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Everything you need to know about racing

McLaren pours scorn on Vettel's struggles
McLaren F1 team principal Martin Whitmarsh is usually a measured kind of guy when it comes to dishing out criticism to rivals, but he certainly did not mince his words on Sunday on the subject of Sebastian Vettel after the young Red Bull driver slammed into Jenson Button’s car, probably not only ruining his own world championship chances but also those of the reigning title holder.

In a stinging critique of Vettel - which many felt was fully justified on this occasion – Whitmarsh laid into his team’s rival and at the same time in effect questioned whether the penalty for his serious driving error was sufficient, given the consequences for Button. But to be fair to Whitmarsh, his observations seemed prompted more by frustration than anger on a day when Lewis Hamilton had driven a beautiful Belgian GP to win at Spa for the first time.

"It was not what you would expect to see in F1 - more reminiscent of junior formulae," Whitmarsh said on Sunday after the race. "A drive-through seemed a pretty light punishment to me."

Whitmarsh added that he did not understand why Vettel put himself in such a position on the track as he fought Button – who was struggling with a damaged front wing. "It was a bit of a strange mistake I have to say," he commented. "I realise it was not intentional but it was a pretty strange one really. If he was going for the inside he had three inches to sneak down there, so God knows what he thought he was doing. That was frustrating. But that is motor racing; we've got to move on now."

He added: "He [Vettel] is a nice guy and he didn't need to do it, but when you keep doing these things you have to reflect on what is on your mind on this occasion. It looked like he was trying to go for an inside gap where, as I said, there were a few inches. What he thought he was doing there, I don't know. And he lost it. I would rather he did it with his team-mates rather than do it with us!"

As triple world champion Jackie Stewart added thoughtfully, “It was just a case of youthful exuberance for Vettel getting a bit out of hand. And a reminder that, even during his third year in F1, there is still much to learn.”

Ferrari's attack on Lauda is uncalled for
Triple world champion Niki Lauda locked horns with the Ferrari team last week over its team orders strategy in last month’s German GP at Hockenheim.

But quite why the two sides are so wound up by another day in the life of F1 seems beyond me.

But I was much amused by the fact that Ferrari offered the view that "good old Niki missed out on a fine opportunity to keep his mouth shut, given that when he was a Scuderia driver, the supposed Ferrari driver management policy suited him perfectly".

As I’ve said before, Ferrari really should do its homework before launching off like this.

The truth of the matter, again as I’ve said before, is that when Niki was Ferrari's top dog the Austrian was discrminated against by the Maranello management to the point that he walked out of the team and joined Bernie Ecclestone’s Brabham squad after winning his second title in 1977.

Ferrari did just about everything it could to make Niki’s life a misery after he withdrew from the ’76 Japanese GP at Mount Fuji, thereby handing James Hunt the championship. So for Ferrari to claim in any way that Niki benefited from preferential treatment during his time at Maranello is just factually not the case at all.

A column on the official Ferrari website accused Niki of "having to indulge on some verbal acrobatics to reposition himself in line with the prevailing wind".

Pardon me, but those were the underlying basics on which Enzo Ferrari built his successful empire.

Complaining about Lauda’s observations isn’t going to alter the fact that Ferrari breached the rules at Hockenheim. Whether the stupid rules should have been on the statute book, of course, is another matter altogether.

Brazil is next on Bernie's hit list
For oh-so-many years it was Silverstone which bore the brunt of Bernie Ecclestone’s dissatisfaction over flagging circuit and spectator facilities.

But the recent programme of upgrades at the home of British motor racing has decisively moved the track out of the ‘danger zone’ so far as its future on the calendar is concerned.

Attention is being urgently focused elsewhere as Sao Paulo’s Interlagos track looks like the next to come under extreme pressure to improve its overall set-up.

Ecclestone played a leading role in taking F1 to Brazil in the first place almost 40 years ago when the first world championship was held at Interlagos in 1973, but now the commercial rights holder has indicated that unless ‘significant improvements’ are made to the track before the expiry of its current contract in 2015 then the race might be pulled from the calendar even before that point.

Ecclestone’s hard line with Interlagos – long overdue in many peoples’ minds - dramatically underlines that no race promoter can take anything for granted in the current climate with a seemingly ever-increasing number of Middle and Far Eastern countries queuing for a date on the F1 schedule.

When F1 first visited the ramshackle Interlagos track in the 70s its original five-mile lap made it one of the most wild and woolly circuits in the world, but although it was eventually shortened in length, pit and paddock facilities were rudimentary in the extreme.

