Adam Cooper F1

A frustrated Fernando Alonso is hoping that he can still score some decent points in Australia, despite starting from a disappointing 12^th place.

Alonso didn’t make it out of Q2 after spinning into the gravel trap at the first corner, while his team mate Felipe Massa starts down in 16^th. The situation appears to be even worse than the team anticipated.

“I think I touched the grass,” he admitted. “I didn’t realise when I was driving, but looking at the TV, the left tyres were on the grass, so I spun putting the tyres there, and qualifying unfortunately in the gravel. I don’t know what would be the position without the incident.

“Maybe it was possible to go in Q3, maybe not, because the times were very close. If you go in Q3 you have no new tyres for tomorrow, so maybe at the end of the day it’s a good compromise to be P12 with new tyres.

Regarding the race, he said: “I think points will be the first priority, and then second priority, top five.”

Alonso made it clear that he was not very happy with the team’s current situation.

“We are obviously not quick enough, we are not competitive to fight for the top places at the moment, so it’s something that maybe we knew or we expected after winter testing. We have some ideas, and maybe today we confirmed we are not competitive.

“We still have a lot of work to do, we have to be more organised than ever, I’m sure we worked 24 hours a day before this race, now we need to work 25, and it’s the only way to improve the car and win races soon.

“This is the target. The target maybe was to start the championship with a competitive car, able to win races, that was the message all winter and all the second part of last year. We didn’t arrive to that target, to arrive in Australia with a winning car. We need to arrive as soon as possible with a winning car in the next couple of Grands Prix.”

A website that has been known to be close to Bernie Ecclestone reported this week that we could expect a big announcement soon, and a close aide of the F1 boss confirmed to me with a smile in Australia that news was indeed on its way – and that it involved the structure of the sport and would shake a few people up.

A few team insiders speculated that it might involved Ferrari and Red Bull signing up to a new Concorde Agreement, and Sky News has reported something along similar lines tonight with the suggestion that those teams will have a stake in the ownership of the sport via the new 2013-2020 deal.

This would be linked to a public offering of a sale of part of CVC’s stake in F1, which Sky says will be placed by Goldman Sachs and which values the sport at “well over £10bn.” Another recent report suggested that any available shares will be those currently owned by Lehman Brothers, which has a 15.3% stake.

Sky reports that Ferrari as usual has a special position as the oldest team in the sport, and there’s extra cash for the first team to have won consecutive constructors’ titles since 2008, the team in question being Red Bull.

There is also mention of single car customer teams for new entrants.

A Ferrari/RBR deal is certainly logical, and if true the next question has to be what deal did or will those teams get as the first signatories, and what is available to everyone else – the FOTA members, essentially. We await developments with interest…

Note: Intriguingly the Sky News story, which was a blog by business editor Mark Kleinman, has seemingly now disappeared from the website after being up for only a few hours on Saturday evening UK time. That is perhaps not surprising given that it contained what appeared to be extracts from legal documents that one might assume were not supposed to be in the public domain…

Nico Rosberg slipped to seventh on the grid in Australia after failing to get a good final lap in, but his overall pace throughout the session has given the German cause for optimism.

He also believes that he has a good package for Sunday’s race.

“I’m feeling good because the team has progressed well and gone in the right direction, which is great,” said Rosberg. On the other hand my qualifying wasn’t ideal, I got it a bit wrong on the last lap unfortunately, so seventh place. Anyway, in general an also for the race we have a much better car this year, so I can still work my way up tomorrow.

“There are so many things that are new this year, I was a bit in a corner in qualifying in terms of the set-up, where there were a few things that I wasn’t quite so happy about. It’s just a matter of learning with my engineers to improve things. Still as I say on high fuel things were looking good for this weekend.”

Rosberg said that the potential of the package was encouraging.

“I feel that there’s still some way to go to get the most out of it. Maybe the others are in the same situation, but definitely I can say that we have some way to go. All this together is definitely looking much better. As we’ve been saying all the time it’s really important that we progress towards the front, and we’re doing that for sure. So that’s great.

