Adam Cooper F1

Victoria state officials say they want a better deal from Bernie Ecclestone once the current contract for the Australian GP expires after the 2015 race.

The not unexpected news comes hot on the heels of Singapore holding out for more favourable arrangements with Bernie before the new 2013-17 deal was finally announced last weekend.

Although the race is seemingly secure for the next three seasons it emphasises once again that even events with substantial public funding are becoming difficult to justify in the current economy.

Victoria tourism minister Louise Asher confirmed that the state government subsidised the 2012 Grand Prix by AUS$56.6m, or around £36.2m. That figure rose from $50.0m the previous year due to escalation fees built into the contract, and it will continue to rise over the next three years.

The Liberal/National coalition government is keen to point out that the deal now in force – signed by the previous Labor administration in 2008 – was too expensive.

“This is a very, very expensive race and I personally am not happy with this level of subsidy,” Channel Nine reported Asher as saying. “The Brumby Labor government signed off on a contract that is too expensive for the taxpayer in my opinion.”

However she said that the race was good for the state: “What the Baillieu government is trying to do is manage a major event which has real benefits for Melbourne and regional Victoria within the parameters of the contract we inherited.”

She added that a 2011 economic impact statement estimated that the Grand Prix generated AUS$32-39m plus another AUS$35m in media exposure.

State Premier Ted Baillieu said: “We are strongly of a view that the Grand Prix has been good for Melbourne, good for Victoria. Obviously the Grand Prix is one of our key major events in Victoria and our major event strategy has served Melbourne and served Victoria very well.”

COTA says that the FIA’s Charlie Whiting has declared the venue race ready after inspecting it on Tuesday.

Whiting travelled straight to Austin from the Singapore GP to conduct the 60-day inspection.

“Everything that I’ve seen so far has been absolutely first class, and the progress that’s been made since the last time that I was here is amazing,” Whiting was quoted as saying in a COTA statement.

“The guys have done an awesome job – it really is quite fantastic! It’s built to the highest quality, exactly as we expected, and I’ve got absolutely no complaints whatsoever.

“There are three or four corners that are very likely to see overtaking. If you look at Turn 1, you’ll see that the turns have been designed so that they’re extremely wide and the apex is very short. It’s a very modern approach to slow corners where we hope overtaking will take place.  So I’m very confident it will work well.

“Turn 1 is awesome!  It’s the only word I can think of to describe it, and I think drivers and teams coming here for the first time will say the same thing.”

Ferrari boss Stefano Domenicali says that reliability will be the key to Fernando Alonso winning the World Championship – but stresses that the Italian team also needs to keep up in the development race.

In contrast to main rivals Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton, Alonso has had no mechanical retirements this year, although his Monza weekend was affected by problems in practice and qualifying.

Domenicali made it clear that Ferrari was relieved to come away from Singapore with a third place.

“I think that considering the level of performance that we have seen in comparison to the others we have to be pleased with the result we have achieved today,” he said after Sunday’s race.

“We saw that in this kind of track the performance of Red Bull and McLaren was stronger than ours, no doubt. At the end of the day we know that the points are the things that count. If you have a reliability issue you know that at this stage of the season it’s very heavy, so we need to make sure that first of all we are clear on that point, because up to the moment you don’t have any issues on that, then you have to concentrate on the performance side. And do not forget we are also in a situation where the engines will start to be short for everyone, mileage will be important.

“So there is something on that side of the cake which will be very, very crucial. So reliability for me is the fundamental aspect up to the end of the season. We know that we have suffered problems on our side in Monza, we could also have had some other problems today, you never know, so you have to wait and see. So this is a priority.”

In addition Domenicali stressed that it was important that car development is conducted efficiently, with any mods that make it to the car working properly.

“From now onwards we have six races to go, with different characteristics of the track. For sure we need to improve the car in certain conditions, so we need to put more downforce, basically, on the car. The others seem to have found once again the right path to improve the car.

“We need to be rational and calm and make sure when we are at home working flat out to bring developments to the car we take the right choice, and we improve the car.

“Sometimes when you push so hard with development you run the risk of putting stuff that will not improve or can also have the opposite effect of getting worse the situation, For me this is the fundamental point that we have to make sure that this is not happening in the next coming weeks.

