Adam Cooper F1

Michael Schumacher failed to get a representative lap in Q3 in Montreal after failing to beat the chequered flag at the end of the session.

Schumacher did a lap to warm up his tyres before embarking on what was supposed to be his flier, but failed by less than a second to get round in time.

He was thus left stranded in ninth on the grid, having been fourth in Q1 and fifth in Q2.

“Apparently we crossed the line with the red lights,” said Schumacher. “When I crossed the line I physically saw the green lights, so I don’t know. We planned to do to laps, to warm up the tyres and then go for it, so I did. Then the team told me to come in.

“I got certainly the maximum out of the car that we had available, that was clear in Q1 and Q2, and I would have done that in Q3 on that final lap. So it’s very disappointing. Fourth or fifth is where we should have been.”

Ross Brawn admitted: “We didn’t keep him well enough informed of where he was, and we just let it slip a little bit too much.”

Sebastian Vettel has given himself the best possible chance of securing Red Bull’s first Canadian GP victory by taking pole for Sunday’s race.

It looked like being a close fight, but in the end he succeeded by a handy margin at the one track that has thus far failed to reward the team with a victory.

“I think we’ve had a fantastic weekend so far to be honest,” said Vettel. “Yesterday was very smooth, we didn’t have any problems with the car. I think we have learned a couple of lessons, especially in the last two races where arguably we were quick on Sunday in the race but we didn’t get [the best] out of the car on Saturday in qualifying.

“So, we learned quite a bit and, as I said, it was important to have a clean run, yesterday was a good day and this morning. We trusted the car that we had, we were able to go with the circuit and tried to read the conditions, so I was very happy in qualifying – throughout qualifying really, Q1, Q2 and Q3 – so I was able to always get a little bit quicker.

“It looked very tight in the beginning to be honest. I knew it would be within a tenth, but in the end it seemed that we could make a bit more of a difference, which obviously is good. But still the advantage we have over Lewis is eight metres on the grid. Looking forward to the race, I think we have a great car. This time we got it right in qualifying and I’m looking forward to the race tomorrow. It should be an interesting one, I guess.”

Vettel was keen to downplay the relevance of the FIA ban on the RBR floor holes, which does not appear to have affected the form of the RB8.

“I think it’s not just a hole in the floor that makes all the difference. Obviously reading the papers you get that impression. It was a bit of a shame that it went one way and then the other, being declared illegal, then legal and then illegal, but in the end we never feared a big impact on the performance of the car.
“I think generally, the car works as a whole – not the hole in the floor but a combination of all the parts together! We were not afraid that it would have a big impact on performance.”

Nico Rosberg bounced back from a difficult morning session to secure fifth on the grid in Canada.

The German stopped on his first lap out of the pits in FP3 after a fuel system problem, and thus didn’t do any mileage at all in the crucial final session while his rivals were readying their cars for qualifying.

“It definitely makes it difficult to miss out a whole session when everyone else is doing qualy practice and things like that,” said Rosberg. “So I really had to build it up in qualifying. In the end I’m quite pleased, fifth place, that was what our car was giving today. Maybe if everything was perfect I could have had fourth, beating Mark, but we didn’t quite manage that.

“But still it’s a good position to start tomorrow, not quite as strong as in Monaco in qualifying it seems, but maybe race pace wise we can beat one or two of the cars in front, and a podium has to be the goal.”

Rosberg is hopeful that Mercedes has got its set-up right: “Strategy is going to be interesting, tyre degradation is going to be crucial, but I think we’re well set up to have a good car in the race tomorrow. It’s quite difficult with the tyres, there’s a lot of sliding around because you have low downforce on the car. And it’s difficult to find the right balance.”

Jenson Button says he made a mistake in not sitting out Q3 in Montreal, and instead putting unnecessary miles on the tyres he’ll start the race with.

Having run out of supersofts Button decided to commit to soft tyres for the start. However he could not better 10th place on them, and thus would have been better off had he sat in the garage, allowing him to start on a new set tomorrow.

“We wanted to start the race on the prime tyre, and looking at it now we shouldn’t have bothered running it,” said Button. “It was going to be tricky to beat anyone on the prime tyre, and we had no new options left. We were going to be P10 on an [old] option tyre, so we thought we’d give it a go on a prime and start the race on a prime.

“Maybe we shouldn’t have put five laps on it. But you get in the car and you want to go out and see what you can do with the tyre, and that’s exactly what we did.”

Button is still hopeful that conditions will work in his favour tomorrow.

“I think today wasn’t great. Maybe as I said we shouldn’t have put laps on the prime tyre, because now we have five laps on the tyre starting the race, and the guys behind me have brand new tyres. It’s not the best way to start tomorrow, but it’s going to be a hot race, and I think it’s probably going to be the hottest race we’ve had this year. It will hopefully throw up a few surprises for everyone, and we can still have a good afternoon.”

Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa finished Friday in second and third places as Ferrari got its Montreal weekend off to a flying start.

Alonso was only 0.054s off the pace setting McLaren of Lewis Hamilton, and technical director Pat Fry agreed that it had been an encouraging first day for the Maranello team.

“We had a lot of work to get through today and we were worried the rain might come, which could certainly have made life complicated,” said Fry.

“Fortunately, the expected storm hit immediately after the end of the second practice session, so that we were able to get through everything we had set ourselves to do.”

Ferrari’s main job today was to evaluate two different exhaust specifications.

“We brought two different exhaust configurations here – one was the one used in the last two races, the other represents our latest interpretation of the concept that was part of the car when it made its debut in Jerez. From what we could see today, the latter configuration seems to be positive in terms of performance even if, obviously, we need to analyse the data very carefully to make the right choices for the race.

