Andrew Benson blog

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Ferrari rule out future Sebastian Vettel-Fernando Alonso pairing
By Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer Comments (28) Ferrari president Luca Di Montezemolo says world champion Sebastian Vettel will not join the Italian team as long as Fernando Alonso is there.

Ferrari sources said last summer that Vettel had an arrangement to join the team in the future, with the initial intention for that to be in 2014.

But asked if he could envisage Vettel at Ferrari with Alonso, Di Montezemolo said: "No, I don't think so."

Alonso's contract with Ferrari runs until the end of 2016.

The Big Two?
•In the last three seasons, Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso have won 30 of the 58 grands prix between them
•They have appeared on the podium on a combined 70 occasions out of 116
Ferrari have always said publicly that having two 'A-list' drivers is hard to manage - Di Montezemolo said in October that he did not want "two roosters in a henhouse".

Nevertheless, Di Montezemolo has never hidden his admiration for Vettel and his curt response to a question on the subject of Vettel potentially joining Ferrari does mark a change in tone.

In December he said the German "would be very good for us" if Alonso decided to leave the team.

In January, when team boss Stefano Domenicali was asked about teaming Vettel with Alonso, he referred to it as a "dream team", adding: "Never say never."

Ferrari's plan was said to have been for Vettel to join in 2014 - even though the German's Red Bull contract ran until the end of that season.

But sources close to Ferrari now say the Spaniard and the team renegotiated their agreement towards the end of last season and that one of Alonso's demands was that they not sign Vettel alongside him.

Although Alonso will be 35 at the end of his current Ferrari contract, he is believed already to be discussing extending it.

Meanwhile, Vettel has consistently emphasised how happy he is at Red Bull and the triple world champion is expected to extend his contract with the team to the end of 2016.

It has recently emerged that team boss Christian Horner has signed up with Red Bull to the end of 2017 and chief technical officer Adrian Newey, regarded as the finest motorsport designer in the world, also has a multi-year contract with the team and is expected to stay for the next several years.

The developments seem to end any chance of Vettel moving to Ferrari in the foreseeable future.

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Vettel to Ferrari? 'Never say never'
Di Montezemolo, who was speaking at the launch of the new Ferrari F1 car, said he expected Vettel and Red Bull again to be their strongest rivals this season.

Vettel has won the last three drivers' titles, twice sealing the crown narrowly ahead of Alonso at the final race of the season.

Di Montezemolo also criticised F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone for staging events in countries where there was no appetite for the sport at the expense of races in Europe.

"I believe we should have two grands prix in Italy, rather than having tracks far away in the middle of nowhere, that are difficult to reach," he said.

"But I would like to congratulate Ecclestone for reaching an agreement on a grand prix in Austin [in Texas] because we all wanted to have a grand prix in the US and they have found a very good solution."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula-one/21305374

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[Alfaster-F1]

Jake

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Testing times for Lewis Hamilton and the F1 frontrunnersLewis Hamilton's first week at the wheel of the car that carries his hopes this year ended a lot better than it started.

After a brake failure caused a crash on his first day's running for Mercedes at the first pre-season test, Hamilton managed a full day on Friday and was finally able to get down to meaningful work.

The reliability was exactly what Mercedes needed after Hamilton and team-mate Nico Rosberg managed less than 30 laps between them on the first two days of the four-day test at Spain's Jerez circuit.

As for the car's performance, well, after his curtailed run on Wednesday, Hamilton made it clear the Mercedes lacked aerodynamic downforce - the key performance definer in F1.
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Hamilton 'encouraged' by progress
"I'm pushing the aero guys as hard as I can because we need more aero, definitely," he said. "Coming from a McLaren that was so competitive at the end of last year and had incredible downforce, I definitely notice the difference, but it is nowhere near as bad as it could be."

On Friday, he made the point again, adding: "We have some work to do but it doesn't feel like it's a disaster."