On one occasion Jean Alesi’s Prost was very nearly hit by an advertising sign which fell from a gantry extending over the edge of the track while a couple of years back an electrical transformer in the paddock somehow managed to get itself charged with several thousand volts.

It was probably just as well that nobody touched it before the fault was rectified.

“Long ago, in 1972, I believed in Brazil and brought F1 here,” the Ecclestone told the Estada de São Paulo newspaper, “but I can no longer be questioned by the teams about the worst circuit in the championship. The future depends on significant improvements.”

Given Brazil’s enduring passion for F1, one can se certain that the Interlagos promoters and the Sao Paulo city fathers will find the funds necessary to get the job done.

One must certainly hope so. Interlagos may not to be everybody’s taste, but it is undeniably an integral part of the fabric of the world championship. It would be a shame if that was to end after all these years.

Hans Stuck, get well soon
I was shocked and saddened to hear that my new best mate, Hans Stuck, was rushed to hospital on Saturday, having been complaining of headaches and dizziness at a VW event at his beloved Nurburgring.

It seems that the great man wasn’t quite as well as he thought after a hefty shunt in an R8 at the ‘Ring a few weeks back.

Watch Hans Stuck lap the Nurburgring with Steve as his passenger

Immediately afterwards he felt fine, apparently, but since then he’s not been so good. And on Saturday he was taken to hospital and had an operation to remove a blood clot that had formed in his brain.

He’s now out of intensive care and is "stable”, according to the doctors.

The very best wishes from all of us at Autocar, Hans. My life hasn’t been quite the same since you showed me the difference between the way “the boys and the girls” drive around the Nurburgring just a few short weeks ago.

Nervous times at Ferrari
Ferrari will be feeling more nervous than any other Formula One team as the month of August drags interminably by.

Its chances of winning the world championship hang as much on the forthcoming decision of the FIA World Motor Sport council as they do the on-track efforts of Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa.

In the immediate run-up to next month’s Italian GP at Monza, Ferrari’s representatives will be subjected to further intense grilling over the issue of whether or not they illegally applied team orders when Massa and Alonso switched positions in last month’s German GP at Hockenheim.

In typically theatrical fashion, the sport’s governing body have timed this hearing to ensure it has maximum theatrical effect only a few days before the most important race on Maranello’s calendar.

And needless to say, in line with long-established F1 paranoia, there are those within the racing community who feel that the ultimate verdict – whatever that might be - will somehow reveal how well disposed FIA president Jean Todt is to the team he steered to five world championships with Michael Schumacher.

In fact, I understand that this concern seems to be misplaced. I am told that Todt will not chair the FIA World Motor Sport Council meeting, so the sport’s governing body is going out of its way to ensure that not only is everything fair, but is also seen to be equitable and balanced.

To be fair to Todt, although many of his critics believed that he might follow the the path mapped out by Max Mosley during his tenure as FIA president, the Frenchman has demonstrated a defiantly independent streak which should come as no surprise to those who worked with him at Ferrari.

Whether Ferrari has an easy ride in front of the World Motor Sport Council is another matter altogether.

The issue of guilt is not the main consideration being examined. The Hockenheim stewards were quite satisfied that the team illegally imposed team orders. It’s now just a question of whether the penalty of a $100,000 fine is as far as it goes.

I really would be surprised if it turns out to be disqualification from the German GP or a points deduction. But it could be, and if it is, then expect the squeals of anguish from the Place de la Concorde to be easily heard all the way to Maranello.

Webber vs Alonso for the title
The F1 championship battle moved into its acutely psychological phase on Sunday with Mark Webber going into the mandatory mid-season cost-saving factory ‘lock down’ on top of the world with four wins to his credit, twice the personal tally achieved so far by Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel or either Lewis Hamilton or Jenson Button.

Webber drove a simply storming race to win in Hungary while his young Red Bull team-mate Vettel had any prospect of victory defused by a drive-through penalty imposed by dropping too far behind the safety car when it was deployed to clear debris from the track in the opening stages of the contest.

Read the full report on the Hungarian GP

Vettel blamed his drive-through on the fact that he had suffered a glitch with his radio and had been ‘sleeping’ when the safety car came in. “It would have been a walk in the park without that,” he said wryly.

For his part, Webber admitted: “It was a bit of a gift for me today, but I haven’t had many so I will take it.” Ultimately Vettel may have more instinctive genius flowing from his finger tips than Webber, but the rugged Australian seems to get better with every racing mile which passes beneath the wheel of his Red Bull RB6.

He also has the innate toughness to deal with any mental mind games and could well parlay his modest four point championship lead over Lewis Hamilton into a title winning advantage when the teams re-convene for action at Spa at the end of the month.

