Adam Cooper F1

The three chassis name changes proposed to the F1 Commission in Geneva today have all been approved, according to a source connected to one of the teams involved.

That means Team Lotus and Lotus Renault GP have finally resolved their dispute.

From 2012 the former’s car will be known as a Caterham, and the latter – still officially a Renault this year – will be a Lotus.

Meanwhile Virgin’s constructor name will be formally changed to  that of its key investor, Marussia.

The F1 Commission decisions still have to be formally ratified by the World Motor Sport Council, which meets next month.

There had been opposition to the Caterham name usurping that of Lotus.

Speaking to this blog recently, Tony Fernandes said: “Lotus is staying in F1 isn’t it? And how different is it from Sauber, or HRT, or even Virgin? What if I called it Air Asia? Caterham has racing pedigree, it races.

“What the brand is now and what the brand is in 10 years time are completely different things. What was Air Asia 10 years ago? Now it’s a huge brand. My forte is building brands, and we’ve done a very good job with Team Lotus. For a team that’s 10^th I think we’ve done pretty well in terms of getting the coverage.”

HRT has extended its Williams gearbox deal into 2012, and the new F112 will also use KERS technology supplied by the British team.

Intriguingly HRT chose the day of the Geneva F1 Commission meeting – where co-operation between the teams is on the agenda – to announce the news.

Colin Kolles has been adamant that his arrangement with Williams is faithful to the rules and says that is not the case for other teams. The team said today that “the deal with Williams F1 strictly follows the terms agreed in the Concorde Agreement and both teams will compete independently in the Formula 1 Constructors’ Championship.”

Explaining the extended arrangement, Kolles said: “We have grown as a team with Williams F1’s support and we are pleased to continue counting on them in the future, given their trajectory, prestige and renowned experience in Formula 1.

“This agreement strengthens the development of the 2012 car that is currently taking place at our technical office in Munich. At HRT we are working on thoroughly improving the performance of our cars and our target is still to finish in the top ten in 2012. This deal brings us one step closer to that objective.”

Jean-Eric Vergne is to drive the Red Bull RB7 in the Abu Dhabi Young Driver test from Nov 15-17.

The Frenchman will in effect be doing the job that Daniel Ricciardo did at the same event last year. He drove for Toro Rosso in FP1 at Suzuka last month.

“I know the track already and have had some track time in a Formula One car this year, which will hel,” said Vergne. “I’m extremely happy that Red Bull Racing has given me this opportunity, it will be a massive experience for me and to be driving the best Formula One car is something quite amazing.

“I will make the best out of the three days, it will be an important three days and I’m looking forward to it.”

Mark Webber lost his third place in Delhi due to dropping off the pace as stints went on, ultimately leaving him exposed to a successful strategy response from Fernando Alonso and Ferrari.

Webber made an early first stop and was also the first driver to make a second stop and go to the hard tyre. By staying out an extra two laps on his old softs, Fernando Alonso was able to jump the Aussie.

He then managed to stay in front, despite Ferrari’s history of struggling for pace on Pirelli’s harder compounds towards the end of races.

“I lost the podium in the middle of the race, really,” said Webber. “Pretty much the general story this year, we just don’t have the pace at the end of the stints. So you run out of tyres, and then you lose strategy basically, so you’ve got to pit earlier.

“It makes life a lot harder for you. Not quick enough at the end. Reasonable pace at the start of the stints, but as the stints go on obviously I drop back into the clutches of the other guys. We were struggling a little with the balance at the end of the stints.

“That’s the way it was, I could have got Fernando at the end, but the Maccas and Ferraris were pretty strong in that first sector – Jenson got me on the first lap on the back straight. I was quick against them on the first few laps, but after, as soon as you fight, you chew the tyres up.

“In the end it was good to finish, but it would have been nice to get on the podium.”

Webber made an interesting observation about his attempt to re-pass Button on the fourth lap.

