Adam Cooper F1

Christian Klien has signed as test and reserve driver for HRT, and will make his debut in the car in place of one of the regular drivers at Barcelona in Friday morning practice.

The 27-year-old last raced for Red Bull in 2006, and had since had spells as test driver for Honda and BMW Sauber. He has also tested for Spyker. HRT has already announced Sakon Yamamoto as an extra driver.

Team boss Colin Kolles said in a statement: “We are very proud to welcome Christian Klien to HRT F1 Team. He is a young and fast driver. I have been keeping a close eye on him since his first races in the ADAC series as I believe he has great potential. We look forward to having Christian alongside us in Barcelona later this week so he can spend some valuable familiarisation time with the team. As a young team we are looking for drivers who can grow with us.”

Meanwhile Klien, who also has Peugeot sportscar commitments, added: “I am thrilled to be joining HRT F1 Team. This role offers me the opportunity to rejoin the Formula One environment and drive again, which is naturally where my longer-term ambitions lie. I was in Bahrain and China and had a close look at the car already.

“I have also met the team members and I know quite a number of them from my previous race seasons. I would like to thank Dr. Colin Kolles for the interest he has shown in me at this stage. It is exciting and very motivating to be part of a new team structure in such a challenging sport. At only 27 years with six seasons of F1 under my belt I am sure I can bring a lot of experience and enthusiasm into HRT F1 Team.”

It’s an interesting opportunity for Klien, but it remains to be seen how much the regular drivers suffer when they have to give up their places, albeit only for the opening session of the weekend.

Ferrari has been given permission by the FIA to modify its engines, and the team will have the revised units in action in Spain this weekend.

Although all F1 teams are subject to a strict engine freeze, manufacturers are allowed to introduce updates for specific reliability purposes, if the FIA agrees.

This year Fernando Alonso has already lost two engines from his allocation of eight, and Ferrari has been troubled by its pneumatic system. In the past it was replenished at pit stops, but with today’s shorter tyre-only stops, there has been no time to do it.

A Ferrari statement on Tuesday confirmed that permission has been granted: “A lot of work was carried out on the test bench, completing several long runs and this work produced some solutions which it is felt will solve the reliability problems experienced in Bahrain and Malaysia. The team therefore requested and received authorisation from the FIA to make some changes within the framework of the current engine regulations and these modifications will be fitted to the engines to be used in Spain.”

The team has confirmed that it will also experiment with its wing stalling system this weekend, Giancarlo Fisichella having tested it in straightline running at Vairano recently.

“On Friday in Barcelona, the wing will be tested by both drivers during the free practice sessions, as they will need to get used to actually operating the system and there will be no need to do a back-to-back evaluation against the existing wing as this has already been carried out at Vairano. After free practice, a decision will be taken regarding its use for qualifying and the race.”

Robert Kubica has been one of the stars of the season so far

Renault F1 shareholder and Genii Group boss Gerard Lopez says that Robert Kubica has what it takes to be a World Champion one day.

After a low-key 2009 with BMW the Pole’s reputation has been boosted by some great performances with Renault so far this year, and he has scored a second, a third and a fifth in the last three races. He continues to be linked with a future at Ferrari.

“I knew Robert from BMW, even before he was an F1 [race] driver there,” Lopez told this blog. “I’m a very strong believer that on pure speed and character he’s one of the few that deserves a World Championship at some time.”

Kubica had another great race in China, running third for many laps before slipping back to fifth. His team mate Vitaly Petrov was also in the points after both men joined Nico Rosberg and Jenson Button in staying out on dry tyres in the early laps.

“It was a good race for us,” said Lopez. “The basis was the fact that again the team made no mistakes, and made the right decisions, and they’ve been doing that since the beginning of the season.

“I’m pleased with Vitaly, and how he recovered from a rookie mistake, when he spun out. Rain is a great leveller, and rain tells you a lot about drivers, because it levels the playing field much more. So the job he did was amazing in rain conditions.”

Lopez says that Renault needs to improve its qualifying pace in the coming weeks.

“In qualifying Robert is pretty much where we are supposed to be right now, between sixth and eighth probably, with Vitaly scratching around for 10^th, which is great for a rookie obviously. In the races we’re better. The car is where we expected in the races, and we’re working very hard to get it up to speed in qualifying.

