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Sebastian Vettel was only fifth in FP2 in Hungary today, and after the session the German made it clear that he expects RBR to be under pressure again this weekend.

Vettel was half a second off the pacesetting McLaren of Lewis Hamilton in the afternoon session.

“It was pretty slippery at the beginning,” said Vettel. “Later on I felt a little bit better in the car, but I think you can say it’s not like last year.

“It seems to be very tight, McLaren and Ferrari are very quick, so I think we need to raise our game to make sure that we will find ourselves at the top as well.”

Vettel expects tyre to be the major factors this weekend.

“I’ve just stepped out of the car but we need to have a look at what the others did, how long the tyres should last. I think that will be the big issue or the most important thing to look out for this weekend, managing the tyres for one lap but equally trying to get everything out of the tyres for a whole stint, and not have them fall apart quickly. So we’ll see. It will be a tough one.”

Mark Webber was fourth in both sessions in Hungary today, despite running only 12 laps in the first session after a crash.

The 2010 Budapest winner ran wide and spun into the barrier on the opposite side of the track, wiping the front wing off the car. He missed the remainder of the session, but says he was able to catch up.

“My mistake, I got on the damp kerb,” said Webber. “In fact on the Astroturf, we’ve seen a few of those the last few years. Drivers still don’t learn, they still go out there and try and push! So I clipped the Astroturf and hit the barrier, but fortunately only the front wing was damaged.

“We recovered pretty well this afternoon, got a lot of mileage in, the car ran well. Obviously it’s a pretty tricky venue for tyres, and there’s lot of information to go through.

“It was a normal Friday, obviously congested into bit more of one session for me having just one run in the first session, but in general we went through everything we could.”

Webber said he was not surprised to see McLaren and Ferrari ahead of RBR at the end of the day: “They’re certainly performing pretty well, as they have done in the last few events. It’s no big surprise that they’re doing decent lap times. It’s a race between all of us.”

The BBC and Sky Sports have agreed a new F1 deal to last from 2012 to 2018 – and it will mean that only half the races will be shown live on BBC. All will be shown on Sky Sports, however.

The BBC will have the British GP, Monaco and the end of the season, and will also show practice and qualifying from those races. It will show highlights from other events. Sky will show all races and sessions. Both companies will broadcast in HD.

Barbara Slater, director of BBC Sport, said: “We are absolutely delighted that F1 will remain on the BBC. The sport has never been more popular with TV audiences at a 10-year high and the BBC has always stated its commitment to the big national sporting moments.”

“With this new deal not only have we delivered significant savings but we have also ensured that through our live and extended highlights coverage all the action continues to be available to licence fee payers.”

Barney Francis, managing director of Sky Sports, said: “This is fantastic news for F1 fans and Sky Sports will be the only place to follow every race live and in HD. We will give F1 the full Sky Sports treatment with a commitment to each race never seen before on UK television.”

The BBC may well be relieved if it has lost the likes of Canada, which while getting a lot of viewers filled up a huge evening prime time slot.

There will no doubt now be a musical chairs game among commentators and presenters as some BBC folk lose their jobs, some go to Sky, and ex-ITV people such as James Allen and Louise Goodman have a chance to return.

Gilles Simon has left his role as the FIA’s Director, Technical and Powertrain to join Craig Pollock’s new P.U.R.E. organisation as technical director.

P.U.R.E has the support of Jean Todt, who is keen for new entrants to come to F1 and push along turbo and energy recovery development.

Simon has a close relationship with Jean Todt, and followed his fellow Frenchman from Peugeot to Ferrari and then to the FIA. He has been instrumental in defining the rules for the new turbo era and as such has been deeply involved in discussions with the engine manufacturers, some of whom may be surprised that he has now joined  the new project.

His arrival emphasises that P.U.R.E. will feature a core of former Renault and Peugeot personnel.

Simon worked at Renault and Peugeot (on the Group C V10) before joining Ferrari. His roles there included Engine Project Manager (1994-1997), Head of Engine Development (1997-2006) and Head of the Engine and Electronics Department (2006-2009).

“This appointment marks another key milestone in the development of P.U.R.E.,” said Pollock. “With Gilles Simon on board we have an exceptional and proven powertrain designer who has been instrumental in driving an environmentally friendly agenda into F1.”

