Vettel, Webber clear the air following ‘disaster’ Turkish GP crash

June 4, 2010 By Leave a Comment

London, June 4(ANI): Red Bull Formula One racing drivers Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber have had clear-the-air talks following Sunday’s Turkish Grand Prix ‘disaster’ collision.

The pair met with team bosses at their headquarters in Milton Keynes, and Vettel made the statement that both drivers are happy to continue to work together, The Sun reports.

The crash, a reprise of a collision between the two in Japan three years ago, came on the 40th lap when Vettel attempted to overtake Webber on the inside and then turned right into him.

Vettel spun out of the race, while Webber went on to take third place behind the McLaren pair of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button.

Red Bull principal Christian Horner said the crash, which robbed them of a one-two finish, was simply an “unnecessary” racing accident, and added that all factions of the team believed both drivers were equally guilty of not giving each other enough room.

“Ultimately we win as a team and we lose as a team and on Sunday we lost as a team, as a result of our two drivers having an incident. Having looked at all the information it”s clear that it was a racing accident that shouldn”t have happened between two team-mates,” Horner said. (ANI)

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Formula One to ban F-ducts from next season

May 11, 2010 By Leave a Comment

London, May 11 (ANI): The controversial F-ducts, allow drivers to divert airflow through the cockpit to “stall” the rear wings of their cars, decreasing drag and boosting speed, will be banned by Formula One from next season.

McLaren pioneered the breakthrough decision, which sidestepped the rule that there can be no moveable aerodynamic devices on cars.

Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button diverted air coming through a vent on the top of their McLarens by blocking a hole in the cockpit with their knees, The Sun reports.

But the controversy emerged again during Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix after Ferrari turned up with a more radical and potentially dangerous system.

Driver Fernando Alonso was seen blocking a hole at his side with a special pad on the outside of his left glove. That resulted in the absurd situation where he was often driving at 190mph with only one hand on the steering wheel.

And when adjusting his brake balance with his right hand, he had no hands on the wheel at all, The Sun reports.

Team chief Stefano Domenicali joked that Alonso must have been steering with his legs.

The Mercedes, Sauber and Williams teams have also come up with variations of the system.

McLaren objected to the ban at a post-GP meeting of the Formula One Teams Association.

But the association voted in favour of outlawing the systems from the end of this season, on safety and cost grounds, The Sun reports.

Red Bull boss Christian Horner, whose driver Mark Webber dominated the Spanish race, revealed his team were still looking into F-ducts. (ANI)

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Formula One struggles home after volcano disruption

April 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Formula One teams were reunited with their cars and equipment on Thursday after being stranded for days in China by flight chaos caused by ash from an Icelandic volcano.

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner, who flew home to Britain after a ‘five stop strategy’ taking in Dubai, Rome, Nice and Glasgow before a final helicopter trip south, said the sport would take the disruption in its stride.

“Thankfully, the way the calendar is with the extra week between the Chinese and Spanish Grand Prix, it has a very limited impact,” he told the team website (www.redbullracing.com).

“There’s still over a week to turn the cars around and a lot of the components for the next race are produced here in the factory.”

“The factory hasn’t been affected. Obviously the turnaround components are a little bit out of synch now, coming back two or three days late, but with the additional week we’re confident it won’t cause us any major issues.”

The Spanish Grand Prix is in Barcelona on May 9.

Horner, who arrived home on Tuesday with Australian driver Mark Webber after Sunday’s race in Shanghai, said the rest of the team were due back on Thursday with the planes transporting the race cars expected a few hours earlier.

He said the only hitch to his travels was when Webber discovered on arrival in Scotland that he had forgotten his passport.

Some 55 Lotus team members, plus media and other F1 personnel, arrived back in Britain late on Wednesday — thankful that the Malaysian team’s principal Tony Fernandes also runs his own Air Asia airline.

Others were less fortunate, however.

A Force India spokeswoman, still in Shanghai and contacted by Reuters, said most of that team were still waiting for a flight out.

“Our drivers got out on Tuesday, so they are sorted,” she added. “(British test driver) Paul (Di Resta) is racing in the DTM (in Germany this weekend) so it was a bit more critical for him to get back.”

“The majority of the team are flying back on a charter expected to be leaving at some point tomorrow,” she added.

Formula One’s commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone, who has the advantage of a private jet, appeared to have been the clear winner of what some have dubbed the ‘Volcanic Grand Prix’ to get home first.

“Predictably Bernie beat all of us back,” said Horner, whose German driver Sebastian Vettel got a lift with Ecclestone to Istanbul before catching another plane to Nice.

“I phoned him from Glasgow, very proud that we’d landed on British soil, only for him to say that he’d already been in the office for three hours.”

(Editing by Pritha Sarkar;

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Webber hails ‘sensational’ Red Bull

April 15, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Mark Webber has urged Red Bull to build on its new-found momentum going into this weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix after its season start was ruined by two messy races.

The team believes it should have won the season-opener in Bahrain and then in Melbourne, but has righted its season with a one-two in Malaysia.

But Webber says that with Red Bull sitting third behind Ferrari and McLaren on the manufacturers’ table, despite having the quickest car, the impetus from Malaysia needs to continue.