Credit to Hamilton for his openness among the vague references to "a positive start" from virtually everyone else.

Hamilton's fastest time on Friday was good enough for sixth place on the day. His lap of one minute 18.905 seconds compares with the overall best time of the week, set by Ferrari's Felipe Massa on the third day, of 1:17.879.

But trying to read anything into the lap times at Jerez was even harder than it normally is at a pre-season test. Which means very hard indeed.

Fuel loads make a huge difference to lap times, and Jerez's highly abrasive surface could hardly have been less suited to the new tyres F1 supplier Pirelli has designed for 2013, which deteriorated much quicker than normal.

That meant that looking at average lap times and longer runs was less informative than usual.

Nevertheless, certain things did stand out. On the first day, Massa described Jenson Button's pace-setting time of 1:18.861 as "incredible", considering it was on a dirty track on the hardest of the available tyre compounds and on the McLaren's first day of running.

“In Jerez even some of the teams seemed to be in the dark. Hamilton said he had 'asked the guys to try and predict (where we are) but they don't know. It would just be a guess'. ” Andrew Benson

Chief F1 writer

The Brazilian was still sticking with that assessment two days later, while admitting that some people may well feel the same way about his own fastest lap.

It is traditional during pre-season testing for the drivers and teams to emphasise that they can't make any judgements about relative competitiveness.

Yet it is equally normal to speak to them after qualifying at the first race of the season and have them say they're not surprised by their grid position because they basically knew where they were from the testing times.

The teams, after all, are able to work out much more effectively than the media who is doing what with fuel loads, and what the lap times mean.

But in Jerez even some of the teams seemed to be in the dark.

Hamilton said he had "asked the guys to try and predict [where we are] but they don't know. It would just be a guess."
At Ferrari, a senior engineer said they did not really understand where Massa's fastest time came from. They were 1.5 seconds off the pace, he said, and then suddenly they were 1.5 seconds quicker than they should have been. Meanwhile, a 1:18.565 done by Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel on his first lap on hard tyres on the final day looked impressive, especially as Kimi Raikkonen did a 1:18.915 in the Lotus right afterwards on mediums.

The picture is complicated further by the fact that the lap-time difference between the different tyres varies from team to team.

But perhaps people were over-complicating it. At the end of the test, the list of overall fastest times for the week looked like this, with the tyres used in brackets:

Felipe Massa (Ferrari) 1:17.879 (soft)

Jules Bianchi (Force India) 1:18.175 (soft)

Kimi Raikkonen (Lotus) 1:18.148 (soft)

Romain Grosjean (Lotus) 1:18.218 (soft)

Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull) 1:18.565 (hard)

Esteban Gutierrez (Sauber) 1:18.669 (soft)

Jean-Eric Vergne (Toro Rosso) 1:18.760 (soft)

Nico Rosberg (Mercedes) 1:18.766 (soft)

Jenson Button (McLaren) 1:18.861(hard)

Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) 1:18.905 (medium)

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Gary Anderson sums up first F1 test
First, take into account the substantial performance differences between the three types of tyre in Jerez (more than half a second between the soft and the medium, and the hard counter-intuitively 0.4secs quicker than the medium).

Then bear in mind that the top teams rarely run their cars really low on fuel in testing - and presumably Force India, Sauber and Toro Rosso did to do those times.

You're left with a familiar-looking picture.

It would mean the top four teams were all closely matched, and hard to separate, but possibly with McLaren slightly ahead (based on Button's first-day time on the dirty track), closely followed by the Ferrari, which is clearly much tidier aerodynamically than last year, then the Red Bull and Lotus. The Mercedes would be a little further back, with Hamilton slightly faster than Rosberg despite an unfamiliar car and team.

Sounds plausible, doesn't it?

Of course, that's just an informed theory and without the fuel-load data it's impossible to be sure.

