Adam Cooper F1

Rubens Barrichello has responded to doubts about his future at Williams.

The Brazilian is out of contract at the end of this season, and has yet to conclude a deal with his current team. However tonight he used Twitter to deny media suggestions that he intends to retire.

“I saw some news saying that I wanted to stop racing,” he wrote. “Makes me laugh really. All I want is to carry on racing.

“Working double hard to have a good car for next year. Problems do exist and we are here to solve them. Williams need me as much as I need them.

“And to be honest I told Williams that if they offered me a two years contract that I would sign right now.”

New Jersey has once again emerged as a potential host for a second US GP, which would run in addition to the Austin event.

The mayors of two neighbouring New Jersey towns have expressed an interest in holding a race as early as 2013 – and insist that it will be a source of profit, and that no tax dollars will be spent. A group of investors led by Le Mans racer Leo Hindery Jr are behind the project.

The street track would be close to the Hudson River and will have New York City as a back drop.

Weehawken Mayor Richard Turner and West New York Mayor Felix Roque said in a joint statement:  “In these uncertain economic times when every direct and indirect revenue source is vital, our own Formula One race could be a very positive boost to our citizens. This said, we need to ensure that the financial benefits from the privilege of having these races in our towns are equitably shared and that no tax dollars are used.

“The investor group has already told us that our towns would be substantially compensated annually. If this advances, we will make every effort to ensure that these events will be highly enjoyable for the people of our towns.”

Once the home of Fred Astaire, Weehawken has a population of just 12,000, while West New York has 49,000 residents. Clearly they are not big enough to provide any public funding and would be open to suggestions of ways to generate more income – not to mention some PR.

According to the WSJ a spokesman for New Jersey governor  Chris Christie said: “The prospect of having Formula One come to New Jersey is exciting.”

The 63-year-old Hindery was the founder and former CEO of the The YES Network, a sports cable channel that is the TV home of the New York Yankees and several major sports teams. He has won Emmy awards as an executive producer, and written books about management.

He is now managing partner with New York’s InterMedia Partners, a private equity fund with investments in a range of cable channels, including Universal Sports and Soul Train. He is also active in Democratic politics, and is an advisor to Barack Obama.

Hindery competed at Le Mans between 2002 and 2005, and was a regular in the ALMS series.

It remains to be seen whether his group can fund the sanctioning fee and the creation of the venue, although a street race will be a lot cheaper than building a permanent venue from nothing.

Although the calendar looks pretty packed for the forseeable future – Turkey has been dropped for 2012 – a New Jersey race would form a perfect double header package with Montreal, now that Austin has been moved to November.

In recent times attempts to bring a GP to Jersey City and to the Monticello track in NY State have both failed. In the former case it was the local mayor who raised objections.

Weehawken itself may be small - but this is the view across the Hudson...

Christian Horner says that there is no hurry to finalise a deal with Mark Webber for next season, but insists that he expects the Australian will stay.

Red Bull’s Helmut Marko has added a twist to the story by apparently suggesting in an interview that Webber would retire at the end of next season and create an opening for Daniel Ricciardo.

“Things can get lost in translation,” said Horner. “We’re talking with Mark about next year. I’m expecting him to be here next year. He’s a popular member of the team. He could have another two, three, four years, that’s down to him. He’s still very competitive and very hungry.

“We always agreed that later in the summer we’d sit down and talk. Mark and I have got a very good relationship. Conversations with Mark, as you all know, tend to be fairly straightforward. Both sides are keen to continue. During the next few weeks we’ll take this opportunity to sit down, and during this break in the championship, look at next year.”

Horner says that there are no firm plans for Ricciardo.

“I think Daniel is on a development phase. He’s got this opportunity to come into F1. He looks a really interesting talent. But he’s just starting to cut hid teeth in F1. He’s got his opportunity with HRT, it’s hard to benchmark his ability, because effectively he’s only racing his team mate. It’s a great opportunity for him which I’m sure he’ll hopefully make the most of.”

Martin Whitmarsh says he’s confident that Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton can race each other safely after the pair exchanged places several times in the Hungarian GP.

Although they collided in Canada they have raced without problems on many other occasions over the past two seasons.

“It’s happened a few times this year and last year,” said Whitmarsh. “And it’s tough, but I trust the drivers. They’ve bumped and scraped each other a few times, and they trust each other. They’re going to race each other and clearly that’s how it is. They’re there to race each other, they get no instruction, I think it’s great television. It’s good for the team spirit to see two drivers racing in that way.”

