Adam Cooper F1

Christian Horner says that Red Bull has to put together the best possible package when it finally decides on a replacement for Mark Webber.

While he admires Daniel Ricciardo, Horner is clearly keen to have an established winner on board, while others in the camp are supportive of the Toro Rosso driver.

Horner says that the team is not under pressure to promote a Red Bull protégé, despite Toro Rosso’s obvious role as a training ground.

“I think Daniel considering the equipment at his disposal has done a very good job,” said Horner. “Which is why we were keen to have a look at him at Silverstone, and he acquitted himself very well there – he couldn’t have done any more to be honest.

“I think the situation that we’re in is that we want to run the strongest team. We’re a team that’s won the World Championship the last three years, and we want to make sure that we are in a position to compete and fight for the World Championship in future years.

“There has never been any pressure that we must take a junior driver. It’s a matter of fielding the best team at the end of the day. Of course the junior drivers are under consideration, but there’s not a pre-requisite that it has to be a junior driver for next year.

“You always want to put the strongest drivers in the cars that you possibly can. Mark leaves some big shoes to be filled.”

Asked about how an Alonso/Vettel combination would work, he said: “It would be interesting! I think at the end of the day we what we have to think about is what’s right for the team, and obviously the pairing that we put together next year has to be right for the team.

“Last week there was speculation about Kimi, this week it’s about Fernando. I think for us we want to make sure nothing waivers in our mind about putting the right team package together for next year with the two fastest drivers that we can, and that we work collectively well together and achieve the best results for the team.”

Ferrari has given Fernando Alonso an extraordinary public rebuke in the light of negative comments the Spaniard made after Sunday’s Hungarian GP.

The fact that Alonso’s management has had contact with Red Bull Racing has clearly created extra tension in the camp as the team struggles to keep its title challenge on course.

A story on the Ferrari website today about Luca di Montezemolo’s reaction to an uncompetitive race for the team in Hungary has exposed to all the world that the previous rock solid Alonso/Ferrari relationship is in danger of going off the rails.

The story noted: “Montezemolo is doing his utmost to ensure that the team has all the support and resources it needs, starting with the announcement that James Allison, formerly with Lotus, will join the Maranello team, starting work already on 1st September. However, there is a need to close ranks, without giving in to rash outbursts that, while understandable in the immediate aftermath of a bad result, are no use to anyone.

That was a reference to the latest comments from Fernando Alonso, which did not go down well with Montezemolo, nor with anyone in the team. So, when Montezemolo called the Spaniard this morning to wish him a happy birthday, he also tweaked his ear, reminding him that, “all the great champions who have driven for Ferrari have always been asked to put the interests of the team above their own. This is the moment to stay calm, avoid polemics and show humility and determination in making one’s own contribution, standing alongside the team and its people both at the track and outside it.”

It remains to be seen how Fernando reacts to the story…

Ferrari has confirmed that James Allison will start work as chassis technical director on September  1- which means that his first race will be the Italian GP.

Meanwhile Pat Fry has moved to the role of engineering director, with both men reporting to Stefano Domenicali.

Allison has worked for Ferrari before and his return to Italy has been expected ever since it was announced that he was to leave Lotus earlier this year.

Michelin’s interest in returning to F1 is genuine, sources close to the FIA have confirmed to this writer.

While it’s long been assumed that Pirelli will remain as sole supplier in 2014, and has made commercial arrangements with both teams and Bernie Ecclestone, the bottom line is that it has not yet signed a deal with the FIA.

Nor has the FIA yet issued an official tender for the supply contract, which it would normally be expected to do.

It’s believed that Michelin’s formal interest would trigger a tender, and that the FIA will go through the motions of asking all possible suppliers if they are interested before considering the offers from those who are.

It goes without saying that recent events have weakened Pirelli’s position with the FIA, and upset teams as well – some of whom may be keen to see a change. They are also still frustrated about having to pay for the annual supply.

It remains to be seen whether Michelin could really be ready in time for 2014 – and it’s highly unlikely that Pirelli would agree to do an interim deal for 2015 and then walk away.

The other key issue is that Bernie Ecclestone is close to Pirelli and is more than happy with the lucrative ongoing commercial deal that he has with the Italian company. Meanwhile it’s no secret that Jean Todt is close to Michelin.

There are some other key questions, not least the fact that Michelin always said it preferred competition and ultimately wants to go to low profile tyres, as used in other forms of top level sport. The FIA’s informal position on that is that current F1 tyres are unique and there is no point in switching just for the sake of it, when there are technical compromises involved. Wheels would also be heavier and potentially more lethal in accidents.

One possible outcome could of course be a return to tyre competition by 2015 or beyond, but the rules would have to be changed to alllow it. The upside is that two companies would be pumping money into the sport, but the complication would be controlling speeds and keeping a lid on testing costs.

Meanwhile Pirelli is pushing for a change of rear tyre sizes for 2014 as it continues to learn more from the teams about the new car/engine packages, in terms of the expected downforce levels and the loads put through the tyres.

In essence Pirelli wants a bigger contact patch, which could be achieved by a combination of diameter and width increases. The former however would involve significant design changes for the teams, and even at this stage it would delay their 2014 projects. An increased width – the figure 20mm has been discussed – is a little more realistic.

