FORMULA 1 - 2013

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Kimi: There was no point in fighting Alonso

Kimi Raikkonen says he decided not to put up a fight against a charging Fernando Alonso during the latter stages in Spain as it's "too easy to overtake".

Although Raikkonen stopped three times compared to Alonso's four, they appeared to be headed for a tight finish at the Circuit de Catalunya as they were running close to each other before their final stops.

However, the battle never took place as the Ferrari of Alonso eased past Raikkonen after he made his last stop and eventually finished more than nine seconds ahead of the Finn.

"Maybe halfway through, when we were leading, but we were on old tyres and [he had] newer tyres," Raikkonen said when asked if he thought that he could win the race.

"It is too easy to overtake, so no point to really fight again because you cannot hold him behind.

"I knew if I could somehow stay a bit closer, maybe I had some chance, even if I am already behind them with old tyres. But in the end, they were just too fast."

Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel still leads the Championship with 89 points while Raikkonen is second with 85 with Alonso another 13 points behind.

Raikkonen admits he was disappointed to miss out on the win, but he is delighted that they are still keeping up with Vettel in the race for the title.

"We didn't have a good start, but I don't think the end result was decided there," he said. "It wasn't the win, and we are only happy with the win, but [in terms of the Championship] Vettel we are close and Fernando has caught me, but we are still in the hunt and hopefully we can try and win a bit more."

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Seb talks tyres, tyres and more tyres

Sebastian Vettel was pleased to finish with a good haul of points in Barcelona, but it was another frustrating day for the German due to the tyres.

The Red Bull driver finished fourth behind Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa at the Circuit de Catalunya, but he was never really able to match the three ahead of him.

For Vettel it was once again a case of the tyres playing too big a role on the outcome of the race as most of the top 10 drivers were forced to stop four times.

"We still finished fourth and got good points," he said. "Sure, we wanted more, but we didn't have the tyres to fight with the guys in front. The beginning of the race didn't look too bad, but we tried to hold onto three stops too much and had to admit we wouldn't make it so I think we can be happy with fourth.

"There's a bit more we need to do with looking after tyres. I think our car is quick enough to match them [Lotus and Ferrari], but if you talk about race distance and on these tyres, it's a different game. It's something we do to the tyres which make them wear more."

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner refused to discuss the issue much after the race.

"Next question please...It is the same for everyone but we all know they [the tyres] are marginal. It's tough we were too tough on them early on and then it was hard," he told BBC Sport.

"When you are telling drivers not to push because we are saving tyres isn't great for the sport of for the fans. We need to push the drivers harder and allow them to drive properly."

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Massa: Penalty still irks

Felipe Massa may have achieved his first podium result of the season in Spain, however, the Brazilian was struggling to shrug off his grid penalty.

Massa qualified in sixth place for Sunday's 66-lap race at the Barcelona circuit but was forced to start P9 when he was hit with a three-place penalty for impeding Mark Webber.

And although he still managed to book a place on the podium - his first of the campaign - Massa admitted he was still not happy about Saturday's ruling.

"I'm disappointed because of what happened yesterday," said the 32-year-old. "I didn't cause any issues for him."

Massa tunnelled that disappointment into Sunday's efforts which proved to do the trick as he finished in third place.

"I tried to be aggressive, passing people and I tried to undercut people as well by stopping before them," he added.

"We then struggled a bit with the tyres to make them survive every stint. But I think the race was very good."

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Button: A lot of work to do

Despite netting McLaren's second double points-haul of the campaign, Jenson Button has denied the team took a step forward in Spain.

Starting 14th on the grid after being undone by a tyre pressure issue in qualifying, Button dropped at the start of Sunday's 66-lap Spanish Grand Prix and was running down in 17th place by the end of the first lap.

The Brit, though, fought back and with the help of a three-stop strategy in his updated MP4-28 finished the grand prix in eighth place.

That put him one position ahead of his team-mate Sergio Perez, netting only McLaren's second double points-haul of this season.

But despite both drivers finishing inside the top ten, Button has downplayed talk of McLaren have taken a step forward at Barcelona.

"I don't think so really," he told the BBC when asked if he felt things were improving.

"For me it was an interesting race my start wasn't very strong which was unusual because we are usually strong at the start.

"Turn One was a mess so to finish 8th probably wasn't too bad but there is a lot of work still to do.

"Some of the speeds cars were going past me means we have got as lot to do."

The Brit, though, firmly believes McLaren have what it takes to turn their fortunes around.