“Making F1 more environmentally friendly is a personal goal of mine,” said Simon. “The 2014 powertrain regulations mark the biggest change in this area of F1 for a generation. This opportunity to develop the P.U.R.E powertrain is a fantastic challenge and allows me to go to back to my passion – designing engines.”

The cosy relationship between Pollock, P.U.R.E and Jean Todt was emphasised by the FIA president providing a quote for the announcement: “Gilles leaves the FIA with my thanks and best wishes. We have worked together on a variety of projects over many years, at Peugeot, Ferrari and at the FIA, and I know how much of his life has been devoted to his love of designing powertrains.

“After a very fruitful 18-month period at the FIA where he has been able to leave a significant legacy in the 2014 powertrain regulations, Gilles has been offered an opportunity at P.U.R.E. that will enable him to make a substantial contribution to a new era in F1. I wish him a successful future.”

At Silverstone Pollock told this writer that he was disappointed that the I4 engine had been dropped, and added that he could have a V6 ready for 2013 rather than 2014. When we chatted he said he was on his way to see Simon…

Sauber has confirmed that Sergio Perez and Kamui Kobayashi will stay on next season, while Esteban Gutierrez will continue in his role as third driver.

Given how successful both drivers have been this year – not to mention the financial input from Mexico with the Austin race coming next year – the news is no surprise.

“We are very pleased with our drivers,” said Peter Sauber. “Kamui has grown into his role extremely well this year. Though it is only his second full Formula One season, he is already taking on the responsibilities that naturally fall to the more experienced driver in the team. We are delighted with him at both a sporting and a personal level. We had an option of working with him in 2012 and there was never any doubt that we would take it.

“Sergio has achieved more than one could expect from a rookie. From the very first race he proved that he is capable of driving not only fast but consistently as well. And after the accident in Monaco he demonstrated that he can handle difficult situations too. From the outset we had already signed a contract with Sergio that went beyond 2011. With a rookie that always entails a certain risk, of course, but clearly it has paid off.

“Esteban’s career is advancing in steady strides. After his commanding victory in GP3 it was a logical step for him to move up into GP2, where he has now taken his first win. He will then enter Formula One when he is ready for it. For us he has been a firm fixture of the team since 2010, and we will continue to support him on his way towards Formula One.”

Ferrari has confirmed that Felipe Massa’s crucial last lap pit stop delay in Germany was due a problem with a wheelnut design that was new for the British GP.

In the race for ever faster stops Ferrari introduced the new nut for Silverstone, where it contributed to fast stops. It also worked well for the first five of the six stops at the Nurburgring, but not for Massa’s last lap stop, costing him fourth place to Sebastian Vettel.

“It was a problem of the nut on the front left tyre that went disconnected from the wheel gun,” said Stefano Domenicali in Germany. “That is something that is part of this game. We are stretching everything up to the limit to minimise the pit stop time. In this case it was a problem on the technical side.”

Today the team elaborated on the problem.

“Since the beginning of the year we have had various issues with pit stops,” said Head of Track Operations, Diego Ioverno. “Which we are currently fixing step by step, knowing that this year, with so many stops, anything can happen. And indeed we have seen other teams also experience difficulties in this area.

“Our issues concerned the car itself and the jig of the tools we use and especially the wheel nuts, where we have had several problems. Silverstone was the first race we ran with a completely new specification of wheel nut, which has been very interesting, because in the British Grand Prix, our pit stops were the quickest in the race.

“Then, in Germany we were again using this new wheel nut, which does work better, but the system is still not perfect and, at Felipe’s last tyre change, we lost the connection between the wheel nut and wheel nut gun, which cost us around one and a half seconds. So we have more work to do on perfecting it.”

Lotus Renault boss Eric Boullier says he was disappointed that upgrades for Germany didn’t move the team forward, and says it just has to work harder.

Although the car was more competitive than at Silverstone, the true picture was disguised by the fact the rule changes that badly hampered the R31 in the British GP.

“No, it wasn’t the result we were looking for,” said the Frenchman in a team preview. “We came to the Nürburgring with some developments to the car, which gave us higher hopes going into the weekend. Vitaly put in a determined drive, while lady luck did not favour Nick when we was working his way back up the field after falling back to 22^nd position.

“It was another point gained for us, but really we were well below par, and it was not the weekend we expected it to be. It was not good enough, and at the Hungarian GP we will try and get back on track, although there will be no significant revisions to the car until after the summer break.”