But it's backed up by engineers who said Vettel's 1:18.5 was not as forbidding as it looked, and that on longer runs the McLaren looked especially strong in terms of managing its tyre degradation, with the Ferrari pretty close behind.

Meanwhile, BBC F1 technical analyst Gary Anderson spent considerable time watching out on the track and felt the Red Bull and Lotus looked especially impressive.

The Ferrari was fast, but the rear was tending to give up at the exit of corners; the McLaren also quick, but it was having the opposite problem - understeer. The Mercedes had understeer on entry and a snappy rear on exit - the signs of a car with a lack of grip. Which tallies with what Hamilton said. Far away from all this, meanwhile, was a certain Fernando Alonso, who chose to skip Jerez and go away somewhere warm and sunny to work on his fitness. He was keeping in touch with Ferrari via email.

Officially, Alonso said he needed the extra time to ensure he was fully mentally prepared for the rigours of what will be a long, hard season.

Unofficially, it is thought Alonso felt the test would be meaningless in terms of analysing performance - and if it was only going to be reliability runs and aerodynamic data-gathering, the better to skip it and stay fresh. The more you watched drivers sit in the pits for hours on end while their cars were fixed, and the more you heard teams and drivers saying the problems with tyres meant this test was more about ticking boxes than performance, the more it seemed like Alonso might have been on to something.

The Spaniard will take a full part in the second test from 18-22 February at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya, a circuit that examines the all-round abilities of an F1 car better than almost any other, and where tyre performance is much more representative.

For Alonso, and for everyone else, that is where it starts to get serious.

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Ferrari bring back designer Rory Byrne to work on 2014 car
By Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer Ferrari have brought back Formula 1 design legend Rory Byrne to work on the car they will race in 2014.

Byrne, 69, was the chief designer on the cars with which Michael Schumacher won all seven of his world titles, two with Benetton and five with Ferrari.

Ferrari said Byrne, who has been working on road car projects as a consultant, would provide "operational support" to the design team.

F1 is introducing its biggest set of rule changes in decades for next year.

The current 2.4-litre V8 engines will be replaced by 1.6-litre V6 turbos, energy recovery will be a much greater factor in performance and the chassis rules have also been tweaked to help increase efficiency.

Byrne's new role is an indication of how seriously Ferrari are taking the project - and the determination they have to make no mistakes in ensuring they have a competitive car in 2014.

The South African is the only figure whose achievements can compare with those of Red Bull's Adrian Newey, who is widely recognised as the best designer in F1, over the last two decades or so.

Byrne and Newey share a remarkable record - from 1992 until 2004 every single world championship was won by a car on which one of them had led the design.

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Gary Anderson's verdict on 2013 F1 cars after Jerez test
Byrne officially retired at the end of 2006, but has been retained by Ferrari as a consultant.

In recent years he has been working on the new Ferrari Enzo hypercar - an ultra-high-performance road car.

Byrne was called in to look at the 2012 F1 car after it had a troubled start to its life but this is believed to be the first time since 2006 that he has had a major role in the design of an F1 Ferrari.

At the launch of this year's F1 car on 1 February, he told the German magazine Auto Motor und Sport that he was working "full steam ahead" on the 2014 car.

His presence does not change the normal Ferrari design structure and he has no official title.

Ferrari describe him as "an extra pair of hands and eyes, if you like".

Byrne is working as part of a team led by chief designer Nikolas Tombazis under technical director Pat Fry. The co-ordinator of the 2014 car under Tombazis is Italian Fabio Montecchi.

BBC F1 technical analyst Gary Anderson said: "Ferrari's chassis people are relatively inexperienced but obviously very clever. Byrne can bring stability to the project by keeping an overview on everything and perhaps putting the brakes on some of the exuberance of youth.