Yet making an accurate call as to just how this title battle will ultimate unfold remains tantalisingly uncertain.

Alonso’s second place for Ferrari in Hungary keeps the twice champion still strongly in play while McLaren will assuredly recover from their dismal trip to Budapest which saw Hamilton succumb to a failed gearbox bearing and Jenson Button trail home a disappointed eighth.

So who will it be in the end? My money’s on a shoot-out between Webber and Alonso over the final three or four races. But I’m not bold enough to narrow the field to just one!

Time for a rethink, Schuey
I used to be a fully paid-up member of the Michael Schumacher fan club. I was prepared to overlook his well documented bouts of unsporting behaviour because I deeply admired his raw speed, his tactics, his ability to carve out wins from nothing and the fact that he clearly loved being a member of the team.

Which is why it’s so distressing witnessing his performances this season. More often than not he’s been comprehensively outclassed by Nico Rosberg – a quick driver, granted – but who would have predicted that at the start of the year?

Worse than that, he’s exhibiting too much ‘bad Schuey’, first moving over on Robert Kubica at the Canadian GP and then yesterday’s appalling move on Rubens Barrichello.

What’s going on? Is it because he can’t test and so can’t develop the car as the season progresses? Or maybe he just can’t cut it at the highest level any more, having been out of the game for too long?

Great champions can come back, and Nika Lauda was a fine example. But unless Michael can vastly improve this season, it’s probably best that he bows out for good. We’ll still remember him as great champion, after all.

What would you do to Ferrari?
What WILL happen to Ferrari and what SHOULD happen to Ferrari in light of the pantomime that was the German GP will almost certainly NOT be one and the same thing.

For many years the FIA was referred to behind closed doors as Ferrari’s International Assistant, but things have changed a great deal since Jean Todt left the Scuderia and went to assume his position as head of the Federation Internationale de L’Automobile. As a result, anyone who expects Ferrari to be left off lightly when the World Motor Sport Council meets to discuss the issue next month will, you suspect, be sorely disappointed.

But what would you do if, somehow, you found yourself in the position of being able to punish Ferrari for its actions? Leaving aside the more vindictive desires you may have to see certain individuals suffer, what actions would you take?

Personally I’d strip the team of all the points it gained in Germany, abolish rule 39.1 and leave it at that. This would provide a substantial punishment for Ferrari for breaking the rules, it would get rid of a rule that has been a farce ever since it was written as a knee-jerk reaction to what happened at the Austrian GP in 2002, and it would also provide the clarity that both the teams and their fans require.

Whether you, as a team, then decide to carry on allowing your drivers to race, or whether you’d play a different game and choose to manipulate the results as and when you see fit for the good of the team, will be entirely up to the individuals within the teams themselves – all of whom will be acutely aware of how the public might react under the circumstances.

Blatant team game playing at the head of the field clearly does not go down well with the fans; but then neither, it seems, does drivers taking each other off as per the Red Bulls in Turkey. Of the two outcomes, though, Turkey was a lot more exciting to observe as a neutral, especially as Hamilton and Button were at it for a while as well.

It may be thoroughly naive to suggest as much, but surely wheel-to-wheel racing is what we all ultimately want to see in F1? This, after all, is what will sell F1’s various sponsors’ products most successfully to the rest of the world. How we end up in that situation is now just down to the teams, the drivers, the FIA and the World Motorsport Council. But without being saddled by rule 39.1, of course.

Mini goes rallying
Mini has finally confirmed this morning that it is planning to return to top-flight rallying next year, over four decades after the original Cooper’s giant-killing exploits on the stages of the world - including, famously, those of the Monte Carlo Rally.

The word on the street is that the firm has delayed this programme more than once (it admits that Prodrive first started work on the Countryman WRC at the start of last year) because the BMW board took its time over signing off the budget.

Read the full story on Mini's WRC entry

I sincerely hope that what finally tipped the bean-counters’ views towards a WRC campaign was the thought of winning at the top level of motorsport and not just the potential to ape the original Mini’s competition history. Because motorsport has no time for nostalgia. Witness Lotus struggling around at the back of the grid in F1 - or the fact that Williams hasn’t won a race in over 100 GPs now.

Indeed, look at how Subaru - and thus Prodrive - fell off the pace in world rallying in 2007 and 2008, blown into the weeds as Ford and Citroen got their collective heads around the World Rally Car regulations.

The WRC needs new manufacturers, and Mini will be welcomed; its arrival is a real shot in the arm for the series, and hopefully the rumours linking Volkswagen with a Polo-based campaign come true as well.

