Under-fire Mallya comes out fighting

Indian politician, airline owner, and Force India team principal Vijay Mallya made his first 2012 paddock appearance at the Monaco Grand Prix, putting to rest rumours that he had been banned from leaving India as a result of the ongoing problems with the struggling Kingfisher Airlines.

Given that Mallya's business woes have been in the news of late, it was hardly surprising that the Indian billionaire was grilled by the media over non-payment of his airline staff, and whether problems with the aviation side of his corporate interests would affect the long-term stability of his racing team.

Asked whether he would choose to save his airline or save his F1 team, were he forced to make such a decision, Mallya replied: "How can you even start to make such a comparison? One is a large, public utility per se. How would you call Formula One? A public utility or a public spectacle? An airline is not intended to be a spectacle and a Formula One team is not intended to be a public utility either. So where's the comparison?

"Sahara Force India is private team," Mallya continued. "Kingfisher Airlines is a listed entity. The banks own 23% of the equity of the airline. It's a public company, limited by liability as all limited companies are, so it's a plc. So the two are incomparable."

Staff at Kingfisher Airlines have repeatedly gone on strike to protest non-payment of salaries, with some employees working without pay for weeks on end. The pay dispute has been resolved in recent weeks, but Mallya came under fire for his profligate spending in Monaco in light of his business difficulties.

"I don't quite understand the correlation between sporting interests, which are personal in nature, and my business interests," the billionaire team principal said. "I have several large public companies, most of which, with the exception of the airline, are doing very well. The airline is a victim of extraordinarily high oil prices and excessive taxation. Now, what you read and what you gather from what you read is something that I don't care to comment on.

"Sahara Force India is independent, fully funded. It's a joint venture between the Sahara Group and myself, there has been a significant capital infusion at the end of 2011, another significant capital infusion from the Sahara Group is due in 2012 and going beyond to 2013. So, Sahara Force India is extremely well taken care of and set."

Asked to justify the spend on his annual lavish yacht party at the Monaco Grand Prix, Mallya dismissed the question as irrelevant."Justify what and to whom?," he asked. "As I said, I have 20 different businesses. I have six large publically listed companies, each one is completely independent with different shareholders. One does not cross-subsidise the other because that would violate all principles of corporate governance. If one business, for whatever reason, is not doing well, it doesn't mean that every other business has to shut down.

"Every business has to be continued within its own values, within its own corporate objectives and the party that I host in Monaco each year is a promotion for United Spirits Ltd which has nothing to do with the airline. So because the airline is a victim of - as I said - high fuel costs and excessive taxation doesn't meant that other public companies and their stakeholders should necessarily be compromised. So who should I justify what to?"

This article first appeared in GP Week

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It could have been P1, says Rosberg

Nico Rosberg confessed himself happy with second place at the Monaco Grand Prix despite insisting that his Mercedes car was the quickest in the entire field over the weekend.

Rosberg was swarming all over the back of Mark Webber's Red Bull in the closing laps but could not find a way past around the tight confines of the Principality circuit.

"The beginning was pretty straightforward," said Rosberg. "I was hoping for a good start and I had a good start but Mark had a pretty go start too so then it was just a matter of tyre management and I must say I was a bit surprised how strong we were not only in qualifying but also in the race."

"I think at the end of the day for the weekend we probably had the fastest car out there in qualifying and the race which is great to see because we're making progress all the time so that's fantastic. Unfortunately it didn't come together perfectly so it's P2 when it could have been P1 this weekend but there we are. I'm very happy with second place of course, it got a bit difficult in the end there with the rain and the warm up on the hard tyres but I'm very pleased."

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Webber concerned at number of winners

Mark Webber is concerned that the number of different winners in Formula One could prove detrimental to the sport.

Pastor Maldonado's victory in the Spanish Grand Prix made him the fifth different winner in five races so far this season and left Lewis Hamilton as the only driver to have stood on the podium three times. While Webber maintains that entertaining the fans is the most important aspect of the sport, he admitted he's concerned the lack of a clear battle between certain drivers will be a negative aspect of the current season.