“This track requires a rather different downforce level to those we have visited so far, so we also worked a lot on this front and, in this case also, we need to study the data we have acquired before making a judgement one way or the other.”

Fry said the team doesn’t yet have much information about the supersoft.

“We did not manage to do that many laps and, also linked to this aspect is the unknown factor relating to temperature. In fact, the weather forecast for Sunday suggests an increase in track temperature of around ten degrees, which could completely change the situation compared to what we have seen today. Therefore there is a lot of work to do over the rest of the weekend, but at least we have got off on the right foot.”

Jenson Button remains optimistic about his prospects in the Canadian GP despite a gearbox problem restricting his mileage on Friday.

In the end he managed only 12 laps at the start of FP1 and 14 at the end of FP2, while team mate Lewis Hamilton logged 73 in total over the course of the day.

“There was an oil leak which was a problem for the clutch, so we had to change the rear end of the car,” Button explained. “We put it back on. started it up, and then realised that there was a gearbox problem as well. We had to strip it all off again, and put the spare gearbox back on with a different rear suspension.

“Because we wanted to get out there and do some laps we didn’t do any set-up work, we didn’t see if the car was straight or anything. It didn’t feel quite right, but it was good to get out, so a massive thanks to the boys. The guys had to put the gearbox on twice during the session, working flat out to get us out, but we did get some laps, so it was good.

“It would be nice to do some longer runs – to do some runs, because we didn’t actually do some set-up work – we were just out there to get some braking points, and get a feel for the circuit. Tomorrow is another day, and we’re still confident and positive that we can have a good weekend.”

Christian Horner has played down the effect of the FIA ruling that has the prevented RBR from running holes in the floor ahead of the rear wheels.

He’s also keen to refute suggestions that the rule clarification means that the cars were running illegally, as in effect the rules have actually changed since Monaco.

“Mark won Monaco fair and square first of all,” said Horner. “The car complied with the rules, it complied with scrutineering. “The teams had a right to protest if they felt that it contravened in any way, and no team chose to do that.

“Since then there’s obviously been a bit of debate as to what’s a hole and what’s a boundary surface and so on, and a clarification – and it’s the right way to have dealt with the issue – has [been made] since Monte Carlo.

“In terms of the effect it will have on car performance for us, firstly we didn’t plan to run it here anyway, and it’s negligible. Plus it doesn’t only affect Red Bull Racing, there are a couple of other cars that were running similar concepts.”

Horner said that the team didn’t think it was risking any penalty when it ran with the holes in Monaco, despite negative rumblings in the paddock.

“We felt it was completely legal, and the technical delegate agreed with that opinion prior to the event. It’s like a lot of areas on probably a lot of cars. The regulations are open to interpretation.

“Our interpretation we discussed with the FIA, and the FIA were happy with it, and they sought to further clarify the position, which has resulted in effectively that configuration not being permissible moving forward – in the opinion of the technical delegate.”

Lewis Hamilton says he is in no hurry to sort out his contractual situation for next year, and insists that he is focussing on winning this year’s title.

Hamilton is out of contract at the end of 2012 and after a few problems in the McLaren camp inevitably his name has been linked with other teams.

“I haven’t even discussed it,” said Hamilton in Montreal. “I think it’s just because I underestimated how difficult the season was going to be, I underestimated about how busy I’d be, and I also realise how unimportant it is at the moment. The championship’s more important than what I plan to do with my next contract.

“My future at the moment is not important. I might not even see next year! So, you know, what’s the point? I have to make sure I maximise and capitalise on this year.”

Asked whether he might even wait until the end of the season, he said: “Possibly.”

Pressed on whether he had other options, he added: “I’m not looking at anyone else, as I said I’m just trying to focus in this season, just trying to focus on winning. I have other people to worry about those things. When the time comes they sit down and say, ‘What do you want to do?’ And I can give them an answer. But I don’t have to do it at the moment.

“I think I could sit down if I wanted to, but I’ve got a job, and I am in no rush, I really am in no rush at all, so there’s no need to do it.”

Dany Bahar has been sacked by Group Lotus

Dany Bahar has been sacked as CEO of Group Lotus, a couple of weeks after he was put on suspension.

A statement from the company said: “The decision was made by the board of Group Lotus plc following the results of an investigation into a complaint made against him by the company’s penultimate holding company, DRB-HICOM Berhad.”

Aslam Farikullah has become the company’s chief operating officer with immediate effect.

Bahar had instigated a number of motor racing programmes at Lotus, including the sponsorship of the F1 team that shares the name, which was terminated for this year, plus the disastrous Indycar involvement.

Bahar came to Lotus after a rollercoaster career that saw him have involvements with Sauber, Red Bull and Ferrari. He did not always part company on good terms with those organisations.

He filled the Lotus hierarchy with a number of his old Ferrari contacts, and it will be interesting to see what now happens to them.

Lotus posted another significant loss last season

Lotus F1 Team Ltd made a loss of £20.8m in 2011 according to the newly released financial accounts – but the team was actually better off than in the previous season, when it lost £34.2m after tax.

The improved situation was due to a significant increase in turnover, up from £82.1m to £115.6m. The team says that was due in large part to the now cancelled sponsorship from Group Lotus, along with new income from Russia and Brazil, related to 2011 drivers Vitaly Petrov and Bruno Senna.

However, operating expenses also rose from £122.1m to £134.3m. The team says this was attributed to “several areas of the business including acquisition fees and commercial functions, tyre supply agreement, salary increases, and race related costs.”

The accounts also reveal that the team had net debt of £37.1m as of December 31 2011, and that the average number of employees fell from 514 to 500 in 2010-11.