But I doubt Ford or Citroen will roll over and allow the new kid an easy win or three. See how Suzuki, Hyundai, Skoda and even Mitsubishi have all struggled at the top flight over the past decade. Mini will need patience and real commitment if it is to avoid a similar roasting.

Oh yes, one more thing: drivers. Mini should be bold and go for a mix of a former world champion - Marcus Gronholm’s available and willing to take on the sort of limited programme that’s been planned for 2011 - and a young gun. Kris Meeke, anyone?

The fallout at Ferrari
I would just love to know what it says in the fine print of Fernando Alonso’s contract regarding his status within the Ferrari team.

Given the amount of effort that was expended by Maranello in securing the services of the 2005/06 world champion I suspect it just about stops short of undertaking that Ferrari will provide the Spaniard with his own private toll road running parallel to every Grand Prix circuit on the calendar.

To judge by the events of Sunday’s German GP, Ferrari has already arranged Alonso the equivalent of a motorcycle outrider to escort him through the traffic. His name is Felipe Massa.

Just like a bloke called Rubens Barrichello did for Michael Schumacher, so Felipe is very much the number two driver in the Italian squad at the present time.

And he is bright enough to work out that being number two at Ferrari is probably as good, if not better, than being a joint number one with most teams on the grid.

On a less cynical note, Massa has been a longtime stalwart within the Ferrari F1 community and the Italian team stuck loyally by him during his protracted recovery from those head injuries he sustained during qualifying for last year’s Hungarian Grand Prix.

It would have been all too easy for the Ferrari managment to have dispensed with his services, but they remained steadfast and even rewarded him by renewing his contract for another two seasons beyond the end of 2010.

Therein lies the contradiction of what took place at Hockenheim on Sunday.

F1 is a team sport, but the key component – allowing the teams to decide what order their cars finish in – is specifically prohibited by the rules.

Perhaps the moment has arrived for the FIA to have a change of heart and make intra-team strategic decisions a matter for the competitors alone. And nobody else.

Don't forget the red button
I’m not sure how many of you Autocar readers/viewers/users are actually interested in F1, or whether you even bother to tune in to the BBC’s red button coverage of the three practice sessions before each race.

But if you’re remotely keen on the sport and have the time to watch it on the red button – you should – because it is often far more informative and/or entertaining than the commentary during the race itself.

And the coverage of practice for this weekend’s German GP at Hockenheim has been especially excellent because, out of nowhere, the team’s regular commentators – Anthony Davidson and David Croft – have been joined by “resting” HRT driver Karun Chandhok – who seems absolutely superb as a pundit.

So far Chandhok sounds like he has been in the commentators box for decades. He comes across as being comfortable, knowledgeable, smart and inherently interesting to listen to.

And he clearly gets on extremely well with his co-hosts. Even though he’s done just two sessions in the booth, you get the distinct impression that if it doesn’t turn out for Chandhok on the track, there is a very obvious career-in-waiting for him in broadcasting.

Which is probably not what he wants to hear right now, but in years to come, you never know…

More drama at Red Bull
The controversy surrounding the Red Bull team showed little sign of abating last week.

Hans Stuck, the former F1 driver who is now Volkswagen’s motorsport representative, called on Dietrich Mateschitz to replace both his personal racing advisor Helmut Marko and Red Bull team principal Christian Horner with the Scuderia Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost.

“What the team management did in Britain was an absolute outrage,” Stuck was reported as saying in his column for the TZ newspaper. “Whoever decided to take the new wing away from Webber qualified for his final pension.

“Christian Horner is just a puppet – the strings for Red Bullboss Dietrich Mateschitz are pulled solely by Marko. Mateschitz must respond by putting in a new man at Red Bull; Tost is in every respect one of the best managers in F1."

By any standards this is strong stuff from Stuck who drove for March and Brabham during his F1 career during the 1970s and also gained a reputation as one of the sport’s most accomplished sports car drivers.

His intervention in this increasingly vexed matter will hardly help RBR’s efforts to draw a line under the controversy, even though Mark Webber did last week concede that perhaps, on reflection, he went public a little too much on the subject of the Silverstone spat.

All concerned will be hoping that some of the sting will be taken out of this affair by the time the teams start practising on Friday for Sebastian Vettel’s home race at Hockenheim.

I wouldn’t bet money on it, though.

How will Schumacher come back from this?
Mercedes is remaining totally loyal to Michael Schumacher as the seven times world champion plugs away in what is increasingly looking like an uphill struggle to re-integrate himself into the sport as a credible F1 front runner.

Even so, there is an element of unease which seems to be creeping into even the most supportive of remarks relating to the 41-year-old German’s lack of achievement so far this year.