“The momentum needs to start building pretty quickly,” Webber said.

“The job they’ve done to recover off some tough weekends is a real credit to the team.

“The spirit internally in our team and the chemistry is sensational, working with Renault and Red Bull, everyone together is fighting incredibly hard.

“We take on these big manufacturer teams but our team is very unique.

“So far it hasn’t been the smoothest championship but to come back is a very good performance.”

Webber said it was already clear the fight for the championship would be a three-way battle.

“I think Ferrari and McLaren are very strong – clearly it’s three teams already,” Webber said.

“Mercedes are doing OK but it’s Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull who are the most consistent at the moment in terms of pace.”

Team boss Christian Horner said the outfit had endured a “frustrating” season so far.

“We won the last three races of 2009 and we knew we had a good car coming into this year,” Horner said.

“We’ve been very fast in Bahrain, we should have won that, but for a spark plug problem and a wheel problem for Sebastian in Melbourne.

“It’s just frustrating – we should have won the first two races.

“Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes are all strong teams so we don’t take anything for granted,” he told Reuters.

“We’ll just look to extract the maximum we can out of the car. The drivers are both in great form and we’ll try our hardest to try and replicate the sort of form we demonstrated in Malaysia.”

However series leader, Ferrari’s Felipe Massa, said outright speed did not necessarily win the title.

“I heard people in Malaysia on Sunday saying that Red Bull was now by far the quickest car and it is true they were in the first two rows of the grid,” Massa said on his personal blog.

“But over a race distance, I believe the story is a bit different.

“You have to remember that in Sepang, they were racing pretty much on their own as the two teams who would have pushed them hardest, started from so far back.

“You need to keep that in mind when assessing the race. They are definitely not unstoppable, but we need to improve a bit to be in a better position to stop them.”

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Hamilton set to escape punishment in Liargate scandal

April 26, 2009 By Leave a Comment

London, Apr 26 (ANI): Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton is set to get off scot free this week over his role in Liargate scandal.

Britain’s world champion is likely to escape a personal punishment, even though Red Bull boss Christian Horner insists Hamilton’s McLaren team should have the book thrown at them.

McLaren have to answer five charges that they lied to race stewards at the Australian Grand Prix when they face the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council in Paris on Wednesday.

But team chief Martin Whitmarsh has thrown himself at the mercy of chiefs by making an unreserved apology after Hamilton was told to tell fibs to try to get an extra point.

Whitmarsh has also been in talks with FIA representative Alan Donnelly in Bahrain, News of the World reported.

They claim the actions taken since the lie was exposed – including the sacking of sporting director Dave Ryan and Ron Dennis’ resignation – should soften any punishment.

McLaren, who were fined 50 million pounds and kicked out of the constructors’ championship 18 months ago for spying on Ferrari, hope they escape with another fine.

The WMSC could also dock points or ban them for two races. But a highly-placed pit-lane source said: “It is all up to McLaren now.

If they go into the meeting contrite and hold their hands up then they could get off.” (ANI)

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Hamilton stripped of Australian GP podium

April 3, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton was stripped of his third place at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix after stewards ruled on Thursday that he and McLaren had deliberately misled them.

The governing International Automobile Federation (FIA) said in a statement at the Malaysian Grand Prix that Hamilton and his team had both been excluded from the classification of last weekend’s race.

Toyota’s Italian Jarno Trulli, who had been handed a 25 second penalty and demoted to 12th place at a post-race hearing for overtaking Hamilton during the second safety car period, was reinstated in third.

Stewards had reopened their enquiry on Thursday after “new elements” emerged and summoned Hamilton to appear before them at the Sepang circuit.

Their verdict was that “Hamilton and … McLaren Mercedes acted in a manner prejudicial to the conduct of the event by providing evidence deliberately misleading to the stewards at the hearing on Sunday.”

They ruled that there had been a breach of the international sporting code.

With Hamilton’s team mate Heikki Kovalainen failing to finish in Melbourne, McLaren are now in the same situation as champions Ferrari with no points.

TRULLI THIRD

Toyota had served notice of a protest after the race in Melbourne but decided not to proceed on Wednesday because they felt there was no chance of overturning the stewards’ decision.

Trulli, who had slid off and been passed by Hamilton while behind the safety car, said after the race that he had little choice but to overtake the Briton again.

“When the safety car came out towards the end of the race, Lewis Hamilton passed me but soon after he suddenly slowed down and pulled over to the side of the road,” he said in a team statement at the time.

“I thought he had a problem so I overtook him as there was nothing else I could do.”

Hamilton had told Speed TV that Trulli went wide onto the grass at the second to last corner.

“I was forced to go by. I slowed down as much as I could. I was told to let him back past, but I mean … I don’t know if that’s the regulations, and if it isn’t, then I should have really had third,” said the Briton.

It was not clear what he had told the stewards in the original enquiry and the driver would not elaborate in a news conference at Sepang before the new verdict was known.

In a separate development, Red Bull’s German Sebastian Vettel could have his 10 place penalty on the Malaysian starting grid reviewed.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said Vettel had been asked to discuss the penalty with Alan Donnelly, the FIA’S permanent non-voting chairman of the stewards.

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