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Lewis Hamilton has been penalised for making more than one change of direction while defending his position.

Hamilton and Alonso were called to see the stewards after the race.

Lewis has received a 20 sec penalty – the equivalent of a drive through issued post race.

The effect is to drop him one place behind Kamui Kobayashi, who now claims seventh place.

Meanwhile Alonso got a 20s penalty of his own for causing a collision. It would have dropped him behind Lewis, but because Hamilton has his own penalty, it makes no difference!

The Formula One Teams Association confirmed today that Martin Whitmarsh will continue in his role as chairman in 2011.

However Stefano Domenicali has stepped down from the vice chairman role, and has been replaced by Eric Boullier of Renault.

Ferrari will still have a close interest in FOTA as Aldo Costa has replaced Ross Brawn as the chairman of the Technical Working Group. RBR’s Christian Horner remains chairman of the Sporting Working Group.

In making the announcement FOTA trumpeted recent developments, including the Resource Restriction Agreement: “FOTA is also extremely active in the monitoring and controlling of the costs associated to F1 racing. On the one hand, it has made possible the definition and implementation of the Resource Restriction Agreement, which, for the first time ever in the history of the sport, has seen the Teams sharing information about their costs and defining a pattern for the reduction of their overall expenditures. On the other hand, FOTA, also thanks to the collaboration of CMEFE (aerodynamics department of the Haute École du Paysage, d’Ingénierie et d’Architecture – Geneva), is verifying the expenditures and methodologies applied in CFD and wind tunnels R&D, auditing the procedures of each Team.

“The successful collaboration among the Teams, together with a positive engagement with the other stakeholders, namely the FIA and FOM, shows how important results can be achieved for the development of Formula One.”

Fernando Alonso says he was happy to be fifth on the grid and ‘best of the rest’ in Malaysia after struggling on Friday.

Alonso was ninth in both sessions yesterday as he tried to find a balance, but was much more comfortable with the car after making some set-up changes through the course of Saturday. He’s also pleased to be starting on the clean side of the grid.

“I’m extremely happy with the result today,” said the Spaniard. “Yesterday we suffered a little bit with the pace and the balance of the car. We made a lot of changes overnight, and the car felt much better today.

“Also we made another big change before qualifying, and the car improved again in qualifying, so I was much more comfortable driving now the car in these conditions, this set-up. We were expecting more problems in qualifying, or a worse position. I think if we finish the race, we will be on the podium.

Alonso says it’s clear that that the team needs to improve the car, but is confident that it will get better.

“Some teams maybe did a better job than us at the moment in these first races. Unfortunately we were not quick enough in Australia, not quick enough here to fight for pole. China is in five days so I expect a difficult weekend as well. We’ll see.

“At the moment this is what we have, and we need to score as many points as possible every weekend, and maybe tomorrow with the weather conditions things can change in the race. We need to maximise and take any opportunity that gives us.

“I’m very optimistic for the championship chances. This is a long championship, many races, many things can happen. Last year it’s true that we struggled in some races. I remember Turkey, I was out of Q3, I was P13, then one week later we fight for the pole position in Monaco [Monaco was actually two weeks earlier, but you get the idea!]

“We have to be really concentrated. There is no secret, we need to improve, we must improve, for the next coming races, because we were not quick enough at the moment. But also we have to remain very calm and very focussed, because the championship is very long.

“We did only one race, and in that race we finished in front of Button, in front of Webber. We’ll see tomorrow what is the final position, but in one lap pace, we are not quick enough.”

Jenson Button was much happier this afternoon after changes to the McLaren MP4-26 transformed the car between sessions.

Button was 15^th and struggling with lack of grip in FP1, but was second – and just 0.005s off Mark Webber – in the second session.

“We found it a little bit difficult this morning,” Button admitted. “It’s very different conditions to what we’re used to. I think we went a direction after Melbourne with the car to try and solve the issues we had there, and it’s very different here, so we’ve gone back on a lot of the changes, and really turned the car upside down.

“It’s performing much better now. I’m happy with that. This session is so much better than the last session on short runs, and also on the long run at the end.