“Also I think in terms of race pace and high fuel, last year that was a bit of a weakness, that we generally a bit stronger in qualifying, and not so strong in the race, and that’s also something that we’ve improve for this year.”

Felipe Massa says a simple lack of grip was the cause of his struggles in qualifying in Australia, something that came as a surprise after testing suggested that the car was at least potentially good over one lap.

The Brazilian only made it out of Q1 in 17^th because Kimi Raikkonen didn’t get his final lap in, and would have been 17^th and last in Q2 had Sergio Perez not had a gearbox failure, which gifted him one place.

“The weekend is a little bit more difficult that what we expected,” said Massa. “We expected to be a little bit more competitive than what we are. So I’m sure the track doesn’t help 100% our car, but anyway I expected to be better than what we are. I was fighting all the time with the balance, to have the balance, to have the grip. I was struggling massively without the grip in the car. That was really the main issue I had today.

“So for sure whenever I improve the balance I find a lot of time, because fighting every corner, easy to pass a little bit the limit, because you lose the rear, the traction is difficult. For sure the track is not helping that.

“Now we need to concentrate for tomorrow, to make a better job in the race than in the qualifying, and then concentrate as well to improve the car in the quickest way we can.”

Asked by this writer if he was disappointed to have such a bad opening to the season when he needed a flying start, he said: “I’m not disappointed, just because I was fighting to find the balance of the car all the time, it was very difficult, I’m disappointed because of that. I’m sure if I had a normal car with the grip there it would have been no problem.”

The FIA has confirmed that neither Pedro de la Rosa nor Narain Karthikeyan will be allowed to start in Australia under the 107% rule, despite the HRT team requesting dispensation for “exceptional circumstances.”

After running very few laps in practice both drivers managed to record respectable times – de la Rosa was just over 1.2s outside the margin – but that wasn’t deemed to be good enough.

Team boss Luis Perez Sala said: “It’s obvious that we still have a lot of work ahead to be where we should be and even more to improve on that potential, but today was the first time we were able to complete both sessions with both cars and that is positive.

“Although today wasn’t the result we desired, we’ve fixed some of yesterday’s issues and were able to spot out the weakest points. Now we can work on them and find a solution. These solutions aren’t immediate but with every day and every session we’re in better conditions. Time is precious and next week in Malaysia we’ll have another four sessions to prepare for the next race”.

Jenson Button was encouraged with McLaren’s performance in Melbourne after topping the first session today, while also acknowledging that the true picture has yet to fully emerge.

Thanks to the short dry window in FP2 Jenson’s time actually stood as the quickest of the day. He was only 15^th in the second session as he did not go for an out and out time at the end.

“This morning we were able to do some set-up work,” said Jenson, “and this afternoon we were just getting a little idea of the car and how it reacts to putting wet tyres on and inters, and at the end just doing a slightly longer run.

“There’s a lot of useful information, but obviously you’d like a lot more. It’s the same for all of us, but hopefully we’ll be able to find a better balance than everyone else.

“The car does feel different here to the last test, it’s a very different type of circuit, a different layout, and the average speed of the corners is much lower.

“The car for me is working well here, but there’s still some areas where we think we have to improve the car, as always on a Friday afternoon. And yeah for sure the weather hasn’t helped. We go into tomorrow quite happy, and a lot of discussions tonight to decide which direction we go in terms of strategy with the tyres, and also about the set-up of the car.”

Jenson conceded that despite the obvious limitations that everyone faced, it was stil good to be top: “We all say it’s only P1, it’s only P2, but it is a nice way to start the season, you’d rather be first than last. A positive day, I think.

“I’m reasonably happy with the car here actually, it feels nice. There are still areas to improve, but a relatively good Friday considering the limited running. We have a good understanding of the car, which is key, and lots to build on for tomorrow.”

Michael Schumacher started the 2012 season in the best possible way by topping the times in FP2 – having been beaten only by the McLarens in the first session.

Although there was only a brief dry window at the end of the slower FP2 session and drivers were running different programmes, there were nevertheless signs that Mercedes is in the hunt.