“After we took over the team we worked extremely hard on development.  We’re bringing out a package pretty much every race, so it’s a very aggressive development schedule. Obviously if you remember at the last test in Barcelona [in February] we were not brilliant, but we had a major upgrade and the car was different for Bahrain. So the car is obviously good.

“For Barcelona we’ve new bits on the car, but obviously it’s a big Grand Prix for all the other teams, so there are going to be major updates. Hopefully we’ll catch up, but we’ll see. It’s going to tell us where we stand and then we’ll take it from there.”

"...and all I got was a lousy t-shirt"

Stefan GP’s website has woken up after several weeks of inactivity and announced that the team is to bid for a 2011 entry slot.

Toyota made it clear some time ago that it would have nothing more to do with the project so it’s not clear yet what technical support the team will have.

Stefan has also announced the creation of the ‘Stefan Technology Park,’ where the team will be based. The facility will include a race circuit that supposedly will be of F1 standard, although its proposed 3.5km length makes that sound a little ambitious.

Stefan have bizarrely also added pictures of 12 drivers it talked to about possible seats for 2010, and while most names were in the public domian, others probably won’t be very happy to have been unmasked in this way.

The team’s statement reads as follows: “AMCO Corporation and its owner Zoran Stefanovic have today signed an agreement with the Mayor of Stara Pazova, located 25km from Belgrade, Serbia, to build the STEFAN TECHNOLOGY PARK . This will include a racing circuit suitable for the competition of Formula One, and a technical complex that will serve as STEFAN GRAND PRIX’s team headquarters upon completion in two years time.

“’I think this is an excellent development for our team, Stara Pazova city, region and country,’ Mr Stefanovic said today. ‘This is proof that we want to put ourselves on the map as a serious hi-tech company, and that we are serious about competing in Formula One for the long term.’

“’Bearing in mind that we will soon be on a par with top teams, in terms of facilities and organisation, as Stefan Technology Park looking to be compared with them, we expect many positive improvements in the future,’ concluded Stefanovic.

“StefanGP would also like to officially announce our bid for the FIA 2011 Formula One World Championship.”

Elsewhere on his website, Stefanovic quotes Sir Winston Churchill as an inspiration:  “A great man by the name of Sir Winston Churchill once said something that I try to implant into the minds of the people in my team. It’s something along the lines of: NEVER, NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP! In the last almost 12 months you were all witnesses of the fact that I strongly stand behind my beliefs.

“I still believe that F1 would be a much more interesting competition with SGP, and my team and I feel like the battle is just starting. We want to be a part of F1 for both the long and short term future, and I hope that we will finally have the success we deserve.

“This quality is shared by every person who has changed the world. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP! Thank you for supporting us, and I hope to see you at GP soon! Best Regards, Zoran Stefanovic”

We await developments with baited breath…

Michael Schumacher says his lack of experience with Bridgestone’s current intermediate tyres cost him performance in China.

The German says that the tyres have changed since 2006, and with his lack of knowledge relative to other front runners, it’s hard for him to judge how to get the best out of them. In China all drivers struggled to keep their tyres alive, losing performance when the rain eased and they began to grain.

“It’s a new condition and these intermediates are slightly different to what I obviously knew in the past,” he said. “You have to really pace yourself dramatically in order to keep them alive long enough. The difficulty with the weather was to predict how long is rain going to last, or not going to last, do we change back to dries, how quick we can push. It’s a new experience again for me.”

In China he tumbled down to 10th place, having spent much of his race fighting people off.

“I’m sure for spectators it’s been very exciting, but for me it’s one of those ones that you call frustrating, actually. As you can imagine there were some good emotions, but there were unfortunately too many bad emotions! Actually at the beginning I thought we were quite clever compared to some others when we changed onto intermediates, but it turned out to be the wrong decision.

“Honestly all weekend didn’t work out for myself. I think I have to compliment the ‘English team,’ and say congratulations to them, they’ve done a great job. I had a nice battle with Lewis at some point, some nice kissing to each other! But nevertheless they did it, and congratulations to Nico who made it onto the podium, so at least one of us scored good points.”

Apologies for lack of activity recently due to difficulty in accessing WordPress in China (they don’t like bloggers) and subsequent travel problems!