“I probably could have gone down the inside of Turn 4, but it was still very dusty. I thought I’d have a bit of a poke round the outside, but he fixed me up on the outside, which is fair enough, as I fixed him up in Korea. That’s the way it goes.”

He added that he an extra challenge when chasing Fernando Alonso in the closing laps: “Traffic was bad, Fernando got the DRS every lap from the backmarkers.”

Not surprisingly when he met the media after the Indian GP Felipe Massa insisted that he didn’t know why he was given a drive thru penalty following the contact with Lewis Hamilton.

Massa said that he was the innocent party in the incident, which was the sixth time this year that the two drivers have been involved in a controversy.

“My view is that I braked later than him,” said Massa. “I was in front, I was on the grippy area as well and then I started to turn. And I didn’t see him on the left. So he was behind. And he touched my rear wheel. So, to be honest I don’t understand why I have the penalty. It’s really not understandable.

Asked if there was now feud between the two drivers, Massa said: “Maybe for him. Because in all the incidents, he touched my car. So, I didn’t do anything wrong. When I saw that he put the car on my side, what can I do? It was very dirty, in his place, so I braked on the clean side, on the grippy side, I braked later than him and I start to turn, and he is behind me.

“To be honest, if it’s Lewis or not Lewis, whatever the driver is there, I would do the same. Because I am on the good grippy side.”

When it was suggested that TV images showed him looking in his mirrors, Massa said: “I knew he was on my side. But when I braked, this is the important place, not when you are on the straight. When I braked, he was not on my side. So I turned, because I braked later than him, you know.

“I cannot understand why I am supposed to back off and let him by, no? I braked later. He was on the dirty side, and then I turned, and he touched me from behind. He did not touch on my side, or wheel-to-wheel. If it was wheel-to-wheel, I would not try to close the door.”

Christian Horner has paid tribute to Adrian Newey after Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull scored yet another victory in the Indian GP.

Horner also reiterated that the team wants to see out the season with wins in Abu Dhabi and Brazil.

“He’s had a remarkable year,” said Horner of Newey. “I think this is probably the most successful period of his career so far. His family are here this weekend, that’s why I thought it was appropriate to send him up on the podium.

“We’ve broken two records this weekend, the amount of pole positions in a year – 16 in 17 races – and Sebastian has led more laps than any other drover since Mr N Mansell in an Adrian Newey car back in 1992. Adrian hasn’t changed that much, but Nigel has!

“The team is very hungry, we want to finish the season on a high. It’s been a wonderful year for the team so far in 2011. Effectively these are non-championship races, all three of them we’d dearly love to win at. We’ve won the next two for the last two years, and we’ve love to do a hat trick both in Abu Dhabi and Brazil. You never lose sight of the fact that the opposition isn’t very far away.”

Horner said he enjoyed the Indian GP event.

“I think it’s been brilliant, I think the reaction that we’ve had from the Indian public and the fans, and the way that they’ve been so excited about F1 and truly privileged to have a race here, I think hats off to Jaypee for building the facility, to Bernie for putting the event on, for Vijay Mallya as well, who’s had a hand in this.

“The track’s a real challenge. It’s a great circuit, I think next year’s event will be even bigger now that people have understood a bit more of what F1 is. It’s a really interesting place to come to. Just the drive to the circuit you feel like you’re in a Grand Prix! It makes F1 a true World Championship coming to countries and markets like this.

“There wasn’t a great deal of overtaking at all today, the DRS didn’t seem particularly powerful either. Again it’s all a learning curve. I’m sure that will be looked at and tweaked for next year.”

One way or another Felipe Massa has been in the news this weekend, for after topping the times in Delhi on Friday he had a spectacular off in qualifying after breaking his front supension on a kerb.

But the most intriguing aspect of his weekend has been the ‘flutter’ effect seen on his front wing, which has been sending up spectacular showers of sparks as it touches the ground at the end of the straight.

