Interview with Lewis Hamilton

Heikki Kovalainen and Lewis Hamilton brought points home last Sunday at the conclusion of the drenched Chinese Grand Prix when they crossed the finish line in fifth and sixth positions. The result marked the first time this season that both McLaren Mercedes drivers finished in the points.

However, for reigning World Champion Hamilton, the Shanghai race returns were also bittersweet as he expected he could deliver more, but spins on the wet track prevented him from reaching higher.

In a Q&A session appearing on his website, Hamilton looks back at his Chinese Grand Prix performance, congratulates the team for its efforts, and comments on Ron Dennis' decision to concentrate on other divisions of the McLaren group.

A tough race for you in Shanghai, Lewis - were you satisfied with sixth position?

"It was a very tough race - the visibility, particularly at the start of the race, was really terrible - you could hardly see anything - but then things got a little better. It's just a pity that I had a couple of spins. I love driving in the rain but I definitely didn't drive as well as I could on Sunday. Afterwards, people were congratulating me on a good performance, but overall I was a bit dissatisfied with my race."

Why?

"Because I wanted to do better. It was good for the team to get both cars into the points, but I felt that I should have done better: I was running as high as fifth before spinning in the early laps and, looking at how the race panned out, I feel pretty certain I could have been nearer the front challenging for a podium."

So you look at Sunday afternoon as an opportunity lost rather than as three points gained?

"A little bit, I suppose, but it's more that I wanted to reward the team with a stronger result after all we've been through in recent weeks. In Shanghai on Sunday, there were a 100 people working in the pouring rain to help Heikki and I. Back at MTC in Woking and Mercedes-Benz HighPerformanceEngines in Brixworth, there are 1000 people all working hard to get new parts ready for the car. They are all doing their very best and I felt I could have done better for them, that's all."

What else do you take away from the Shanghai weekend?

"Two things: I've got to say, the fans in China are just incredible. Seriously, they are unbelievable - some of the most passionate and dedicated fans I've ever come across. Heikki and I went to a signing session with the fans on Sunday morning, and you wouldn't believe how they were reacting when we arrived with the other drivers - they were screaming the place down. It was fantastic - the place went crazy."

"Secondly, the team spirit: you saw it again after the race - the team working so hard preparing for the next race, driving forklifts, soaking wet and working through the night to get everything packed up and sent off to Bahrain - all this after the long hours they already put in over the Chinese Grand Prix weekend. I know we are getting there as a team, and that's what makes us great."

Why are the fans so passionate?

"I don't know, but it is a great feeling. But I mean, the fans in China are fantastic - every night they would be outside my hotel cheering me on, waving banners and giving me little presents and wishing me good luck for the race. I really hope that Formula 1 becomes as popular with the rest of the country because they have a world-class circuit, which I love racing on, it would be great to see the Chinese Grand Prix become one of the most popular races on the Formula 1 calendar."

How is the McLaren Mercedes team adapting to the news of Ron Dennis's departure?

"Certainly, this weekend I would have to say that it was business as usual, but that is how Ron built this team. Ron is an incredible man and we all owe him more than we could ever repay him for building this great team. Both my family and I are going to do our best to continue the progress we have made over the past two seasons with the team and hope that we can continue to make him proud of having invested in me. I was 12 when I first met Ron and, without his vision, I would not be here. I'll never forget - and neither will my family."

"Ron's decision to focus solely on the automotive side must have been tough, but I wish him the very best. Not that he'll need it - everything he touches turns to gold - well, normally! But seriously, Ron's departure brings with it an opportunity for change and I firmly believe that under Martin (Whitmarsh) and our new chairman Richard Lapthorne and with Mercedes-Benz we have great potential for the future."

Finally, what are you looking forward to at the Bahrain Grand Prix next weekend?

"We should have a few new components at Bahrain so I hope we'll continue with our progress. As long as we are moving forwards, it makes it all the more worthwhile and rewarding. I never thought I would be so happy to make it into Q3 in Shanghai, but we did and that was a result of a huge team development effort. More of the same is what I am looking forward to."

Marko - No harmony between Red Bull drivers

According to team advisor Helmut Marko, "harmony" is not the word to describe the relationship of Red Bull's two drivers.

"No. Rather, I would call it healthy competition," the Austrian, team owner Dietrich Mateschitz's right-hand man in racing matters, told sportnet.at.

Before the 2009 season began, Marko admitted that Australian Webber's average lap time deficit to 21-year-old Vettel, at half a second, was "too much".

Now the gap is smaller, he agrees.

"In the beginning Mark resisted using Vettel's setup. He would not accept it. Now he uses it because it is just faster," Marko said.

Not only is Webber eleven years older than Red Bull's new arrival, Vettel has contested 97 fewer races but already won twice.