"Sometimes, very clever but inexperienced people can head off down a route that will be better on paper but won't work so well on the track. Rory's experience would be very helpful on that front
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula-one/21411177

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula-one/21511060



Fernando Alonso 'relatively confident' of 2013 title challenge
Ferrari's Fernando Alonso said after driving his 2013 car for the first time that he was "relatively confident" of battling for the title this season.

Alonso, who narrowly lost out to Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel in 2012, was third quickest on the first day of the second pre-season test on Tuesday.

"I'm sure we will be strong [at the first race] in Australia," Alonso said.

"To improve the first part of the year is not going to be too difficult so we are relatively confident,"


Double world champion Alonso said he felt Ferrari could do better than last year because they were in better shape than they were during pre-season testing in 2012.

Last year, the team discovered their car was more than two seconds off the pace and needed major work before the season, and it was still more than a second behind at the first race, when Alonso failed to get into the third and final part of qualifying, the top 10 shoot-out.

But the 2013 Ferrari has not had such troubles, although no team knows exactly how competitive their car is yet.

Alonso, 31, feels Ferrari still had a lot of work to do because the car had not been competitive at the end of last season despite his title challenge - he lost out to Vettel by three points only at the final race of the season in Brazil.

"At the end of the year we were quite far from [pace-setters] Red Bull and McLaren, in a group with force Force India and Sauber behind Lotus," Alonso said.

"We cannot be in that group; we have to be in the group with the leaders. We have to do a good job this winter.

"We are trying some new parts in this test, more in the last test and more in Australia, so Friday (practice) in Australia will be also important and we need to arrive in a better condition than we finished.

"But the competitors are doing a good job and it will be interesting.

"My only optimism about 2013 is that I fought for the championship last year with a car that was two seconds off the pace in winter and in the first four races we were struggling to get into Q3 and even in those problems we were fighting for the championship.

"So we need to be positive and think we will fight this year for the championship if we improve the car a little bit."

Vettel was also driving on the first day of the second test and ended up fourth fastest, just behind Alonso. Nico Rosberg of Mercedes set the pace from Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen.

Vettel said he expected another close season in 2013.

"I don't expect any real difference to last year," he said.



"I think it will be very close, it is very unpredictable, it is not between one or two drivers or teams. Last year we had seven drivers wining the first seven traces and there is nothing that speaks against that."

Vettel said the teams did not know where they would stand at the start of the season partly because the cold weather in testing in Spain meant the tyres were not working as they would at the first races in Australia and Malaysia next month.

"It is still a little too cold for the tyres to work properly," Vettel said. "It's quite tough to keep the tyres alive for many laps.

"We can be quite happy with what we did. I'm not comparing to anyone else at the moment, it is still a little early.

"You need to be careful because it's too cold, as simple as that. We want to understand the tyres but in these conditions it is tricky

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/21519122

Sergio Perez clocks fastest time on day two of Barcelona test
By Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer McLaren new signing Sergio Perez set the pace from Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel on the second day of the second pre-season test.

The Mexican was 0.349 seconds quicker than the world champion, with Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen, who lost the morning to a gearbox problem, third.

Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton, whose seat Perez has taken, was fourth fastest ahead of Ferrari's Fernando Alonso.

Williams's Valtteri Bottas was sixth from Toro Rosso's Daniel Ricciardo.

Lap times in testing are rarely accurate indications of form as teams do not reveal the specification in which they were running their cars.

Day two completed laps
1.Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) 121
2.Charles Pic (Caterham) 102
3.Valtteri Bottas (Williams) 98
4.Sergio Perez (McLaren) 97
5.Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber)88
6.Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull)84
7.Fernando Alonso (Ferrari)76
8.Daniel Ricciardo (Toro Rosso) 70
9.Max Chilton (Marussia) 66
10.Paul di Resta (Force India) 62
11.Kimi Raikkonen (Lotus) 43

Even times set on the same type of tyre are not necessarily comparable as the fuel loads drivers were using were not made public and these can make a huge difference to lap times.

Perez and Vettel set their times on the 'soft' tyres, which are fast over one lap but 'go off' quickly.