"It is still possible for us to still get up there and I want to thank all the fans for their support, it's a bit embarrassing really to see them all but we will get it right."

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Vergne: 'It was one problem after another'

Jean-Eric Vergne was left to lament what could have been after encountering multiple problems in Spain.

The Toro Rosso got off to a good start around the Barcelona circuit on Sunday, however, understeer issues began to cost him time.

Added to that the 23-year-old's car was given a mighty wack on the rear when Sauber released Nico Hulkenberg as Vergne was coming down the pits.

And although he was able to continue, Vergne eventually parked his car after suffering delamination to his right rear tyre.

"After a good start, I then had a lot of understeer and we had to keep adding a lot of wing at each pit stop, which didn't really help," said the Frenchman.

"The strategy we adopted was the right one and even with a damaged floor and wing I was able to do good lap times.

"Yet again I was unlucky and I hope that stops soon, because as I was coming into the pits, Sauber did an unsafe release with Hulkenberg who drove into me and then I had a problem with a tyre, so it was one problem after another today."

His second successive DNF has left Vergne languishing in the standings in 15th place with just one point.

"I plan to have a better weekend in Monaco in two weeks time.

"I haven't lost hope for the future, given the performance we had shown earlier in the weekend and it's just such a shame as that good pace should have allowed us to score points today."

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Lewis: I went back a long, long way

The joys of qualifying were nothing but a distant memory for Lewis Hamilton in Spain on Sunday as he failed to finish in the points.

Mercedes locked out the front row at Circuit de Catalunya on Saturday with Nico Rosberg claiming pole position and Hamilton setting the second fastest time.

However, the Spanish GP turned into a bit of nightmare for the team with Rosberg crossing the finishing line in sixth place and Hamilton down in 12th place, behind the likes of Daniel Ricciardo of Toro Rosso and Sauber's Esteban Gutierrez.

Hamilton went backwards as soon as the lights went out in Barcelona, and at one stage he complained over the team radio about fighting a Williams after Pastor Maldonado passed him.

"It was way too tough," he was quoted as saying by BBC Sport after the race. "We have got a lot of work to do. We both went backwards, but I went back a long, long way and I don't know why. We will keep going back to the drawing board and see what we can do."

Hamilton's engineer also urged him to save his tyres during the race after getting some advice from Rosberg, something which he didn't appreciate at the time.

"It was not really helpful," he said.

The 2008 World Champion is still adapting to life at Mercedes following his move from McLaren, but he insists things are pretty much the same.

"It's not that different really, the team are fantastic and the work they have been doing is terrific we have just got a lot to do to catch up with the others but we will get there," he added.

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Pirelli ponders revising Formula 1 tyres in time for British GP

Pirelli is considering an overhaul to its tyres for the British Grand Prix in late June in a bid to prevent excessive pitstops ruining the Formula 1 spectacle.

After a four-stop Spanish Grand Prix reignited the debate about whether Pirelli's aggressive approach to 2013 had gone too far, its motorsport director Paul Hembery admitted on Sunday that changes were now being evaluated.

"We aim for two to three pitstops and it was too aggressive today," he explained. "We want to get back to our plan."

Pirelli has faced repeated calls from reigning champion Red Bull to revert to harder compounds for the remainder of the season, because the Milton Keynes-based outfit believes it cannot exploit the full potential of its car with the current rubber.

So far, Pirelli has resisted those calls - although it did make tweaks to the hard compound for this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix to try and make it easier for the teams to use that specific tyre.

Hembery said that Pirelli would have to think carefully about its exact plans, amid fears that any changes could leave Red Bull well clear at the front of the field.

"We would look for Silverstone, but you have to bear in mind that we have a lot of teams against it and just one maybe for," he said.

"So if I said we were going to make a change, I know I am going to have the podium people today not happy – then you [the media] will be here at Silverstone telling me we have given the championship to Red Bull. It will be damned if you, damned if you don't."

Hembery suggested that tweaks to the tyres would probably need to go beyond just revising the compounds, and that structural changes would likely be needed to ensure that races became two-stops again.

When asked if using the harder experimental tyre tried on Friday in the race would have helped the situation, Hembery said: "We don't think it is enough. The development tyre on Friday would have been better, and had less graining.

"But if we had used the one from Friday morning that would have got us to a three-stop."

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Spanish GP: Fernando Alonso escapes punishment for collecting flag

Fernando Alonso will not be punished for stopping to collect a Spanish Grand Prix flag on the slowing-down lap after his home win.

