Adam Cooper F1

New Jersey may have appeared on the latest unofficial 2014 F1 schedule, but sources continue to suggest that the race won’t make the final calendar, due to be agreed by the World Motor Sport Council on Friday.

The latest version, showing a triple header of Monaco, New Jersey and Canada on consecutive weekends, is regarded by teams as being completely unrealistic, with there being zero chance of getting the freight from Europe in time due to massive logistical issues.

Bernie Ecclestone can’t use the June 14-15 date, because it has been blocked for Le Mans by the FIA – a provision that he must have agreed to. Although there have been suggestions that the ruling could be changed a more likely scenario is that Bernie has given the race a token date in order to fulfil his obligations, while knowing that the New Jersey promoters won’t be able to fulfil theirs, and it will be cancelled. One good source suggested that at this stage June 2014 would in any case be too early and that the emphasis is already shifting to 2015.

Meanwhile Mexico is set to be confirmed for November 2014. Charlie Whiting and a Tilke representative visited the Mexico City venue recently and plans for revisions to the track – including moving the famous esses towards the infield to create more run-off – are in hand. The promoters also want to build a new pit complex.

The battle for the FIA presidency continues to ramp up as candidate David Ward has engaged in a battle of letters with one of Jean Todt’s key supporters.

Ward has maintained from the start that Todt acted improperly by garnering support from the FIA regions while travelling the world on FIA business.

Last week Jorge Tomasi, President of the Automobile Club of Uruguay, wrote to Ward expressing his displeasure at the accusation. Sources close to Todt suggest that Ward has misjudged the mood with an approach that could be deemed condescending to FIA members.

Ward has now responded with a letter of his own.

A release from the Ward camp today began: “David Ward has warned that his rival Jean Todt has ‘jump started’ the FIA’s election race, breaking rules that threaten to undermine the fairness of the FIA’s 2013 presidential contest.”

In his letter to Tomasi Ward said: “The use of support letters well in advance of the Presidential election period a serious breach of the FIA laws, rules and regulations… They should not have happened, and the breach of the rules should be investigated and subject to an appropriate penalty. ”

He added: “At the very least it would be in the best interest of the FIA if all the support letters signed before 6^th September now be revoked. By declaring them to be null and void, all the clubs involved would be released from any obligation they feel they may have unwittingly made before the election process had officially begun. The FIA membership can then engage in the election process transparently, without prior commitment, and make their choice based on a fair comparison of the candidates and their respective manifestoes.”

Todt himself has yet to publish a manifesto or issue any kind of formal press statement, but clearly this battle is going to get messier.

The Tomasi/Ward letters can be found here:

http://gallery.mailchimp.com/118437eec0352cad047fd181b/files/Jorge_Tomasi_letter_to_David_Ward.pdf

Click to access DavidWard_Letter_to_Jorge_Tomasi_23Sept13.pdf

Jenson Button dropped from third to seventh in the closing laps of the Singapore GP, but the McLaren driver insists that he would not have done any better had he gone for a different strategy.

Button joined Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen in trying to run from the safety car to the flag without an extra pit stop, but while they were able to keep up a good pace, Button fell back when his tyres gave up.

“We took a punt on the strategy,” said Button. “I don’t know how we thought we’d do 35 laps on a set of tyres! I suppose Kimi did. But for us, we really struggled on traction. All weekend the supersoft tyre has been working really well, and the prime feels like a completely different tyre. I personally have been struggling on that tyre to get it working, which is the same problem I had here last year. But we got some good points on the board, seventh isn’t too bad. But the last 10 laps were mighty painful!”

Button admitted that he might have been better off had he not used up his tyres even earlier by working so hard to keep Kimi Raikkonen behind him.

“The problem was I had Kimi behind me for so long, about 20 laps. I just didn’t want to let him past. It’s easy to say it would have been the right thing to do now, but when you’re racing you’re not letting anyone past, especially Kimi! When he got past and he pulled away at 3s a lap I realised it was gone, fighting for a podium or anything close to that. Seventh isn’t too bad, and I don’t think whatever strategy we did today would have been any better than that.

