Adam Cooper F1

Jenson Button says that he will not adjust his approach on the first lap tomorrow, despite being in the middle of the title contenders.

Button is behind Alonso and in front of Webber, and clearly if he gets involved in contact with either man, controversy will result.

“I think you have to look at it as a normal race,” said Jenson when asked by this blog about the situation. “As soon as you start changing your style or way of thinking, I think that’s when accidents happen. Plus, we’re out there to score as many points as we can for the constructors’.

“I know the guys around me are looking at the drivers’ championship, but we still want to finish second in the constructors’ championship. And one of us can still win the World Championship.

“I think for them, they’ve got to watch out for us more than the other way round. I’m looking forward to the race, and my aim is to be on the podium, that would be a great way to finish the season, like I did last year.”

Mark Webber struggled to conceal his frustration after qualifying only fifth in Abu Dhabi tonight, leaving himself with a huge task if he is going to get back into the title hunt.

He demonstrated his disappointment when he walked out of the compulstory multinational TV scrum after talking only to the BBC and the German media.

“I’m not wrapped of course, to be fifth on the grid is not very good,” he said after the session. “So it’s disappointing of course. But still a long way to go tomorrow. The fat lady hasn’t sung yet. Would like to have been further up, but couldn’t get the pace. A bit disappointing.

“We need to be there at the end, of course, a lot of things can still happen in the race. Haven’t helped things by our performance today, but we’ve seen races change. The championship isn’t decided today. Would have been nice to be further up. You could be more confident, but at the end of the day we’ll still in the hunt.”

Webber chose to start his crucial final qualifying run with one slow lap before picking up speed for his second, and that might not have been a good choice.

“I just didn’t have the grip that the other guys had. Together with my driving style, lots of different things, they all add up.  Sometimes you’re on pole, sometimes you’re not. It would have been nice to have been on the front row. No one’s interested in a shopping list of excuses, we’ve just got to do the best job we can tomorrow.”

Felipe Massa says Lewis Hamilton is ‘crazy’ if he believes that the Brazilian deliberately tried to take him out in qualifying in Abu Dhabi.

The pair got tangled up in Q2 while on out laps, and Lewis was forced to run over a chicane, knocking down a bollard in the process. Hamilton still managed to set a lap time and get through, but at the time he accused Massa on the radio of ‘trying to take me out.’

“First of all he was completely to the wrong side of the track and didn’t let me by,” said Massa. “And then he tried to push the car over, beyond the corner. I was on the normal line. If he said that, he’s completely crazy.”

Massa’s preparations for his final lap were compromised when he had to get out of the way of Fernando Alonso and allow him a clear track.

“It was not great to be honest on the opening lap, and then I had a problem to prepare my lap, and I couldn’t, so I couldn’t do the lap like I expected. It was a big casino there on the out lap to try to prepare the tyres. I couldn’t prepare to open my lap, so for sure it was supposed to be a lot better than that.”

Massa’s plan for tomorrow is to  “try to overtake as many cars as possible…”

Fernando Alonso gave McLaren an unexpected vote of support today after Lewis Hamilton topped the afternoon session in Abu Dhabi.

For obvious reasons it suits Alonso to have Hamilton in the mix and potentially taking points of the Red Bulls. Fernando himself finished the second session in third, albeit just 0.001s ahead of Mark Webber.

“I don’t really care where Lewis is in the times today,” he said initially. “For us it was a good Friday, because we managed to do a lot of laps. We tested some set-up possibilities for tomorrow that we need to analyse today. Overall it was a good Friday in terms of time on the track, in terms of how competitive other people are. We know that Friday is not very representative, and for sure Red Bull are still favourites for tomorrow. Hopefully McLaren can do a good job here and be on pole, but I guess Red Bull wasn’t 100% today.”

Asked by this blog how the track had developed into the evening, Alonso said: “It did change. Especially in first practice it did improve a lot. It was wet or damp in the installation lap in some corners, and sure it did improve. And then they ran some other categories between the two sessions, and overall we ended up with a good level of grip. We expect some more to come tomorrow as usual, and better on Sunday. I think Bahrain, Korea, Singapore, here, every lap you do on the track you feel better and better grip. We need to think also on that in terms of set-up for tomorrow etc. We know the track will come to us.”

He acknowledged that the Bridgestone supersofts are a concern: “Probably the supersofts were having some high degradation today, which was more or less expected, because tyres are one step softer or even two steps softer than last year’s tyres. We expect some extra degradation this year, but there is some big evolution in this track from Friday to Sunday, so if it doesn’t rain tomorrow or Sunday, I think supersoft can be OK even in the race.”

Alonso insisted that he’s not feeling any stress.

“I’m still feeling good, very relaxed, yesterday and today.  Sure tomorrow and Sunday will be more stressed, because you approach an important race. But I think all of the contenders at this point we have enough races, enough experience. We’ve been racing from go-karts all of us, 15 or 20 years ago. We know it’s an important race. At the end of the day it’s 25 points, the same as any of them. So we need to do a good weekend, a competitive lap tomorrow, a good start, good pit stop, and good race pace.”

Mark Webber finished both practice sessions today in Abu Dhabi in fourth place, but is satisfied with progress so far.

