Adam Cooper F1

Jenson Button was at a loss to explain why he struggled to find grip in qualifying today, having been happy with his car in the morning.

The Brit couldn’t better seventh place, while team mate Lewis Hamilton stole the headlines by qualifying second.

“I couldn’t find any grip out there,” said Button. “I really struggled, actually. This morning the car felt good, but this afternoon I had too much front end on the way into the corners, so we took some front wing out, and it basically gave me understeer and didn’t help the rear of the car.

“Very strange that we can’t find the grip out there, so to be down in seventh is very surprising, and also to be something like 1.1s behind Lewis. Something’s not quite right.

“We need to do something, because the pace isn’t there. The frustrating thing is it was this morning, the car felt good. I don’t know where it’s gone.”

The only good news for Jenson is that rain is on its way.

Fernando Alonso says he’s happy with fourth place on the grid in Germany, despite having at one stage looked like a threat to Red Bull.

Alonso insists that he’s the same margin behind the blue cars as he expected to be, the only surprise being that Lewis Hamilton has also got in front of him.

“I think it was OK for us,” said the Spaniard. “We said yesterday we were between two and four tenths behind Red Bull, and we are between two and four-tenths behind Red Bull. Hamilton did very well today. Yesterday maybe they were testing some new parts or whatever, and they were not so good in the times at the end, but they were very competitive, and today they showed it.

“No surprises, I think. To be fourth is a very good position for us, and in the race tomorrow maybe with the rain, anything can happen, so we will attack for sure.

“We’re still improving the car, the new parts we brought here are also very positive, the car feels better and better every time. It’s not that our competitors are looking at the TV in the 15 days between the two races, everyone is improving. We know McLaren brought here a big aero package, Red Bull as well, it’s a competition also outside the races which team is quicker in developing the car as well.”

Alonso says that a wet race will be all about survival.

“Tomorrow there’s a forecast of rain, and if that’s true, I think the race is very open. You never know what can happen in a wet race. Tyre temperature will be an issue, because already we have problems with dry tyres, and if it’s wet, with 11C ambient temperature, I don’t know how we will put some heat in the tyres.

“It’s the same for everybody. It’s a race to survive tomorrow, if it’s wet. We need to finish that race, and I’m sure it will be a podium.”

Lewis Hamilton admits that McLaren is off the one-lap pace of the frontrunners at the Nurburgring, but the Briton is still hopeful of a good race – although he may have to do a rain dance.

Hamilton was fifth in the morning session and seventh in the afternoon, when his best time was a second off pacesetter Mark Webber.

“It’s been a productive day for us, I think we went through all the running plans that we had,” said Hamilton. “I think our race pace is perhaps closer than we had in the last race, which is a good thing, I think we seem to be maybe two or three tenths off at least the Ferraris, and then over a single lap they’ve definitely got about a second on us.

“We’re still pushing as hard as we can, the car’s feeling quite good, it’s just we can’t go any faster through the corners just through the car sliding. So we’re just going to refine the set-up, see if we can find some more downforce.”

Hamilton says the team is better off than at Silverstone: “The engine mode that we had in Barcelona and for example in Valencia works a lot better than what we had in Silverstone, just on that long run just there compared to the others it seemed two or three tenths, which is much, much better than the last race.

“We’re down on downforce, that’s the only thing that stops me and Jenson from doing the same laps as them, we just carry the same speed through the corners. Nonetheless we have made improvements this weekend, we’ve had some small updates which have been good. We need to just keep on going in that direction.

“The race is a completely different thing. Obviously the Ferraris and the Red Bulls are still massively quick, so we expect to probably be just behind them. Anything can happen in the race – who knows if it’s going to rain?

“We definitely can’t challenge for pole, but then having said that, we don’t know what fuel level everyone is on. So we might be pleasantly surprised tomorrow to find that we are heavier than others, and that again brings us closer. But historically, that’s not the case.”

Bernie Ecclestone has admitted that he paid £27m, or $44m, to former bank executive Gerhard Gribkowsky.

However he denies that it was a bribe, as has been suggested, but rather was a response to an apparent threat from the German to cause problems for Ecclestone with Britain’s Inland Revenue.

Gribkowsky, who worked for Bayern LB, has now been charged by the German authorities with breach of trust, tax evasion and receiving payments from Ecclestone. Bernie says he has given his story to prosecutors and was told by them not to comment, which is why he has not admitted to the payment publicly until now.

Ecclestone told the Daily Telegraph that Gribkowsky had indicated that he would make life difficult for Ecclestone in relation to the family trust, Bambino Holdings. Ecclestone says that he “never had anything to do with the trust in any shape or form, he threatened that he was going to say that I was running it.”