Bruno Senna says that the HRT team has to find performance soon, having already shown that the Dallara-built car can be reliable by getting both examples to the finish in Malaysia.

Senna saw the chequered flag for the first time at Sepang after suffering early retirements in the first two races, while team mate Karun Chandhok also finished.

“As a team we’re quite happy,” Senna told this blog. “I think most of the big problems we have are being solved. There are still a few problems with fuel pick-up and this sort of thing which need to be solved for the next race, but performance will only come with updates and developments, so we need to focus on that. The team needs to sort this part out, and from then on I think we can start looking forward to competing with the other guys, because for the moment we’re a bit far behind.

“To be fair it’s a great achievement to finish a race with both cars. It’s a very reliable car considering how many miles it’s done and the conditions, but as well as reliability we want to have performance, and performance needs to come fairly soon. But we’re pushing very hard as a team.”

Senna hopes that the team will have a useful package for the first European race in Barcelona.

“We hope so. It’s hard to say exactly when the updates are going to come, but we hope we can have a few for Barcelona. For sure there are a few things that will come that will improve telemetry and comfort and all these things that are sometimes overlooked, but are very essential. And then the big things will come as they are ready.”

Meanwhile the biggest problem he faces is not losing too much time while being lapped, something that was a major concern in Malaysia.

“It took me about half the race to understand how to let the other cars overtake, I was losing a lot of time. We need to work a bit more on that. It’s better when we don’t have to let people past us more than once! Once or twice I was a bit close with cars overtaking, but you cannot always jump out of the way…”

Flavio Briatore has now confirmed that he has reached an agreement with the FIA to put an end to the 2008 Singapore GP affair, but says that he has not admitted any personal guilt in relation to the incident.

The FIA issued a statement this afternoon saying that Briatore and Pat Symonds had recognised their ‘share of responsibility’ for the affair.

The Italian has since put out his own statement confirming that while he has agreed to that principle – in respect of his role of team boss at the time of the Singapore incident – he has not made any admission of personal guilt, or recognised that the original World Motor Sport Council decision against him was ‘well-founded.’

In place of the ‘lifetime ban’ that was originally imposed, Briatore has instead agreed not to have any involvement with F1 until the end of 2012.

Briatore’s statement reads as follows: “Flavio Briatore announced today that he has reached an agreement with the FIA, to put an end to the differences between the parties, caused by the events of the Singapore GP 2008

“By effect of this settlement, the FIA will withdraw its appeal against the decision rendered by the Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris on January 5th 2010 declaring irregular the World Council’s decision issued against Mr. Flavio Briatore on September 21st 2009.

“Flavio Briatore informed the FIA of his intention not to undertake any operational role in Formula One before the end of 2012, nor in any other FIA Championship, before the end of the Racing Season 2011.

“He confirmed his acceptance to bear his share of responsibility in the Singapore events in his capacity of Managing Director of the Renault F1 Team, at the time they happened, without any admission of a personal guilt in these events and without any recognition of the fact that the decision of the World Council rendered against him would have been well-founded.

“No further comment will be made by Flavio Briatore, who wishes to put behind this matter and focus on his plans for the future.”

The FIA says that it has come to an agreement with Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds which puts an end to any more proceedings resulting out of the 2008 Singapore GP affair.

In a statement shrouded in legal language the FIA insists that it has come out on top, and that both men have admitted their share of responsibility.

However, the bottom line is that Briatore’s original ‘lifetime ban’ has become somewhat less restrictive, as the statement says that he has now agreed to ‘abstain from having any operational role’ in F1 only until the end of 2012.

The same deadline now applies to Symonds, who was originally banned for five years. Both men can in fact become involved in other forms of FIA-regulated motor sport from the end of 2011.

In return the FIA has ended the appeal process it had started against the decision taken in January by France’s Tribunal de Grande Instance, which found against the WMSC’s decision.

It remains to be seen whether Briatore is interested in returning to sport in 2013, but clearly he still has friends in high places and could yet find a future role.

The full statement reads as follows: “The decision handed down by the Tribunal de Grande Instance of Paris on 5 January 2010 at the request of Mr Flavio Briatore and Mr Pat Symonds, which the FIA has appealed, revealed a poor understanding of how the disciplinary procedure before the World Motor Sport Council (WMSC) works.