"The degradation of the tyres is very difficult. It is a big surprise," said Perez.

"We are still learning about the tyres and I think once we go racing I hope things can change about the tyres."

Perez added: "The summary is positive. It has been a very important day for us because we managed a lot of mileage and we managed to complete all our programmes. There is still work to do before Melbourne and we have to maximise every chance we have to make this car better for then.

Raikkonen's time, which was 0.849secs off the pace, was on mediums, which are said by tyre supplier Pirelli to be about 0.8secs slower than the 'softs'.

Hamilton, 0.029secs slower than Raikkonen, set his fastest time on the 'hard' tyre, while Alonso was on the 'medium' tyre. The Spaniard was 1.399secs off Perez's pace.

Hamilton spent his morning comparing the car with and without its new 'Coanda' exhaust, a way of using the exhaust gases to increase downforce. Mercedes are trying to catch up with leading rivals Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari, who all used the technology throughout last season.

In the afternoon, Hamilton completed longer runs.

Vettel tried to do a race simulation run in the afternoon but the German had to stop for 45 minutes in the middle of the run with a reliability problem and then stopped for a second time on the track after a pit stop.

He managed to get out on to the track again for the final 13 minutes of the day but his running was cut short five minutes before the scheduled end when English rookie Max Chilton's Marussia stopped out on track.

"We had some issues with reliability and couldn't do as many laps as we wanted, but it is better that these thing happen today than in Australia," said Vettel.

"It was nothing dramatic, just small things.

"But the feeling is good, the balance is good and the car feels right, we had some issues with reliability which we need to fix and then we can hopefully go racing in Australia. I am pretty happy."

Vettel completed slightly more than half of a 66-lap race distance at the Circuit de Catalunya near Barcelona.

Secretive Red Bull

All teams try to stop rivals from getting a close look at their new cars, but Red Bull are taking particularly extreme measures.

The world champions are quick to erect barriers when their car comes into the pits, with Sebastian Vettel pulling into a small alley parallel to the garage door.

Alonso also suffered reliability problems. He lost time while the Ferrari mechanics changed the car's rear bodywork, which had been overheated and damaged by the exhausts.

All 11 teams are in Spain for a four-day test finishing on Friday.

All the teams try to some extent to stop rivals getting a good look at their new cars in testing but Red Bull, the world champions, are taking that to extremes this winter as their drivers pull into the pits.

Standard practice is for the driver to swing the car out to face the pit wall so the mechanics can then push it backwards into the garage.

But in Barcelona Vettel has been pulling in parallel to the garage door, into an alley barely wider than the car, with mechanics on either side holding a string of three barriers on wheels to shield the car.

They then bring the barriers in even closer to the car while other mechanics jack the car up, put it on trolleys, swivel it around and back it into the garage, while the mechanics bring the screens in behind it.

SECOND PRE-SEASON TEST, DAY TWO, CIRCUIT DE CATALUNYA, SPAIN, FASTEST TIMES

1. Sergio Perez (Mex) McLaren-Mercedes 1:21.848

2. Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Red Bull-Renault 1:22.197

3. Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Lotus-Renault 1:22.697

4. Lewis Hamilton (GB) Mercedes 1:22.726

5. Fernando Alonso (Spa) Ferrari 1:23.247

6. Valtteri Bottas (Fin) Williams-Renault 1:23.561

7. Daniel Ricciardo (Aus) Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:23.718

8. Paul di Resta (GB) Force India-Mercedes 1:23.971

9. Nico Hulkenberg (Ger) Sauber-Ferrari 1:24.205

10. Max Chilton (GB) Marussia-Cosworth 1:25.115

11. Charles Pic (Fra) Caterham-Renault 1:26.243

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Lewis Hamilton says his Mercedes car will not be fast enough to compete for victories at the start of the season.