"I don't know if they [fans] will get sick of seeing so many different winners," Webber is quoted by Fox Sports. "It's nice to have different winners but also we want rivals."

Having yet to win himself this season, Webber is hoping for a repeat of his 2010 victory in Monaco next weekend and said it's the mental aspect that he's focusing on.

"It's a very, very challenging circuit mentally. Seventy-eight laps around there is quite taxing on your mind. Physically it's quite straight forward but on the mind it's quite difficult."

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Stewards investigate Hamilton after he stopped on track

Lewis Hamilton and McLaren are facing a stewards' investigation after he stopped on track following his pole position lap at the Spanish Grand Prix on Saturday.

Under the regulations drivers are required to return to the pits after setting their time with at least 1 litre of fuel left in the tank for a fuel sample. The only circumstance in which a driver can avoid a penalty is if the car stopped on track for reasons of force majeure.

McLaren has said Hamilton stopped on track because of a technical issue and will argue that that means he should keep his pole position.

"There was a technical problem that led to that situation," Martin Whitmarsh told media on Saturday evening. "I would obviously believe that is force majeure, but it's up to the stewards to decide."

He added: "There was enough fuel to take a fuel sample but we stopped the car and we're now talking to the stewards about that. There was 1.3 litres of fuel taken out of the car."

Asked if McLaren would have to show that they would have been able to make it back to the pits and still present a fuel sample, Whitmarsh said: "I think the regulations are that you had to do that lap unless there's a force majeure and I think that's the discussion that will probably happen."

Whitmarsh would not reveal the technical problem ahead of the team's meeting with the stewards, but said it did not impede the performance of the car.

Asked if he'd felt any issues with the car, Hamilton added: "No I didn't. The lap was fantastic for me. The team came on the radio to say I had to stop the car because of a technical problem. Then I stopped, but I was so excited about the car I didn't even think about it."

McLaren is expecting a ruling on the decision tonight and potential penalties could include a five-place grid penalty or the deletion of Hamilton's best time. Either penalty would drop him to sixth place on the grid.

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Alonso confident Ferrari updates will start to close gap

Fernando Alonso is confident Ferrari's latest updates are working this weekend, but again played down expectations ahead of his home Spanish Grand Prix.

Ferrari has brought the first stage of its major rethink to Barcelona, which the team is hoping will close some of the gap to the front runners this weekend. Alonso said the early signs during Friday practice had inspired confidence and he is hoping to have an easier time making Q3 in qualifying on Saturday.

"Yesterday we said that we tried to recover some of the gap with the first step [of the upgrade] here in Barcelona and I'm confident that we did the job," he said. "The updates that we introduced today, the first numbers and first signs are positive. We need to look in more detail but everything looks as we suspected. But for sure it's not as some of the expectations that we read last week [in the press]."

Asked whether it would be another case of damage limitation for Ferrari this weekend, Alonso said: "Still too early [to say], I think we need to wait until tomorrow, especially qualifying [depending on] how tough it is to go through to Q3 - that has been quite tough for us in China, Bahrain and this year.

"So tomorrow hopefully we will see some positive signs from this and if we can go through to Q3 a little bit more relaxed it would be a good sign. If we go to Q3 with a lot of problems or we don't go into Q3 at all then we have the same situation that we had before. Tomorrow will be a good answer on that, but today it is still too early to say because we don't know what the others are doing and on Friday it's always impossible to analyse."

Alonso finished the session in 14th, but explained he did not manage to get a clean lap on the soft tyres and therefore did not improve on his hard tyre lap as much as his competitors.

"I had some traffic in the first lap and then I was slow for the second and when I pushed in the third I had traffic. So I think I can improve a little tomorrow with a clean lap and hopefully be a little bit closer to this advantage gain [between hard and soft tyres] that everybody seemed to find with the soft. In a way we seemed a little bit more confident with the hard tyres today."

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