Meanwhile Whitmarsh praised Button for his afternoon’s work: “A fantastic job by Jenson in those conditions. It was easy to make a mistake, easy to get it wrong, but I think he didn’t put a foot wrong and really deserved that win. He just drove, a great, great race. For a 200^th GP, to win it in those conditions, is great. He’s proven several times already that in these changeable conditions he can read it, he can feel it, he can get it right.”

He also lauded Hamilton for not being downbeat despite a busy afternoon that included a penalty and some decisions that didn’t work out.

“He stayed calm, came back, overtook two cars, came fourth, and got some valuable points. He’s conducted himself very well after the race. He’s been probed provocatively by various members of the media, who wanted some reaction about his penalty, but I think he stayed calm. He’s been mentally strong this weekend and just done a fantastic job.”

Although his car was not changed as much as Sebastian Vettel’s, Mark Webber says his mechanics also had a late night on Friday, finishing at 0330 after the team broke the FIA curfew.

Webber made some intriguing comments about the serviceability of Adrian Newey’s RB7.

“People think we’re re-inventing the whole car, but it’s a pretty tough car to work on,” he said. “Even pretty small changes take a long period of time. That’s all you can read into that. When you start to make some reasonable changes it takes the guys quite a long period to do that.”

Webber said he was not worried that Vettel’s car had changes that his didn’t get.

“The decision for Sebastian to change rear suspension was done very, very late last night. I’d already left the track. I don’t have a problem with that. Obviously that was a call that was made. It wasn’t really on the radar to do it, to be honest.”

Meanwhile Webber will start the Hungarian GP from sixth position after a disastrous first sector of his crucial lap.

The Aussie suffered KERS problems in qualifying, but got it back for his final lap. However when he used it at the start of the lap he managed to fail to activate DRS. He didn’t realise immediately as his speed was the same as before, the gain of one ‘boost’ having in effect cancelled out the loss of the other.

To make matters worse his tyres weren’t quite up to temperature as his out lap wasn’t as fast as intended, as he was behind Jenson Button – whose car did not need to run as fast to get the tyres into the right operating window.

“It wasn’t the smoothest session,” said Webber. “Basically if you look at the last lap, which was the most important lap because it was the only lap I had KERS for, I was very optimistic that I could do a pretty good job. The problems started really on the out lap, because the McLaren’s out lap was like the old Jaguar out laps, just tootling around. They just cruise, and they can go bang, and they have temperature and away.

“We need more pace than that. I couldn’t go any quicker, because JB wouldn’t let me pass. Which is fair enough, that’s all fair game, I don’t have a problem with that. I’d do the same thing if I had to do an out lap like that. And I was also mindful of the fact that there wasn’t a huge amount of time left in the session, I had to keep an eye on that.

“It was my first lap onto the start/finish with KERS and DRS, it looks like I activated the DRS early and it didn’t respond, so I did the whole straight without DRS. The rolling split I didn’t notice that I didn’t have the DRS open because I used the KERS, so the rolling split didn’t look bad compared with my previous lap, because I had the KERS. That in combination with JB, my first sector was a complete disaster. From Turn 5 the lap I did was identical to Sebastian.”

Yesterday I suggested here that F1’s engine makers might not be very happy to see the FIA’s powertrain expert join Craig Pollock’s PURE organisation, and today Renault’s Rob White made its crystal clear that the manufacturers have serious concerns.

Gilles Simon was at the heart of discussions over the 2014 turbo rules – with access to inside information from the engine makers until just a few days ago – and yet will start work as technical director with Craig Pollock’s company on Monday.

It’s believed that previous FIA technical experts such as Tony Purnell – who was hired by Max Mosley – had agreements that ensured they could not make such a move.

“First reactions are fairly predictable and understandable from my part,” said White. “On a personal and professional level, we’ve had good relations with Gilles for a long time in his present – for a couple more days – job, and in his previous job at Ferrari.

“Of course, it’s of concern to all of us that in this close relationship with Gilles and the FIA over the past year, 18 months, that we’ve given unprecedented access to Gilles – we certainly have at Renault and I believe all of the engine companies have done so, particularly in respect of the state of progress in our respective engine development programmes alongside the rules package.

“And so, of course, we would be most concerned to be reassured that information to which Gilles has had access to in those very privileged circumstances as a representative of the FIA is not used in his new capacity as an employee of a competitor.”

Asked if he felt that that such a situation shouldn’t be allowed to happen in the future, White said: “It’s a very complicated sport. In order that the technical and sporting regulations can be administered successfully, then we require the governing body to have good people and they probably require to have access  to the teams, and therefore there’s an obvious risk that needs to be managed, if the same people can crop up in a different shirt very shortly afterwards.”

