Formula 1's bosses have tweaked next year's schedule to make space for an extra race, bringing the calendar back up to 20 grands prix. This is expected to be a return of the Turkish Grand Prix which was dropped after 2011 for financial reasons. Efforts have been made in recent days to agree a new deal in Istanbul. The German Grand Prix has been moved to 7 July, freeing up its previous date of 21 July for what governing body the FIA says will be another "European event".

The FIA was not immediately available for comment. Strictly speaking, the Turkish Grand Prix track is not in Europe - it is on the Asian side of the Bosphorus. But it is often referred to as a "European" race. An FIA statement from the World Motorsport Council, which is meeting in the Turkish city this week, said the new race was "subject to approval by the relevant" national sporting authorities.

And there have been efforts in recent months to revive the French Grand Prix, which was last held in 2008, but it is thought that an agreement on that event is still some way off. There has also been a report that the extra race could be at the Red Bull-owned A1-Ring in Austria, which last held a grand prix in 2003 but has been refurbished in recent years. The addition of a 20th race means next year's calendar will contain as many grands prix as this year's record schedule.

The World Council also ratified a series of previously announced changes to the F1 rules. Of these, the most important are: Deflection tests on front wings have been made more stringent, with loads to be applied at the back and front of each side of the wings rather than in one place on each side. This should prevent the practice of teams making their wings rotate from front to back to enhance aerodynamics.

Use of the DRS overtaking aid will no longer be free in practice and qualifying. Instead, it will only be allowed in the designated zones in which it will be used on the track in the race. It was also decided that the plan to make cars run on electric power alone in the pit lane from 2014, when F1 is introducing 1.6-litre V6 turbo engines with extensive energy recovery, would be delayed until 2017. And the FIA has abandoned changes for 2014 that were scheduled to be made to bodywork design to enhance efficiency by reducing downforce and drag.

Source: bbc

Read the rest of this entry »

Ecclestone, 82, was critical of the controversy generated after Ferrari decided to write to the FIA asking for clarification on Sebastian Vettel's pass on Jean-Eric Vergne during the season finale in Brazil.
Ecclestone said last week that Ferrari was too late to consider a protest, and labelled the situation a "complete joke".

In the rules and regs normally you have to protest. They [Ferrari] missed that time," Ecclestone told the Telegraph. "It's a complete joke. What they are saying in that letter is wrong. I don't think there needs to be any action taken. It's completely and utterly wrong."Di Montezemolo, speaking during the Ferrari World Finals, was critical of Ecclestone, saying "old age" is often "incompatible with certain roles and responsibilities."

Di Montezemolo's comments on Ecclestone came after the Italian criticised the current lack of testing for younger drivers. "We are constructors, not sponsors: I'm no longer happy that we can't do testing on tarmac and that you can't give any chance for young drivers to emerge," he said. "Since some people have used the expression 'It's a joke' in recent days, I would like to say that this is the real 'joke'. "Yes, I'm referring to one of Ecclestone's phrases: my father always taught me that you have to have respect your elders, above all when they reach the point that they can no longer control their words. So I will stop there. "Certainly, old age is often incompatible with certain roles and responsibilities."

Source: uk.eurosport.yahoo

Read the rest of this entry »

Ferrari have now received an official response from governing body the FIA after requesting clarification on whether Vettel overtook illegally during the race. The team says it "takes notice" and "considers the matter closed".

It says it raised the issue because the incident "could have left a shadow in the eyes of all the fans of Formula 1". Ferrari had approached the FIA after concerns were raised over on-board footage from Vettel's car that appeared to show he had passed Jean-Eric Vergne's Toro Rosso in an area where overtaking was forbidden.

But the FIA has made it clear that Vettel did not begin his move until passing a green flag, indicating the end of the no-overtaking zone, which is not clearly visible on the video. The penalty for overtaking in a 'yellow' caution zone, if applied after the race, is 20 seconds added to a driver's race time. If that had happened to Vettel, he would have been demoted to eighth place and Ferrari's Fernando Alonso would have won the championship by one point.

Ferrari said: "The request for a clarification from the FIA, regarding Vettel's passing move on Vergne, came about through the need to shed light on the circumstances of the move, which came out on the internet only a few days after the race.