“Today was a nice start into a hopefully exciting season, and certainly two promising sessions for us. However, I would not go so far as to speak about being confident, as the weather conditions were too mixed to gain a clear picture.

“We know what Friday sessions are for and don’t know what fuel loads others were running. On the other hand, it is good to see that we were competitive in different circumstances today and that the car provides good handling – I just feel it.”

Meanwhile team principal Ross Brawn was equally cautious.

“It’s obviously been a patchy day with the weather conditions, however we have achieved a reasonable amount of work on varying fuel levels,” said Brawn. “Whilst the overall picture is still not clear, Michael and Nico seem quite happy with the cars at the end of today’s two practice sessions.

“Tomorrow should see a dry morning, and we will start to get a better perspective. Everything ran smoothly today which is a tribute to the team, and everyone at our factories in Brackley and Brixworth has done a very good job to prepare for this first race. So far at least, it’s going well.”

Sebastian Vettel admits he had a messy first day of the season in Australia, although he was happier with the car by the end of the second session.

While everyone had to adjust their programmes to deal with the rain that affected both sessions, Vettel conceded that RBR was up against it as he wasn’t comfortable with the RB8 initially.

“This morning it wasn’t very good, I wasn’t happy at all in the car,” said Vettel. “This afternoon I think it was a bit better. Obviously with the conditions it was difficult to get a lot of running. It was more or less the same for all of us, but with the little time we had in the afternoon it was quite OK.

“It’s up to us to find the balance and understand the car a little bit more and learn a little bit more about the car in these conditions on this circuit, and hopefully go a lot quicker tomorrow.

“Tomorrow the target is to make it into Q3, and then we go from there.”

Vettel admitted it will be hard to catch up on the lost running in the one hour FP3 session on Saturday.

“You can’t re-invent the wheel, even though you had a messy Friday due to conditions it doesn’t mean that on Saturday you just run the whole hour, you don’t have enough tyres for that, and obviously it’s about preparing for qualifying mostly.

“You can’t do everything in one hour, so as I said the most important thing now is to make a step overnight, learn a bit more about the car – the laps in the end were important to understand a bit more – and then we go from there.”

Lewis Hamilton insists that he has no idea where McLaren will fit as the 2012 order becomes more clear cut over the course of this weekend.

“Although I’ve tested new tyres I’ve not been on lower fuel,” said Hamilton. “To see how we compare with others and how we extract that time is going to be interesting.

“I really, really don’t know. When I look at all the data on our long runs we look like we’re in the top three or four in terms of our long run pace and our degradation. Again I’ve not been on low fuel so I don’t know whether others were or how we compare to others, so really we’ll find out most probably on Saturday.

“I’m expecting Lotus to be quite quick and I’m expecting Red Bull to be quick, and I have a feeling that Mercedes will be very fast, and also Ferrari.”

Hamilton was keen to point out that he was not expecting to have a winning car from the start, despite promising form in testing.

“I’m not expecting anything. I would like that to be the case, but we can’t expect anything. Whatever the case we’re going to be working as hard as we can to get to the top, and do the best with what we have.

“It’s just the way it is. I think it would be silly to have any expectation and it would be silly to say we are definitely going to be on the front row, blah, blah, blah, because we might find out in the next couple of days we’re not the quickest, and look silly. And I really am not sure where we lie. But I think we are there or thereabouts.”

Intriguingly Hamilton said that the MP4-27 feels the same to drive as its predecessor.

“It’s exactly the same. The car is not a huge amount different compared to last year’s car – considering we lost a lot of downforce with the blown diffuser it’s not that big a difference. We still want more rear downforce, I’d love to have some of that downforce I had last year from the exhausts and the engine, but they’ve found it elsewhere.

“Now I think without the exhaust we’ve improved the foundation of the car, so it should mean that we have a better car for this season.”

Elaborating on the potential of the MP4-27, Lewis said: “The tyres have been improved this year so we have a little bit more grip. From what we’ve lost on the downforce side we’ve picked up a bit more from the tyres. I don’t think we are a long, long way from where we were last year on the whole downforce package.”

