Adam Cooper F1

Mark Webber made it clear after the Australian GP that he was mystified as to why he was off the pace in qualifying and the race.

The Aussie ended up making three stops when Sebastian Vettel made two, and he finished up in fifth place some 38secs behind his team mate, who was obvious pacing himself in the later stages.

“It’s not the result I was after obviously,” said Webber. “I wasn’t quick at all today, and the same in qualy, so we need to understand the reasons why I could not hold the pace. There wasn’t much more I could do today, obviously lost the last position to Fernando at the pit stops.

“It was a tough race, to be honest. I was pushing as hard as I could, but I wasn’t getting much back. Similar to yesterday. I haven’t been on the pace all weekend, and we’ll look into why.

“Seb drove a good race, but it’s not really normal for me not to go with the rhythm at the front, I should be able to stay with these guys, and yesterday also I was struggling.

“I finished a long way behind today and had trouble with the tyres very soon in each stint. This was a difficult Grand Prix for me, we’ll learn a lot next week, go through everything, see where we can improve things.”

Asked if he thought there might be a problem with the car he said: “You’ve got to look at everything, [including] yourself, and obviously to finish that far behind is not really usual. Stay cool, first race, obviously disappointing not to get a much better result here. It was certainly possible, but in the end everyone deserved the result they got today, and that’s what they got.”

Lewis inspects the loose floor, just visible by the number '2'

Martin Whitmarsh remains confident that McLaren can continue to take the challenge to Red Bull this season, and that there is still more to come from the new package that was hurriedly introduced for Australia.

The worrying thing for everyone else is that Red Bull took off KERS for the race, and that represented a potential loss of 0.3s/0.4s per lap which in theory the team will regain for the next race. However Whitmarsh expects to be able to keep up.

“If we make as much progress in the next 10 days as in the last 10, it will be easy, won’t it!,” he joked. “Three tenths is not insignificant, but you can make those steps. You’ve got to keep pushing, if they don’t, we’ll attack, but I’m sure they’re going to keep pushing, they’re a strong team.

“In truth we’ve been in slightly tunnel vision for the last 10 days, because initially we did not believe we could get this upgrade here, we focussed on that. We’ll re-group tomorrow and we’ll take a view on what’s possible for Malaysia.”

Whitmarsh said that the team seemed to have an advantage on tyre wear, which could bode well for the future.

“We should have had two cars on the podium here. I think Lewis was not quite as quick as Sebastian, but I think until he had the floor damage he was not far from him. I think his tyre usage was slightly lighter than the Red Bulls and Ferraris, and I think by comparison most of the quick cars, with the exception of Perez, and how that happened, I don’t know!

“So that’s encouraging, I think that will become more critical for instance in Sepang, which is going to be heavier on tyres. So if people here were having to three stop and we were comfortably able to two-stop, maybe that will be an advantage. It depends how it falls.

“And we know that what we did here was a fairly improvised set of modifications, we can certainly improve on those, certainly by the time we get to Malaysia. Sebastian is doing a fantastic job, and so’s Adrian [Newey], so we’re going to have to work hard. But that’s what we’re here for. I think it’s a prospect now of a great championship.

“Ferrari did look off the pace and so did Mercedes, but they’re two great teams and they’ve got the knowledge and the capability. We saw how Ferrari did a great recovery last year. I think this is one race, I think it was a reasonably encouraging start, certainly by comparison to winter testing! And we’ll now see what we can do for the rest of the season.”

He admitted it wasn’t clear whether Lewis Hamilton’s floor damage was the cause of or was caused by his trip across the grass at Turn One.

“In fairness to him I think it may have happened just before he went off. I didn’t see how aggressive Lewis had been on the kerbs, but you’ve got to say a car should be robust enough to have an excursion without damaging the floor.

“Whether an excursion was caused or created by it, you have excursions, there are kerbs on Grands Prix. By the same token both cars did a race distance and that’s actually the first time we’ve achieved a race distance with this car! I don’t think we should be too hard on ourselves about it.”