“In accordance with the undertakings made by the FIA President during his campaign, it will be proposed at the next General Assembly, at the end of 2010, that a structural reform, on which the FIA Statutes Review Commission is currently working, be adopted to prevent other misunderstandings.

“In the meantime, at its meeting in Bahrain on 11 March 2010, the WMSC decided on the one hand to adopt a Code of Practice to clarify the working of its disciplinary procedure, and on the other hand to give the FIA President full authority to seek a definitive outcome, whether judicial or extrajudicial, to the disputes with Mr Flavio Briatore and Mr Pat Symonds, best preserving the interests of the FIA.

“After discussions between their lawyers and those of the FIA, Mr Flavio Briatore and Mr Pat Symonds have each made a settlement offer to the FIA President with a view to putting an immediate end to the legal proceedings.

“Each of them recognising his share of responsibility for the deliberate crash involving the driver Nelson Piquet Junior at the 2008 Grand Prix of Singapore, as “Team Principal” of Renault F1 where Mr Flavio Briatore is concerned, they have expressed their regrets and presented their apologies to the FIA.

“They have undertaken to abstain from having any operational role in Formula One until 31 December 2012, as well as in all the other competitions registered on the FIA calendars until the end of the 2011 sporting season.

“They have also abandoned all publicity and financial measures resulting from the judgment of 5 January 2010, as well as any further action against the FIA on the subject of this affair.

“In return, they have asked the FIA to abandon the ongoing appeal procedure, but without the FIA recognising the validity of the criticisms levelled against the WMSC’s decision of 21 September 2009, as well as to waive the right to bring any new proceedings against them on the subject of this affair.

“Considering that the judgment of 5 January 2010 concerned only the form and not the substance of the WMSC’s decision of 21 September 2009, and that the undertakings and renunciation of all claims  expressed by Mr Flavio Briatore and Mr Pat Symonds are in line with what the WMSC is seeking, the FIA President has considered that it is in the best interests of the FIA not to allow the perpetuation of these legal disputes, which have received a great deal of media coverage and which, regardless of the outcome, are very prejudicial to the image of the FIA and of motor sport, and thus to accept this settlement solution, thereby putting an end to this affair.”

Will McLaren close the gap to Red Bull in qualifying in China? That’s certainly the hope of team boss Martin Whitmarsh.

The consensus in the pitlane is that RBR’s qualifying pace stems in part from its apparent ability to run its cars low with no fuel in qualifying and yet still retain a competitive ride height when a full fuel load goes in for the race, despite the rules saying that car settings cannot be changed.

Although he didn’t divulge any details, Whitmarsh says that suspension modifications are in hand that will address that situation at McLaren.

“I think they were very much in a class of their own,” he said of RBR’s pace. “We’re a lot closer now. Their qualifying pace has been very good, we think we know why, and I think that’s something that others will be doing shortly.

“We have some new parts coming for China which will lift us by more than a few tenths. We had six modifications here which were worth 0.3s, and if we can deliver more than 0.3s going to China I think it will be a pretty good effort. And particularly in qualifying.”

Whitmarsh says he has confidence in McLaren’s R&D programme: “I think one of the nice things about it, I sense, to be honest at the beginning of last year we were a long way behind and a little bit lost in terms of the correlation between our tools and what happened on the track.

“This year we’ve got a good hit rate, a good correlation between the tools, therefore if we find something is quicker in analysis and simulation, then it is when we put it on the car. I think we’ve got reasonable momentum at the moment. Who knows? You could come to the next race and someone’s ‘Hallelujah,’ and they take half a second or one second. But I think we’ll be competitive in China.”

Meanwhile Whitmarsh says that Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton were allowed to race each other in Malaysia, where both drivers ran very different strategies. Button started on the soft option tyre and made an early stop prior to a long stint on primes, while Hamilton did the opposite. Their races converged when Hamilton came out of the pits and just beat his team mate in a fraught run around the first turn.

“I was asked by both sides can we race? And I said yes is the answer. Jenson was told to push like hell, because he was going to be racing someone out of the pits, and that was clearly on the radio, and Lewis was told you’re racing Jenson out of the pits.