"The letter to the FIA was in no way intended to undermine the legality of the race result. "We received tens of thousands of queries relating to this matter from all over the world and it was incumbent on us to take the matter further, asking the Federation to look into an incident that could have cast a shadow over the championship in the eyes of all Formula 1 enthusiasts, not just Ferrari fans. "Ferrari duly takes note of the reply sent by the FIA this morning and therefore considers the matter now closed."

The FIA said it had "replied to Scuderia Ferrari... stating that as the overtaking manoeuvre was not in breach of the regulations, and therefore there was no infringement to investigate, it was not reported to the Stewards by Race Control."

The situation regarding Vettel's move was complicated because the track-side warning lights and flags and Vettel's dashboard display contradicted each other. Vettel pulls off the pass on lap four of the race before he reaches a green flashing light indicating that the yellow caution zone has ended. And his dashboard display shows the yellow-flag warning sign throughout. However, on-board videos of the incident seem to show a marshal waving a green flag on the inside of the track.

Source: bbc

Read the rest of this entry »

America’s first Formula 1 race in five years ended with a victory by the same driver who took the checkered flag in the last F1 race held in the United States. Britain’s Lewis Hamilton, driving for the McLaren team, won today’s United States Grand Prix on a course near Austin, Texas, with a time of 1:35:55.269, according to F1’s official we site, www.formula1.com.

Hamilton, 27, was a rookie sensation when he won the 2007 U.S. Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, America’s last F1 race. Hamilton went on to win the F1 world championship in 2008. His margin of victory today was just two-thirds of a second ahead of F1’s reigning world champion, Sebastian Vettel of Germany.

Vettel thrilled New Jersey racing fans in June, when he did donuts in an Infinity sport coup and drove exhibition laps around a 3.2-mile circuit laid out on local streets in Weehawken and West New York, opposite midtown Manhattan. He was helping to hype the Grand Prix of America, a race originally envisioned for June 2013. However, local sponsors announced last month that the race would be postponed a year due to financial and logistical hurdles.

Vettel, 25, who drives for Red Bull Racing, needs only to finish fourth or better in next week’s 20th and final race of the Formula 1 2012 season to clinch his third straight driver's championship. His chief rival for the trophy, Fernando Alonso of Spain, took third in today’s race, helping clinch the 2012 Constructors’ Championship for his team, Ferrari. Alonso, 31, a two-time champion, trails Vettel by 13 points, with 25 points going to the winner of next Sunday’s season finale in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Read the rest of this entry »

Michael Schumacher's monumental achievements came about through a perfect storm of an exceptionally talented and hard-working driver, ground-breaking technical achievement, a bottomless pit of money and a ruthless management that exploited every last avenue to its benefit. The result was a redefinition of what was possible in Formula 1 - five consecutive world championships; 56 victories in seven years from 2000-6; a total of seven titles and 91 wins for Schumacher's career.

At his disposal in the early 2000s, Schumacher had a number of advantages from which probably no other driver in history has benefited for so long. On top of those already mentioned was arguably the greatest of all - bespoke Bridgestone tyres effectively custom-made for Schumacher himself. These factors were all instrumental in Schumacher re-writing the record books; he holds virtually every landmark statistic in the sport.

He found himself in the position to exploit them, though, because he was the greatest driver of his era.
That era spanned the gap between the end of the Senna/Prost years and the dawning of a new age with a depth of talent and opposition far richer than Schumacher had to face. Through the late 1990s and into 2000, only Mika Hakkinen was in his league - the Finn had the speed but not the same discipline and consistency. Then, when the likes of Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen arrived in the early 21st century, they only rarely had cars that could challenge Schumacher and Ferrari.

Regardless, Schumacher at his peak would have been a challenge for the best of any era. His combination of blistering pace, metronomic consistency and dubious morality was a potent mix indeed.
His particular excellence was his ability to operate at his peak on every lap, of every race, for years at a time. Ferrari - and before them Benetton, where he won his first two titles - exploited this to leave less-fortunate rivals looking flat-footed.

This is one of two over-riding characteristics that defined his 'first' career. The other is controversy.
It followed Schumacher from the very beginning, when after a jaw-dropping debut with Jordan at the 1991 Belgian Grand Prix he was poached by Benetton - with a little help from F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone - by the next race, despite being under contract.

A first win came in his first full season, on the first anniversary of his debut, and in the mixed conditions in which he so-often excelled. A second arrived a little over a year later in Portugal, fending off the new world champion Alain Prost with the help of the sort of questionable tactics in defence which were to become all too familiar. The trickle soon turned into a flood - both in terms of victories and controversies.