The biggest frustration for the team was the drive through penalty that cost Button a potential third place.

“He had the pace, and he would have been on the podium. That’s frustrating, that’s annoying, but these things happen in motor racing. I think we’ve got to take the positives out of it. Both drivers did a fantastic job. They’ve had a frustrating winter, the team’s had a difficult winter.

“The team’s done a great job to get here with an ad hoc upgrade package that performed, the drivers have kept spirit in the team and commitment themselves, they’ve done a fantastic job here in all the practice sessions and showed good form, and they raced well. Sometimes these things work for you, sometimes they don’t.”

Christian Horner has praised both the Red Bull team and Sebastian Vettel for their brilliant start to the season in Australia, which saw the World Champion take a dominant victory.

The team had opted to run without KERS, but any concerns about the start were forgotten when Vettel stayed safely ahead and the totally controlled the race.

“As a team you learn, you learn from the victories, you learn from the mistakes,” said Horner. “As a group we are still very young, we’re still progressing, and we are still moving forward. I feel that we are better equipped than last year to deal with the championship, and the undoubted pressures that will come.

“I don’t think we can expect another 18 races like we saw today. You know that Ferrari will come back strong, you know McLaren won’t sit still, they made a big step coming here this weekend. We’ve got some good stuff in the pipeline, and the way the team is working is fantastic.

“We came here confident that we had had a good winter, that we had done our homework and our preparation, and we felt that we arrived here in better shape than any previous season but in terms of our competitiveness. We thought we were close to Ferrari, but just ahead or just behind, we weren’t really sure. So yesterday was quite a surprise to ourselves, the pace difference, particularly as we had elected on Friday not to run the KERS system.”

He remains confident that RBR can deal with the McLaren challenge: “They’ve made massive steps, they are a great team and they always have a strong development during a season. We outdeveloped them last year, we did it the year before, and we will be determined to try and do it again this year.”

Regarding Vettel’s faultless performance, Horner said: “I think his drive today was a very, very controlled drive, and I think that he showed huge maturity in the way that he controlled his pace, in the way that he dictated from the front with the communication he gave to the engineers. And he has now won three races in a row, bookended the 2010 and 2011 seasons, and obviously his confidence is very, very high.

“There were no tears today, but he said to me during the winter, because he’s got an obsession about the trophies, there’s apparently a kangaroo on the trophy here that he really liked the look of. He was determined to come here and take that trophy home, which is exactly what he has done.”

The team’s biggest concern was the performance of Mark Webber, who came away with a humble fifth place. Webber was fast on Friday, but then lost performance on Saturday and Sunday. Horner said there was no obvious problem with the car.

“We could not see it on an inspection last night. We found some front wing damage that had affected him, but to what amount, it was difficult to quantify. And obviously until we get the car back [from parc ferme], we need to see. Usually they have been pretty closely matched, and that has been the biggest that we have seen between the two of them that I can certainly think of.

“So we need to get the car back, look at the data, and understand if anything is damaged, how it has affected the car, and make sure that they’re both back to business as usual in Malaysia.”

Mark stopped right after the flag because he had used more fuel than expected: “With Mark we stopped the car just as a precaution. Because he pushed very hard we were marginal on fuel. We just wanted to make sure we had enough fuel in the car for the FIA to take their sample.”

Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali admits that the team underperformed in Australia and will have to hit back in Malaysia.

Fernando Alonso recovered to fourth place after being pushed down to ninth when he ran wide at the start, while Felipe Massa salvaged seventh after the two Saubers were excluded. However Alonso’s fifth place in qualifying was a disappointment.

“What we need to understand why this weekend we didn’t get the performance we were expecting from ourselves,” said Domenicali. “Without looking at the others, this is the main thing that we need to analyse at home and make sure that in Malaysia we come back. For sure this weekend was not the one that we wanted, in terms of performance.

