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Felipe Massa finished a frustrated sixth in the Spanish GP after struggling for grip for most of the weekend, and once again failing to match the pace of Fernando Alonso

The Brazilian also damaged his front wing during the race, much of which he spent following the Michael Schumacher/Jenson Button battle.

“The car was not easy to drive, it was difficult to drive,” said Massa. “Sliding around, very low grip, especially in the last sector when you need to go out of the last corner close to the car [in front], it was impossible because the car had no grip.”

Felipe said that he was struggling before he damaged his front wing in contact with Karun Chandhok: “Even before I had the problem. For sure it didn’t improve, it got even worse with the front wing.”

Massa has struggled for the past four races, all of which have seen Bridgestone bring its hardest compound.

“Definitely I’m not happy, because the whole winter in the tests I was 100% happy with the car, the way I drive. Starting in the first race I was 120% happy about the car, and we did a great job in the first race, did a great job in the qualifying, and even in the race with the problem I had the race pace was really great.

“Then after we changed to these tyres, when we did four races with the same tyres which were must harder than the tyres from Bahrain, I was struggling. I couldn’t use the car like I want, especially on the new tyres. So it’s something that I need to understand. It’s not that maybe you finish the lap and you do what you want and you’re a little bit slower. I am outside where I have to be, and we need to understand what’s the problem.”

Massa admitted that he was impressed by the pace of the Red Bulls in Spain: “For sure it was the first track where we saw a Red Bull one second ahead of everybody. We always see maybe two-tenths, three-tenths, one and a half – it depends on the track. And in the race a little bit worse than the qualifying, the Red Bull. But this race was impressive, because they really made a big, big step forward. I hope it’s just for this track.”

The F1 teams are close to finalising an agreement to run the winter young driver test session in Abu Dhabi, immediately after the final Grand Prix of the 2010 season.

The young driver test is the only official opportunity for F1 cars to run before the end of the year, and it is enshrined in the FIA Sporting Regulations. Last year it took place at Jerez in the first week of December.

The consensus among the teams is that it would be better to stay in Abu Dhabi after the GP and run the test on Tuesday to Thursday. Not only will all the equipment and personnel be on site, it would also give the young drivers something to shoot at in terms of lap times.

It would also allow Bridgestone to end its F1 involvement sooner rather than later, rather than go through the expense of supplying a test in Spain some weeks later.

Teams say that staying in Abu Dhabi would be a lot cheaper than trekking to Spain in December, although it remains to be seen how the extended stay will be received by mechanics who will have just gone to Singapore, Japan, Korea and Brazil…

Abu Dhabi boss Richard Cregan told this blog: “If the teams and FOM can come to an agreement, we would be very happy to support it.”

There is also a suggestion that the teams might stay on after the young driver session for their first test with the 2011 rubber from whoever the new supplier turns out to be. That would involve the regular drivers and give the teams a good baseline from which to start. The teams are also keen to run in warm weather.

McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh is optimistic about the team’s prospects for Sunday in Spain and the rest of the year, despite the crushing display in qualifying by Red Bull Racing.

Whitmarsh remains confident that the team can progress and that his drivers will be able to pull something out of the bag when chances arise in the coming months.

“The Red Bulls are just quicker, they’ve done a good job,” says McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh. “We’ve made some progress, I think all the teams have. We’ve got as long season ahead of us. I think we’ve got two great drivers. They got the best out of the package that we made available to them today, and we were aiming frankly as the weekend wore on for the second row. We just about achieved that, not quite.

“We know they’ve got some vulnerabilities, we’ve got two great racers, and we’ve certainly won races this year from further back on the grid. It’s how it is. We know we’re working hard to develop the car, we’ve got some bits we need to get on the car as quick as we can, but the cars – all of them – will continue to improve during the course of the year.

“We’ve demonstrated that we can improve our car at a good pace, we’ve got to edge up on that and make sure that we’re working harder and faster than certainly Red Bull. I think by comparison to the other teams we’re quite respectable. But the Red Bull at the moment is the car that everyone has got to beat.

“I think they are in a strong position. We’ve got a race on tomorrow. I think we’re in a good position on the grid, not on the front row, and we’ve got two very quick cars in front. We’ve been in a lot worse positions and come out with some good results. We’ll see what happens tomorrow…”

As expected, the RB6’s pace in fast corners is a huge boost in Spain.

“I think there were some medium/high speed corners where clearly Red Bull could get on the throttle very strongly and very early, and that gives the drivers a pretty good advantage.

“I think this is a tough circuit, it’s one where you’d expect an aerodynamic advantage to pay real dividends. One would imagine therefore that we would be closer elsewhere. The fact is we’ve got to improve our car, and make sure that we become as competitive as we can.”

Jenson Button admits that he’s surprised just how fast Red Bull was in qualifying in Spain relative to the opposition.