The 32-year-old Webber, who broke his leg and shoulder in the winter season, qualified behind Vettel in Shanghai and then finished second to him in the race.

"I have been incredibly determined to get in the best condition I can and the best shape possible to overcome the injuries that I have had to give this youngster (Vettel) a hard time and so far it is working and we are pushing each other hard," he said.

Team owner Mateschitz told Austria's Salzburger Nachrichten newspaper: "Mark has proved that he is one of F1's best drivers. The combination of our pair is ideal."

"What we wanted is two drivers who are on the limit and can push each other, and that is so," the Austrian billionaire said.

Red Bull could challenge Brawn GP for championship tittle

The current state of F1's pecking-order will show that the 2009 championship tussle could ultimately be between Brawn Mercedes and Red Bull Renault.

Both teams have recorded dominant one-twos, and shared the victories at the opening trio of races this year but neither is willing to accept the tag of favourite as the sport looks ahead to this weekend's contest in Bahrain.

"Our main challengers are going to be Red Bull and Toyota," said championship leader Jenson Button. "Toyota didn't have a good weekend in China but they are going to be strong."

The Brawn driver thinks the field will then close up when the circus returns from its overseas hiatus to Europe, and powerful rivals unfurl the fruits of their furious factory developments.

Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber finished comfortably first and second last Sunday in wet China, but team boss Christian Horner is refusing to characterise the development as the start of a championship challenge.

"It is too early to say," he is quoted as saying by the Telegraph. "Don't forget that the sleeping dogs of McLaren and Ferrari are going to wake up soon. You mustn't write them off."

And if weather reports of a fully dry race weekend for Bahrain are correct, Brawn's superiority could return, Red Bull's Webber warns.

Taking into consideration Q3 fuel loads, Brawn's Rubens Barrichello and Button in fact would have dominated qualifying in Shanghai.

"That car is definitely strong and they are the team that is the benchmark for every team to try to close in on," he told the BBC.

A high speed spin cost Alonso a chance of 5th place finished

Fernando Alonso could have finished behind the Red Bulls and Brawns in China, Renault team boss Flavio Briatore insists.

Ultimately, the Spaniard's low-fuel 'Q3' strategy was extinguished by the Shanghai rain and long safety car start, and he finished just ninth.

"If everything had gone perfectly, he could have been fifth. And our car is even better than that," Briatore is quoted as saying by the Spanish sports newspaper Marca.

"I want to see a race with normal weather conditions because we are much more competitive (than before)," the Italian added.

Briatore insists that the revised R29 in Alonso's hands, complete with new 'double diffuser', was "faster than McLaren, Ferrari and BMW" in China.

And he added: "We have a big step forward for Fernando and Piquet in Barcelona."

Although promising a new diffuser for Nelson Piquet's sister car in Bahrain this weekend, Briatore was not complementary about the Brazilian's performance last Sunday.

"I can understand it happening once, but (in China) it was like a contest: if you spin the most you get the most points," Briatore said.

McLaren interested in Vettel

Mercedes-Benz is interested in seeing Sebastian Vettel at the wheel of a McLaren at some point in the future.

That is the admission of Norbert Haug, boss of the German carmaker's racing activities, in the wake of countryman Vettel's second dominant race win at the wheel of a Red Bull-branded car.

Haug has previously admitted Mercedes' interest in the 21-year-old German, who is under contract to the energy drink company until the end of next year.

"After that we will have to see, perhaps some day he will drive a silver arrows," he told the German newspaper Bild.

Vettel also has ties with BMW, with whom he debuted as a F1 test driver and first contested a Grand Prix, in the injured Robert Kubica's car at Indianapolis two years ago.

Part of Vettel's ongoing BMW deal, Mario Theissen confirmed, is that he drives an M5 on the road.

Seven time world champion Michael Schumacher said: "I can see him fighting now for the world championship."

Ferrari under real pressure

The Italian press unsurprisingly unloaded on the famous Ferrari team in the wake of the Chinese Grand Prix.

Not since 1981 has the Prancing Horse kicked off such a bad start to a championship, leading the national La Repubblica newspaper to muse that after three point-less races, ‘disastro’ is too moderate a description.

It is impossible in this moment not to recall Ferrari's often calamitous past, before the efficient and dispassionate German, French and British influences of Michael Schumacher, Jean Todt and Ross Brawn respectively oversaw the highly successful era of the early 2000s.

"In those days," said Niki Lauda, who drove for Ferrari in the 1970s, "Ross, because he is English, was the ideal bridge between the Italians, with their spaghetti culture, and Schumacher, with his German efficiency.”

"Now the Italians are running it all. Does it work? It could be chaos. That's the problem," he is quoted as saying by the Daily Mail.