The Englishman said on the final day of the second pre-season test that the team still needed to find aerodynamic performance to compete with the best.

Continue reading the main story
“We need to improve the reliability in some areas”

Lewis Hamilton

Hamilton said: "We're not looking at wins at the moment. We're hoping to get into the points and fight for top 10.

"It's not fast enough to be quickest over one lap but it's not slow, that's for sure."

Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso predicted last month that Hamilton would win races with Mercedes this season following his move from McLaren.

But Hamilton, while admitting wins were "not impossible", rejected the notion that Mercedes would be able to compete at the front at the start of the season in Australia on 17 March.

"People are talking us up at the moment - [Sebastian] Vettel and Fernando saying we're going to be competing for the world championship... Well, I really don't see that happening at the moment," Hamilton said.

"Of course that's our goal. But you've got to remember the car was more than a second off, sometimes two seconds off, last year and we've not caught two seconds up, and the new teams will have put another second on this year and we've not caught up three seconds. That's just a fact.

"Hopefully by the end of the year we will have gained three seconds but definitely not at the beginning."

He repeated his analysis from the first pre-season test two weeks ago that aerodynamics were the Mercedes' biggest weakness.

"We need more downforce, that's the name of the game at the moment," he said.

"We need to improve the reliability in some areas, sensors and that, but otherwise we just need as much downforce as we can."

Lewis Hamilton profile
•Age: 28
•Current team: Mercedes
•Previous team: McLaren
•Titles: 2008
•Wins: 21
•Podiums: 49
•Fastest laps: 12

And asked whether the 2013 Mercedes was yet as good a car as the McLaren he drove last year, Hamilton said: "No. The downforce factor is what everyone's pushing on.

"The team has won a race so they have clearly not such a bad foundation in terms of the mechanical side of the car but it's downforce where we need to improve."

Mercedes started last season strongly, but slipped from the pace in the second half of the year. By the end of 2012 they were struggling to score points.

Hamilton said: "Sometimes people lose their way and it takes a group of people to put the train back on its tracks. We have lots of great people doing that and I think we are now rolling in the right direction."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/21550860

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/21655985

McLaren poised to switch to Honda engines for 2015 season By Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer McLaren are to use Honda engines as the Japanese company returns to Formula 1 for the first time since 2008.

Honda pulled out of F1 after years of poor results with its own team, which subsequently won the championship as Brawn in 2009 and is now Mercedes.

But the engine manufacturer has decided to return because of next year's introduction of turbo engines featuring energy recovery technology.

McLaren are first expected to race with Honda engines in 2015.

Continue reading the main story
“We are looking for a long-term engine supplier relationship with McLaren-Mercedes”

Toto Wolff

Mercedes F1 executive director

A McLaren spokesman said: "We never discuss media rumours about potential partners."

Mercedes, which currently supplies McLaren's engines, said it could not comment on its partner's plans, but its F1 executive director Toto Wolff said: "We are looking for a long-term engine supplier relationship with McLaren-Mercedes."

McLaren has a contract with Mercedes with options for the team to renew for 2014 and 2015. McLaren are expected to take up only the first of those options.

Honda president Takanobu Ito on 8 February admitted that the company was "studying" the idea of an F1 return.

The company has not yet officially confirmed its plans to return.

The McLaren-Honda deal revives a partnership that had great historical success.

McLaren, with Honda as an engine supplier, dominated F1 in the late 1980s and early 1990s, winning four consecutive world drivers' championships with Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost, as well as the corresponding years' constructors' titles.

In 1988, McLaren with Senna and Prost enjoyed the most successful season in F1 history, winning 15 of the 16 races.

Honda also dominated the mid-1980s with Williams, winning the 1987 drivers' title with Nelson Piquet and the 1986 and 1987 constructors' championships.

Honda would become the fourth road-car manufacturer supplying engines in F1, alongside Mercedes, Renault and Ferrari (Fiat).