Webber was a tiny 0.001s behind Fernando Alonso in the second session, and 0.170s behind team mate Vettel.

“Pretty good, a normal session,” said Webber. “We had an engine change between the two sessions, so that was planned. The usual suspects at the front. Lewis has done a pretty good lap. It was a pretty good day. After us four I didn’t really take much of a notice.”

Webber said he slept well last night, despite the stress of the title decider.

“Good, I slept like a baby last night. Ready to go again tonight. You can only do what you can do. It feels like Bahrain [the first race] in the engineering office, in the car.

“It’s a normal weekend, but obviously there’s a lot more at stake this weekend, that’s the only thing that’s changed. You can’t try any harder.”

Sebastian Vettel was a little cautious when assessing Red Bull’s prospects after practice in Abu Dhabi today saw Lewis Hamilton outpace the blue cars.

Although Vettel was top in the first session he was beaten to the tune of 0.257s by the McLaren driver in the evening session. As ever there’s a question mark over fuel levels, but Vettel conceded that things are tight this weekend.

“Not bad,” he said after the session. “The car felt obviously very strong early afternoon, tonight a bit different with the conditions. All in all I was pretty happy. I think there is still a bit of lap time to gain, and we need to see. Obviously now we need to analyse the lap times of the other cars, how strong we are compared to them, and then hopefully we’ll pick up some pace and have a good day tomorrow.

“I think we’re up there, we were always pretty close. I think it looks quite good but as expected, tight, I think especially in the late evening Ferrari looked competitive, and McLaren. So as I said, tight as expected, hopefully we can pick up some pace and be ahead tomorrow.”

Asked how he would sleep on Saturday night Vettel joked: “Usually I get tired at night. I don’t know what you do, but usually I get tired and fall asleep…”

"Michael, where are you?". Ross Brawn looks for his man...

Michael Schumacher has infuriated Bernie Ecclestone by failing to show up for an end of season photo in the Abu Dhabi paddock.

For the first time all the team principals joined the drivers and Bernie for the traditional photo. The Crown Prince was also supposed to be there, but he was detained at the last minute.

Schumacher had indicated that he would come, but failed to show up. This writer spotted him disappearing into Mercedes hospitality, unusually attired in a pair of denim shorts…

Michael wasn’t the only driver to be missing. Bruno Senna was excused as he was busy with the FIA Stewards after an incident with Lewis Hamilton, while Bernie’s people were Timo Glock was having a massage on an injured foot – although he later told this blog that he’s simply gone to the wrong place, at the wrong end of the paddock. He arrived just as the photo session was ending.

However Schumacher was the one notable by his absence, and he probably hasn’t done himself any favours…

Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton won’t take part in next week’s Pirelli test in Abu Dhabi, despite it being the only chance to try the new tyres before next year.

Most top teams are using their regular drivers, some of whom insisted on being there. However Button says that the Pirellis will change before next season.

“I wanted to do the test,” he said. “But the team said we don’t think it’s the right time for you to be testing the tyre, because it’s going to change a lot. And it’s not through driver comment, it’s just the tyre will change a lot before we can properly do some testing with the new car and get some useful information from a race driver’s point of view.”

Gary Paffett and GP2 driver Oliver Turvey are on hand for McLaren this week.

Meanwhile Pirelli continued its testing this week in Paul Ricard, where Pedro de la Rosa ran wet tyres on an artificially soaked track.

Lotus Racing wants to revive the black and gold livery

Lotus Racing says it intends to run in a black and gold livery in 2011, and the team wants fans to help design it.

The colours first appeared in the 1971 Italian GP when Emerson Fittipaldi ran under the ‘Worldwide Racing’ banner to avoid any legal problems after Jochen Rindt’s accident the previous year. Team Lotus then ran in JPS colours from 1972-78, and again from 1981-86.

It’s an intriguing twist in the battle for the use of the Lotus name, because Group Lotus clearly wants to use green and yellow, as seen on Takuma Sato’s Indycar, in any racing activities.

Head of Marketing Silvi Schaumloeffel explained: “We have worked all year to make sure our fans are given unprecedented access to our team. We are all very excited about the move to a black and gold paint scheme for next season, and we want our fans to help us design the livery that will be racing around the world next year. We will shortly be announcing exactly how the fans can take part in our design process, so keep an eye on our website www.lotusracing.my for more details.

“The person who designs the livery we finally choose will be joining us at our first test next year to see the car out on track for the very first time, so for Lotus and F1™ fans it is the chance of a lifetime to help us take the next step forward in our amazing story in 2011.”

In case you haven't seen one, this is a Marussia. Nice...

Supercar maker Marussia Motors has taken a ‘significant shareholding’ in Virgin Racing.

The team will be known as Marussia Virgin Racing in 2011 as the Russian company tries to increase its profile internationally.

Marussia boss Nikolay Fomenko said: “This is the realisation of a dream for Marussia Motors. While manufacturing, launching and marketing the Marussia B1, B2 and other concepts in Europe we will have an F1 team to promote these activities and demonstrate to the world that a new car manufacturer has arrived from Russia with truly international ambitions.”

Marussia was founded in 2007 by Fomenko, a TV presenter and sometime racing driver. It has not yet delivered any cars to customers but show appearances have attracted attention.