Ayrton Senna joined Williams for 1994 and was expected to continue the team's domination of F1, but the new FW16 was a handful, and Benetton had pulled out all the stops with the B194. Senna, his skill over-riding deficiencies in his car, took pole position for the first race in Brazil but he was chased down and beaten by Schumacher, Senna suffering the ignominy of spinning in the closing laps in his desperation to keep up.

When he was taken out at the first corner at the second race at Aida in Japan, Senna stood watching Schumacher's Benetton canter to victory, and became convinced something was amiss. He felt Schumacher was benefiting from electronic driver-aids that had been banned after 1993.

It was the start of a cataclysmic year. Senna was killed at the next race in Imola and Schumacher dominated the season before things started to unravel at Benetton. A too-perfect start in France got tongues wagging, before Schumacher was disqualified from the British Grand Prix for ignoring black flags.

At the disciplinary hearing into that offence, Schumacher was given a two-race ban - and the team were cleared of using illegal driver aids found in the car's electronics on the grounds there was no evidence they had been used.

The ban - and a second disqualification after winning in Belgium because his under-floor plank was too worn - meant the title went down to the wire between Schumacher and Williams' Damon Hill. Schumacher won it but only after he deliberately drove into Hill, who was trying to pass him after seeing the Benetton go off the track at the previous corner. The collision put both men out of the race. After crushing Williams drivers Hill and David Coulthard in 1995, Schumacher joined Ferrari. His first season at Maranello was one of his greatest.

He won three races in a car that was miles off the pace, his driving on a separate level from the rest. The best was a stunning victory in torrential rain in Spain, where he routinely lapped as much as five seconds faster than anyone else.

When the key people from Benetton - technical director Ross Brawn and chief designer Rory Byrne - joined Schumacher at Maranello for 1997, it was the start of a new era that changed the face of F1.
Working under team boss Jean Todt, they would redefine what an F1 car was capable of - not only in terms of performance, but also reliability and consistency of operation, raising standards to a level that it took rivals years to match.

Schumacher took the 1997 title to the wire against Williams' Jacques Villeneuve - only to be disqualified from the season (but allowed to keep his victories) after trying for the second time to win a championship by barging a rival off the track. This time, it failed, and he was found guilty.

He came close again in a titanic battle with Hakkinen and McLaren in 1998, broke his leg in a crash in the middle of 1999, and finally delivered in 2000. The long-awaited title - Ferrari's first drivers' crown for 21 years - came after a stupendous flat-out battle with Hakkinen at Suzuka in Japan.

That opened the flood-gates; Schumacher and Ferrari won another four championships in a row. Only in 2003 did he face any sustained opposition. The winning streak finally ended in 2005, when a rule change intended to stop Ferrari in their tracks did exactly that - Bridgestone were unable to match rivals Michelin in building tyres that now needed to last an entire race.

The rule was quickly reversed for 2006 and Ferrari were competitive once more. But again Schumacher hit below the belt in his title fight, notoriously parking his car on the track in qualifying at Monaco to stop Alonso taking pole.

In the end, Schumacher lost the title battle to Alonso, but his first career ended on a high with a superlative fight-back drive at the final race in Brazil. After three years away, struggling to find something to give his life meaning, Schumacher was back, this time with Mercedes, but it was as a pale shadow of what he used to be. Only rarely has he got anywhere close to what he was.

His generally underwhelming performances ended with him being forced into retirement by Mercedes' decision to sign Lewis Hamilton. And they have ignited a debate within F1 about the advantages Schumacher had at his disposal, and how in that context his career should be judged. But while he undoubtedly had the cards stacked in his favour for long periods, the evidence for him being one of the greatest is overwhelming.

For some it's the many outstanding victories; for others it's how he used to blitz the field on his first flying lap on a Friday morning, just to emphasise his superiority.

For this writer, it was all that and more. Above all, it was a qualifying session in Argentina in 1996, when he hauled the recalcitrant Ferrari F310 onto the front row with a display of driving acrobatics that had to be seen to be believed. At times like that, the avalanche of numbers was irrelevant; it was perfectly clear how good Michael Schumacher was.