The victorious Ferrari driver had been summoned to the stewards because by "receiving an object after the end-of-race signal" he risked breaching article 43.3 of Formula 1's sporting regulations.

But after investigating the incident, the officials decided the precedent was to withhold any kind of sanction.

A statement said: "no further action was taken to be consistent with a previous decision made under similar circumstances."

The Barcelona result was the third time Alonso has won in F1 on home ground.

Although he triumphed in last year's Valencia street race, which ran under the European GP title, he had not won the actual Spanish GP since his 2006 victory with Renault.

MIKA: What a stupid rule. It's a home race, he won it, let the man grab his flag and be proud.

[LLC]

I think this was my favorite podium line up of the year.

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Spanish GP: Lotus rues Romain Grosjean's suspension fault

Lotus is sure Romain Grosjean had the pace to help prevent it losing second in the constructors' championship in the Spanish Grand Prix had his suspension not failed.

Grosjean was running ninth in the first stint, but had to park with a problem on his car's right rear on lap eight.

Although Kimi Raikkonen finished second, Lotus dropped behind Ferrari to third in the teams' standings as the Italian squad secured first and third with Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa.

Lotus chief Eric Boullier apologised to Grosjean for the issue.

"I think we suspect suspension component failure," Boullier told AUTOSPORT.

"It was not his fault and we feel sorry for him and for the team as well because we lost second place in the championship, and I think Romain was in good shape to finish in good points."

Lotus said it was the first such failure of a well-tested suspension configuration, and would be investigated in the coming week.

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Spanish GP: Nico Rosberg says Mercedes race issues are inexplicable

Spanish Grand Prix poleman Nico Rosberg has admitted he was shocked at how quickly his Mercedes tumbled down the lap chart after his first pitstop.

Rosberg led the opening stint of the race from pole, but his drop down the order began on lap 12, when Fernando Alonso passed him into Turn 1.

He was further demoted by Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen soon after.

The tyre degradation of his Mercedes was such that he dropped to sixth place by the finish, just holding off Paul di Resta's Force India in the closing laps.

"I didn't expect it to be that tough," said Rosberg. "I thought we would be in a better position.

"It was really difficult out there, but why? Why on one lap are we so fast and on a long run so slow? It's strange, and it's not just one axle, it's front and rear. Both are struggling and there's no explanation."

Rosberg admitted he was confident after his opening stint that he could hold on at the front of the field, but was shocked when he could not.

"After the first stint I thought 'who knows, maybe I can keep them behind all day?'" he added. "I knew they were quicker but I was quite comfortable and doing what I wanted to do.

"But then I just went backwards so badly. It was unbelievable.

"It's so strange, so inexplicable. I'm working with my set-up just towards the race, not even for qualifying, and we're so fast on one lap and then in the race so slow."

Lewis Hamilton fared even worse in the second Mercedes, finishing a lapped 12th.

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Jenson Button Is Racing In A Datsun Because Vodafone

Vodafone is desperate to get into Australia’s telco good books. Seriously. It’s pushing a new network guarantee, it has spent billions on its network upgrades, and it has new ads saying why you should want to give it a big hug. Formula One champ Jenson Button is in this ad, and he’s driving a Datsun around a race track because Vodafone metaphors.

This is Voda’s first ad for its 4G network. It’s an online-only ad for the new network which goes live in June.

The whole point of the ad is that Vodafone’s old network was a clunker. A steaming pile of dross. Vodafone now wants you to think its network is a Formula One car, driven by an expert. See what it did there?

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Pirelli: Alonso had a puncture

Fernando Alonso appears to finally have had a bit of luck this season as he somehow managed to get away with a puncture in Spain.

The Spaniard started fifth on the grid and he was up to third place by the end of the opening lap while he moved to second after the first round of pit stops. He went on to win his home race by 9.3seconds from Kimi Raikkonen to claim his first win at the Circuit de Catalunya as a Ferrari driver.

However, according to Pirelli motorsport director Paul Hembery got a bit of good fortune as he picked up a puncture just before he made his first of four stops.

"If he had done another lap, he would have had a big problem," Hembery told BBC Sport.

Only three drivers inside the top 10 stopped three times on Sunday and Hembery admitted four stops were "probably a bit too much" and they will make changes to their compounds in the near future.

"We aim for two-three pit stops. Today was too many, we got it wrong, too aggressive. We will make changes, probably from Silverstone."

