Adam Cooper F1

Lewis Hamilton has used Twitter to accept blame for his clash with Kamui Kobayashi in the Belgian GP.

Hamilton was passing the Japanese driver when he appeared to misjudge how much room he needed to leave the Sauber. The pair made contact, and Lewis was turned sharp left into the barrier.

After leaving the track he made his thoughts clear on Twitter, saying: “After watching the replay, I realize it was my fault today 100%. I didn’t give Kobayashi enough room though I thought I was past.”

He added: “Apologies to Kamui and to my team. The team deserves better from me. Best wishes, Lewis.”

When he first spoke to the media after the accident he was non committal on what happened, and intriguingly indicated that he didn’t even know that it was Kobayashi who he was passing.

“I hit the wall pretty hard,” he said. “It was a bit unfortunate, the team were in a pretty good position. As far as I was concerned I was ahead of whoever it was I was racing, and I got hit by them, and that was my race over. It’s motor racing. There’s been a lot of races we haven’t finished this year, and that’s just one of them.”

Hamilton said he didn’t have the pace with which to win: “I think we were struggling, and for whatever reason, we were massively slow on the straight, massively slow. I guess that’s really what got us into that position, really.

“Everyone was just pulling away from me on the straights, I was only able to keep up through the infield, so I think we probably had a little too much downforce. Nonetheless we were in a good position still. We may have been able to have at least got a podium.”

Lotus Renault GP says that Robert Kubica underwent his final surgery today, and that it was a success.

Curiously the operation co-incided with a Grand Prix race day, and the team says that on waking up, the Pole asked after the result.

In an encouragingly positive statement, the team said: “Today, Robert underwent one last scheduled operation in Italy, aimed at recovering the full mobility of his right elbow. The surgeons are happy to report that they have been able to complete 100% of their task and did not encounter any complications. They have described the outcome of the operation as “a total success”.

“On waking up, it was immediately clear Robert was in good spirits. Why? Well, as soon as he opened his eyes, he asked for the results of today’s race!

“He will now rest in hospital for a few days before resuming his rehabilitation and training programme.”

The FIA has now apparently told all the teams with cars in the top 10 that they have to start with the tyres on which they qualified.

Earlier this morning Red Bull, McLaren and Toro Rosso had been told that they would be allowed to fit fresh front tyres in the light of blistering in Q3 yesterday, the teams having cited safety grounds.

However other teams were not happy with that decision and new evidence has emerged over the course of the morning. It seems that the FIA believes that the problem was generated by the extreme cambers run by those teams and that there is no inherent safety issue with the Pirellis.

It seems the team also asked if they could change cambers, but that can only be done if they drop out of parc ferme and start from the pit lane.

Christian Horner and Adrian Newey spent much of the morning in discussion with the FIA, while among those known to have registered their opposition are Force India and Williams.

The problem that the teams now face is that they are stuck with those camber settings and every set of tyres will face the same fate…

Tyres have been the major talking point behind the scenes at Spa today in the light of front blistering suffered by several of the teams who ran in Q3 and thus start in the top 10.

The teams concerned – including Red Bull – have tried to persuade the FIA that those tyres are damaged and thus they should be allowed to replace the fronts for the start of the race.

The FIA’s response appears to have changed over the course of the morning, with some team sources suggesting that permission has been granted to three teams and others now suggesting that it won’t happen after all. Three teams I spoke to in the last 30 minutes had different versions of the story; and one knew nothing at all about it.

An RBR source said that Adrian Newey and Christian Horner are in with the FIA right now.

If they are granted permission, in theory teams will not be given fresh tyres, so they will have to take two front tyres from one of their other sets, which in effect means they will have only two complete sets of softs for the race. Teams had expected to use three softs and one medium should the race stay dry, so then it becomes a problem…

The FIA has also just said that Pirelli has released 17 new front tyres, just to confuse the matter.

One team is said in such extreme trouble with front blistering that they may have to contemplate a set-up change, which would mean dropping out of parc ferme and starting from the pitlane. Extreme cambers have contributed to the pace of certain cars through Sector 2.

The FIA is planning to operate two completely independent DRS zones at the Italian GP, this blog can reveal.

In Montreal there were two consecutive zones for the first time – using the same detection point – but in Italy they two zones will be in different parts of the track and will have their own detection points.

Not surprisingly one will be on the main straight, while sources say that the other will be between the second Lesmo and Ascari.

The double zone will be food for thought for the teams as they hone their packages for the race. The low downforce wings run at Monza mean that the DRS gain is smaller, but it is still significant.

Last year Jenson Button showed that there were benefits in running a higher downforce package, and some teams may opt to go in that direction. Higher downforce also protects tyres, which will be a big issue at Monza, where Pirelli expects teams to focus on the medium for the race and do minimal running on the soft.

Two race zones mean that teams are even more likely than normal to optimise their seventh gears for an open DRS.

Pastor Maldonado has been given a five-place grid penalty after his collision with Lewis Hamilton at the end of Q2.

Lewis Hamilton has escaped with a reprimand for his role in the incident.

Both drivers were done for causing a collision. Intriguigly the on-board from the Venezuelan’s camera was not available, but Hamilton’s was, as there is a limit to how many cars can be recorded.

More later…

Bruno Senna has silenced the critics of his promotion to a Lotus Renault race seat by doing a brilliant job to qualify seventh at Spa.

The Brazilian, who is three places ahead of team mate Vitaly Petrov, admits he hadn’t expected to manage that on a dry track.