Read the rest of this entry »

The 2012 Formula 1 World Championship has been hugely exciting so far and as we enter the final few rounds of the title race, it promises even more spills and thrills. Few seasons, in recent memory, have seen such roller-coaster-like form swings and spells of dominance.

The early part of the season - the first seven races, to be precise - were a complete lottery. We had seven different drivers the first seven. Suddenly, as we entered the European leg of the championship, Ferrari and Fernando Alonso - who'd struggled for any sort of pace or reliability until then, took command, finishing on the podium for almost every race between Spain and Germany (except for Canada, when he placed fifth). During Ferrari's revival, McLaren then went astray (after superb drives in Australia, Malaysia and Bahrain). Red Bull, meanwhile, hung in there, neither spectacular nor poor. Now, however, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button are on a wonderful revival, having won three of the last four races and scoring pole at each of them.

So who will wind up on the top step of the podium when it really matters... when the dust settles?

"Fernando Alonso - because he is making all the right moves. He is fast and he is getting the car over the finish line. He is aggressive when needed. He is Mr Right, right now," Niki Lauda explained, when talking exclusively to the sport's official Web site.

Lauda, a three-time world champion, is a hero for another reason. He had a horrific accident at the 1976 German Grand Prix, in which he suffered severe and bloody burns to his head and vision. However, he returned from the injury to win the 1977 and 1984 championships.

Alonso does not share Lauda's optimism. The Spaniard has seen both Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull and Hamilton fight to within striking distance of the championship leader. The Spaniard's sensational drives in recent races have seen him remain at the top of the leaderboard. However, he is worried he may not be able to hold off his challengers much longer.

"In the end it went well but we definitely can't go on like this,' Alonso said, adding, "It can't always be the case that my closest rival retires, as has happened in the last two races, and we can't think of carrying on to the end of the season with qualifying sessions like (Saturday) when our performance was almost a second off the best."

"Looking at our performance overall, we cannot be happy with it compared to that of our main competitors, because there is no point denying we were expecting better," Ferrari's chassis director, Pat Fry, explained to the team's Web site, after the Singapore Grand Prix, in which Alonso finished third, "We don't have the quickest car, especially on this type of circuit and it's down to us to try and give our drivers what they need to fight our strongest opponents on level terms."

However, Alonso's reservations aside, Lauda remains confident the double world champion will be a triple world champion at the end of the season.

"It is always a combination of both sides. The team has to understand what is wrong with the car and the driver has to do the right thing. And then you can compensate for a poor start to the season," the Austrian explained, "He will be champion if he carries on like he has done up until now. I say that he will carry on racing the way he has done so far and then the list of those who count themselves still in the running is dramatically reduced."

The 2012 Formula 1 season will now visit the Suzuka circuit in Japan (4 October to 6 October) before travelling to South Korea, India, Abu Dhabi and then finishing with races in America and Brazil.

Read the rest of this entry »

Question: Sebastian you’re a back-to-back winner here. What’s the secret?

Sebastian Vettel: I think it’s one of the toughest races of the year to be honest. It’s very long; the full two hours. The circuit is a killer. There’s so many bumps, there’s no space for mistakes and the race just seems to go on forever. Obviously we benefited from Lewis’ failure. A couple of laps before that he lost some oil and then after that I think we generally we had very, very strong pace all weekend. I had a good start, which got us into second and in the hunt. The pace was there so… I’m just incredibly happy and proud because this is a such a tough race. I would like to dedicate it to one very, very special man, Professor Sid Watkins who passed away and we remember him for sure. I think he is one of the biggest reasons we can go out on a circuit like this and enjoy ourselves and be reasonably safe. He pushed the boundaries in terms of safety for all of us, so a big thank you to him.

Question: Can you see something reminiscent of 2010; how you came from this position and just sneaked that win of the championship in 2010?

Sebastian Vettel: I don’t think Fernando would be too happy if it happened again in the last race. But it’s an incredible season for all of us (inaudible) we have a lot of races left, the car seems to be competitive and we just have to use the momentum and keep pushing for these last races and see what happens.

Question: Sebastian, really should we have expected that result after practice - but perhaps not after qualifying?