“I think for everyone it’s rear grip, that’s what’s difficult round here. The tyres are doing what was expected, they have low rear grip, but it’s very different to what we saw in Melbourne. But the last run on the soft tyre was reasonable, but when they drop off, they fall off a cliff. It’s very tricky and there’s a lot of degradation. That’s pretty much what we saw in testing, so we’ve got experience.

“It’s tough out there on these tyres, especially in the heat, but it’s the same for all of us.”

Button says he has no idea what the real gap to Red Bull might be.

“I don’t know. We don’t know what fuel they’re running, as always. Normal Friday comments I know, but that’s the way it always is. We’ve just got to do our own thing. And for me the balance improved a lot today, and that’s the important thing. We changed a lot on the car, and we found that we made positive steps.”

Button expects the DRS to be a useful tool: “It’ll work really well round here, because you’ve got such a long straight. In a way it will make it too easy to overtake. This is a circuit where if you get within one second of the car in front, normally you can have a chance of overtaking. I think the difficulty will be to get within that one second.”

Fernando Alonso was in an upbeat mood in Malaysia today despite modest positions in both practice sessions after a less than perfect day for Ferrari.

Alonso was ninth in both sessions, and was 1.7s off the frontrunning pace in the afternoon. Team mate Felipe Massa was sixth in both sessions. However, the Spaniard expects to make progress tomorrow.

“We struggled a little bit with the balance of the car,” said Alonso. “We tried to do some set-up changes, some aero work as well in the morning. We tried to do our programme. Obviously we know that we need to keep working tonight, to keep changing what we can improve in the car, and be more competitive tomorrow.

“I think the race weekend is very interesting, what we have in front of us. A very interesting qualifying tomorrow then a difficult race for everybody here, with pit stops, with tyre degradation that seems to be higher here than Melbourne, with the weather conditions we can face on Sunday, so still many things to answer this weekend. We are trying to get ready for all of them.”

Alonso says he’s not worried about Ferrari not being a challenger for victory in the first race, after looking so good in testing.

“I think McLaren did a very good step in Melbourne with the car, and Red Bull was just testing in the winter and was not making the full potential. I think we arrive in our 100% in Australia with a very good winter, but obviously maybe we were not quick enough compared with our main rivals.

“That was only a first race, the championship is long, it seems also last year in some races McLaren and Red Bull were fighting, some other races Ferrari and Red Bull were fighting, some others only Red Bull was in front of everybody. I think this can change circuit by circuit, and hopefully we can have a better weekend here than Melbourne, and better in the future as well.”

Like other drivers Alonso expects the DRS to be more effective here: “I think this should be one of the places where it should work better. On the main straight there’s enough space to maximise the potential of the top speed. If the race is dry and we can use I think we can have more overtaking manoeuvres than in the past, and hopefully a better show for everybody.”

Mark Webber is keeping his feet on the ground despite topping both sessions in Malaysia today.

Webber was an amazing 1.6s clear of Lewis Hamilton in the first session, but in the afternoon he was only 0.005s clear of Jenson Button. Nevertheless it was a solid start for the Aussie.

“Obviously there’s not much in it,” said Webber. “We’re all pretty close, give or take a couple of tenths – who got traffic, who didn’t, how their KERS worked. So far, so good, I’m towards the front somewhere.

“It’s still early days in the weekend. We got some good dry running in, and the car performed well. Obviously it was reliable, which was a nice bonus, so we got to check all the tyres, and also Pirelli’s new tyre that they brought here.

“The team ran very well today, both sides of the garage. A big night for the guys again tonight, and we’ll go from there.”

Asked if his KERS worked OK, Webber said: “Most of the time…”

He expects the DRS to be more valuable here than in Australia.

“It should be better than Melbourne. Obviously we’ve got a very slow corner opening the lap, or opening the activation of it, and then a pretty big braking area into Turn One, and plenty of options on the straight. It will definitely be better than Melbourne. Whether it’s enough remains to be seen.”