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Ferrari & Lotus smiling, Red Bull & Mercedes baffled, Williams & McLaren mess

The first European race of the Formula One season provided a boost for Ferrari and Fernando Alonso, with Lotus and Kimi Raikkonen also smiling, but left plenty of other former champions and top teams feeling the pain.

While Red Bull retained their lead in both championships, they struggled with similar tyre problems to others in Barcelona on Sunday with triple champion Sebastian Vettel finishing off the podium with his lead over Raikkonen cut to four points.

The Circuit de Catalunya, used for two of the three pre-season tests and host of the fifth race of the year, had been seen as a key track in the season after rounds in Asia and the Middle East. All teams brought upgrades to Spain, with former champions McLaren and Williams needing a bigger boost than most after a troubled start and Mercedes eager to show they could be quick on Sunday as well as Saturday.

In the end, the song remained pretty much the same. Ferrari and Lotus proved easy on the tyres and highly competitive, Force India stayed solidly in the points while Red Bull went slightly off the boil. Pirelli, already in the spotlight after some alarming previous failures that saw treads strip away from the tyres, took more flak for sowing confusion with some 77 pitstops made over the 66 laps.

They vowed to take another look at both the compounds and structures, although nothing can be done for at least another two races.

“It’s a right mess,” said McLaren’s Jenson Button, referring to the tyres rather than his team’s predicament. “It’s the same thing we had in China, waving each other past so we don’t destroy our rubber while hoping that the guy who’s overtaking will.”

Mercedes struggled again to translate qualifying speed into race pace, with Lewis Hamilton plunging from front row to 12th at the chequered flag, while McLaren were still clearly groping around for a silver bullet to their aerodynamic woes.

Williams, last year’s winners in Spain but without a point in four races, made it five blanks.

“For me this weekend was important just to understand the jump in terms of performance we could expect from the other teams,” Ferrari principal Stefano Domenicali told reporters after Alonso had won his home race and moved up to third overall.

“It seems that everyone has moved more or less with the same kind of improvement,” added the Italian of the evidence from Sunday. “I don’t see a big change.”

Whereas last year saw seven different winners in the first seven races, only three men – all of them world champions – have won so far: Alonso (twice), Raikkonen and Vettel (twice).

Raikkonen has been on the podium in four of the five races and now has 22 successive points finishes, two short of Michael Schumacher’s all-time record although the scoring system has changed.

The quick-wearing tyres have come in for criticism, with Sunday’s race a blur of pitstops, but Ferrari and Lotus would argue that making the most of them is just a part of the challenge that they have risen to better than others.

Hamilton, looking slightly shell-shocked after a long Mercedes debrief, said it was all part of motor racing but hoped his team would fix their problems with the same sort of speed shown by his car in qualifying.

“I don’t understand what it is,” he said, of a car that has been on pole for the last three races without coming close to winning any of them. “It’s obviously the tyres…there’s something we haven’t quite caught onto just yet.

“It’s not rocket science, I don’t think. I don’t know why it’s taken us so long to really grab hold of it. But clearly Ferrari have and so have the Lotuses figured it out. We just need to do that and I’m sure we will at some point.”

Vettel, who had arrived in Spain fresh from a victory in Bahrain, made four pitstops – the same as Alonso – and said Red Bull needed to catch up.

“The first three cars were a little bit too fast for us and regarding looking after the tyres, they did a better job,” said the German.

“We’re not going at the pace of the car, we’re going at the pace of the tyres and obviously we do something to make the tyres wear more.”

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McLaren could return to historic orange livery

McLaren’s cars could revert to their historic orange livery in the near future, team boss Martin Whitmarsh has admitted.

Although the Woking based team’s cars have been silver since 1997, orange is actually McLaren’s traditional race colour, dating back to the Can-Am days of the 60s.

The last time the team’s cars sported orange livery was during testing in Barcelona ahead of the 2006 season, after ending their association with West.

After 2014, however, it looks likely McLaren’s long relationship with Silver Arrows carmaker Mercedes will end.

Whitmarsh said in Barcelona on Sunday that he could not comment on reports McLaren will definitely be Honda-powered in 2015, saying the matter was “confidential” between the team and existing partner Mercedes.

Asked, however, if the change of title sponsor for next year in the wake of Vodafone’s scheduled departure might be a chance for McLaren to return to orange, Whitmarsh answered: “I really like the idea.

“Orange is a great colour, especially for McLaren,” he told the Russian website Formula 1news.ru.

