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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Journalists refused entry to Bahrain

The Bahrain authorities have refused entry to a number of journalists in recent days from organisations as diverse as Sky News, CNN, Reuters and the Financial Times.

Stuart Ramsay, chief correspondent at Sky News, which is part of the BskyB organisation which broadcasts Formula One in the UK, was one of those who had a visa application declined. "Govt refuses to explain why I can't come in," Ramsay said on Twitter. "Govt welcomes F1 but not independent journalists who actually understand the complexity of this issue."

Bahrain's information ministry said that non-sports journalists who had been denied entry were welcome to come after the grand prix was over and blamed "logistics" for the problems. "We have also invited non-sports-related journalists who were unable to get a visa for this week to apply to come after the race," a spokesman for the ministry said. "It should be noted, however, that journalists from AP, AFP and Sky News all have teams here who are covering sporting and non-sporting events as is shown by their coverage."

A Sky News spokesman denied this, telling the Guardian: "Sky News applied for a Bahrain visa to report on the political situation in the country ahead of the grand prix this weekend. Despite repeated appeals that application has been denied. We continue to cover the story from Dubai."

Another correspondent from CNN was allowed in earlier this week and filed reports on the protests. But an application to have his initial three-day visa extended was denied and he and his film crew had to leave.

Bahrain also granted entry to a Reuters correspondent who covers the F1 but the organisations new correspondent is still waiting to see if his visa has been granted and is unlikely to be able to gain entry until after the weekend. Reuters parent company is a sponsor of the Williams team.

The Gulf business correspondent of the Financial Times was denied entry when he landed in Bahrain.

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Barrichello backs Massa to return to form

Rubens Barrichello believes Ferrari's Felipe Massa will return to form if he relaxes and enjoys Formula One rather than stressing about his recent results.

Massa has failed to score a point this season and has now gone 23 races without a podium while team-mate Fernando Alonso has scored 12 top-three finishes in the same period. But Barrichello, who is close to Massa, does not believe his fellow Brazilian has lost any of his ability.

"It's not a speed problem, it's something that he needs to solve within himself," he told Globo Esporte . "He has to close his eyes and enjoy, remembering that he does this because he likes it. Every time that I lost a little bit, it was because I had forgotten that I did it because I liked to. So we have to relax and improve that way. [For Massa] it is just a moment, and every moment and race in Formula One is a cycle of life."

Barrichello, who now races in IndyCar, laughed off the results of a recent fans' poll in the Italian media that showed he would be a popular choice as Massa's replacement at Ferrari.

"It was very unexpected," he said. "Maybe it was a way to see if Italians would pick an Italian driver, and suddenly I win. It is a very public business and shows that I must have left something behind."

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Alonso defends 'complex' F2012

Fernando Alonso insists the new Ferrari is not slow and has played down reports his team is struggling.

While rivals Red Bull and McLaren appeared to get a good understanding of their cars at the first test at Jerez, Ferrari set itself a bigger challenge with a completely new and aggressive design. But Alonso insists his team has not faced as big a struggle as some have made out.

"There has been a tendency, especially from the media, to say that the car is bad and we are not having a good winter, but they don't understand," he told Marca. "We are very calm because the car is very complex and there's no reason to believe that it won't be quick. The thing that is costing all of us is to get back the grip lost at the rear of the car by the blown diffusers ban, but I think it will be recovered soon."

Alonso warned against reading too much into the results at the first three races, let alone the first three tests.

"Australia is a strange race because it's a different circuit, so we will begin to see things from the third race I think," he said. "What is important, if we cannot win immediately, is that no driver wins all three or four."

He added that any predictions ahead of Melbourne were pointless.

"At the moment the conclusions are zero - super-zero," Alonso said. "Hopefully we will not be seventh and everything else is guesswork. It is assumed that Red Bull will not be stuck in Q2 and that McLaren and Mercedes will not be far away, but these are only assumptions. Testing in Barcelona for us ended better than it started, but it's not as though we were in a tunnel and now we see the light. Our team is working hard and well."

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F1 'impossible' for new teams

Alain Prost believes it is "absolutely impossible" for new teams to be successful coming in to Formula One.

Prost bought out Ligier to set up his own team in 1997, with the team managing two podiums in its debut season as it finished sixth in the constructors' championship. The Prost team eventually went bust after the 2001 season, and after Caterham, HRT and Marussia all failed to score a point during their first two seasons Prost said that the sport is too difficult to break in to and be on the pace.

"I will say quite frankly that they cannot become competitive in today's Formula One," Prost told F1News. "It's impossible. They can make some progress, but - of course - you must immediately put the question 'What goals do they pursue?' To break into the top five with a new team like this in formula one - it is absolutely impossible."

It's not just the new teams that struggle in the sport at present, however, as Prost also revealed he tried to help Williams bring in more sponsors during the winter.

"I talk often with Frank Williams, and this winter I even tried to help find him some sponsors, but failed. It's difficult for them as when you get yourself into financial problems, it's so hard to get out of them."

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