The FIA has issued a Q&A with F1 race director Charlie Whiting, and while it contains nothing we didn’t already know, it does provide some handy background to the various rule changes implemented for 2012 – starting with the Sporting Regulations.

Q: Why has a four-hour total time limit been put on Grands Prix?

CW: Last season the race in Montreal went on for four hours and four minutes. A race really should not go on longer than that. Should four hours elapse during a future race, drivers will receive a signal telling them they have one more lap before the chequered flag.

Q: Race stewards will now be able to investigate an incident without first reporting it to the race director. Why is the system changing?

CW: In the past stewards might see something suspect and alert the race director. He would look at the incident and request the stewards investigate. It was a process that consumed a lot of time. If they identify something worth investigating, there’s nothing wrong with them taking a look and then giving the race director an opinion. It should make the process less cumbersome.

Q:  Drivers are now instructed to not deliberately leave the track without good reason. Why?

CW: We’ve seen drivers taking shortcuts on in and out laps, either to save time or fuel. We could put up barriers to stop them exploiting short cuts but it usually looks stupid! The rules say the drivers should use the track. If they don’t, they will need to justify their actions. It also follows that safety will be improved as other drivers are more likely to know that a car has left the track for a good reason.

Q: The ‘one-move’ rule on defending a position has been reinstated. Has there been a problem with dangerous blocking in the last few seasons?

CW: This isn’t really a new overtaking rule, rather we’ve put into the regulations what was an unwritten rule. A driver can make one move only to defend a position – but when that driver then moves back onto the racing line to take a corner it can be construed as a second move, which is not allowed. It’s a matter of deciding to what degree resuming the original line is acceptable. We don’t want to get into silly arguments about centimetres so we’ve decided the defending driver must leave at least one car width on the racing line otherwise he will be judged to have made a second move and penalised accordingly. We need to have drivers giving each other space on the track – otherwise we risk dangerous collisions.

Q: Previously cars needed to pass crash tests before racing. Now they have to pass before testing. Why?

CW: Safety cannot be compromised. It is indefensible to have drivers testing cars in the winter that haven’t met the safety standards we demand for a race. The teams resisted this for quite a while, telling me it would be impossible to get the crash tests done before the first test. It came as no great surprise that nearly everybody managed it. However, as we have seen, two teams failed to pass all their crash tests in good time and were subsequently unable to participate any of the pre-season testing in Jerez and Barcelona (both of these teams have now passed all the required tests).

Q: Why are drivers now allowed more than three sets of tyres for FP1 and FP2 on Fridays?

CW: Each driver still gets eleven sets for the weekend and three still have to be given back on Friday evening and another two after FP3 on Saturday. This has not changed. We are, however, allowing teams to use more than three of their eleven sets on Fridays to give them the opportunity to do more running on the first day of practice should they wish to do so. As an example they might expect Saturday to be wet and want to get more running in beforehand on a dry track. It is to the benefit of everyone that they are allowed to run as much as they want during the Friday sessions.

Q: With the safety car on track, lapped cars will be allowed to unlap themselves and rejoin at the back of the field. Why is F1 going back to this system?

CW: We took this rule away because it was difficult to manage and potentially dangerous. We have reinstated it with new safeguards. Drivers will only be allowed to overtake once they have all passed the pit entry twice, this will allow all drivers to pit if they want to. We will also instruct the lead drivers to stay on the racing line once the order is given to allow cars to overtake. They will be allowed to weave again, to get heat into their tyres, when we inform them it is safe to do so.

Technical regulations

Q: Why do the 2012 cars have the ‘platypus’ nose?

CW. The height of the survival cell in front of the driver was 625mm – and we wanted to reduce that to 550mm. Our intention was to ensure the nose is lower than the cockpit sides, to protect the driver’s head in the event of a ‘T-bone’ accident. Some teams complained that lowering the whole car forward of the cockpit would force them into a radical redesign. We agreed a compromise that the 550mm height would only apply from a point 1950mm in front of the rear edge of the cockpit template. This achieves the objective equally well, and without requiring the teams to fundamentally overhaul their suspension packaging. They do all look like ducks though…

Q: Measurement tolerances have been tightened. Why?