“We use it for our racing GT and it looks great, and we’ll continue to move in this direction.

“Formula 1 is a bit different: the modern business model is one of the main tasks of the team — to promote the brands of our partners.

“But if we’re lucky enough to find a sponsor who likes orange, you could see that colour again in Formula 1,” added Whitmarsh.

[OZCUBAN]

Lets hope they find a sponsor that likes chrome silver

[OZCUBAN]

I honestly think Pirelli need to go or at least bring back two or more suppliers because the situation at the moment is only hurting F-1

Also it must be hurting Pirelli sales who would by tyres that wear out after a short time

[MIKA27]

Alonso: This year Ferrari have the best chance to win the title

Spanish Grand Prix winner Fernando Alonso says he would happily forego another race victory this season so long as he took the title, but the Ferrari driver really has every chance of success on both fronts.

Sunday’s triumph at the Circuit de Catalunya is unlikely to be his last and the Spaniard is increasingly a favourite to add that elusive third title to his name by the end of the championship.

Asked whether he felt he now had his best shot of the title in four years with Ferrari, the 31-year-old – winner of two of the five races so far – nodded: “Probably yes, in terms of performance of the car.”

“We should have won the championship, I believe, in 2010,” he added, scratching the sore of a year when he arrived at the season-ending race in Abu Dhabi with a healthy lead over Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel only to lose everything through a botched strategy.

“Last year maybe we didn’t deserve it because we were one second off the pace but even with that we managed to fight until Brazil,” added the Spaniard of a season that saw him lose to Vettel by three points. “This year, we have in our hands a package that maybe is not the fastest, still not the fastest, but we are working on that. But definitely on Sundays it’s a very competitive team package, let’s say.”

Alonso qualified only fifth for his home race but roared past the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton and Lotus of Kimi Raikkonen on the first lap before taking the lead on lap 13 and winning on a four-stop strategy.

The winner of two titles with Renault is now third overall, 17 points behind leader Vettel – who finished fourth on Sunday after struggling with tyre wear – with 14 races to come. Raikkonen is 13 points ahead of Alonso.

“We are not the quickest over one lap, maybe we don’t set the fastest time in the race but we have fantastic strategy people, fantastic pitstops… we have many ingredients to have a competitive car to fight for the championship,” Alonso said. “In the four years in Ferrari, maybe it’s true that this is the one we feel more confident with, but we are not happy still with the performance of the car and we want to have a good and aggressive developing programme for the next race.”

Improving qualifying, without upsetting the race pace, will be the immediate priority for a team whose last driver’s title was with Raikkonen in 2007 and who last enjoyed constructors’ success a year later.

The next race is Monaco on May 26, where overtaking is extremely difficult and getting stuck in traffic is a routine hazard for those not starting at the fast end of the grid.

Mercedes have been on pole for the past three races, although their cars then eat the tyres for Sunday lunch and fade out of contention, and Alonso expected them to be quickest again in qualifying at Monaco.

“They will arrive as favourites for Monaco,” he warned. “It would be a surprise if they weren’t on pole position in Monaco. And it’s more difficult to overtake in Monaco, so maybe they can keep good positions for longer. It’s something we need to understand and we need to do a better job on Saturday, Felipe (Massa) and I, and Monaco is one of those places where we must do it.”

[MIKA27]

I honestly think Pirelli need to go or at least bring back two or more suppliers because the situation at the moment is only hurting F-1

Also it must be hurting Pirelli sales who would by tyres that wear out after a short time

Bring back the tyre wars!

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Mercedes boss calls on team to think out the box to solve race pace mystery

Mercedes urged their many Formula 1 technical boffins to “think outside the box” and consider the unconsidered after a Spanish Grand Prix that left the team baffled by their cars’ lack of race pace.

Despite scorching to their third pole position in a row, with Germany’s Nico Rosberg notching up his second in succession, Mercedes flopped when it mattered most at the Circuit de Catalunya.

Lewis Hamilton went from second to 12th, in what he said was his worst race for a very long time, while Rosberg finished sixth.

How to manage and extract performance from the Pirelli tyres is the conundrum and Mercedes, who have a stellar line-up of senior technical figures, planned to throw all their brainpower into finding an answer.

“Generally what you can say is that the car is a quick car,” Mercedes motorsport head Toto Wolff told reporters after emerging from a two-hour post-race technical debrief at the circuit.