Sebastian Vettel: Yeah, it just underlines that we obviously struggled a bit yesterday, especially in the last section of qualifying. Up to then I think it was fine and the pace was there. The confirmation was straight away there in the grand prix when we found ourselves behind Lewis and were able to push him quite hard. I think he was obviously trying to save his tyres, we were trying to save the tyres. It’s a bit of a different race, it’s very tactical but I think the pace was there in the race throughout. Also, towards the end versus Jenson I think we could have an answer every time he was going quick and it was a good finish of the Grand Prix. Obviously it’s a long race, a lot of laps - we did the full two hours again - but it’s fun in a way, you are excited, a bit nervous before the race starts, knowing there is a little bit of a marathon coming, but I think that’s what makes this race so special: not just racing at night, it’s also the circuit with a lot of corners, a lot of bumps, making it extremely difficult. It’s a great challenge for us. Very happy with the result, obviously. I think the team deserves a big thank you. In fact working in these conditions is very, very hot and in the garage it is another 10, 15 degrees hotter than outside. So not the nicest office to work it but obviously it’s nice to give a little bit of champagne back and bring a trophy home - so I’m very happy.

Question: And good for the Championship chances as well…

Sebastian Vettel: Yeah, it looks better than before. Fernando finished third. I am not a genius but I think it’s looking ten points better than it was before. There’s a lot of races left and it’s a bit difficult to predict what’s going to happen. We have to make sure that we finish the races first of all. I think the pace is there, even if we are not quick enough to win then it is good enough to collect a lot of points. And we have to make sure we do that. It’s a tough championship so far but we’re still in it. We’re still looking forward to the next couple of races, and obviously the target at the moment is to beat Fernando.

Question: Sebastian, when you were chasing Hamilton, you were losing three to four tenths on several laps in sector two alone, although you were recovering it a little bit in sector one and sector three. Was there any particular reason for that, because you did mention that turn ten was a difficulty yesterday?

Sebastian Vettel: No, not really. I saw that I was gaining a little bit in the first sector, not sure in the second sector but I could see that I probably lost a bit but I think Lewis has been very quick in sector two all weekend. Also, I think I was fairly close to him, so obviously the closer you get, it’s a bit of a disadvantage but I try to keep the gap fairly much the same, lap by lap. I didn’t really mean to close the gap, because I know that the closer I get, the more grip I lose, and obviously I will lose tyres just by running close to him and losing downforce so I think it was a tactical race in the beginning, especially the beginning of the second stint after the first pit stop. If you go all out in one lap you probably go a second faster but then you do this exercise for three laps and Jenson is coming. It’s the races that we have these days but I think, as I said, Lewis was already quick in sector two so it was probably not a surprise to lose a little bit against him.

Question: Sebastian, you say this is a tough circuit. What does it feel like to win twice in a row?

Sebastian Vettel: Very good. I’m very happy. I think this is one of the best races to win in terms of atmosphere. Everything is a little bit special here. It’s a surprise in a way, because we haven’t been racing here for fifty years - Formula One hasn’t been racing here for fifty years but it still feels like a real classic already. It’s nice. I think everyone likes coming here. It’s a bit funny to be in the European time zone and a little bit against everything else in this city. It’s great to get the opportunity. It’s a great city, more than five million people living here and the circuit is right in the middle. When you do the drivers’ parade and you see a lot of people around the track it’s nice just to be part of it, obviously even greater to win, which was great last year, but is even greater this year to repeat it. I’m very happy, especially with this year’s championship. It’s very tight. We probably didn’t have the fastest package this weekend but we still won the race. I’m very happy.

Question: What are your expectations for Suzuka and your specific car?

Sebastian Vettel: I think we have to improve. I think there is still a little bit that we need to gain. I think that at the moment McLaren is the fastest car and the Ferrari is a little bit of an all rounder. It’s always quick and always there so we need to make sure that we see the chequered flag. Reliability will be important but it’s a fun track so I’m looking forward to it. The Sauber will be quick, unlike this weekend and we will go from there.

Read the rest of this entry »

The 2012 Singapore Grand Prix is this weekend and there's no way RJ Rishi Kapoor and I would disappoint our readers and listeners. We recorded our latest Formula1 podcast earlier this week and read we've discussed.

Formula1 = Lewis Hamilton! That's how the last week has been for Indian Formula1 fans!

- Vodafone Speedfest, RJ Rishi Kapoor missed out on all the action, or did he?

-  And he explains (very nicely), the difference between the MP4-26 and MP4-27! So speaking of Mclaren, will we see Mclaren win their 4th race in a row of the 2012 Formula1 season?