We used to measure tolerances across the flat bottom, the step and reference planes with a margin of ±5mm. The tolerances were there to allow for manufacturing discrepancies but teams were designing to the limit of the tolerances, contrary to the spirit of the rules. We have therefore reduced the allowance to ±3mm.

Q: The obligatory weight distribution rule was only supposed to run for one season. Why has the rule been continued for a second season?

CW: We had this rule last year to allow teams to begin designing their cars before they knew the characteristics of the Pirelli tyres. The teams have indicated they would like to keep the rule in place for the second year rather than make expensive wholesale changes to their cars for 2012. We have no problem with this.

Q: The size and position of exhaust exits is now specified. Why stipulate this area of the design?

CW: Our objective is to prevent teams operating a blown diffuser, which under certain circumstances infringes Article 3.15 (moveable aerodynamic device). In combination with additional constraints on engine mapping, as described in technical directive number 36 and incorporated into the SECU code, it will limit designers’ ability to exploit exhaust gases for aerodynamic effect. However teams will not unlearn the knowledge they have gained and it is quite likely this area of regulation may need to be revisited again in 2013?

Q: Why are there new dimensional constraints for suspension uprights?

CW: This is to stop uprights protruding too far from the wheels and being used, in effect, as wings.

Q: Why has helium been banned from use in wheel guns?

CW: Powering wheel-guns with compressed helium instead of compressed air saved fractions of a second during a pitstop. Now everyone is aware of this, it would have been a very expensive method of gaining no advantage.

Q: Why have active torque measuring systems been banned for wheel changes?

CW: We want the wheel gun operator to be responsible for the action. Once the torque is applied he should be making the decision to disengage. The latest torque guns show a light when the correct torque has been applied. That is as far as we want to go – we do not want any further automation.

Q: Why have the intrusion panels increased in size?

CW: The panels were installed 100mm-500mm above the reference plane, they are now 100mm-550mm about the plane. The forward one was 400mm high and is now 450mm high. This change should improve driver safety in the event of a T-bone accident.

Q: How and why have the tests for front wing deflection changed?

CW: The rules state the wings (as well as all other parts of the bodywork) must be rigid. We have halved the permitted deflection. Previously the wing was tested with a 1kN load and allowed to deflect 20mm. As a result of this the teams were testing wings until they found a design that deflected 19.9mm under a 1kN load. Our allowances are only a guideline for us and we felt the teams were operating outside the spirit of the rules and clearly designing their wings with flexibility in mind. In our view Article 3.15 takes precedence over Article 3.17 where the deflection limits are quantified. Article 3.17.8 allows us to introduce new tests if we feel our guidelines are not being following in an appropriate manner. The new test therefore moves the pressure point rearwards by 10mm and inboard by 5mm with the permitted deflection reduced to 10mm. We have also told the teams that we may apply the load to just one side of the front wing, an asymmetrical test.

Q: There has been a technical directive on the subject of ride height systems. Why have these been banned?

CW: The systems in question used braking torque to affect ride height changes. If these changes are made primarily for aerodynamic benefit they would be illegal under Article 3.15.

Q: Finally, there were some additions to the regulations ratified by the F1 Commission at the World Motor Sport Council on 9 March. Can you expand on those?

CW: The changes weren’t substantial and the amendments were in three areas: firstly, we decided that one set of dry weather tyres can now be carried over to Saturday if both Friday practice sessions are declared wet. The reason for that is simply to give the teams the opportunity to run more laps on Saturday; we also decided that we would clarify things with regard to DRS use so that we can prohibit the use of the adjustable rear wing if we feel that visibility is too poor in wet conditions. We did that on safety grounds because of concerns about the speed differential between cars. Finally, we just clarified things with regard to the curfew works to make sure that rest periods remain constant throughout the season.