“This is not about a car or a team struggling with lacking pace, a car where you end up 15th on Saturday and then 12th or 16th on Sunday. It is a car that is tremendously fast on the Saturday and has real speed. And then on Sunday we are not able to manage the car with the tyres.

“One could say ‘Did the others go even much more conservative in terms of race setup?’ I don’t think so. It’s something else and I think it requires out of the box thinking,” added the Austrian.

“It’s about everybody in the team sticking their heads together and saying let’s analyse what we do from a Saturday to a Sunday. Is there anything we need to be looking at which we didn’t look at until now?”

Barcelona, like Bahrain before it, is punishing for even the hardest tyres and it would be comforting for Mercedes to think that the circuit characteristics did not suit them and things will improve elsewhere.

However the next circuit on the calendar is Monaco, a tight and twisty circuit without high energy corners, which must be treated in isolation.

The risk is that if single lap speed is compromised in exchange for better race pace, Mercedes could lose out in Monaco where pole position carries a premium and overtaking is extremely difficult.

Wolff said he was “pretty sure” any solution would cost the team in qualifying pace. He added that it would be looking at matters through rose-tinted glasses to think the problems were more related to the track than the car.

“It’s not an inherent car problem. I think it’s probably something about processes,” he declared.

“The question is: ‘Is there anything we can be looking at which is similar to previous years?. Is it that this car is being made for a dragster race instead of for a grand prix? A German journalist said that,” he smiled. “No. I don’t think so. My opinion is it’s something else.

“As I am on the rather pessimistic side, I don’t believe in magic or a golden key. But it could be. The car is good. It’s just changing the approach or looking at these processes for racing.”

Wolff said Mercedes, who had problems particularly with their rear tyres last year, had done a good long run in final practice and set the car up for qualifying and the race accordingly but it had not worked.

The priority now was to analyse everything, to look at how the tyres were treated, how they were heated up and how that heat is retained.

“It’s how you drive it, slow or fast in the first couple of laps. How you build it up. We are looking at our competitors and what you can see is that clearly some cars are having an easier life with the tyres,” said Wolff.

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Lotus sells share in team to UK property tycoon

Formula 1 team Lotus has reportedly sold a $1.5 million stake to a British property investor.

Writing in the Telegraph, Formula 1 business journalist Christian Sylt said the buyer is Andrew Ruhan, who bought a 2 per cent stake from team owner Genii Capital.

Genii’s Gerard Lopez confirmed that Ruhan is “a friend and a business partner in some substantial real estate developments, loves cars, racing and has purchased, if I am not mistaken, 2pc of the equity to be on the board and feel involved -– for sure, not a substantial deal for either party.”

Sylt also revealed in the Telegraph that, having initially refused to let Mercedes onto Formula 1′s board as per other top teams, Bernie Ecclestone has now appointed a Daimler executive.

“Correct,” Sylt told us. “Pre and post (the sport’s floatation), they’re on it.”

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Raikkonen: It’s disappointing to finish second

Kimi Raikkonen took his successive points scoring tally to 22 after finishing second in the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona, the Iceman now lies second in the championship. he spoke after the race.

Four points off the championship lead at this stage and you’re coming in under the radar so to speak, because nobody is really giving you enough credit for what you’re doing at the moment. How do you respond to that?

Kimi Raikkonen: I don’t mind. I’m here only to do as good races as we can and always you want to win and it’s disappointing to finish second but sometimes we have to take what we can get. Like I said, I don’t mind if people don’t notice us. We do our work, be happy what we do and obviously try to achieve in Enstone.

Is the lack of attention possibly helping you?

KR: It makes no difference really to me. We know in the team, and all the sponsors, what we try to achieve and what we are doing and that’s the main thing.

We heard you say on the podium there you were disappointed you didn’t win. You had a different strategy to Fernando, doing one stop less than the Ferrari today. Was there a point at which you thought you might have an opportunity to challenge Fernando for the win today?

KR: Maybe half way through. Obviously, we were leading but when we were on old tyres and he had newer tyres, it’s too easy to overtake. There’s no point to really fight against [him] because you cannot hold him behind. I knew if I could somehow stay a bit more closer, even with old tyres, maybe I have some chance, even if I’m already behind and will be with old tyres in the end but you never know. But they were just too fast. He had a good start around the outside of me. I don’t think the end result really was decided there but we just did a different way of doing the race. It wasn’t a winning way today but… We’re never happy if we’re not winning.