Boullier says that progress hasn’t been good enough.

“I’ve expected improvement from our car for a number of races now, and we are making improvements, but we have got to get our heads down and make bigger strides. It’s a competitive field out there, with Force India and Sauber also competing in higher positions, so we’ve got to raise our game starting in Hungary.

“I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m not satisfied with where we are, no one in the team is. We started the season well, but that feels like a while ago now and we have to face the facts, which are that we’ve been off the pace and we are trying hard to put that right.

“We brought some developments to the car in Germany, which didn’t produce nearly enough. So we are now all eyes forward to Hungary to ensure we have the opportunity to head on our summer breaks on a high.”

Michael Schumacher’s eventful 2011 season continued in Germany, although at least this time the former champ didn’t have to pit for a new nose.

Schumacher survived a spectacular spin on lap 23 to take an eventual eighth place. He was chasing team mate Nico Rosberg when he went off, and having lost some 14s still managed to finish only 9.9s behind his countryman. He also set a fastest lap that was 0.5s quicker than Nico, who was struggling with his set-up.

“It was pretty exciting I’d say,” said Schumacher. “There was some kind of action, particularly after my spin, which caught me by complete surprise. And I guess I must have hit a wet patch somewhere that I wasn’t expecting, and the grip seemed dramatically less!

“We had luckily a nice recovery. I lost some positions because I am sure I could have stayed in front of Sutil with the pace that we have from our car. It was a shame.

“As I said it was exciting, and lots of action, generally around and obviously as well with Nico. You don’t want to risk too much in that moment as the constructor points are important.”

Stefano Domenicali has reiterated that Ferrari has to focus on doing its own thing and not worry about the margin to Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull.

Fernando Alonso has scored more points than any other driver over the last three races, logging 61 to the 55 of Vettel and 49 of Lewis Hamilton.

However he needs to take 9-10 points a race off Vettel over the remaining nine Grands Prix to get ahead by the end of the season.

“For sure what we need to do is attack every race,” said Domenicali. “And then – not now because he’s too far from us – see where he is. The more drivers that can fight, it’s easier to score more points and try to minimise the gap. At the moment the gap is still very big.

“I am happy to see that in the last couple of races Fernando scored the most number of points. That means that we have come back with the performance that we should have. I’m expecting the second part of the season to be quite interesting for the show, for everyone, because I really feel that the Red Bull are still the strongest team, but McLaren showed today they are very good, and we were very good.

“I do not underestimate the competitors, but I’m at least very happy to see that the people have reacted and the performance is where it should be.

“Now we need go to Hungary where I don’t forget last year after the win in Germany we were one second off the pace from Red Bull, so we need to stay with our feet on the ground, and work hard and keep working on the development of the car.”

Domenicali says Ferrari’s German GP performance was even more encouraging given that the team has edged towards a wet set-up.

“Of course we were expecting rain. I don’t know if the others we were really setting up the cars for dry conditions. We took some compromises because we thought it was raining conditions. It’s even better to see with this kind of compromise the car was quite competitive. I think no one would have thought about a dry race today, to be honest.”

Martin Whitmarsh says that McLaren can’t expect to rely on Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull hitting problems – but can at least try to put the championship leaders under pressure while improving the team’s own form.

Vettel has still not finished a race lower than fourth in 2011, and hasn’t had a retirement.

“We can’t bring about his failure, all we can do is put pressure on him, and I think Sebastian made a couple of mistakes today,” said Whitmarsh in Germany. “To balance that at the start of the year he was supreme in his confidence, not making any mistakes whatsoever.

“I think we’ve got to actually concentrate on our own act, improve our performance, improve our reliability, improve everything that we do, and that’s all we can do. If that turns out to be good enough to win races, then that’s great.”

Whitmarsh expects form to vary race by race: “We’re in a competitive season. Ferrari are strong, Red Bull are clearly very strong… Red Bull were very quick in Hungary last year. Each circuit may change the status quo, the performance of the team could change the status quo, the underlying development pace can change the status quo. It will see-saw around, I’m sure. I’d love to think that we have a marginally quicker race car and we’ll have it for the remainder of the season, but I doubt we’ll have that luxury.

“Ferrari are going to be strong for the rest of the year, hopefully we will be, and we can make this another fantastic championship like we had last year.”