“You never really know what’s going to happen to the tyres. If you look at what happened in Monaco a couple of years ago, with Seb doing most of the race on the prime tyre, we thought we’d give it a go. It didn’t work for us. We finished basically where I think we would have finished if we’d pitted.

“The thing that impressed me here was the Lotus pace. When Grosjean was out there he was setting purples the whole time, and Kimi obviously showed the pace. How he did that many laps on a set pf tyres when he was fighting to get past me I really don’t know.”

Christian Horner says that Sebastian Vettel put in one of the best drives of his career in Singapore – but he insists that it’s still too early for Red Bull to become too complacent about a fourth title for the German.

“We’ve only extended the lead by another seven points,” said Horner. “Fernando keps finishing the races, he keeps turning up on the podium. We’re 60 points ahead, we’ve extended our lead, but there are still 150 available. So we’ll keep our heads down and keep pushing.

“We’ve got ourselves into a good position, but things can change. We’ve just got to keep fighting all the way to the end of this championship. The kind of performance that Sebastian delivered today was right up there, one of his best if not his best.”

Vettel stunned the opposition with his pace in the opening laps and again after the safety car, where he opened up a huge gap.

“Obviously after the start it was a matter of trying to make the duration of that soft stint go far enough, so you’re managing the tyres, you’re managing the situation, and Sebastian is so good at that, as we’ve seen so many times. The pace car came at probably the worst possible time for us. We weren’t in a window where we could go to the end of the race, we’d recently changed tyres, and of course track position is crucial here.

“We gave Sebastian a target to say basically you’ve got 15 laps, do what you can. His pace during that period of the race was phenomenal. To build up what turned out to be 30s to Fernando that gave him a clear stop was absolutely remarkable. He was just in a class of his own round here today.”

Horner said he was not impressed by the booing that Vettel was again subjected to on the podium.

“It’s so unfair. The boy today has driven an unbelievable race, what you’ve witnessed today is something I think is probably one of the best drives I’ve seen him produce in terms of raw pace and what he’s been able to deliver. I just don’t think it’s sporting at the end of the day to see a driver who’s put in a performance like that not get the reception that he deserves.

“He says it doesn’t affect him and he doesn’t feel it but he’s a human being at the end of the day. You’ve driven your heart out and you’re getting that reaction, to me it’s not fair, and I don’t think it’s sporting I don’t think it’s right, and I don’t think he deserved it in any way. He’s got a broad set of shoulders, but like anyone, he’s got feelings.”

The only downside for Red Bull in Singapore was Mark Webber’s late retirement.

“It was tremendously unlucky with Mark. We started losing water pressure in the engine, then the water ran out and at that point you’re in the lap of the gods. The temperatures all started going sky high. We tried to get to the finish, we were keeping our fingers crossed that we’d get that final lap in. It was just a great shame and really gutting not to get Mark right up there as well. Without the problem could he have passed Kimi, I don’t know, but he would certainly have caught him.”

Kimi Raikkonen moved up from 13^th on the grid to take third place in Singapore, despite having suffered all weekend with a back problem.

After an early first stop found him some clean air Raikkonen was running ninth when he pitted under the safety car.

By thereafter running to the flag without another stop he was able to move up into third, behind Fernando Alonso, who followed a similar strategy.

“We had a plan and we know that what moment, if the safety car comes, we try to go until the end,” said Raikkonen. “So I knew what will happen and luckily some other teams couldn’t do it and had to pit. I was kind of stuck behind Jenson for most of the race but then I tried to give him some pressure and keep him pushing so I noticed that he started running out of his tyres and I could start to get in closer and closer.

“In the end I decided to try to pass him and managed to get past – because there were people who stopped for the fresh tyres who were catching very quickly, but luckily once I got past I could push a bit more and keep the gap big enough to end it in third place. After the weekend where we had some problems with myself and not the ideal set-up with all those things and where we were yesterday, finishing third, I don’t think we could have asked much more.”

Raikkonen admitted his back was a serious concern.