-  How different will Singapore be to Spa and Monza for the teams and drivers?

-  Lotus vs. Ferrari - what's happening here?

-  Will Sauber overtaken Mercedes by the end of the season?

-  Senna the silent performer in Williams? Hear why we think so! And Rishi answers why Williams like him more than Maldonado!

-  And, we try and figure Ferrari's new PR story from Monza!

Hamilton - Mclaren - Mercedes story will be most discussed in the paddock this weekend. However, which team and driver will steal the limelight on-track? I hope to see Lotus and Raikkonen do better and overtake Hamilton for second in the Drivers' Championship. We've only seen World Champions win this race in the past (Alonso, Hamilton and Vettel), so it will be interesting to see if someone breaks the duck this time. And of course, there are plenty of drivers who can score their first win in Singapore. Who will it be this Sunday?

Read the rest of this entry »

Scuderia Ferrari picked up twenty seven points in the Italian Grand Prix, the biggest haul of any team today. Fernando Alonso was the author of a great climb up the order to third after his problems in qualifying yesterday and made it onto the Monza podium for the third consecutive year, in as many races with Ferrari. Felipe Massa also had a great race, coming home fourth after giving his all throughout the race. After 13 rounds of the 2012 season, Fernando still leads the Drivers’ classification, increasing his lead over his closest pursuer to 37 points, while for the first time this year, Felipe is in the top ten. In the Constructors’ the Scuderia is back in third spot, having made significant inroads into the points gap to the leader which is now down to 46. Both drivers made just one pit stop to switch from the Medium to Hard, on lap 19 for Felipe and 20 for Fernando.

Stefano Domenicali: “We often say it on Saturday after qualifying: the points are only given out on Sunday afternoon and today we saw that confirmed yet again. There was another confirmation, if indeed one was needed, that reliability has to be the absolute priority. After all the problems we had over this weekend, for us to be able to leave Monza with Fernando increasing his lead in the Drivers’ championship, bringing it back to the level it had reached after Hungary and with enough points to consider the Constructors’ championship open again, is very important for us. Fernando produced a great drive, as did Felipe. Sure, the regret relating to the pole that was within our grasp is still present, because starting from the first row rather than the fifth, the Spanish driver could have definitely been in the fight for the victory. Felipe proved to everyone, not to us, because we knew already, that he is a driver who can fight for the very top spot and that at Ferrari, we work as a team, united in our efforts to reach the targets we set ourselves. The European part of the Formula 1 season has come to a close and now the final leg begins, with seven races in a little over two months. Those seven will be very tough for everyone and all of us, back in Maranello and at the race tracks, will tackle them doing our very best, paying great attention to every little detail. That’s the only way we will be able to achieve our goals, which, I repeat, are within our capabilities.”

Fernando Alonso: “This Sunday was perfect for the championship, almost like a film with a happy ending: another podium finish, three of my closest rivals with no points and an increased lead over my closest pursuer. I remain convinced that, but for the problem in qualifying yesterday, we could definitely have had every chance of starting from pole and if we can be equally competitive on Saturdays at the tracks that are coming up, it will be very important for the end of the season. We must try to win some more races and to manage the lead we have in the classification. Here we had to mark Vettel, but in Singapore it will be important to keep an eye on Hamilton, who is now second. When I found myself fighting with Vettel I went off the track and, from then on, the car was not right. It wasn’t nice bouncing through the gravel but, afterwards, I was able to overtake him anyway a few laps later. I don’t want to comment on the penalty he received, but what he did was definitely on the limit. The opening laps were the key to my race. I passed a few cars – Kimi, Di Resta and Michael – and finding myself sixth almost immediately put my race on a more even course. Racing for Ferrari at Monza and standing on the podium is something special: driving a red car is different because the fans are exceptional. If they were told not to eat for days to have the chance to drive a car from Maranello, they would do it and this is what makes the passion for Ferrari unique around the world.”

Felipe Massa: “I’m pleased with this result, even if I’d been hoping to make it to the podium. We faced higher tyre degradation than we expected, very different to what we had seen on Friday in free practice. A shame, because while the tyres were still working, I could match the pace of the McLarens, but then I began to lose the rear end earlier than they did. It was not an easy race: towards the end, Perez came back at me very strongly and there was nothing I could do to fend him off. I worked for the team, trying to help Fernando, which is as it should be. I have always done it and will do it whenever it’s necessary. I don’t think a two stop strategy would have worked: looking at the data, for us it was definitely slower than a single stop. When the team had no telemetry, we spoke for a long time on the radio and, all in all, we were able to manage the situation in the best way possible. I don’t know if this race changes anything regarding my future, but definitely the most important thing for now is to keep going like this, working with great concentration and trying to do my best for the team.”