Colin Kolles had some pretty hefty excess baggage when he arrived in Kuala Lumpur this afternoon in the form of severel large cardboard boxes of bits for the HRT F111.

The largest contained several noses for the new car, which will be in use from Friday practice after the team successfully passed the FIA crash test this week.

The team had to use the old version in Melbourne, but Kolles admits that he doesn’t know what the new wing will be worth.

“In Australia we just did the roll-out in qualifing,” he told this blog as we waited at the baggage carousel. “The drivers were looking in their mirrors for quicker cars. But everything worked, including the moveable rear wing.”

HRT’s next target is to beat the 107% rule, having got within 1.7s of it after minimal running in Melbourne.

The F1 teams earned $658m in prize fund payments in 2010, according to the accounts of Formula One Administration Ltd, which were revealed this week.

The typically fascinating document shows that the figure was up from $544m in 2009. The rise reflects the first full year of the current Concorde Agreement and the fact that there were 12 teams on the grid.

Meanwhile overall turnover for FOA Ltd was up $19m on the previous year to £1082m. The company says that the rise is a result of the addition of Korea and Canada to the calendar, which helped to offset other economic factors.

As of January 2011 FOA Ltd handed over the commercial rights to a different company, Formula One World Championship Ltd. This season represents the start of the 100-year rights agreement that Bernie Ecclestone signed with the FIA on behalf of SLEC Holdings back in April 2001.

All commercial deals done with FOA have been transferred to FOWC, which was gradually being ramped up over the course of 2010, in readiness for its new role, while FOA is in turn now being wound down.

The FOWC accounts say, with some understatement, that “with the company now undertaking the commercial rights to the championship… the directors consider the company is well positioned to perform satisfactorily in the future.”

In June last year FOWC acquitted Formula One Management Ltd from fellow SLEC subsidiary Petara Ltd for $23.5m.

FOM provided ‘business management services to FOA including the provision of technical support and broadcast services’ at a cost of $70m in 2010. It will continue to do the same job for FOWC.

One interesting detail shows that FOA Ltd has written off $11.1m in relation to Istanbul Park Organizasyson, which was sold to FOWC Ltd for $1.

Jean Todt has declined to respond to recent criticism from Bernie Ecclestone, who called the FIA President a “poor man’s Max Mosley.”

Speaking to Roger Blitz and James Allen for the Financial Times, Todt chose not to get into a war of words with the F1 boss.

“It is important not to overreact,” he said. “I feel with confrontation, unless it is necessary to achieve a result, you lose time. I prefer to achieve results with harmony rather than confrontation.”

It’s assumed that recent tensions between the pair stem from early discussions over the future Concorde Agreement. Todt confirms that he’s determined that the FIA should have a bigger say.

“I will make sure that everybody realises that since the agreement was signed, times have changed. Technology has changed. Evolution has a price. I must make sure that the funding for the FIA is correct.”

He also reiterated that the FIA can veto potential purchasers should CVC sell: “If CVC decides to sell, definitely we have a role to play. It is my job to make sure we secure the present and the future of the FIA F1 world championship.”

You can read more – including Todt’s plans for electric car racing – at http://www.ft.com.

Brazilian stock car driver Gustavo Sondermann has died after a crash in soaking wet conditions at Interlagos on Sunday.

Fellow drivers including Rubens Barrichello, Bruno Senna, Nelson Piquet Jr and Luciano Burti have paid tribute on Twitter.

Sondermann was competing in the Copa Chevrolet Montana – the support event to the main series – when he crashed heavily coming onto the pit straight. He was then hit hard by a following driver, and suffered serious head injuries.

The accident was uncannily similar to one that claimed the life of his then team mate Rafeal Sperafico at the same track in 2007.

Sondermann, who was 29, followed the traditional path to Europe early in his career. In 2004 he competed for Motaworld Racing in the British Formula Renault series against the likes of Paul di Resta and Mike Conway, and the following year he was briefly seen in the European series with Comtec, where his rivals included Kamui Kobayashi.

When his single-seater ambitions didn’t work out, he returned to Brazil.