, in the fourth sector of the track, which caused him to lose precious tenths and did not allow him to close the session ahead. Then this will be the main goal for “Porfuera”, which is to improve on that stretch so that we can aspire to the forefront, if not the pole position, in what is the first weekend in which to meet the world title.

“The conditions today were quite difficult,” admits Jorge Lorenzo, “with the high temperatures and the dirt path. I’m happy because I felt good on the bike, I went fast and I finished near the top position.

We used the old engine again today, but tomorrow we’ll probably try the new one. We have to work a fourth area, which is where we are wasting time now, so tomorrow we’ll focus on that and try to improve it further. “

Overnight in the McLaren pits, the British team have removed an update package – including the Red Bull-style blown diffuser – from the MP4-25 car.
Red Bull’s Mark Webber suspected the championship leaders of “sandbagging” in Friday practice at Silverstone, but in fact McLaren was not happy with the improvements.

“It hasn’t been perfect, that’s the truth,” said Jenson Button after the afternoon session, when he was 13th fastest.

Lewis Hamilton, although half a second quicker than the sister car, added: “The feeling was positive first thing but the changes we made didn’t make it better and that happens sometimes.

“It’s not something you can just bolt on,” added the world championship leader.

Dyed-in-the-wool racer Martin Brundle on Monday said he sees no quick end to Red Bull’s new self-induced crisis.

“I doubt that trip across the Atlantic for the next round in Montreal will extinguish these fireworks,” the BBC commentator said on Monday, as the international media got to work on Sebastian Vettel’s crash at Istanbul Park with race leader and teammate Mark Webber.

The Sun’s headline referred to the one-two gift handed to McLaren, toying with the energy drink’s slogan by insisting “Red Bull gives you wins”.

Other sections of the press were more serious.

“Red Bull has a conflict of jealously and betrayal,” said El Mundo newspaper in Spain.

Italy’s La Repubblica likened the previously dominant team’s self-destruction to “suicide”.

Britain’s The Independent referred to the fact that Webber, branded crazy by Vettel’s gesticulations and told by his bosses that he should have let the young German past, must now have the impression he is the number two driver.

Webber acknowledged that Vettel’s gesticulations were caused by the “adrenalin” of the moment, but “Red Bull need to take steps to ensure the current world championship leader can have complete faith that the support within the team is spread evenly”, said the newspaper.

And Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport noted that the 33-year-old is “not the kind of guy who is told to finish second”.

Strangely within the paddock, it was only the Red Bull bosses who thought Webber had done something wrong.

“Where should Mark have gone?” Lewis Hamilton – who had a box-seat view of the incident that unfolded in front of him – told German television Sky.

“I think the gap he left him was big enough.

“Even though Jenson and I both want to win, we also have respect for each other.  I’m really happy that I have such a good relationship with my teammate.”

Said Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg: “Mark didn’t move at all.  For me, it was clearly Sebastian’s fault.”

Niki Lauda said the 22-year-old had been “much too aggressive”, and former driver Alex Wurz noted in Turkey: “All my racing colleagues are in agreement that it was Vettel’s fault.”

Ross Brawn thinks these situations can be minimised if drivers know clearly the rules of engagement.

“It depends on what has been said beforehand,” the Mercedes team boss is quoted by Die Welt newspaper.  “Although it’s racing, the rules must be known to the drivers.”

Peter Sauber, meanwhile, had some sympathy for Christian Horner, admitting to Blick newspaper in Switzerland that these situations are “a nightmare for a team chief”.

(GMM)

Red Bull’s team boss insists talks about extending Mark Webber’s contract have not yet begun.

After the Australian driver commandingly won the back-to-back Spanish and Monaco grands prix from pole, the energy drink’s racing adviser Helmut Marko admitted it is “our desire to continue with Vettel and Webber”.

And on Sunday night, team boss Christian Horner was spotted out for dinner with Webber’s famous manager Flavio Briatore.

But Horner is quoted by the Sun newspaper as clarifying that no actual negotiations with the 33-year-old world championship leader have yet taken place.