Ferrari has admitted that it is using these last races for experimentation, and has brought three examples of its latest front wing to this race. The team is known to be pushing the boundaries of flexing technology, within the limits of the FIA’s load tests, of course.

However the wing used by Massa yesterday and for the start of FP3 today surprised even the team with its unusual behaviour, and the team even took it back to the FIA load tests to check it out.

Intriguingly part way through FP3 it was replaced with another outwardly identical wing, but which – at least on TV evidence – did not flutter in quite such a spectacular manner.

Massa used that to set his qualifying time, but then destroyed it in his accident.

Under parc ferme rules teams can replace damaged parts with ‘similar’ ones, with FIA permission. So if Felipe went back to an older spec wing, he would have to start from the pitlane.

The alternative is to go back to the ‘flutter’ wing. This begs two questions. Having abandoned it this morning, is the team really comfortable about sending Felipe into the race with it? Certainly rival teams have suggested that at some stage, given its erratic behaviour, it might suffer a fatigue failure.

Massa concedes that Ferrari has had the same thought: “For sure it’s quite aggressive, but we are on it, we are analysing everything. If we decide to use it, it’s because it’s safe. There’s not much to say.”

The second question is given that the two wings Massa used today behaved differently, are they actually as identical as they look? If their structure (ie carbon lay-up etc) is different – and that’s not impossible given the experimentation – then it could be argued that the flutter wing is a different spec from the one with which he set his qualifying time. And once again Massa would therefore have to start from the pitlane. Certainly one rival team principal told me that he suspected that could be the case…

A Ferrari spokesman told me tonight that all three new wings (including Alonso’s) were identical, and insisted that given that we hadn’t seen every lap of both Ferraris on TV, it was wrong to suggest that one wing was different from the others.

It will be interesting to see how things develop on Sunday morning. FIA sources say as yet there is not an issue, but often it takes an enquiry from a rival to set the ball rolling…

Meanwhile, as far as the crash is concerned, Massa had been running noticeably wide at that point, and on his hot lap caught his right front wheel behind a kerb. The unusual forces involved – in effect the wheel was being pulled away from the car – broke the suspension. He thus didn’t complete his second run.

“I am disappointed,” said Massa when asked by this blog about his session. “We had a big chance to start both cars in the top four. It was not possible because of this crash. I’m sure I would have improved on this lap, and the position was supposed to be much better than it is now, and I lost one set of soft tyres as well, when I crashed, so we need to see how it’s going to be tomorrow, the strategy.”

Felipe felt that the kerb he hit was too high, although the FIA looked at it later and decreed that it met the usual standards.

“It’s a high speed corner, you have a very low kerb, and then you have this high ‘sausage’ kerb. I think when you have a high speed like that, the car has a lot of downforce, a lot of power to the ground. When you hit some concrete, some sausage like that, you can have a failure in the suspension.

“It’s exactly what happened with me. I didn’t take the kerb so strongly, I took a little bit of kerb, and my suspension didn’t survive. It can be a problem for the race. I think in a high speed like that it’s better to do a real kerb, a bit higher and normal kerbs. That’s the only thing that I think should change for the future.”

Romain Grosjean will get his chance to stake a claim for a 2012 Lotus Renault seat when he drives in FP1 in the last two races of the season.

He will replace Bruno Senna in Abu Dhabi and Vitaly Petrov in Brazil, which will ensure that Senna has a full weekend on track at his home race.

Grosjean, who won this year’s GP2 Series, last raced in F1 with Renault in 2009. However he did some running in Pirelli’s Toyota test car earlier this year.

He joins a list of potential 2012 LRGP candidates that includes both of the current drivers, and Robert Kubica.

Team boss Eric Boullier said: “Romain has been part of the LRGP family since February and we feel this is an appropriate time to give him a chance to drive for us during two Free Practice sessions. Putting his skills to the test in two consecutive Friday sessions will offer him precious experience of driving the R31 during a race weekend and will make him a better driver.