Mark Webber was 0.9s ahead of third qualifier Lewis Hamilton, and 1s in front of Button himself, who starts fifth. Nevertheless Jenson says he’s happy with the progress McLaren has made since the last race.

“We’ve done a very good job this weekend I think,” said the World Champion. “Yesterday we struggled a bit with the balance, but we’ve got the best out of the package we have today. There’s still more that we would like, and we’re still working very, very hard for improvements. There are still some areas where we are obviously losing. I think after this weekend when we head to Monaco it’s a very different race, and hopefully we can be closer to the Red Bulls and maybe challenge them.

“But I am a little bit surprised at how quick they are. It does mean that we have to go away and look at the areas and hopefully improve as quick as possible. Monaco’s next, and then we’ve got some other circuits where it’s very important to have good aero.”

Button admitted that it was a little confusing that McLaren was much closer to the Red Bull pace on the harder tyres used earlier in qualifying.

“I think when you have a car like Red Bull have, it’s very easy to get the best out of the tyres. I think our pace on the harder tyre, we were closer to them, but were they just sandbagging? They’ve got so much pace on us that maybe they were hanging back, maybe they didn’t have the revs turned up in Q1, I don’t know.

“But they are very quick on both tyres, I don’t think it matters whether it’s hard or soft, they’re quick. In high speed corners they’ve been strong, but they’re also very strong on corner exits, have very good traction. A lot of it is also because they can carry the speed through corners, they have a stable rear end. They’re in a very good position.”

Ferrari has been fined $20,000 by the FIA for an ‘unsafe release’ after Fernando Alonso pulled into the pitlane in front of Nico Rosberg during qualifying in Barcelona.

Rosberg was forced to take avoiding action and branded the incident as ‘dangerous.’

Before the penalty was announced Alonso himself played down the incident: “Hopefully they will take into consideration that there was no accident, no touch, no performance gain.”

Nico Rosberg has accused Fernando Alonso of making a dangerous move into the Barcelona pit lane during qualifying.

Alonso pulled out of his garage during the session without being aware that the Mercedes was coming, forcing the Rosberg to take avoiding action.

“That was dangerous, because with the people standing on the pit wall, if some parts start flying and things like that…,” said Rosberg. “It would have been an accident, I nearly had to drive into the wall, so they must be penalised for that.”

Alonso played down the incident: “Hopefully they will take into consideration that there was no accident, no touch, no performance gain.”

Meanwhile Rosberg was hugely disappointed to finish the session in eighth, two places behind team mate Michael Schumacher.

“I really struggled the whole weekend, really difficult to drive, especially with the understeer in the middle of the corner everywhere. I don’t like understeer, that’s for sure, and I think Michael can probably handle it better and so it’s just been difficult.

“In the end I’m one tenth off him, which is acceptable I guess, assuming that he’s done a pretty good job this weekend. But still it’s not where I wanted to be, I wanted to attack Red Bull this weekend, and I’m just nowhere.”

Michelin is said to have dropped its proposed price for a supply of F1 tyres for 2011 in a bid to convince the teams and the FIA that it is the most logical candidate.

Sources suggest that the original figure of €5m per team for a season has been dramatically reduced to just €1.5m. That is far more acceptable to the smaller teams, who this year – like everyone else – have been getting Bridgestones for free.

If as planned there are 13 teams next year, that figure would give Michelin a handy €19.5m with which to kick start its programme.

The battle for the tyre contract has become more complicated since Pirelli joined Cooper Avon and Michelin in the bid process. Michelin’s trump card is its relatively recent experience of F1, albeit with grooved tyres rather than slicks. McLaren and Mercedes are among those pushing for the French manufacturer.

Michelin had been asking for a move to 18ins rims, but the teams want the change delayed until 2013. Then it can be a part of a major new rules package, which will include a new turbo engine. Teams say it is already too late to add a change of tyre sizes to 2011 car designs.

“I think we understand that the tyre companies are very keen on a larger wheel because it brings a better efficiency of tyre,” said Ross Brawn. “We’re welcoming that, but it’s just a question of phasing it in, and I think that if there was an 18 inch rim, it’s very late at the moment and I think it would give a lot of the teams severe challenges and severe problems to get ready in time, because it’s not just having a bigger wheel, an 18 inch tyre behaves differently and you would need to develop the suspension systems and the other things you would need for it.”

One of the problems is that everything inside the wheel – brakes, uprights etc – would in theory have to be adapted to fill the much larger space. The only alternative would be for the FIA to force teams to stick to a ‘virtual’ 13ins area inside the larger rim, at least for a season or two.

Ferrari’s Also Costa explained: “If you have 18 inch wheels and you are allowed to use all the space inside the rim for your brake system, for your cooling, for your aerodynamic development of the corner, as Ross mentioned, it would be a very, very big programme. Starting in May or June is very, very late, also for all the companies that make brake components because they have to study new calipers, new discs and for the team with completely new suspensions it would be a big programme.

