Adam Cooper F1

Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button say they are excited about the upcoming trip to India.

Hamilton has been there before on PR visits and was impressed by the enthusiasm of the locals.

“The last time was just crazy,” he said in a team preview. “Just after Singapore, we did a demo run in Bangalore and were expecting 5,000 people to turn up. On the day, there were around 40,000 fans – it was just incredible.

“You can’t believe how many people are aware of Formula 1 and how many are looking forward to the race next week. There’s already a great deal of knowledge about the sport – I think it’s going to be a big deal.

“India’s a sport-mad nation – mostly, it’s about cricket, which is understandable because they’re a very successful cricketing country, but I really think the people of India are going to take Formula 1 to their hearts. The reception we’ve had in the last few years has been greater than I could ever have predicted and I think the whole country is ready for something new and something exciting.

“I really hope India will get turned on to Formula 1 in a big way – it would be amazing to have an entire continent supporting you – and I really hope we can put on a fantastic race!”

Meanwhile Jenson Button said: “I always look forward to the next Grand Prix. The word is that people in India are really excited about Formula 1 and the event – it’s important for the sport that we make a good first impression and I really hope we have a fantastic race. Our car’s been pretty competitive recently and we’d like to win more races before the end of the season.”

Button says from what he’s seen on simulations, the track will be an interesting one.

“Well, I can’t really say properly until I’ve driven it. But the track itself has quite a nice mix of corners – the start of the lap is pretty stop-start, there are a couple of long straights mixed with tight hairpins, but it’s the end of the lap that’s more interesting: there are some pretty high-speed changes of direction through the esses and some gradient change.

“One of the things that looks really interesting is the double-apex banked corner at the back of the circuit – that’s pretty unusual. It’s sort of a mix between Turn 13 at China and Korea’s Turn 11.”

Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton are among the many racing personalities to have paid tribute to Indy 500 winner Dan Wheldon, who died after a crash in Las Vegas on Sunday.

Both of the McLaren drivers knew Wheldon from their karting days, with contemporary Button having been a fierce on track rival for many years.

Speaking on Twitter, Jenson said: “I have so many good memories of racing with Dan in the early 90’s, a true fighter. We’ve lost a legend in our sport but also a great guy. I can’t begin to imagine what his family are going through and my thoughts are with them at this very difficult time.”

In a statement issued on his behalf by McLaren, Hamilton said: “This is an extremely sad day. Dan was a racer I’d followed throughout my career, as I often followed in his footsteps as we climbed the motorsport ladder in the UK.

“He was an extremely talented driver. As a British guy, who not only went over to the States but who twice won the Indy 500, he was an inspirational guy, and someone that every racing driver looked up to with respect and admiration.

“This is a tragic loss at such a young age. My heart goes out to his family and friends during this extremely difficult time.”

Jenson Button has had a great run of races recently, but in Korea he struggled badly with lack of front end grip, a problem that also hurt Lewis Hamilton.

Crucially he was lacking performance onto the pit straight, and thus into the DRS activation zone that followed it.

That made it hard for him to compete with those ahead, and after recivering from a bad first lap he ultimately had to settle for fourth.

“Towards the ends of the stints the pace was OK, but I just couldn’t get close enough in the last sector,” said Button. “Whether I didn’t have enough front end in the car or not, but I put a lot of front end in the car at the stops, but still i had so much understeer in the last sector I couldn’t get close enough to them to use DRS. I only used it once during the whole race.

“When you’re out of the DRS zone it’s really tricky, because the car in front if he’s using DRS is gaining half a second on you, and to make that up over lap to try and get DRS the next lap is quite tricky.”

Button’s race was made harder when he lost out to Felipe Massa and Mark Webber on the first lap: “The start was alright. I thought Mark was behind me down into Turn 3, I don’t know where Massa was, and I braked where I felt was correct, and it felt correct. I turned in and there was a car there, I couldn’t see him at all before I actually turned in.

“And then I was stuck on the outside and lost a lot of places. I don’t think it would have changed my race, even if I didn’t have a bad start, a bad first lap, because I wasn’t quick enough.”

He also had an interesting battle out of the pitlane with Nico Rosberg which saw the German emerge first, slide wide, and then re-pass Jenson via DRS on the next straight.

“It’s a weird one here because coming out of the pits, second is actually better, because you get the DRS all the way down to Turn 3. But he locked up coming out of the pitlane so I ended up going across the DRS line first. I don’t think he did it on purpose, you don’t plan a lock-up. So I crossed the DRS line first, he got the DRS, and got past me on the straight. So just a little bit unlucky on that.