“For sure we cannot rely on the problems of the others. If they have [them], it’s part of the game, as we had. But for sure we need to do a step in terms of our pure performance, and as I said, not in all conditions, because in Monza from a performance point of view we were good, but we suffered a reliability issue. It’s fundamental that we improve in the next couple of races if we want to keep the position we have now up to the end. Otherwise, it will be difficult.”

Christian Horner is hoping that Renault will have its upgraded alternator ready to race as soon as the Japanese GP.

Sebastian Vettel has had two failures this year, one while leading in Valencia, and another in Monza. Red Bull had no issues in the Singapore heat, but Horner admitted that he was nervous.

“Every time I saw a Renault powered car stop, the first question was why?,” he said. “Maldonado retired, but I think that was hydraulics, then we saw an issue with a Caterham, but that was because I think they forgot to put a wheel on.

“The alternators on both [our] cars behaved impeccably at what is arguably the hardest race of the year on the car, on the engine, on the drivers, and in the pit wall.”

Regarding the work being done by Renault, he said: “I think they’ve got some more dyno testing to run on it. I think they’ve understood what the problem is from the D’Ambrosio [Monza] failure, because there was something left. That’s given some tell-tale signs for them and their supplier to work on to rectify.”

McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh has praised Lewis Hamilton for his dignified response to retiring from the lead in Singapore.

Hamilton took a philosophical approach when he met the media after the race.

“I’ve got to say Lewis has been incredibly strong,” said Whitmarsh. “I’ve spoken to Lewis first hand, and I’ve got to say he’s in a very focussed frame of mind. He came round, thanked everyone in the team for all their efforts this weekend, and it was a much stronger minded Lewis than we’ve seen before.

“He’s very focussed and he knows there’s 150 points still available and he knows that we are going to work hard to see if we can collect all of those or as many of them as we can.

“He was looking after his tyres and driving well, and obviously a gearbox failure was disappointing for him and for the team. I think he’s done a great job all weekend and it’s a shame that the race didn’t work out for him.”

When asked by this writer if he was convinced that Hamilton would have beaten Sebastian Vettel come what may Whitmarsh was adamant.

“Without the gearbox problem, if nothing else had happened, I think yes, it was fairly evident that he was driving within himself, looking after his tyres. You could see from how he was driving that he was taking it very easily.”

He also praised Jenson Button for his strong race: “Jenson was very unlucky because he ran a great first stint, conserving his tyres, he had newer tyres than other people in the second stint, and of course the safety car negated that. He was looking after his tyres and was very much under control.”

Fernando Alonso kept himself firmly in the lead of the World Championship with a typically canny drive in Singapore, bringing his Ferrari home in third to score some more priceless points.

Alonso lost 10 points to winner Sebastian Vettel, who he now leads by 194 points to 165, but he gained ground on fellow title rivals Raikkonen, Hamilton and Webber.

“I think we were not very competitive this weekend,” said Alonso. “So we struggled a little with the pace of the car. Yesterday we managed to put a good lap in Q3, and that was a little bit the best part of the weekend. Because if you start at the rear I think you are having problems all the race, so starting in fifth, it was OK.

“Then the start was so-so. We lost position with Di Resta and then we recovered in first and second corner, and then we fought a little bit with Maldonado. So I think the safety car arrived in the worst moment for us, because we have stopped and changed the tyres five laps before the safety car, so we didn’t have the pitstop for free like the others did. So, it was, I think with all these difficulties, if we put altogether, arriving third in our difficult weekend is for sure a fantastic result in terms of points.”

Alonso agreed that overall he was happy with the outcome.

“Yes, again I think it’s a very positive weekend. Of the four or five contenders, we lost points with one, with the other three we increased our advantage, so obviously, as I said, when we are not quick enough to win more points against three of our opponents, I think it’s positive.”

Regarding the forthcoming races, he said: “I think all this year we’ve been up and down for all the teams and it’s the same for us. For sure, we need to improve the performance we saw here. We struggled all weekend. Positions five and 13 for our cars is not what we were hoping for so we need to be in a better position in Suzuka. Maybe Silverstone is also quite similar to Suzuka and we were quite OK there, so hopefully we can repeat that kind of performance.”

Sebastian Vettel has moved into second place in the World Championship after the Red Bull driver logged only his second win of 2012 in Singapore.