“I’m sure that his feedback will be useful for the team, especially as he raced in F1 only two years ago. Since then, he has improved in every area and I’m sure he’ll do a good job for us. We will be able to do this without compromising our usual Friday set-up work in any way, and as of Free Practice 2 at both race weekends, Bruno and Vitaly will return to their cars.”

Grosjean added: “It will be a big responsibility for me and my priority will be to do the best job I can for the team. I know all the team’s mechanics and engineers, am familiar with the methodology and processes and I know the two tracks I’ll be testing on.

I also feel that the racing I did in the GP2 Series this year will stand me in good stead fitness-wise. Finally, I did some F1 testing for Pirelli during the winter at the beginning of this year, so the tyres shouldn’t be too alien to me.

“I believe all the right elements are in place to make this a great experience, and I don’t feel too much pressure going into this. My aim, of course, will be to help Lotus Renault GP prepare for the race weekends, to offer the best feedback I can and to be reliable and consistent. Getting an opportunity like this is always a massive boost in a driver’s career and I’ll make sure I make the most of the chance I’ve been given.”

Felipe Massa gave himself a boost by being was fastest in FP2 in India today, although the Brazilian isn’t getting too excited just yet, given that the formbook suggests Red Bull and Ferrari will come good tomorrow.

Massa was just 0.088s ahead of nearest challenger Sebastian Vettel, and 0.224s in front of team mate Fernando Alonso.

He says he likes the track, and expects it to create plenty of overtaking.

“I think the car was good, I think the car was competitive,” he said. “We’ll see tomorrow how Red Bull and McLaren was running in terms of fuel and everything. But I think the car was good, and I did good laps as well. I think when the car is good and you do good laps, you can be on the top.

“It was very dirty. Offline it was very difficult, because there’s a lot of sand outside the line, but it’s a nice track.”

Massa says that the wide entries to the slower corners will encourage overtaking.

“It’s different, the ideas, in terms of the slow corners – Turn 3, Turn 4, and the last corner. It’s a very wide entry. This for sure creates different directions for the race, and even for qualifying – I mean for qualifying everybody tries to find the quickest line to cut the corner in the best direction, to gain speed in the total corner.

“In the race it’s different. If you are in the front , if you take the right line to the corner, the other car can pass you on braking. He just dives inside and can put the car on your side, because it’s so wide. So you need to turn a little bit before and brake more in the middle of the corner. The other car behind can go wide and take a very good exit. For sure it’s a big idea and a good idea for overtaking.

“It can make the race very challenging as well, for the drivers. And also the track is very nice. It has some uphills, some downhills, some very high speed corners, so I really enjoy it.”

Massa is adamant that Pirelli was too conservative with its choice of the hard tyre – on which Ferrari has of course always struggled.

“I think maybe the hard tyre is too hard for this track. It was really possible to drive with the same tyres as the last race here, because the asphalt is so smooth, and the degradation is much lower than expected.

“But we saw that in Korea, when we had the soft and supersoft tyres there, everybody was a bit scared. But then it was fine, it was the right choice. And here, looking at the asphalt, it’s not so different. For me it was the wrong direction to bring the hard.”

Mark Webber says that the Buddh’s circuits slower corners provide its stiffest challenge.

Webber, who was third in the morning session and fifth in the afternoon, said he enjoyed the track.

“It’s got quick left/rights where the car is in fourth and fifth gear, which is nice, instead of second gear everywhere,” said Webber. “It’s a good track.

“As usual some of the low speed stuff is quite challenging, even though it’s slow. You always think that the faster corners are more challenging, but Turn 3 is for example quite tricky, and also Turn 4 is not straightforward. They are probably the most challenging and frustrating corners to get right, a lot of lap time in there. But the quick stuff is always rewarding.”

Webber said that he was happier with the car in FP1 than in FP2.

“This morning was good, this afternoon it was a different girl, she wasn’t talking me that well! We’ll get it back tomorrow.”