Lewis Hamilton has made a much better start to the weekend in Hungary than in Germany, where he went on to win the race.

At the Nurburgring on Friday Hamilton was well off the frontrunning pace, and cautioned that he could not fight for pole – only to start second. Given that Jenson Button was also well up it suggests that McLaren will be competitive this weekend.

“It’s a great feeling to already start the weekend on a high,” said Hamilton. “Again, not really expected. I think the climate is working quite well for us, it’s not as hot as it usually is here. And the car is feeling better again. The guys have been working hard back at the factory, we’ve got a couple of small things this weekend, which in such a short time is quite impressive.

“We’re just working on the balance of the car. It’s very early to say what’s going to happen, but we are competitive at least, and I think we can compete with the guys at the front.”

Hamilton insisted that he wasn’t getting too excited just yet.

“I think it’s important not to take too much from a Friday. You can get excited or you can get down, it’s better just to focus on the set-up. We’ll come back tomorrow, the temperatures might be different, the track might be different, the situation could be different.

“But I do think we had the same pace we had last week, so I do think we can challenge the Ferraris and the Red Bulls, which is exciting. And then we’ll see how it rolls from there.”

Asked if he could win this weekend he said: “We do have a positive buzz in the team, but without a doubt we do know it will be massively tough this weekend, with the tyre cooling, the pit stops, the tyres, the way they degrade. But we’ll be pushing as hard as we can, and of course it’s our target.”

Sebastian Vettel was only fifth in FP2 in Hungary today, and after the session the German made it clear that he expects RBR to be under pressure again this weekend.

Vettel was half a second off the pacesetting McLaren of Lewis Hamilton in the afternoon session.

“It was pretty slippery at the beginning,” said Vettel. “Later on I felt a little bit better in the car, but I think you can say it’s not like last year.

“It seems to be very tight, McLaren and Ferrari are very quick, so I think we need to raise our game to make sure that we will find ourselves at the top as well.”

Vettel expects tyre to be the major factors this weekend.

“I’ve just stepped out of the car but we need to have a look at what the others did, how long the tyres should last. I think that will be the big issue or the most important thing to look out for this weekend, managing the tyres for one lap but equally trying to get everything out of the tyres for a whole stint, and not have them fall apart quickly. So we’ll see. It will be a tough one.”

Mark Webber was fourth in both sessions in Hungary today, despite running only 12 laps in the first session after a crash.

The 2010 Budapest winner ran wide and spun into the barrier on the opposite side of the track, wiping the front wing off the car. He missed the remainder of the session, but says he was able to catch up.

“My mistake, I got on the damp kerb,” said Webber. “In fact on the Astroturf, we’ve seen a few of those the last few years. Drivers still don’t learn, they still go out there and try and push! So I clipped the Astroturf and hit the barrier, but fortunately only the front wing was damaged.

“We recovered pretty well this afternoon, got a lot of mileage in, the car ran well. Obviously it’s a pretty tricky venue for tyres, and there’s lot of information to go through.

“It was a normal Friday, obviously congested into bit more of one session for me having just one run in the first session, but in general we went through everything we could.”

Webber said he was not surprised to see McLaren and Ferrari ahead of RBR at the end of the day: “They’re certainly performing pretty well, as they have done in the last few events. It’s no big surprise that they’re doing decent lap times. It’s a race between all of us.”

The BBC and Sky Sports have agreed a new F1 deal to last from 2012 to 2018 – and it will mean that only half the races will be shown live on BBC. All will be shown on Sky Sports, however.

The BBC will have the British GP, Monaco and the end of the season, and will also show practice and qualifying from those races. It will show highlights from other events. Sky will show all races and sessions. Both companies will broadcast in HD.

Barbara Slater, director of BBC Sport, said: “We are absolutely delighted that F1 will remain on the BBC. The sport has never been more popular with TV audiences at a 10-year high and the BBC has always stated its commitment to the big national sporting moments.”

“With this new deal not only have we delivered significant savings but we have also ensured that through our live and extended highlights coverage all the action continues to be available to licence fee payers.”

Barney Francis, managing director of Sky Sports, said: “This is fantastic news for F1 fans and Sky Sports will be the only place to follow every race live and in HD. We will give F1 the full Sky Sports treatment with a commitment to each race never seen before on UK television.”

The BBC may well be relieved if it has lost the likes of Canada, which while getting a lot of viewers filled up a huge evening prime time slot.

There will no doubt now be a musical chairs game among commentators and presenters as some BBC folk lose their jobs, some go to Sky, and ex-ITV people such as James Allen and Louise Goodman have a chance to return.