Honda's decision to re-enter F1 vindicates the switch to the new engine formula, which has been criticised and opposed by F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone as an unnecessary expense.

Its proponents, mainly governing body the FIA and the car manufacturers already in F1, have long argued that the sport needed to abandon the current formula for 2.4-litre V8 naturally aspirated engines because they were an out-of-date technology and out of tune with the requirement for energy efficiency.

The new engines will feature extensive use of energy recovery systems, a technology that is increasingly prevalent in road cars.

Mercedes has said that it is aiming for a thermal efficiency of 40% with its new turbo engine - a figure markedly more efficient than even the best road-car diesel engines, which are in the region of 35%.

The formula promotes efficiency through a limit on the amount of fuel that can be used and is expected to further the development of such engines in road cars.

Last month, McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh was critical of the sport's vacillation over the new engines, which were initially planned to be introduced in 2013 before Ecclestone engineered a delay of a year.

"[Road-car] manufacturers need to see it happen now," Whitmarsh said.

"Even in the last few weeks people [have been saying]: 'Oh, should we really go V6 next year?'

"Christ, we're committed to it. Good, bad or indifferent we've got to do it now. We've been saying it for long enough, we've delayed it long enough, we've actually got to bloody well do it.

"If I was on the board of a big OEM [road-car manufacturer], I'd be saying: 'Let's wait a couple of years and see whether F1 actually does what it says it's going to do for a change.'

"So [the] combination of the world economy, the biggest recession in OEM history, uncertainty over whether we've really done it, but F1 remains a fantastic environment for brand exposure for OEM and I predict in four-five years' time we'll be back up to four or five OEMs in the sport.

"You'll have a constant churn. For some of us F1 is our core business. OEMs will be here when it suits them and it helps them sell cars or helps them differentiate the cars so they can sell them at a higher price. There is no love for the sport.

"They have to be there for rational business reasons. So creating technologies that are socially relevant, are appropriate to the automotive industry [is important].

"But we now have to prove we have the governance in our sport, that it's consistent and stable, that we're not all going to go bust. I'd hold back a bit if I was an OEM."

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Australian GP: Easy-going Kimi Raikkonen could be a contender
Comments (45)
An engrossing Australian Grand Prix, packed with action from beginning to end and culminating in an impressive win for Kimi Raikkonen and Lotus, got the new Formula 1 season off to a highly-promising start in Melbourne on Sunday.

Raikkonen's victory, from seventh place on the grid, was hard-fought and well earned, in a car that is fast and able to look after its tyres. The team looks like being a major title contender this year.

The race result seemed up in the air until 10 laps from the end. Raikkonen, who took the lead for the second and final time when he passed Adrian Sutil's Force India with 15 laps to go, looked at that stage under serious threat from the flying Ferrari of Fernando Alonso behind him.

Raikkonen, 33, had done only two pit stops for fresh tyres while Alonso, whose Ferrari pitted three times, had set a series of fastest laps both before and after his final stop.

But once the Spaniard was himself past Sutil - soon to plummet to seventh place as a result of abusing the super-soft tyres he had to use for the latter part of the race - Raikkonen turned the screw and Alonso could not keep up.

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Australian GP highlights: Raikkonen races to Melbourne victory
The 20th victory of Raikkonen's illustrious career was not only one of the most impressive but also, he said, one of the easiest.

"We got it exactly right," he said. "The team worked extremely well, we had a plan and we followed the plan and it worked out perfectly for us. I could save the tyres and I could go fast when I wanted. It was one of the easiest races to win. Hopefully we can have more races like this."

On this form, that seems a given.

Raikkonen was keen to point out afterwards that it was only the first race and there was a long way to go in this 19-race championship that runs until the end of November, but it was clear from both his manner and his remarks that he feels a title challenge is very much on.

Famously taciturn, Raikkonen was almost chatty after the race, and it is unlikely to have been as a result of the glug of champagne he took - typically in character - before he sprayed the victory magnum on the podium.