Pat Fry: “Saying this has been an intense weekend would be something of a euphemism. We had various reliability problems on the cars in the past days and today we had one with the garage equipment which meant we were practically in the dark, in that we had neither telemetry nor television pictures on the pit wall, nor the link to the remote garage at Maranello, at what was a one of the crucial phases of the race, in other words as we were coming up to the pit stops. We had a bit of a communication problem and it was rather like taking a step back in time to the days when we didn’t have all this equipment available: at one point we had to make do with the telephone to speak to Maranello and decide if it was the right time for the pit stop! We were able to manage the situation, but believe me, it was not a walk in the park. Then there was the incident when Fernando went off the track in his duel with Vettel: once the telemetry was working again, we spotted there was something not quite right at the rear, so in the final laps, we asked him to be cautious, avoiding the kerbs. When the car was in parc ferme, I have to say we could see the damage was quite bad, also affecting the aerodynamics. From a technical point of view, this afternoon, the tyre degradation was greater than we had expected going into the race: we must analyse the data carefully to understand why. We managed to recover almost completely from the situation we were in after yesterday’s problems, but looking at the weekend as a whole, I have to say what happened over these days should ring some alarm bells for all of us: we have to do the maximum in every area if we want to win.”

Read the rest of this entry »

“Winning at Monza is one of the greatest experiences of my Formula 1 career. I absolutely love this place: I’ve been coming to Italy to race since I was 13 years old and I just love the culture, the food and the people.

“Since I started in Formula 1, Monza has been one of the races I always wanted to win at – it’s such an incredible, historic circuit and all the great racing drivers have won here. To finally put my name on that list makes me feel extremely proud, but also very humble.

“Our car has been fantastic all weekend, and it was nice to have a relaxed grand prix with no troubles. I was out on my own for most of the race and just tried to manage the gap behind me. I was cruising at the end, but, once I heard that Sergio [Perez] had got past Fernando [Alonso], I had to push a little to keep the cushion over second place.

“The race was very unfortunate for Jenson – we were running first and second at the time and it would have been great for the team if we could have finished like that.

“This championship is proving to be so unpredictable – and I’m so grateful that we’ve got a good car and that we’re in the fight. We’ve got seven more races on the calendar. We should enjoy today, but this victory is just one step. Tomorrow, we’ll start all over again, for Singapore.”

“I had too much wheelspin at the start, and that dropped me to third and caused me to lose a lot of time behind Felipe [Massa]. But it was nice to get past him, put some clear air between us, and then start chasing down Lewis.

“I was never going to challenge him for the win, but it would have been great for the team if we could have finished first and second. But it wasn’t to be.

“I don’t entirely know what caused my car to stop – I’m told it was a fuel system problem that we’re still investigating. The engine cut out and I had to coast to a stop. These things happen.

“But, looking for the positives, I want to offer my congratulations to the whole team. We’ve proven over the past few races that we’re very strong in both qualifying trim and race trim. That consistency is really key, and we haven’t seen that form from any team all season, so that’s very encouraging indeed.”

MARTIN WHITMARSH - Team principal, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes

“Lewis drove a perfect race here at Monza today, and duly took a well-deserved victory – his 20th grand prix win and McLaren’s 180th. “In truth, he was in total control throughout all 53 laps, and was never really threatened.

“We should have scored a one-two finish, but Jenson was deprived of an easy second place by a fuel system problem. That’s frustrating for him and frustrating for us, but the important thing is that our car is a winner. We’ve now won three grands prix in a row, and both our drivers are on top form.

“Lewis has now closed up to second place in the drivers’ world championship, with seven grands prix still to run. It was his third victory of the season, and Vodafone McLaren Mercedes’ fifth. The momentum is with us, and the drivers’ world championship crown is well within Lewis’s grasp. In the constructors’ championship, too, we’re in good shape.

“Winning is what Vodafone McLaren Mercedes is all about. In Singapore in two weeks’ time, we’re planning to do some more of it.”

Read the rest of this entry »