The German is now 29 points behind leader Alonso, which is actually closer than he was with six races to go in 2010, when he eventually stole the title from the Ferrari driver at the final round.

He took the lead after Lewis Hamilton retired, and survived a stewards’ enquiry into an incident with Jenson Button behind the safety car, which did not lead to a penalty.

“It just underlines that we obviously struggled a bit yesterday, especially in the last section of qualifying,” said Vettel. “Up to then I think it was fine, and the pace was there. The confirmation was straight away there in the Grand Prix when we found ourselves behind Lewis, and were able to push him quite hard.

“I think he was obviously trying to save his tyres, we were trying to save the tyres. It’s a bit of a different race, it’s very tactical, but I think the pace was there in the race throughout. Also, towards the end versus Jenson I think we could have an answer every time he was going quick and it was a good finish of the Grand Prix.

“Obviously it’s a long race, a lot of laps – we did the full two hours again – but it’s fun in a way, you are excited, a bit nervous before the race starts, knowing there is a little bit of a marathon coming, but I think that’s what makes this race so special: not just racing at night, it’s also the circuit with a lot of corners, a lot of bumps, making it extremely difficult. It’s a great challenge for us.”

Vettel was delighted with the outcome for his title challenge.

“It looks better than before. Fernando finished third. I am not a genius but I think it’s looking 10 points better than it was before. There’s a lot of races left and it’s a bit difficult to predict what’s going to happen. We have to make sure that we finish the races first of all.

“I think the pace is there, even if we are not quick enough to win then it is good enough to collect a lot of points. And we have to make sure we do that. It’s a tough championship so far but we’re still in it. We’re still looking forward to the next couple of races, and obviously the target at the moment is to beat Fernando.

“I think we have to improve. I think there is still a little bit that we need to gain. I think that at the moment McLaren is the fastest car and the Ferrari is a little bit of an all-rounder. It’s always quick and always there so we need to make sure that we see the chequered flag.  Reliability will be important but it’s a fun track so I’m looking forward to it. The Sauber will be quick, unlike this weekend, and we will go from there.”

Mark Webber has lost his 10th place in the Singapore GP for gaining an advantage by going off track while battling with Kamui Kobayashi.

The stewards said: “Notwithstanding that the distance by which car 2 left the circuit was minimal, advantage was gained hence a breach did in fact occur.”

The Aussie was given the post race equivalent of a drive through penalty, which was 20s added to his race time. In fact it only drops him one place, to 11th.

Appropriately the Sauber team gained from the action, with the final point now going to Kobayashi’s team mate, Sergio Perez.

Michael Schumacher has been given another 10-place grid penalty for the Japanese GP, following his collision with Jean-Eric Vergne in Singapore.

Earlier this year an incident at Barcelona led to a penalty in Monaco, where the Mercedes driver was fastest in qualifying.

Schumacher admitted he had made a mistake, and the stewards took into account the fact that it was the second similar offence this season.

The penalty will cost the former champion dearly at Suzuka, one of his favourite tracks.

Fernando Alonso admits he’s surprised to have ended up as low as fifth on the grid in Singapore, and especially with the time gap to pole man Lewis Hamilton.

Alonso  had looked more competitive yesterday than when it mattered in qualifying today.

“We were not happy with the performance of the car this weekend,” said the Ferrari driver. “We were expecting much more, fighting closely with the top teams. But we found ourselves too slow already from yesterday, and today 1.5s from pole position, so this is probably a bad surprise this weekend.

“But nothing we can do now other than concentrate on the race and score as many points as possible tomorrow. Anyway the average position for me this year in qualifying is sixth. I’m fifth so more or less it’s the same, or even better. So let’s say it has been a good Saturday so far in a way.

“We need to maximise points tomorrow, finish the race, which is not that easy here. It’s very demanding for the mechanical side, suspension, temperatures, brakes, gearbox, everything will be struggling tomorrow, apart from concentration from a driver point of view. If someone wins the race who is much faster than us, we congratulate them, and we think for the next one.”

Alonso remains hopeful that he can consolidate his championship lead on Sunday.

“I think we cannot win with the pace we have now, but we are fighting for a World Championship. Our main opponents, we have two in front, two behind, Kimi and Webber behind and Vettel and Hamilton in front. We see if we can finish in front of three of them at least tomorrow.”