The problem is that the technical regulations have been defined already and the FIA is reluctant to agree to a change.

Stefano Domenicali admits that Ferrari has lost its race form just as it appears to have edged a little closer to the front in qualifying.

Hungary was a rare occasion when Fernando Alonso failed to improve on his grid position, the Spaniard starting and finishing fifth despite suffering no specific problem other than lack of speed.

“I don’t know,” said Domenicali when asked if the change of tyres had hurt Ferrari. “For sure we have seen that we have lost apparently the gap that we had in the first races during the race. The race pace we were clearly very strong, now in this condition at least today we have seen that we were not really where we wanted [to be], in both conditions, soft and medium. So we need to understand if this is the case, how to react, because this would be in terms of structure the tyres that will end the season.

“Of course a lot depends on the type of the compounds that will be chosen in the races that are still missing to arrive at the end of the season. So for sure this is something that we need to realise carefully. It seems for example Mercedes have solved the issue that they were suffering massively during the races in this condition, that’s for sure.”

Domenicali says he’s trying to keep the team motivated.

“It seems strange that I believe after the two bad races that we had from the performance point of view in Germany and Silverstone, we have improved the car, for qualifying for example. But we haven’t for the race. So we have already done a programme to be ready for Spa. Hopefully we will be able to manage it.

“There’s no reason to be going into depression or be negative, because this doesn’t help the people to work. I’m expecting a reaction from my technical group, and this is what I want to see.”

Christian Horner says that the Sebastian Vettel could have challenged Lewis Hamilton in Hungary had he not got caught behind Jenson Button after the first stops.

While Lewis managed to get in front of the McLaren and run his own pace, Vettel was not able to, and made his situation worse when he damaged his front wing. Nevertheless he emerged from the day with a third place and more useful points.

“It was a great race, I think certainly for the fans,” said Horner. “It was a tough race for us in all honesty, because with the damage that Sebastian sustained in trying to go past Jenson after the first stop that obviously compromised his race quite badly. Actually to have salvaged a podium out of it was a very, very strong result.

“Mark’s recovery was excellent, he had a good start, a good first stint, and that really put him back into the race, effectively running the strategy in reverse, with the soft tyre at the end there. To have come away with 27 points and extended our position in both championships going into the summer break after the difficulties we’ve had this weekend is a good result.”

Horner was happy to admit that Hamilton had done a good job to win the race.

“I think Lewis has always been extremely strong round here. If I’m not mistaken that was about his fourth victory here, which is a tremendous score rate. I think the damage was done effectively yesterday in qualifying. I think we could have given Lewis a harder time today if we had cleared Jenson cleanly.

“We didn’t, and he thoroughly deserved the win, was able to control the pace. Once we were stuck behind Jenson it freed him up and in many respects took quite a bit of pressure off. That was a shame for us, good for him, but nonetheless I’m very pleased that we managed to get plenty of points out of today.

“I think when you run in the dirty air it works the tyres a lot harder, and I think the benefit of running in clean air is not to be underestimated. That combined with some front wing damage definitely hurt the balance that Sebastian had today. It was frustrating, because I thought that we could really take the fight to the Mercedes.

“But after that first stop, getting tucked up behind Jenson and then sustaining some damage, effectively released Lewis, and put us back into the realms of fighting with a two-stopping Kimi. As I say, despite the damage Sebastian still managed to have very decent pace, and we could see from the pace that Mark had in clean air that the car was strong today. I think that unfortunately what happened after the stop compromised the race.”

Regarding the loss caused by the wing damage, he said: “It’s difficult to say in all honesty until we look at the analysis afterwards, but up to 0.5 of a second.”

While Bernie Ecclestone continues to struggle fine tune the details of next year’s F1 calendar the one bit of information the teams have been given is that the season will start on March 16 in Australia.

There had been moves to make Bahrain the first race, but Ecclestone has decided to revert to a more traditional schedule.

Ecclestone admitted in Hungary that there are doubts over India and Korea, and confirmed to this writer that we shouldn’t assume that Canada and New Jersey have to be back-to-back – meaning that June 8 and June 22 could work, with June 15 reserved by the FIA for Le Mans.

Meanwhile plans are well advanced on next year’s test programme, which as per the rules will consist of three four-day sessions. The first will be in Jerez at the end of January and will probably be followed – after a gap – by two visits to the Dubai Autodrome.

Jerez will thus be the likely launch venue for most of the new cars. However, some smaller teams may opt to miss it and spend the extra time on car development – knowing that their partners will be busy putting miles on the new powertrains and gearboxes.

Pirelli has asked the teams to go to Paul Ricard on the way back from Jerez for some wet weather testing. The response from the teams was that it might be a better idea to use the last couple of hours of one of the Jerez days for that purpose, rather than add the expense of dedicated test.

Intriguingly FOM intends to take charge of testing for the first time, which means it will organise freight for Dubai and so on.

In a meeting in Hungary FOM’s man apparently said that it was imperative that the testing plan was organised soon as he had discovered that Jerez was already heavily booked for the end of January. The teams had to point out that they had done the booking…