We’re only here to try to win. But we kind of caught up with Vettel few points and obviously Fernando caught me up [by] some points but we’re still in the hunt and we’ll keep ourselves there and hopefully in the future just try to win a bit more.

Consistency is the key though, isn’t it? It’s the fourth time in five races you’ve stood on the podium, including that win in Australia and as you say you’ve got it down to just five points to Vettel. How do you feel about your championship situation and what comes from here?

KR: Obviously it’s better than before the race now. It will not be easy. We cannot fight against… it’s the same for everybody. Everybody wants to win it, but sometimes you have a bad day. You try to minimise those and make the most out of them and give yourself a chance to be up there and fight for wins. I think if you can do that often it will give a good chance in the end to fight for the championship. It’s only a five race-old season, so there’s an awful lot to be raced. We’ll see what happens. We’ll try to do well and see where we are in the end.

Don’t you think it’s too much with these tyres having too many pitstops and there is too much confusion?

KR: I don’t really think it’s any different to last year. Obviously I wasn’t there the year before but they had a lot of pitstops also. So that’s the way it is and it’s the same for everybody. For sure sometimes it’s a bit tricky, even for us, who is where and what is going on if you haven’t seen it as the guy in front, what’s going on. But that’s what Formula One is today. It might change, it might not.

In the early part of the race when you had your first pitstop, you came back with new soft tyres and you spent… you lost a few laps behind Vettel. Without that time lost do you think you could have been in front of Fernando on the last stint?

KR: It wasn’t a new, it was used from qualifying. So, I mean obviously I have to overtake and I took maybe a few laps more than I expected but I got past him and I really could pull away but in the end I really don’t think those were the decisions that were the deciding story of the race. I think we had the speed but we should have done it different. Maybe more pitstops, then you can push all the time – but I think this was our best way of doing the race. That’s what we planned and that’s what we did and I think we deserved to be second and not really winning today. It’s OK for the team, the guys did a good job and we go for the next race to try to do better and get the best out of it.

What do you think about the pit stop strategy in Monaco?

KR: I have no idea. I know what we did here and yesterday. There’s a few weeks to go. We will see what happens, what tyres they bring and how everything plans out. I think it’s usually quite straightforward there. Usually, if you’re not in the front, you start behind somebody else and it’s really difficult to overtake. We will see.

All top drivers are kind of supermen; did you have time to enjoy the battle that you had with Sebastian?

KR: Yeah, it didn’t last very long. It took a few laps. I maybe had a chance earlier but I didn’t think that I would take him at the end of the straight but actually they were very fast at the start of the straight so I couldn’t catch him there, so it took a bit longer than I expected but then it was quite nice, fair but quite tough fight, but it worked out OK.

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Massa: I hope from now on we are fighting for the podium every race

Felipe Massa scored his first podium of the season with third place in the Spanish Grand prix in Barcelona, and again showed that he can be a valuable asset for Ferrari in the quest for the constructor’s championship while fitting in to an effective ‘rear gunner’ role for Fernando Alonso. The Brazilian spoke on the podium and in the post race press conference, here are the highlights.

What a great drive, from ninth place on the grid [to third]. Felipe, are you back to your very best?

Felipe Massa: Yeah, I think so. For sure I was a little bit disappointed yesterday after the qualifying losing three places but anyway the race was very good for us, our car was fantastic. Very aggressive straight away. I gained back the positions. I think maybe in the first lap I was already sixth. Then overtaking cars. Struggling a bit with the tyres, to make it survive every stint in a good way but I think the race was very good for us.

Your first podium of 2013. You recovered from your penalty in starting ninth to finish in third today. What does this result say about you and Ferrari this season?

FM: Well, I think a bit disappointed for what’s happening yesterday. These things happen many times and no penalties happen so I’m disappointed with that. I didn’t cause him any issues for him in the qualifying, so I’m disappointed for that. The race was good.

Very good start; very good beginning of the race; overtaking cars; trying to be aggressive, you know and passing people, which was the case. I tried to undercut people as well, stopping before. Maybe it was a little bit early as well. Looking at the end of the race I thought I maybe had the opportunity to fight with Kimi. But I think it was a great race, we did a good job. Our car was really superb for this track. The degradation on the tyres was not Lotus but I think we did the best as we’re supposed to do and we showed a good performance that I expected to have from Friday. I think we are [heading] in a good direction so I hope from now on we are fighting for the podium every race, especially in the race, which is where it counts. Qualifying we know is not easy for us. We are pushing very hard to improve the car, to make the car quicker in qualifying. But we know we have a good car for the race so I hope me and Fernando are having great races from now and until the end of the year.