Williams Toyota - Bahrain GP - Expectation for solid result

The Williams team leaves the soggy Chinese Grand Prix behind and heads for this week-end's race at the Bahrain International Circuit, where rainy weather remains very low on the probability radar. However, other naturally occurring factors require consideration.

Bahrain became the first Middle Eastern state to host a World Championship Grand Prix in 2004 and the circuit is frequently sandblasted, and rendered very slippery, by fierce winds that whip across the adjacent desert.

Race strategies tend to be conventional in Bahrain: teams favour two-stop fuel loads and build in a margin of flexibility to guard against possible Safety Car interruptions, although its appearance is rare at the Sakhir track.

TALKING TECHNICAL:

Car dynamics
Average turn angle indicates the average angle of a circuit's corners expressed in degrees. The higher the average turn angle, the more acute the corners in the circuit's configuration and the greater propensity for understeer to compromise lap time. At Bahrain, the average turn angle is 123.560, against a season average of 1100, ranking it as the circuit with the 5th highest average turn angle across the Championship.

The end of straight (EOS) speed at Bahrain was 303kp/h in 2008. Bahrain ranks as having the 8th fastest EOS speed on the 2009 calendar, and this is one indicator of the wing level typically selected to optimise the downforce/drag ratio. As the average speed around Bahrain is the 8th fastest of any of the tracks, a compromise is required.

Pitlane and refuelling strategy
The pitlane length and profile (i.e. corners in the pitlane entry) contribute to the determination of the optimum fuel strategy. The pitlane loss at Bahrain is approximately 23 seconds, the 5th most penalising pitlane in the Championship. To complete a normalised distance of 5km around the Bahrain circuit requires 2.66kg of fuel against an average of 2.42kg per 5km across all circuits this season, making the circuit the 4th least demanding track of the year in terms of fuel consumption.

Safety Car
Another key contributor to the determination of race strategy is the likelihood of Safety Car deployments, which are influenced by weather considerations, the availability of clear run-off areas that allow racing to continue while recovery takes place, and the circuit profile, especially the character of the entry and exit into Turn One at the start of the race.

Since the race debuted on the calendar in 2004, there has been one Safety Car deployment in Bahrain, in 2007, making it statistically unlikely that the circuit's character will induce Safety Car periods.

The first two races of this season have already seen five Safety Car periods, however, so anything is possible!

Temperature, pressure and humidity
It is a long observed tradition that drivers arriving at Interlagos complain about a lack of grip and an absence of engine power. Having become acquainted with a baseline of engine and aerodynamic performance during the season, the climb to 750 metres above sea level for one of the final races can, courtesy of the reduction in air density, rob a Formula One car of engine power, aerodynamic performance and cooling. The losses can come close to double digit percentages and thus have a very real impact on car performance.

Air density is a factor of the prevailing ambient temperature, which varies most significantly by season, air pressure which is closely linked to altitude and, to a much smaller degree, by humidity. Thus if races are run at the same time each year, the factor that tends to have the greatest bearing on air density is elevation. Like half the races on the calendar, Bahrain is close to sea level, just 10m above, and has an average pressure (1,011 mbar), so engine power will be good.

DRIVER STATEMENTS:

Nico Rosberg
"Once again it didn't go our way in China. My major problem was a real lack of visibility as the water just wasn't clearing off my visor. We also made some calls that didn't work out well. It's nice that we now have another race straightaway that we can look forward to doing better at."

"Bahrain is one of my favourite tracks. Last year the car went well there and we won't have any issues with warming up the tyres. Downforce level is always really important there for the corners, but then there's a compromise required so you can fight the other cars on the fast straights. We're confident going to Bahrain that we can finally get a good result."

Kazuki Nakajima
"Shanghai was difficult. The water on the track just caused you to aquaplane, particularly at the exit of the last corner, and I went off a couple of times before I finally retired with a transmission problem. We had a good de-brief afterwards and hopefully we can keep up the pace we have and translate that into something good this weekend."

"I didn't have a great weekend in Bahrain last year and found it difficult to get used to the track. I'm more positive going there this year so hopefully it will be a different story. It's a stop and go track where you need straightline speed, good brakes and traction to do well. Corners 9 and 10 are a bit tricky, you have to really use your brakes and there's a lot of lateral loading."

Toyota - Bahrain GP Preview - Testing experience should be an advantage

Toyota Racing returns to action swiftly after the Chinese Grand Prix with a trip to the Middle East for the Bahrain Grand Prix on the Bahrain International Circuit at Sakhir.

The team benefits from extensive recent experience of the track with the TF109, having spent two weeks testing there in February, completing 3,847km over 711 laps.

Toyota has scored points in every race so far this season, with Timo Glock claiming a fighting seventh place in China on a day when Jarno Trulli was eliminated after being hit from behind by a rival.