“The team and Mark are very relaxed about the situation,” said the Briton.

“He is an important member of the team and he is driving fantastically well.  But we have not spoken, and have no real interest in speaking, with any of our drivers.

“When the time is right, we will sit down and look at the paperwork,” added Horner.

Webber’s contract runs out at the end of the season, while it is believed Sebastian Vettel’s current deal – announced last August – was for the 2010 and 2011 seasons.

Sir Frank Williams admits that letting Mark Webber switch to Red Bull at the end of 2006 was a “mistake”.

After two disappointing seasons with the British team in 2005 and 2006, the Australian moved to Red Bull, where in the past week he has won two grands prix from pole position.

“You could say we made a mistake,” Williams is quoted by Austrian newspaper Kleine Zeitung.

“Our car was a disappointment, and we thought he was a part of that problem.  Therefore, he was not our first choice (for 2007),” added the Grove based team’s eponymous chief.

It is now expected that Webber, 33, will sign an extension to his current contract for the 2011 season.

Williams co-owner Patrick Head confirmed that he and Sir Frank were reluctant to pay Webber a high salary to stay on board in 2007.

“It wasn’t that we thought he wasn’t worth a decent salary, but we’d lost a major sponsor and we were going through some very tough times commercially,” he is quoted by the Guardian.

“For the amount Flavio was asking, we didn’t think we could build a car that would justify keeping him on,” added Head.

The Briton also thinks Webber, the first Australian world championship leader since Alan Jones in 1981, has improved since leaving the Williams team.

Said Head: “He was very quick over a single lap but in our view he had an occasional tendency to make mistakes in the race and suddenly go off.

“In his first year with Red Bull he was pretty much the same.  But in his second year with them we noticed that those in-race mistakes disappeared.”

(GMM)

Jenson Button was critical of Felipe Massa after qualifying for the Monaco grand prix.

With Fernando Alonso already out of the session due to his practice crash, the other Ferrari could also now be penalised by the stewards for the incident that occurred in the final ‘Q3′ shootout for the top ten grid placings.

McLaren’s Button, the world championship leader, had to abandon his first timed lap when he encountered a slow-moving Massa in the final Anthony Noghes corner.

“I don’t know what he was doing,” the Briton told the BBC.

“There were only ten drivers on the track so it should have been easy (to get out of the way),” said Button, adding that the Brazilian “blatantly slowed me down”.

During qualifying, former grand prix driver Anthony Davidson spotted Button also being held up by Sauber’s Pedro de la Rosa.

“I would be furious if I was Jenson Button — he totally held him up,” said the British radio commentator.

(GMM)

With F1′s points system of 2009, Fernando Alonso would currently be the world championship leader.

Before this season began, the FIA tweaked the points system so that two extra finishers per race score points, while the points gap between the winner and second place was widened.

But under last year’s system, Alonso would currently be leading Jenson Button by a single point, according to an analysis by Spain’s Diario AS.

Instead, Button – who has won 2 races compared with the more consistently-competitive Alonso’s single victory in Bahrain – is leading the Spaniard by three points.

Briton Button told the Spanish sports newspaper that when he moved from Brawn to McLaren for 2010, he did not expect to be leading the world championship after five races.

“For the first five races my goal was to feel at home and adapt to the car,” said the reigning world champion.

“Leading the championship at the moment is a great feeling, but it’s only the beginning.  There’s a long way to go in a championship that is going to be very challenging and close,” added Button.

(GMM)

Before 30-year-old Button became world champion last year, the ousted, banned and disgraced former Renault boss likened his speed to a concrete roadside post.

And earlier this week, 60-year-old Briatore said the current world championship leader is not among F1′s best five drivers.

“It made me laugh when I read it,” said the McLaren driver in Barcelona.  “I am very happy, he has got to try a bit harder.

“I am leading the championship and he is not in the sport,” added Button.

But that could all change soon, in the wake of the FIA’s deal to drop the legal wrangle with Briatore in exchange for letting him back in F1 in 2013.

In his latest interview, with the Gulf Times, Briatore said “I need to be in formula one”.