“It’s not a great one, but it’s better than last year, I struggled here a lot last year. It’s not one of my better circuits. I didn’t have any more really, so fourth was it. Couldn’t get close enough to use DRS, so fourth was it. A bit disappointed, but we’ll go back and look at the data and look at the reasons for it.”

Christian Horner says that FOTA could fold unless the teams’ organisation can come to an agreement on the Resource Restriction Agreement.

The team bosses met in Korea this morning, but it seems that there are still differing views.

“I think that FOTA has reached a crossroads where it needs to deal with some of the key issues moving forward, all we’ll stop, it’s a simple as that,” said Horner. “The principal issues are obviously Concorde Agreement moving forward, what direction that goes in, and fundamentally the RRA. And if we can’t find agreement on that, then what is the purpose of FOTA?”

Asked if a collapse was really possible he added: “I think is a solution isn’t found, and a direction that the teams want to go in with that, then yes. I’d be wrong to comment on the content of the meeting, but those are the fundamental issues that need to be addressed.”

Intriguingly RBR today announced increased co-operation with Infiniti/Nissan in the future, including access to R&D facilities in Japan. Horner says that doesn’t come under the auspices of the RRA.

“It just puts us on a par with the likes of Mercedes-Benz, or Fiat and Ferrari. It still has to be done at an affordable cost. Obviously RRA is something that’s under discussion, under debate for the future, and it’s something that needs to be addressed to take away some of the paranoia that currently does exist.”

Meanwhile regarding FOTA’s position on the 2012 Bahrain GP, Horner said: We have total trust in the promoter and the FIA. There’s plenty of time for them to discuss it. I’m sure it will be dealt with in the fullness of time.”

Sebastian Vettel has escaped without penalty after being called to see the stewards after taking a shortcut in Q3.

After his first run Vettel was told by his engineer that he needed to do a quick in-lap because of a lack of turnaround time. He duly took a shortcut between T4 and T6.

The stewards looked into it and decided that since he subsequently crossed the line to start his last lap with 17s to go, he had gained no advantage – ie he had not gained enough to avoid hitting the chequered flag, as happened to Lewis Hamilton at Suzuka.

They thus decided that there was no breach of Article 20.13, which refers to staying within the confines of the circuit.

It’s a decision that sets an interesting precedent as in effect it means that drivers are free to cur corners in similar circumstances in the future.

On tracks with long laps teams have very little time to changes tyres and refuel between qualifying runs in the short Q3 session.

Mercedes GP has been fined €10,000 after Nico Rosberg’s collision with Jaime Alguersuari in FP2 in Korea – but not because of the crash itself.

Rosberg lost control at Turn One and slid straight on, striking the Toro Rosso driver, who was coming out of the pits.

He has been found guilty under Article 16.1, which means causing a collision. However unusually he did not get a penalty, the stewards even citing his “good record.”

The stewards said that they had regard “for the extenuating circumstances involving the pit exit, the wet track and the telemetry which indicated the driver of car 8 was on full braking from the time where he apparently noticed car 19, and further, taking into account Mr Rosberg’s good record during his years in F1, decide to impose new penalty.”

The fine in fact relates to how long it took Rosberg to go and see the stewards. They found out from the internet that he had already talked to the media, which is his usual schedule after FP2, rather than going straight to see them.

He breached Appendix B, Obligation of C0-operation, of the sporting code.

He spoke to German TV and then to the English language contingent, which comprised the BBC’s Ted Kravitz, Autosport’s Edd Straw, and this blog. Edd’s story alerted the stewards to the fact that Nico had been a bit tardy, and also contained a quote from Nico in which he said he thought Alguersuari would back off and leave him space to get past without contact.

He said: “I thought he was going to stop a little bit more to let me go through, but then he didn’t and by the time I realised that, it was too late. It was just unfortunate.”

The stewards took that to mean that he could have avoided the accident by going behind Alguersuari.

Half of the fine is suspended for 12 months.

Fernando Alonso admits that Ferrari struggled badly in the wet conditions in Korea today, but is hopeful of a better performance in the dry as the weekend progresses.

Alonso said that the lack of dry track time today was frustrating, especially given Pirelli’s use of the soft and supersoft tyres here. Teams are keen to get som data.

“To lose today’s practice in dry conditions is even more difficult, but the good thing about this is that it’s the same for everybody,” said Alonso. “We just need to maximise tomorrow’s FP3. If it’s dry it will be not a normal Saturday morning.

