Adam Cooper F1

Caterham has finally confirmed that it will continue with Renault into the turbo era.

Although there was never any question of the team taking any other route, given Caterham’s road car partnership with Renault, the deal has only now been formalised. It covers the 2014-2016 seasons.

The news leaves Lotus and Sauber as the only teams yet to officially confirm their 2014 deals with their current suppliers.

“This announcement is obviously very good news for our F1 team,” said team principal Cyril Abiteboul. “And is a reflection of the deep bonds that have been created between our two businesses since 2011, particularly with the road car project we launched in 2012 between Caterham and Alpine, which is now at an advanced stage in development.

“Given the age and status of our team we have also been pleased to see Renault Sport F1 adapting their operational practices to suit our size and optimizing our integration with an enhanced technical collaboration. We work together in an open and honest manner to help Caterham F1 Team achieve its short-term goal of establishing itself as an integral part of F1 and to help Renault achieve the deserved recognition of its technical edge.”

“Over the past three years we have seen Caterham mature, with impressive new facilities and a solid technical structure, said Jean-Michel Jalinier, President and Managing Director of Renault Sport F1. “The new technical regulations provide a big challenge, but with change comes opportunity and next year is a prime chance for the team to secure the next targets in its ongoing plans.

“From the very start our partnership has been comprehensive and it is therefore natural that we would want to see it pay dividends. We are very happy with the quality and depth of the teams we will supply and look forward to seeing the first generation of Energy F1-powered cars hit the track next year.”

A frustrated Lewis Hamilton blamed himself for qualifying only fifth in Singapore, four places behind Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg.

Hamilton, who was some 0.322s off the German, was clearly not happy after the session.

“I don’t feel great, it was a poor qualifying for me,” he said. “That’s two bad qualifying sessions I’ve had so I’m just going to try and improve for next time. At least I got to Q3. I just wasn’t fast enough, there’s nothing to put it down to, I just didn’t drive fast enough.

“I was pushing as fast as I could, but I just wasn’t fast enough. There was a lot of grip in the tyres, and it’s the way you utilise them the most I think is where people find time, and I didn’t utilise them as well as others.”

Regarding the race, he said: “I can try and get up onto the podium, that’s going to have to be the target, try and get some good points tomorrow, but I’ve still got people to beat.”

Asked if he was confident that there would be no tyre issues, he added: “No, we’ll see tomorrow. It’s a different day. We could go well, we could go bad, we’ll see.”

Sebastian Vettel sat out the final qualifying runs in Singapore and hung on to pole position after rivals failed to beat his time.

Nico Rosberg, Romain Grosjean and Mark Webber all came close, but in the end the gamble paid off. Unusually Vettel was confirmed as the polesitter for Sunday’s race while standing in front of a TV monitor after what was an impressive display of confidence.

“It’s a weird feeling,” he admitted. “You stand in the garage when there’s roughly two minutes to go in the session and you know that it’s too late. But then it’s much worse when you see the others at the final attempt and you know there’s nothing you can do. I was watching the sector times very closely with obviously Romain, Nico and Mark in particular. Mark started with a purple sector one, very close in sector two, then Nico had a purple sector two, then Romain had a purple sector two.

“Then fortunately my last sector was strong enough to just stay ahead. It was very close in the end with Nico. That’s a great feeling then, obviously, because it could go wrong but very happy obviously with the result. The car’s been phenomenal all weekend. Yesterday I think the gap was a bit of a surprise. Today’s been more what we expected – especially with Mercedes being very close behind.

“I knew that obviously we had a cushion which is why we decided not to run again, but the thing you don’t know is how much the track improves so I’m sure that there was a little bit of track ramping up plus the fact that if you run again you get a better feel for the tyres, for the track and you get a little bit more out of yourself, so we thought it was good enough and in the end it was good enough. But yeah, it was probably a bit closer. Both of them, Nico and Romain, had a very strong middle sector but fortunately my last sector was strong enough to keep them just behind.”

Vettel admitted that despite being on pole, his Sunday might not be so straightforward, given the challenges of Singapore.

“It’s one of the toughest races we face all year. I would say the toughest – physically and mentally – because it’s so long. One lap is so long, there’s so many corners, there’s hardly any room for mistakes, it’s very bumpy and we’re all sweating pretty much even though we only did a couple of laps in qualifying.

“So the heat obviously and the humidity plays a factor. It will be very tough. Surely pole is the best position to start from – very happy with that as it is tricky to pass on this track. But because it is such a long race I think there is plenty of opportunities for all of us. Usually we get a safety car at some stage in the race. Yeah, as I said, happy to start from pole, try to have a good start and then settle into a nice rhythm and see what we can do.”

Jenson Button and Sergio Perez have both said implied that they will soon be confirmed at McLaren for next season.

The team has always insisted that both men will stay on, although it has been in no hurry to formally take up their options.

“I’ve got a good feeling I’ll be here next year, that’s as much as I can say,” said Button. “I’m very happy that I’ll be in this team next year.”

Asked by this writer about the year after next, when Honda joins McLaren, he said: “Don’t know about that yet. I couldn’t comment anyway, but I have a good feeling about that as well. The big ‘H’ is very interesting for the future.”

Meanwhile Perez voiced similar sentiments about his deal being nearly complete.

“We’ve been having some discussions about the contract,” said the Mexican. “The contract is done but we are just finalising the final dots. Obviously I cannot give much detail about them, but everything is pretty much done.”