"Of course I am happy we didn't have to go full speed all the time, which is a good sign, but it might be a completely different story in the next race," he said at one point.

But he also said that he had been confident of doing well despite his relatively poor grid position - the result of an over-cautious lap that included a mistake in the drying conditions of Sunday morning qualifying - and, most strikingly, was prepared to discuss the possibility of winning the championship.

To do that, Lotus will have to keep pace in the development race with better-funded Ferrari and Red Bull, which they did not quite manage in 2012.

Despite that, Raikkonen still finished third in the championship last year, and this year the car seems to be in better shape in terms of ultimate performance while also maintaining its strong point of being kind to the tyres.

No wonder Alonso admitted after that race that the Lotus's performance was "a worry".

But Alonso, too, looks in good shape. His was a typically aggressive, feisty drive as he took advantage of bringing his second pit stop forward to jump a train of cars that were holding him up, vaulting into second place.

Ferrari are clearly in far better shape than they were at this stage last year, and given that he was able to take the title fight to the final race then, he must at this stage be considered a major contender himself.

One of the cars holding Alonso up in the first third of the race was the Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel, the man who narrowly beat him to the title last year. The Red Bull's race performance - or more precisely the lack of it - was a surprise.

Through practice and qualifying Vettel, beginning his campaign for a fourth consecutive title, had looked unbeatable. Friday had suggested he had at least half a second on anyone else, and in qualifying he duly put the car on pole from team-mate Mark Webber by 0.42 seconds - and was 0.68secs faster than the first non-Red Bull.

And when Vettel takes pole, a victory normally follows as surely as night follows day.

Before the race, I mentioned to Jenson Button that it looked like Vettel was going to run away with it. "You've obviously not seen his tyres," Button replied. "They're knackered."

Race result top 10
1. Kimi Raikkonen - Lotus 1:30:03.225

2. Fernando Alonso - Ferrari +00:12.451

3. Sebastian Vettel - Red Bull +00:22.346

4. Felipe Massa - Ferrari +00:33.577

5. Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes +00:45.561

6. Mark Webber - Red Bull +00:46.800

7. Adrian Sutil - Force India +01:64.068

8. Paul di Resta - Force India +01:67.449

9. Jenson Button - McLaren +01:80.630

10. Romain Grosjean - Lotus +01:81.759

So it proved. Vettel bolted off the line into his customary two-second lead at the end of the first lap but that was as far as he went.

The Ferraris, initially led by Felipe Massa quickly hauled him in, and were clearly being held up.

The Red Bull's outright performance is foreboding, but in Australia its tyre management - particularly Vettel's - was poor.

Webber was unusually better on his tyres, but the Australian was stuck down in the midfield and unable to show his pace after a dreadful start caused by an electronics failure that also temporarily shut down his Kers power-boost system.

The same, to a degree, was true of Vettel. He spent 10 laps stuck behind Sutil but even team boss Christian Horner admitted it made no difference to his end result.

Horner said Vettel's problems were caused by his tyres being out of their operating window, and he hoped it would be different in the hotter conditions of Malaysia next weekend.

Even if not, it is inconceivable that a team of Red Bull's quality will not get on top of the problem and the car's pace is not in doubt.

"Lotus were very quick in the winter," Alonso said, "and they did a fantastic weekend and deserve the victory. But the Red Bull is the quickest car - they were first and second in practice and qualifying and they suffered a little bit in [tyre] degradation in the race but it doesn't mean they are not the fastest."

Given that Lewis Hamilton's impressive pace in qualifying faded with high tyre wear in the race - a problem that also afflicted Mercedes last year - it is hard, on the evidence of Australia, not to think that the three men who are most likely to contend this year's title were those standing on the podium at the end of the first race.

And few would be surprised if the one on the lowest step turns out to be the most formidable. Again.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/21821849