“Today in the race I have to say with regard to Fernando, starting in ninth position after the first lap, he was in a very difficult situation. He did a fantastic race. For sure if he would have had let’s say a clean start – not because of him but because he was unfortunately outside – and there was traffic on the inside, the race would have been for sure totally different.”

Domenicali said he was happy with the way the Ferrari KERS performed.

“It’s a matter of balance. On our car KERS worked quite well. At the beginning for example Jenson was behind Felipe and was always attacking him, we were able to match that Jenson was using the rear wing with the KERS. That is something that for us was very useful. In terms of balance, in terms of what the others are doing with that, I cannot answer, to be honest.”

Regarding the DRS, he added: “We were expecting that the rear wing effect was not really obvious, because the length [of the straight] is not so much. Then you have to consider what I said before, that you have to use the KERS in a certain condition to protect.

“We need to wait and see. Then we need to understand better the situation on our side, of the tyre usage, because that will affect the future strategy, the future management of the race, that’s for sure.”

Both Saubers have now been excluded from the race results for a technical infringement involving bodywork.

That means the result is now Massa 7th, Buemi 8th, Sutil 9th, di Resta 10th.

The issue is the upper rear wing element. The rules say ‘the local concave radius of curvature may not be smaller than 100mm,’ and both cars breached that.

The rules concerned is new for this year. The test is conducted with a template and would not have come to light until after the race because not all FIA tests are conducted routinely every weekend.

Technical director James Key took a sample of the rear wing to race control but didn’t want to comment when he returned to the paddock.

Update: Sauber has lodged a ‘statement of intention to appeal,’ so the matter is not over yet.

As of 2130 local time the Australian GP stewards are still busy with two issues that could affect the results of the race.

Force India has asked the FIA to look into a passing move by Sebastien Buemi on Adrian Sutil, during which the Swiss driver went off the circuit. He finished 10th, a place ahead of Sutil.

Meanwhile a technical issue has arisen with Sauber. Technical director James Key has been to race control and did not look too happy when he returned to the paddock, and declined to comment. It’s not clear whether it involves one or both cars, which finished the race in seventh and eighth.

The fact that all the cars are still in parc ferme is a tell tale sign that the matter is still being debated.

Ferrari technical director Aldo Costa says the team was mystified when it had problems with tyre warm-up yesterday, which forced it to focus on using the soft tyres earlier in qualifying than planned.

The problem was especially acute for Felipe Massa, who has always struggled in such situations, and had a spin on cold tyres in Q3.

“This morning the car was not fast,” Costa said on Saturday night. “We were doing some modifications yesterday following set-up development that we had to do to correct the balance of the car, but today it was not as expected, so we went back for qualifying with more or less the same car as Friday.

“Then we were struggling with the hard tyres to find the correct warm-up. And the qualifying was all conservative, because we had to stay on the conservative side, so we used one set of soft in Q1, and had less sets in Q2 and Q3. It was a consequence of what happened in FP3.

“Felipe is struggling more than Fernando. It’s a problem that we saw in the past and never really solved.”

Clearly there could races coming up where being kinder on the tyres will be an advantage.

“In some years it was a benefit to have this kind of car. We have done a race simulation in Barcelona, mainly with Fernando, and we were pretty happy about the result.

“In the past it has worked – now everything is different, tyre, cars. Let’s see tomorrow and understand if it’s then something we can let’s say we can have back in other conditions for the rest of the season.”

Tonight as Christian Horner and Adrian Newey were leaving the paddock I told them that the ‘start only’ KERS rumours were gathering momentum. Christian laughed and said we’ll see tomorrow…

The confirmation from the Red Bull drivers that they didn’t use KERS in qualifying led to speculation as to why. I asked some top people at teams like Renault, McLaren and Ferrari, and they had no clue.

The most obvious reason was some sort of reliability issue that meant it was safer to switch it off, on the basis that the team had enough in hand and didn’t need the 0.3s a lap benefit.