“I think we all want to test more things tomorrow, and then in qualy and the race we will arrive with not much information. We have the fuel for the whole race, but the strategy is not a big problem, you stop as many times as you need.

“Today we were not very happy or very competitive in wet conditions. Unfortunately it seems that we replicate the problem that sometimes happens to us in dry conditions with the slow warm-up. In wet conditions this is maybe an even bigger problem, and we take too many laps to get the right performance and right tyre temperature, and in that lap the tyre is maybe not in good shape any more, when you get the temperature.

“We saw the McLarens today very dominant, they did a time straight away from the box. For the race maybe this can be an advantage, because we can be much more consistent and run the tyres a little bit longer, but sure for qualifying it’s a penalty.”

Toyota will take on Audi and Peugeot at Le Mans next year

This blog doesn’t normally cover sportscar racing but there was big news today as Toyota confirmed its anticipated Le Mans 24 Hours programme for 2012, to be run from the former F1 base in Cologne.

TMG have designed the chassis, which will be powered by petrol hybrid engine. The team says the car will roll out ‘at the turn of the year.’

It’s a massively ambitious schedule given how tough Le Mans is for first timers. Toyota will also compete in ‘several’ other WEC races.

Tadashi Yamashina, Toyota Motor Corporation Senior Managing Officer and TMG Chairman, said: “Toyota Motor Corporation has entered Le Mans before but by using our hybrid technology this time will be a completely new challenge. We want to write a new page in the history of the Le Mans 24 Hours, as well as in the FIA World Endurance Championship, through our use of hybrid technology.

“In addition, we aim to learn from the experience of competing in such a challenging motorsport environment to enhance our production car technology. Le Mans is a legendary race and I would like to thank the ACO and the FIA for their constructive and positive cooperation over the last few months.”

Sebastian Vettel says he’s not concerned by McLaren’s pace at a wet Korean GP venue today, and says that little was learned of value for what is expected to be a dry race.

Vettel was third in FP2, some 1.8s off pacesetter Lewis Hamilton.

“On Sunday the weather forecast to be dry,” said Vettel. “So whatever we learned today might not be worth a lot for this weekend, maybe for the next event in case it’s damp or wet. But unfortunately the track didn’t dry up and allow us to get a shot on these tyres. It’s pretty aggressive this weekend, so we’ll find out in the race, I guess.”

With Pirelli bringing both of its softest compounds, it’s anticipated that there will be a high number of pit stops on Sunday.

“We can do maximum five, that’s all the tyres we have. Maybe we need to put a set of intermediates at the end just to cross the chequered flag! We’ll see.

“Maybe it turns out to be better than we all expect, or worse. It’s hard to predict as usual. It’s quite a tough track on tyres I think, even though you’ve got long straights in the first sector, there’s hardly any rest after that. It’s not that easy. As I said what we learned today is not worth a lot for the next two days, but the car feels alright, that’s the most important thing.”

Vettel says he doesn’t think that his life will be any tougher now that the championship is done and dusted.

“I don’t think it’s tougher than all the other weekends. It would be bad for all the others if they were going around with half throttle for all the other races! I don’t expect it to be more difficult than the other races. We’ll see who is more competitive. Surely in those conditions this afternoon McLaren looked very strong, but we’ve seen that a couple of times on Fridays, so it’s hard to judge.”

Michael Schumacher is now only three points behind team mate Nico Rosberg, but the former World Champion says that finishing ahead of his countryman is not an extra spur as the end of the season approaches.

“To me that is not what matters,” said Schumacher in Korea today. “I think we have spoken about this some time before, whether I’m placed in front or behind him, that’s not what matters. To me it matters that as a team we go in the right direction, that we get the car that we need to really fight for a front position, and then it will matter where I am against him.”

Michael said there was no one reason for his recent improvement in form: “I guess in the end it’s a combination of many things, and the point is we are able to achieve more often to get 100% out of the car. That has not always been the case, but it’s very clear that since about three or four races we’ve been pretty consistent this way.”

Schumacher added that the recent arrival of Aldo Costa and Geoff Willis was a major boost for the team.

“I came here to succeed, together with Mercedes. On the way there obviously after the first two years, or first one and a half years, it was obvious that we needed to raise our game.

“And despite that we have fantastic engineers and great guys, we just need more capacity, and that’s what has arrived with two guys, one obviously Aldo that I know from the past, working together with in Ferrari days, and Geoff I’ve heard he’s been involved with the team in the past. So, two men with a wealth of experience that should help for the future.”