“Everyone in the FOTA group would like to have a more phased-in programme. Even if we had to start with the 18 inch rims, at least the inside of the rim in terms of mechanical parts and braking system should be kept similar to this year and then evolve over the next few years.”

One other key issue concerns how the early testing will be done, and there are suggestions that Toyota could provide a contemporary car for that purpose, so that no current team would be favoured.

To further complicate the transition to a new manufacturer, tyre warmers will be banned from next year.

FIA race director Charlie Whiting has told the drivers that he wasn’t happy with Sebastian Vettel’s move towards Lewis Hamilton in the Shanghai pitlane.

As the pair headed towards the pit exit Vettel veered towards the McLaren driver, who was on the inside, and Hamilton in return jinked towards the RBR in an attempt to hold his ground.

After the race both drivers received a reprimand from the FIA stewards, but sources say that Whiting made it clear in Friday night’s drivers briefing in Spain that he wasn’t happy with what Vettel had done, and indicated that a repeat would earn a more serious punishment than a reprimand.

The FIA has no problem with the principle of side-by-side drag race out of the pit lane, if the track layout allows it and the drivers give each other space.

Meanwhile in the same meeting Whiting confirmed that the FIA is not keen to mess with the qualifying format for Monaco, after drivers expressed fears that the six slower cars and a field of 24 would be lead to problems.  The big problem for the quicker cars is that once a driver is on his hot lap, he is not obliged to move over or let another car past.

Fernando Alonso isn’t getting too excited about finishing Friday in Spain in fourth place, as he believes that the Red Bulls will be impossible to beat in normal circumstances this weekend.

Alonso was 0.8s off Sebastian Vettel, but less than a 0.1s shy of third placed Michael Schumacher. He said he was happy with the update package on the Ferrari, but insists it will take some luck for the RBR qualifying steamroller to be stopped.

“It’s just a day to check everything’s working in the car,” said Alonso after the session. “At the end I’m happy with the evolution, I’m happy with the updates in the car. But tomorrow we’ll see how the developments work and how close we can be to the Red Bulls.

“Regarding what they showed today in the second practice, they were very, very quick. I think it will be very difficult for all of us to arrive to those times. But we see some times good some good Fridays for some people, and then on Saturday, they’re struggling a little bit more.

“So fingers crossed, we can find something on our cars to be close to them, and hopefully they can do a mistake somewhere in the set-up or whatever, and we can close the gap. But in normal conditions we know it’s going to be difficult to beat them this weekend.”

Alonso admitted that the team had put more focus on running lighter fuel loads than it would normally do on a Friday.

“We did change the approach for the Grand Prix. We saw in the first races maybe we didn’t maximise the potential of the car in qualifying, so we divided the programme this afternoon, in half of the session doing race simulation and preparing the car for the race, and the other half of the session trying to be close to the qualifying performance.

“Hopefully overall we can learn some things, and tonight prepare the car for the race and for qualifying, while maybe at some other races maybe we concentrated too much on the race.”

Michael Schumacher was in upbeat mood after outpacing team mate Nico Rosberg in both practice sessions in Spain on Friday.

Schumacher was much happier with the revised Mercedes, and says that the car is now doing what he wants. He made it clear that his assertion that China was a glitch has been confirmed.

“It’s certainly feeling a lot more a race car into my hands than at least in China. China we obviously haven’t fully understood exactly, but nevertheless I’m feeling comfortable in the car. That’s what I’m asking to do, if we can work very well with my engineers, my team. Obviously the improvement to the car certainly helps.

“It’s not about confidence, it’s simply that the car goes where I want it to go and I don’t have to wait too long to go to this point!”

Despite his upbeat mood Michael did not want to be drawn on whether his season would now turn around.

“I don’t think we want to get into any kind of detail analysis now. The clear trend is there. We have improved certainly, I have more ability to work the car to my needs, that’s what it is, that’s what I look for. The team has reacted very good, and now we look forward to make the best out of this.”

Curiously Michael went on to say that confidence was an issue.

“The matter of fact is with the car we have right now, we certainly have the ability to work it a lot more in directions that I’m looking for. That simple was not possible before. So I’m feeling a lot more confident in what the car is doing to me. Again it sort of confirmed that China, whatever glitch it was, but something didn’t work out for whatever reason, and that works back to a more normal situation.”

He added that he is working well with Rosberg: “Absolutely. I think we actually work very well together, because we have similar interests. Not driving style, but at least a similar development direction, and priorities that we set. In this respect it is very good working with Nico, I have to say. He’s very clear, he’s very how do you say, strong in his opinion. It helps all of us to work with a very good team mate.”