The problem is the race, and what the team would do at the start, given that without KERS both drivers would come under threat. Had Mark Webber qualified second you could argue that he’d be riding shotgun for Sebastian Vettel. But with Lewis Hamilton taking that spot Vettel would almost certainly lose the lead if he doesn’t have KERS at the start.

And that’s why suggestions tonight that Red Bull has a start only KERS system make sense.

When a car goes to the grid it goes with the KERS having been fully charged in the garage – it’s not a question of loading it up by using the brakes on the warm-up lap or anything like that.

So in theory you could have a system that gave you a start boost and was inoperative thereafter. It could be smaller, lighter, create fewer packaging compromises, and require less cooling. A simplifed KERS could create an always welcome opportunity to play with ballast, although obviously this year there is less scope to adjust the weight distribution, as that is restricted by the rules.

Without KERS working off the brakes, drivers would be able to use them in a more optimal way throughout the race, and be at less risk of damaging the tyres or flat spotting them.

And of course it’s one less thing for drivers to think about. Mark Webber has made his feelings about the multi-tasking he’s now required to do quite clear.

Remember RBR briefly tried KERS in early 2009, and Adrian Newey soon discarded it. Back then weight was an issue – Webber is not the lightest driver in the field – but the limit has since gone up from 605kgs to 640kgs, so that has become less critical.

Clearly Newey did his sums back then and found that KERS did not fit his way of going racing, and it could well be that it still doesn’t, for the reasons outlined above.

So does RBR just have a regular KERS system that can be easily set-up just for start use, with a few elements removed or disconnected? Or does it have a dedicated ‘mini KERS’ that meets the letter of the rules and is never intended to work over a race distance? Does it have both and thus the option to fit either, depending on the track and the circumstances?

We should get some answers tomorrow, with a little help from the TV KERS graphic. Then the question could be whether other teams feel that such a system is within the rules.

It’s pretty clear that some might think it contravenes the spirit of the regs, in that having a system that doesn’t harvest energy over a race as it is intended to doesn’t do a lot for the green image of F1.

Tonight I asked a senior FIA guy if any of this made sense. He said he had no idea, but would ask his experts in the morning…

Fernando Alonso says that Ferrari missed a trick today after it struggled for grip and lost performance relative to its rivals.

Having made some set-up changes the team struggled for grip this morning and had to go back to Friday’s spec. The drivers struggled with warm-up of the hard tyre, so had to use a soft set in Q1, which meant they were compromised because they then had fewer sets for the rest of qualifying.

Nevertheless he’s not disappointed to be only fifth on the grid in Australia, despite the Italian team being widely regarded as the biggest threat to Red Bull this year.

“We were not super competitive today from the practice,” said Alonso. “The qualifying we took a very conservative approach, we knew that if we risk, maybe we are fourth, if we took a very safe qualifying we are fifth or sixth. It was not the time to do any risks in the first race of the championship, but unfortunately we found ourselves with only one set in Q3, we tried to do our best, and as I said I think fifth position is more or less what we expected before qualifying, and a position we are happy with. The distance from pole, we are not so happy, and it’s what we have to look at and analyse.”

Alonso said that a lack of grip was the essential problem.

“Yesterday it felt a little bit better, more overall grip, better balance. Today straight away, Felipe or me, we said less grip than yesterday, track conditions a little bit worse, but the other people were better than yesterday. We missed something today that we need to understand a little bit better.

“Also the distance from Toro Rosso, Sauber, Renault, we knew from winter testing and yesterday we were around one second in front of them, today it was only two or three tenths. So it was something lacking in our car. We will try to do a good race tomorrow, and in Sepang we need to be closer to the pole for sure.

“Obviously you never know. Until you arrive to the first qualifying of the season it’s only rumours, it’s only a guess. Today it’s true it was very big, the gap, but yesterday it looked quite close to be honest, to them and to McLaren. I expect that this was not the normal pace from us and we will get better and better tomorrow.”