“We could see that was going to happen, and that’s what we chose to do. Both drivers wanted to beat each other, and it was close. I think as it happened they came out together and Lewis got ahead, in fairness Lewis was on much newer rubber so if he’d popped out behind, he would have been able to get past.”

Whitmarsh says that the decision to split the strategies of the two drivers was a sensible one.

“The view was we thought there would be some rain, there has been every afternoon since we got here. We thought that being on the same strategy as the 20 or 19 cars in front wasn’t likely to get us anywhere. Lewis wanted to go prime and go long, and he was happy with that, and that meant that had we had rain two-thirds of the way through – preferably when Lewis had got through to second place – bingo, we would have looked a genius wouldn’t we?

“It was a reasonable punt, and in any case his pace through the middle part of that race got him through to a solid points finish. With Jenson as soon as we could see he was held, after nine laps because he was on option he had the ability to stop. If he had been on primes he would have had to have sat there, because we couldn’t have pulled him in on a one stop and had the option last.

“I think both guys did a great job to come through to solid points. I think it was probably the right strategy for both of them, and as I say to have done what others were doing, the general strategy, wasn’t really going to do much for us.”

After what was on the face of it a disastrous weekend Ferrari came away from Sepang leading both World Championships.  But that’s of little comfort to team principal Stefano Domenicali, who says the team has to work hard to catch Red Bull.

Both drivers were stranded at the back of the grid after misjudging the rain in qualifying, and in while Felipe Massa finished seventh, Fernando Alonso retired with an engine failure.

That remains a major cause of concern, not least because Sauber suffered a double Ferrari failure on Sunday as well.

“First of all for sure when we have a problem of reliability, it’s a worry,” said Domencali after the flag. “We need to make sure that we solve it as soon as possible. We don’t know exactly what is the nature of the problem on Fernando’s engine at the moment, we don’t know exactly what is the situation on the Sauber engines too, but what I can say now as far as the information I have, these problems are different.

“This is in a way something that will add to the fact that we need to make sure that we are on top of the problems on the engine side. More than that at the moment it’s difficult to say.”

Alonso’s day was made even tougher by a gearbox downshift problem that hampered him for much of the race.

“I think he was really good to manage it. We had a problem with the downshift, [what it is] exactly we need to analyse the data. He was able to cope with a system that was not really working properly, so I think he was really good.”

Domenicali says Red Bull remains a step ahead for the time being.

“Who is the fastest car after the first three Grands Prix? If I have to look from the number point of view, we are leading the championships. So we should be the fastest. We know that is a very optimistic approach, and that is not the way that we think. We think that for sure looking at the result of the first three Grand Prix, Red Bull did three pole positions. They had reliability issues on other occasions, so for sure Red Bull seems to be the most competitive car.

“But I don’t want to forget that also McLaren seems very good. For sure that’s the ranking that I see if I have to freeze the situation today. But we are there, we are competitive, we are strong, and we need to make sure we are on top of the problems.”

Domenicali admitted that the team will also have to take a long look at its failure to get its qualifying strategy right in Saturday’s rain.

Unfortunately this weekend was the worst weekend in terms of a global result, mainly for two main factors – reliability, that was unfortunately not good enough, but we cannot forget unfortunately that the bad result of this weekend is mainly related to the qualifying of yesterday, because when you start from 19th and 21st, to be there is already a miracle. And for sure what has happened yesterday was not acceptable.

“We’re discussing it within the team, we don’t have to take any risks even if the bigger team have done the same. It’s not good, I think it’s a lesson learned for the group of people. But for sure I think that we need to keep working very, very strongly on the development of the car, because I’m expecting the others to do some new step.

“We have a competitive package, but it’s never enough, so we need to make sure that when we bring the new parts to the track, they will be reliable, and the data should be confirmed 100%, because when there is no testing you need to avoid analyses or simulations that are showing to you that you have good numbers, and then you discover at the track that it’s different, so I think that’s the approach that we need to keep for the next race.”

One of the developments the team is working on is a version of the McLaren ‘F-Duct,’ which will give Ferrari a straightline speed boost.

“On the system of McLaren, for sure we are working flat out at home, because we saw the benefit that seems to be very, very big above all in the main straight with certain conditions, I would say stalling of the rear wing. But we will bring as soon as everything will be reliable, and we will be 100% sure that the system will work.”