“I didn’t feel it too much during the race but obviously afterwards it’s not ideal and yesterday it was pretty bad. I almost didn’t drive, so between that and finishing third I think we have to be happy – and hopefully we can sort those problems for the next race. It’s not the first time. For a long time there have been some issues with my back. I know that I have some work to do at the end of the year, so we have to see what we do.”

Fernando Alonso managed to turn seventh on the grid into second at the chequered flag after a vintage performance by the Spaniard in Singapore.

He jumped up to third at the start and then gambled by pitting under a safety car on lap 25 while Sebastian Vettel and Nico Rosberg up ahead chose to stay out, as did Mark Webber and Lewis Hamilton. He dropped to fifth but managed to keep his tyres in good shape and get to the flag. When the others pitted only Vettel was able to stay ahead, leaving Alonso in second.

“It was not easy, obviously, to finish the race with those tyres,” he said. “But we committed to that strategy when we pit under the safety car and we were controlling the pace all through the last stint thanks to the gap that we managed to build. The start again was very good and I was lucky to choose the right line. On Turn One there is always people going on the left, people going on the right in every circuit.

“We’ve managed so far to choose the right one. And then we were third which was already a good result for us. But when we didn’t stop Rosberg pitting in the safety car, we decided to pit and to try something different. We were too slow this weekend. We were not in a level that we should be. We try a little bit different things, and it paid off at the end with a fantastic second place. For us it tastes like a victory today.”

He admitted that the team didn’t know if the gamble would work.

“We didn’t know exactly how long the tyres would survive. We were maybe not expecting that long but… We are sixty points behind in the championship, if it works OK, if it doesn’t work maybe we don’t finish second, we finish fourth or fifth.

“There was a small chance that if Rosberg, Webber and Hamilton were not that slow after the safety car, maybe Sebastian didn’t get the 28 seconds necessary to exit in front of me but Nico, I think, had a problem with the front wing, Webber was without tyres and Hamilton pitted very late, the last.

“So when I had a free track and Seb pitted and exited in front of me already so we had a small chance to maybe lead the race but obviously very difficult to keep [with] Sebastian. Probably in the last part of the race with new tyres and we with a very slow pace. But we tried, nothing to lose and I think that will be the strategy in the last part of the championship. We are not as fast as they are in qualifying or in the race so we will try something different.”

Meanwhile Alonso admitted that the championship is getting ever more difficult.

“Well obviously we have to be realistic. A few races to go already, the gap is still increasing every weekend and now it’s sixty points. So, as I said, we need to be honest with ourselves and knowing that we need a lot of luck. We don’t need luck in Korea; we need luck in Korea, in Japan, in India, in Abu Dhabi… We need luck every weekend if we are one second off the pace. We need a lot of luck. On the other hand, we are a very uncomfortable opponent, I think, because if we get that luck, we will be there.”

Mark Webber has landed himself a 10-place grid penalty for Korea after flagging down Fernando Alonso after the end of the Korean GP.

Webber, who retired from the race on the last lap, was given a lift back to the pits by the Ferrari driver.

However the Aussie received a reprimand because “he went onto the track without the permission of the marshals.” Because he already has two reprimands he now earns an automatic 10-place penalty for the next race.

Alonso meanwhile also received a reprimand because he “drove the car in a manner which could be deemed potentially dangerous to other drivers or to any other person.”

While the reprimands seemed harsh at first given it was a nice example of camaraderie – and made for great TV – CCTV footage subsequently released to the media by the FIA showed that if anything both drivers were lucky to get away so lightly.

Webber can be seen sprinting from the end of the escape road to the track where he flags down Alonso, who stops and forces the closely following Kimi Raikkonen to swerve in avoidance. Other cars also had to take action when they found the Ferrari stationary on the racing line as Webber climbed aboard.

As an aside there was a major accident on the slowing down lap of today’s GP2 race when a lapped Alex Rossi slowed to turn into the paddock back gate and was hit hard by third place Fabio Leimer, who like the other podium finishers was under instructions to head on round to the pits for the post race ceremony…