Ecclestone says setting up the trust had been a complex matter: “The Revenue obviously had to check everything. It took five years going through that. I didn’t deal with it. The trust had to show it was correct. The taxation people in England at the time were in the middle of settling everything with the trust and the last thing you need is for them to start thinking something different. He was shaking me down and I didn’t want to take a risk. Nothing was wrong with the trust. Nothing at all.

“He never said to me if you don’t give me this I will say that. He left me with the fact that could he do it or not.”

Ecclestone says his lawyers recommended that he should pay up: “They said ‘I tell you what would happen, the Revenue would assess you and you would have to defend it, because you could defend it, and you would be three years in court and it would cost you a fortune. Better pay’.”

He says that it was Gribkowsky who wanted to paid via Mauritius and the British Virgin Islands because “he wanted to be paid so it didn’t look like it came from me and didn’t look like it had come from England.”

Fernando Alonso says that he and Ferrari have not given up on 2011, and will take things race by race instead of worrying too much about the title battle.

The Spaniard’s Silverstone win was the team’s first of the year, but he is still well behind in the table.

“Definitely there are difficulties to fight for this championship, with the points’ loss that we have now,” said Alonso in Germany today. “But we will not give up, we will try to win races, to wait for some mistakes from Red Bull. And we’ll see when the key point of the championship arrives if we are behind still too much or not. We’ll see.

“I think we are doing a good championship, we will try to keep doing the same. We have I think 52 points more than last year in the same nine races, so therefore we are improving our results and trying to do our best, but Red Bull was very, very dominant in the first part of the championship. Nothing we can do now, just work hard, and keep enjoying every Sunday. We’ll see at the end how far we are.”

Alonso reiterated that he’s in a position to take risks: “We will take race by race, risking every weekend. If I was leading the championship I would take more care, because you just need to finish races. Now I’m 90 points behind so every qualifying I will take risks on the lap to be as far forward as possible. Every start we risk, if one time if we have a bad start or a contact in the first corner, there is nothing to lose in our case. Strategy, for sure the same thing.”

Alonso said that the Silverstone win has given the team extra motivation.

“Obviously it was an important boost for the team because we had some difficult times in the first couple of races, and then we’ve been introducing new pieces on the car that some of them worked, some of them didn’t work. Now in the last four or five Grands Prix every part we put in the car is working fine, so this is definitely good news for us, not only for this year but also the future development for next year.

“Definitely I’m very, very confident now with the car, with the engineers. All the designers, all the aero people are very motivated now knowing that all the work they do day and night is producing good results in the car on Sunday.”

Karun Chandhok is to replace Jarno Trulli at Team Lotus for the German GP in what appears for the moment to be a one-off arrangement.

The team adds that it is negotiating with the Italian veteran for 2012.

Tony Fernandes said: “Ever since I first met Karun I have been impressed with his whole demeanour – he is talented, passionate, committed and he brings great energy to the whole team so I am delighted that we are giving him the chance to add even more value to us in the cockpit over a whole race weekend.

“I also want to take this chance to thank Jarno for helping make Karun’s opportunity this weekend possible. He has been extremely accommodating in stepping to the side for this race and our commitment to him is unwavering. I am delighted to confirm that we are in the process of negotiating an extension to his contract with us and we are all looking forward to unveiling the details of that very soon.

“He is a key member of our team and I hope that we can give him a car as soon as possible that allows him to utilise his considerable talent to the full. For this weekend he will be on hand to lend his huge experience and support to Karun and I am sure Jarno, Heikki and Karun will do me, the whole team and all our fans very proud indeed.”

Chandhok said: “Ever since I first joined the team I have been looking forward to this opportunity and I am determined to do my best to repay their faith in me and help the team progress, this season and for many years to come. I am approaching the weekend in a very realistic frame of mind.

“I will be doing my best to push and to make sure I learn as much as possible all weekend, take each session as it comes and work as closely as I can with the engineers and the whole team to do the best job I can. Whatever happens, I am very excited about lining up on the grid on Sunday and I know there will be millions of Indian fans, and Team Lotus fans around the world, who will be behind me and the whole team, so I will do the best I can to give them something to cheer for.

Meanwhile Trulli said: “I’m looking forward to working with Karun this weekend and doing whatever I can to help him get the most out of his opportunity in Germany. It’s great that the team is true to its word of helping develop young talent, particularly from parts of the word where it is even harder to break through into the top rung of motorsport, so I’ll be there to give him guidance and assistance, in and out of the car.”

Mike Gascoyne added: “I am delighted that we are able to give Karun a full weekend in the car. He has been a very good addition to our driver line-up and now we are giving him a chance to take the next step in fulfilling his potential. Jarno will be stepping aside for him for this race and we will use Karun’s feedback over the weekend as a comparison against Jarno’s and Heikki’s experiences this season with a number of aspects of the car, including the power steering system, to help us keep moving forward in 2011 and beyond.