This weekend the team will again use the super soft and medium compound Bridgestone Potenza tyres, having previously used these in both China and Australia.

Toyota has a strong record in Bahrain and already has experience of the podium there following Trulli's second place in 2005. More recently, he finished sixth there last year while Glock was ninth after a late gearbox issue denied him points.

Jarno Trulli:
"I am looking forward to racing in Bahrain after the tests we had there over the winter. Bahrain was the first chance I had to really test the TF109 in dry conditions and I knew immediately we had a competitive package, which has proved to be the case now the season has started. In testing the car was strong in Bahrain so I have a good feeling for this weekend and I think we can be competitive."

"Weather and track conditions change from winter testing to the race weekend but it should still help us a bit to have set-up information from the new car at this track, and we have quite a bit of experience now with these two compounds of tyre. I will push as hard as I can, as always, and I know everyone in the team is really motivated so I hope for a smooth and successful weekend."

Timo Glock:
"The Bahrain Grand Prix is good fun and the track is unique. For car set-up you have to compromise between straightline speed and grip in the slower corners, which is quite a tricky balance to achieve. One issue we face particularly in Bahrain is the wind, which comes in across the desert and can change direction from lap to lap. This can make the car a bit unstable if it blows in the wrong direction but we know what to expect so we can be prepared."

"Last year I was pretty unlucky in Bahrain because I had to back off with a small technical issue when I was sure I would score my first points for the team. But this season has started in a much better way compared to 2008 and I am confident I can continue to show that good performance."

Pascal Vasselon, Senior General Manager Chassis:
"We achieved a huge amount of laps in Bahrain during testing and this was very useful in terms of developing the TF109. It should also be useful for this weekend because we have some experience of set-up and slick tyres at this track with the new cars, so we should hit the ground running on Friday. We tested both tyre compounds when we were in Bahrain in February and they performed well in representative temperature conditions so we're not expecting any major problems in that area. Otherwise, Bahrain is quite tough on the brakes; we expect it to be harder on them than any other race this season."

Diffuser saga isn't end yet due Ferrari claims

The FIA on Monday backed Adam Parr's claim that Ferrari said it fielded technically illegal cars in Formula One.

A spat broke out in Shanghai between the Italian team and Parr, who is the Williams team's chief executive.

Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali, backed by Renault's Flavio Briatore, hit out at Parr after comments attributed to him suggested Ferrari had used illegal cars in the past.

But on Monday, the FIA said Ferrari did indeed admit to committing "a technical violation" of the technical regulations in the past during the Court of Appeal hearing last Tuesday.

"Ferrari acknowledged that multiple vertical transitions had been used by many teams in the past, including Ferrari itself, and argued that all such prior uses (including its own) had constituted a technical violation of the (technical regulations) which had been tolerated," the Court of Appeal finding said.

The FIA published the court's 20-page findings in full on Monday.

In the document, the court - which found in favour of the diffuser teams Brawn, Toyota and Williams - acknowledged the loophole that led to the saga.

Amazingly, the diffuser teams and their rivals had argued at length about whether holes in the controversial designs were actually holes.

"The (diffuser teams) and the FIA submit that, while there may be spaces between different surfaces, the surfaces themselves do not have holes in them.

They contend that the spaces between different surfaces are not holes within the very specific meaning of" article 3.12.5.

The FIA also denied Red Bull's claim that the governing body turned down its clarification in January 2007 about designing a similar concept.

Monday's document reads: "The questions put to (the FIA) in previous cases were different and answered correctly and in a manner consistent with its present position."

The contesting teams had also argued that if the design of 'double-decker' diffusers were considered legal, the seven remaining teams would have no choice but to spend great amounts of money redesigning their own diffusers, creating a situation contrary to the current efforts to reduce costs in F1.

The FIA separated the concepts by stating that "the possibility of teams not presently using the Contested Design Concept incurring future development costs is not a factor relevant to the legal assessment of whether the Contested Decisions comply with the (technical regulations) or not."

BMW Sauber will not write off the 2009 season

Unlike Ferrari, BMW is not close to assessing whether or not to write off the 2009 season, team boss Mario Theissen insists.

It was reported on Monday that, after another point-less weekend in Shanghai, Ferrari will sit down after the forthcoming Spanish Grand Prix to consider turning all efforts to regrouping in 2010.

BMW Sauber at least has a few points on the board, but is far from its pre-season ambition of being in a position to fight for the championship.

"We are not content with our start to the season, but we will not give up our goals after the third of 17 races," Theissen is quoted as saying by Germany's SID news agency.

"We must understand the car's shortcomings," the German continued, "and make big steps forward from now. The arrears is able to be recovered."

Theissen, however, acknowledged that because the 'double diffuser' solution is more complicated than it appears, a fully-developed version may not be part of the major Barcelona upgrade.