Talk of taking ‘a long view’ and ‘building for 2011’ now peppers the official comments about Schumacher’s distinctly average season so far and this has inevitably fuelled speculation that Michael has already reached the conclusion that he has bitten off more than he can chew and is contemplating hanging up his helmet at the end of the year.

No matter how you slice it, he has been pretty comprehensively eclipsed by Nico Rosberg in the Mercedes line-up – and that was certainly not what he contemplated when he signed on the bottom line of his supposed three year contract.

The urging from Mercedes GP CEO Nick Fry that he keep ‘plugging away’ at his F1 comeback may not yet quite have the ring of panic about it, but it certainly reflects acute concern.

"I think Michael has just to plug away at it," Fry told Autosport. "It is not coming together clearly. We have fits and starts and last weekend had some good points - like the second part of qualifying - but then the final part of qualifying was a bit disappointing.

"He is still learning and we have still got confidence in him and he has confidence in himself. So I am quite optimistic."

I fear Fry’s optimism is now shared by a contracting clique in the pit lane.

Realistically, it is well nigh impossible to see how Schumacher is going to turn this around.

Silverstone was a hit
The British Racing Drivers’ Club, the owners of Silverstone, must have collapsed into a collective heap with relief and satisfaction on Monday morning after a brilliant three day British Grand Prix programme came to an end.

The torrential rain even held off just long enough for 154,000 race fans to have enjoyed three days of superb high-octane entertainment under a sweltering summer sun.

Full report, plus pics, from the British grand prix at Silverstone

It was a magnificent way in which to launch the revised Silverstone circuit layout. While there is only limited evidence to suggest the new configuration is going to offer much in the way of enhanced overtaking, as a venue to make the mind boggle at the sheer straight line speed of the contemporary F1 car, the Northamptonshire track is now better than ever.

Moreover, if we couldn’t have had a British winner, at least the Buckinghamshire-resident and ‘honorary Brit’ put away the opposition for the Red Bull team.

Mark Webber was certainly kept on his toes all the way by Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren, which came home in a great second place.

McLaren, of course, were very much playing catch-up in the race with Jenson Button who had complained his car felt “undriveable” during qualifying after the new rear end with the revised blown-diffuser had been shelved after an unproductive run in Friday free practice.

Jenson could only qualify 14th as a result – ten places behind Lewis – but he dug deep when it came to the race and delivered a characteristically top-drawer performance.

"It's hard to overtake around here, so I knew I had to make up a lot of places off the start-line,” said Button after finishing fourth. In the event I made up six places, but I then had to push really hard on the Option tyre in the first stint.

"That strategy worked for us and I came out behind Fernando, who had a drive-through, so I picked up fourth."

The reigning world champion admitted, however, that it was a shame he had not been able to overtake Nico Rosberg for a place on the podium.

"It's a pity I couldn't get onto the podium in front of my home crowd, who have been absolutely amazing all weekend," he added.

"You can never forget the fans around here - I genuinely think they helped Lewis and me to a good result today. And they got to see and cheer Lewis on the podium too, so it's not been a bad weekend for them overall, I hope.”

A generous-spirited man indeed.

Alonso's Spanish frustration
You can understand, perhaps, Fernando Alonso getting rather worked up to find his Ferrari pushed almost to the back of the field in Sunday’s European GP at Valencia after rival Lewis Hamilton survived a drive-through penalty without losing track position after the deployment of the safety car following Mark Webber’s huge accident.

Fernando got extremely stoked up about this matter, perhaps spending rather too much time unburdening his thoughts to the Ferrari team over the radio link to the pit wall, although by the end of the day team principal Stefano Domenicali was trying to play down talk that Maranello regarded the episode as a ‘scandal,’ a view initially aired on the Italian team’s website.

European GP report plus pics

Domenicali said his biggest disappointment was the delay it took to punish Hamilton for overtaking the safety car, which had allowed him to build up a tactical cushion over Kamui Kobayashi so that he could to take a drive-through penalty without losing a position.

"Of course we are very angry because we didn't get the points that we should have got from this race – considering our performance," said Domenicali.

"If I have an analysis of this weekend from a technical point of view then we made a step forward, not enough for sure to catch mainly the Red Bull, but it was in the right direction.

"We saw the first lap of the race that the situation was progressing in the right direction, so on that at least we did the right step. But if you look at the classification of tonight, we had less points than the most difficult race we had this year. So it is very frustrating.”

Of course, the emotional baggage which exists between Alonso and Hamilton, from their fractious 2007 season as McLaren team-mates, gave an added twist to the irritation felt by the Spanish driver on his home turf.