“I am sure Karun will equip himself very well in this and in his performances in and out of the car all weekend. The whole team is looking forward to helping him get the most out of his time in the cockpit in Germany and it will be good to see him grab this chance and make the most of it.”

The Lotus Renault GP team – then still known as Renault F1 – made a £40m loss in 2010, its first year under the ownership of Genii.

The team’s accounts reveal that income fell dramatically last year by 49% from £162.0m to £82.1m, reflecting the lack of a title sponsor and the absence of a contribution from former owner Renault.

Operating costs were cut by from £148.7m to £122.1m, the team pointing out that “a significant part of this saving related to the change in the team’s driver line-up.”

In other words the team is telling us that the £26m difference reflected Fernando Alonso’s 2009 salary relative to that of Robert Kubica in 2010 (although the absence of Flavio Briatore-managed Nelson Piquet Jr may also have been a factor).

Operating losses in 2010 were £40.0m, or £34.2m after tax was taken onto account. In 2009 the team made a profit of £4.8m.

It’s well known that the team is committed to some large loans, and the accounts give some fascinating details.

Firstly, it still owes money to Renault: “The company has a loan with the Renault Group, the term of which has been extended to include repayments as follows: 2011 £6m, 2012, £6m, 2013, £8m.”

Secondly there is the arrangement with Lithuania’s AB Snoras Bank, whose logos have appeared on the car: “The company has a loan facility with AB Snoras Bank (£15m) maturing in December 2011. This loan is secured by first ranking security interest over the rights, title and interest in some of the company’s assets with an aggregate value of £24m.”

The team’s staffing levels actually rose from 497 to 514 in 2010, with an extra 12 people employed in adminstration.

Ferrari chassis boss Pat Fry says that the team is still developing this year’s car, and suggests that there is still useful potential in it – and that the benefits will also go into next year’s model.

He also says that the Silverstone win, the first of 2011, was a huge boost for the Italian team.

“The main satisfaction was that it was great to get a victory in Silverstone after all the hard work of the past four months trying to close the gap,” said Fry on the Ferrari website. “And it was gratifying to see that it had paid off. It does not change our approach for the next few races.

“What that win does is show that we have understood our problems and we are working in the right direction. We will continue to develop the car as quickly as we can, and each step we make improves our understanding, which is important as it also impacts on work for next year’s car.

“We have a few more updates coming for this weekend at the Nurburgring and then one further update for Hungary the following week. We are keeping the pressure on to develop as much as we can before the summer break.”

Fry says he’s hopeful that the Nurburgring will suit the Ferrari, and believes that the car is now competitive on all Pirelli’s compounds.

“In a way it can be compared to Silverstone, in that it has long duration corners, even if they are more medium speed than high speed. Trying to find a balance through those corners is a little bit more difficult as it suits our car less than the brake-turn-accelerate type of circuit like Canada and Valencia.

“In terms of tyres, we will have the Medium and Soft again, a sensible choice for this track, and one which suits our car well. However, the last race showed we are making progress in adapting the car to all tyre types. Earlier in the year, in Barcelona for example, we struggled on the Hard tyre, but we have made improvements and our qualifying pace on Hard tyres in Silverstone was a match for others.”

Fry anticipates that the DRS might not be very effective this weekend: “We cannot be certain until we have run the cars on track, but at the Nurburgring, the DRS zone involves following someone closely through the high speed corner onto the back straight, which will be a little bit of a challenge for drivers to get within the regulatory one second gap to the car ahead before they are allowed to activate the system.

“This means the degree of difficulty should be similar to Silverstone, rather than somewhere like Canada or Valencia.”

Mark Webber and Sam Michael have joined forces to help raise funds for Australian Speedway legend Leigh Adams.

Adams suffered spinal injuries last month while practising for the Finke Desert Race off-road event, having recently retired from frontline speedway competition.

The two Aussie F1 personalities and journalist Norbert Ockenga have helped to gather items for an eBay auction which has now gone live. Paddock passes and signed bodywork are among the star attractions.

“He is a 10 times Australian speedway champion and he raced in the world championship for about 15 years, winning multiple GP’s before returning to Australia about six months ago,” said Michael. “He’s basically the Peter Brock of speedway in Australia!  Now he has a long rehab road in front of him, with his wife and two kids as well.

“Leigh is a die hard racer and not short of friends in the F1 paddock including myself, Mark Webber and Norbert Ockenga. With the kind help of others, we’ve managed to pull together some items to auction to raise money for his rehab.”

The eBay member name is ‘leighadamsrehabauction’, or you can copy this link:

http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/leighadamsrehabauction

“I am hugely relieved to have recently been given the OK to stop wearing a neck brace that was driving me crazy,” said Adams on his website today. “Not having the neck brace makes everyday tasks that bit easier. I’m happily propelling myself around in a wheelchair and I’m already looking ahead to a lighter, more agile design to aid my increasing mobility.