“Getting into the top 10 in the first qualifying session that I did this year was surprisingly good, to be honest,” said Senna. “I was confident in the wet, not so confident in the dry, but it turned out in the dry we had a good pace as well.

“I told the team on the radio that I wasn’t going to try anything outstanding in Q3.

“It’s been a good start. I wasn’t expecting to get in the top 10 in the first qualifying session. I knew in the wet we had a good performance and could be in the top 10, but the drying conditions were making me a bit more nervous. But it turned out we had a good pace and the car was behaving really well in the dry as well.”

Senna says he’s hopeful of a good performance on Sunday: “I think if the conditions are stable, it’s much easier for me. If conditions are changeable all the time, then it’s going to be very, very difficult. I have to still to learn the dry tyres and high fuel. Or even wet tyres and high fuel. Everybody else has a few more races than I do. So I think step by step, and hopefully tomorrow we’ll get a good result.”

Fernando Alonso says his Q3 session was ruined by being stuck behind Sergio Perez.

The Spaniard implied that he’d like to see the Sauber driver – who was clearly just doing his own thing and going for a time – get a penalty, even if that won’t help his own grid position.

Alonso found himself stuck in eighth place, having been fastest in Q2.

“We had a difficult Q3, a lot of traffic in front of us, we didn’t make a clean lap, and this is the position,” he said. “It was difficult, obviously always changing conditions, and a red flag caused some stress in Q2 because we were P11 at the time.

“If we are eighth it’s because we deserve it, and tomorrow we try to recover. It’s true I didn’t make any single lap in Q3 without Perez in front of me, so we will see what will happen now. Obviously he’s behind me so I will not recover any position [if he’s penalised].”

Alonso says he’s hopeful of a strong race tomorrow, given that passing is possible at Spa.

“Obviously this is a circuit that offers you the possibility to overtake. There’s a very long straight after Eau Rouge, where we should use the DRS. If we are quick tomorrow, there are places to overtake, but no one knows how competitive each one is here because we didn’t make enough laps in practice or enough laps today in qualy. Tomorrow will be a question mark for everybody. Hopefully we are competitive enough to be fighting at the front.

“Set-up wise most of the top teams chose a dry set-up, because tomorrow conditions should be dry. Let’s hope that tomorrow everything is OK, and no rain, and we see a good race.”

Mark Webber has been confirmed at Red Bull for 2012, ending any speculation about changes at the team for next season.

In a statement Webber said: “I want to continue racing at the top in Formula One so it’s a nobrainer to remain at Red Bull Racing for another year. My motivation to achieve the best results possible both for myself and the team is still very high.

“Over the past five years, we have worked hard and proved that we can design and build a competitive and championship-winning car, and I’m looking forward to putting the car and myself on the limit again each and every race weekend in 2012.”

Christian Horner said: “When we sat down and started talking about 2012, it was immediately obvious that Mark and the team wanted to continue our successful relationship. This meant agreeing an extension for 2012 was very straightforward. Mark knows the team well, having been with us since 2007, and his motivation, fitness and commitment is as high as it has ever been. The pairing of Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel is a very strong one, they push each other hard and we are extremely happy the pairing will remain unchanged for a fourth season.”

Lotus Renault team principal Eric Boullier says that Nick Heidfeld has been dropped because of his poor performance and lack of leadership qualities.

Boullier denied that the Genii Group’s recent massive business deal in Brazil played any part in Bruno Senna’s promotion.

“We have reviewed our performance, our level or motivation, a lot of things, through the summer time,” said the Frenchman. “I had to take some decisions to clearly show some new directions. There was an opportunity as well to assess Bruno as a driver. And this is why we moved on.”

Yesterday Heidfeld’s management said that the legal situation will be resolved after Monza, but Boullier insisted that the decision had been made by the UK courts last week, and didn’t expect it to change at the second hearing, set for September 19.

“We have a contract in place, and actually I understand they have a different interpretation to the contract than I have. So we have a divergence of opinion. He didn’t want listen or didn’t want to speak [about] any settlement, so he decided to go to the High Court, and the court ruled out everything in our favour. So that’s it, end of story.

“The hearing is done, and it’s over. What happened now is that their lawyers are trying to go to court. You never know with justice, but the High Court ruled everything in our favour. Everything he was asking has been pushed back.”

Asked by this writer what Heidfeld had done wrong, Boullier said: “I am not here to explain everything. Come on, every session, every weekend, the media jumped on me asking why Vitaly is faster than Nick? Every time. You need to guess by yourself, I was not very happy with let’s say the pure speed of Nick, and his global performance as an experienced driver. That’s it.”

He also insisted that he had no regrets about hiring Heidfeld after Robert Kubica was injured, when Senna was available and could have got the job.

“No. To be honest I was happy with the decision we took with Nick. Nick is a nice guy, you know. But I think something didn’t work, I mean his leadership didn’t work in the team. And when you are sometimes slower than Vitaly, and actually most of the time slower than Vitaly, it is difficult for him to push the team, and to settle himself as the team leader.

“At the end if you speak in terms of management, not only speed, when you have the negative spiral starting, the negative loop, it is complicated to stop it.

“I don’t say the performance of the team was because of Nick. The car is not good enough, we have not developed the car enough. We made mistakes as well. But the loop is negative.

“So I had to change something in the team, and I had to change something with the drivers as well, to shake up and wake up everybody.”