And Felipe. Do you know where you are in the race at all times?

FM: Yes. You can see on the… [points]

When you left the pit at the last stop, you were ten seconds behind Kimi on new hard tyres, and Kimi had already pitted before you. Did you think it could be possible to overtake him?

FM: Well, first of all I was 15.5s behind Kimi, not 10s, so anyway, I was pushing hard to see if I could manage to catch him. I was catching him until lap six or seven by more than one second per lap but then maybe I was pushing too hard, I lost the tyres at the end, so I saw that maybe it was not possible to catch him so I started to save the rears more and the pace didn’t carry on like that. The only way to catch him was to push so I tried to push but it was not possible.

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Whitmarsh does not think McLaren board are considering wielding the axe

McLaren principal Martin Whitmarsh made clear he was not about to quit on Saturday after his Formula One team’s run of poor form showed no signs of abating at the Spanish Grand Prix.

With Jenson Button and Sergio Perez still well off the pace in qualifying, despite a vain attempt to rush new parts to the racetrack overnight, Whitmarsh was asked whether he had considered stepping down and whether his position had been discussed internally.

“No, I don’t believe it’s been considered at board level at the moment, as far as I know,” he replied.

“I believe in the team, I believe we are going to power through this. So no, I am not considering anything other than getting this team back to where it belongs.

“I’ve been around in the sport for a long time. I think I’ve sat here in difficult, dark moments and sat here in good moments as well… I am sure we are going to win some more races and we’re going to work hard to do that this year.”

Button, the 2009 world champion, won the last race of 2012 in Brazil but has finished no higher than fifth so far after four races this year. Perez’s best performance was sixth in Bahrain last month.

McLaren won seven races last season, as many as champions Red Bull, but lost 2008 champion Lewis Hamilton to Mercedes at the end of the year with long-serving technical director Paddy Lowe also departing.

The Woking-based team, 50 percent owned by Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat, have won more races and drivers’ championships than any team other than Ferrari but have not claimed a constructors’ crown since their eighth in 1998.

McLaren have periodically gone from boom to bust over the years, winning one race in 1983 and then 12 in 1984, three in 1987 and 15 in 1988, one in 2004 and 10 in 2005.

The team had hoped last month that an upgrade package for Barcelona would narrow the gap at the front but noticeably played down their expectations in the run-up to the race.

Friday practice, wet in the morning, was the equivalent of a bucket of cold water in the face and the team resorted to the seemingly desperate measure of expediting two new front wings from Britain to Barcelona.

They arrived in time for final practice but were not used, and will not be on the cars for the race either, with McLaren saying they could not be sure they would pass scrutineering by the governing FIA.

Asked how it was possible that a team like McLaren could go to all that effort without knowing whether the wings were even legal, Whitmarsh said the FIA equipment was not available to test them and the risk of failure was too great.

“In fairness to the FIA, they have got no obligation to make it available to us early on a Saturday morning,” he added. “But that was the chance that we took.

“The tolerancing was sufficiently close that we took a view that this was something we would have to check… without that check, it wasn’t prudent to go forward with those wings.”

Button, who failed to reach the third and final phase of qualifying on Saturday for the first time this year and will start 14th, put a positive gloss on the situation and cast his mind back to tough times at his previous Honda team.

“We haven’t made the step forward everyone expects and we would hope for, but there is so much hard work going on at the factory, I can tell you that,” he said.

“It’s a very competitive sport and we’re not suddenly going to jump to the front of the grid. If we did then the rest of them are doing something wrong at this point in the season.

“The important thing is to keep everyone positive, and I don’t think we need to do that because there is a great atmosphere within the team, and I can see us moving forward.”

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German prosecutors may charge Ecclestone for bribery

Munich prosecutors could be set to formally charge Bernie Ecclestone for bribery, the Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reports.

The German report said authorities have now completed an investigation into the 82-year-old Formula 1 chief executive’s payment of millions to jailed Formula 1 banker Gerhard Gribkowsky, and could publish the outcome this month.

If the court accepts the indictment, the trial would reportedly begin later in 2013.

Munich prosecutors, and Ecclestone’s lawyers, declined to comment to Suddeutsche Zeitung.

Bloomberg reported on Friday that Gribkowsky has dropped the appeal against his eight-year sentence, having been convicted of receiving $44 million from Ecclestone amid the sale of the sport to CVC some years ago.