“My plans for the future will require some initial lifestyle changes, but remain relatively unchanged. My goal is to enjoy time in Australia with my family and to continue with my plans to conduct Speedway training schools across the nation and to develop junior speedway bikes.”

The FIA has now formally confirmed that engine mapping will revert to the Valencia rules for the remainder of 2011, following the agreement made amongst the teams last weekend. As stated here previously they have also agreed not to protest each other.

Meanwhile the FIA has released a Q&A that gives its side of the story and especially what happened at Silverstone:

This issue arose shortly before the Spanish Grand Prix. Was it initiated by the FIA or did it come from an F1 team?

The matter was initiated by the FIA when facts concerning some quite extreme, and hitherto unseen, engine mapping began to emerge. We were concerned that exhaust tailpipes were being positioned and engine maps created with the primary objective of improving in the aerodynamic performance of the car. Prior to that it had been assumed that any aerodynamic benefits were incidental to the primary purpose of the engine and its exhausts, i.e. that of generating torque.

Why did you decide to act?

We decided to act as, not only did we consider such extreme mapping to be arguably illegal, but also if such freedom was left unchecked it would result in the teams incurring significant further development costs during the season.

Is the off-throttle blown diffuser illegal under the 2011 technical regulations?

We certainly consider them to be questionable, however, the key is whether or not we consider any particular engine map to have been created for any other reason than the generation of engine torque.

Is its illegality an unforeseen side-effect of the rule to ban F-Ducts?

No, the two are unconnected.

Why was it not possible to simple introduce blanket limits on hot and cold-blowing and apply them equally to every car?

This is precisely what we attempted to do in the first communication to the teams on 12 May. However, it soon became apparent that the matter was more complex than initially thought. The main problem was the difficulty of ensuring that teams were not prevented from using existing legitimate strategies whilst ensuring that the extreme mapping was no longer possible. This is why we postponed the introduction of the measures until the British Grand Prix. There are also a number of other mechanical factors to take into account such as the architecture of the engine throttles themselves (butterfly or barrel operation).

What were the measures that were introduced for the European Grand Prix in Valencia?

Whilst examining the engine maps from several teams it became clear that extreme solutions were being used for short times in qualifying and then being changed for more durable solutions for the race. The felt that this was certainly against the spirit of the parc ferme regulations but, more importantly, the relevant regulations simply do not allow changes to be made whilst the cars were being held under parc ferme conditions, connections to the car may be made and electronic units freely accessed, however, no changes to the set-up of the car can be made. We therefore informed the teams on 14 June that we would take these measures in Valencia, this was done and cars run accordingly with very few difficulties.

Why was the matter still being discussed over the weekend of the British Grand Prix, and why did the clarification change from Friday to Saturday?

The matter was still being discussed because one engine manufacturer (Renault Sport) was reluctant to run with the settings we had imposed and continued to try and convince us that they would require alternative settings in order to maintain their perfect reliability record. At the last minute additional information was provided to us which we felt would be hard to refuse having already made a small concession to another manufacturer (Mercedes Benz HPE). However, further discussions on Friday evening and Saturday morning resulted in us deciding that we had conceded too much and, to be fair to the manufacturers who had presented cars in what we considered the correct configuration, we should revert to the specification we had specified in our note to the teams on 20 June. This is how all teams then ran on Saturday and Sunday in Silverstone.

What was the purpose of holding two Technical Working Group meetings in Silverstone?

Following the events of Friday the FIA President felt that it would be useful to have an open discussion in order to see if consensus could be reached. Following these two meetings there was unanimous agreement among the teams to revert to the engine mapping regime used in Valencia, i.e. freedom on settings but no changes to the maps between qualifying and race. This was felt to be the most sensible solution to a very complicated matter as the possibility of finding an alternative solution, which would be fair to all engine manufacturers, was becoming increasingly unlikely.

If the FIA had not acted, would there have been a protest?

As all the teams had reached consensus there would have been no point in doing so.

Has the matter now been settled?

Yes, and all cars will run under ‘Valencia’ conditions for the remainder of the season.

Are there likely to be any protests now that this matter seems to have been settled?

We are optimistic that there will be no protests over any engine mapping and exhaust tailpipe issues this season. In addition to the main part of the agreement reached in the TWG meetings it was also agreed that no team would raise a protest against another on these matters for the rest of the season.

What will happen in 2012 and beyond?

The teams have already agreed to strict constraints on exhaust tailpipe position which will result in them exiting the bodywork much higher up and no longer in the vicinity of the diffuser. Therefore, any aerodynamic benefit from exhaust gas flow over bodywork will be kept to an absolute minimum. Engine mapping will remain free (within the existing constraints of the FIA SECU) as, with the exhaust tailpipes in this new position, it is felt that any aerodynamic benefit will now be incidental to their primary purpose.