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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Ferrari 'stronger' in 2011

Fernando Alonso says that Ferrari has been "stronger" this year than it was in 2010, despite only one grand prix victory.

After just missing out on the drivers' championship last season, Ferrari was expected to provide an even sterner test for Red Bull in 2011. However, it started the season off the pace and while Alonso has finished on the podium nine times his sole victory came at the British Grand Prix. Despite having fallen out of championship contention in Singapore, Alonso believes that Ferrari has learnt from last year's mistakes.

"I will remember it as a not bad season overall from a personal point of view and how the team approached this season, improving in areas where we were weak last year," Alonso said. "The team has been stronger and I feel that with a competitive car next year we can be very strong and fighting for the world championship.

"Last year, our starts and strategies were not so good and we had a conservative approach to the races and we improved in all those areas this year. Now, all we need is the car that can do it."

One such strategy proved costly as Ferrari covered Mark Webber in the championship decider, allowing Sebastian Vettel to snatch the title. Alonso finished the season as runner-up, but says that he is not worried about securing the same position again as people have already forgotten that fact.

"I finished second last year and no one remembers and I won't recall it in ten or twenty years time, so if I finish second, third or fourth this time, it will not be on my mind in the future. It's not a big priority, but we will try and have a good race.

"Maybe there is a possibility of rain on Sunday, which means we might not get the same result as usual with Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari always in the top five or six places. If that is the case and we do a good race, maybe I can take some points off Jenson [Button], but maybe I lose points to Webber and finish fourth. It's not so important for us, but maybe it gives me some self confidence for the future seeing myself ahead of drivers in better cars than ours."

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Video

• 12/11/2011

  A bit of Brazilian magic

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  Vitaly Petrov pre Abu Dhabi GP video...

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  Everybody loves Abu Dhabi

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Following his first race weekend drive of the season, we heard from Romain Grosjean who can hardly wait to return to the car in FP1 in Interlagos.

To hear what he had to say, see below

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Force India not the only option

Adrian Sutil says he has no fears about his future in Formula One, despite arriving at the penultimate race of the season without a contract for next year.

His Force India team has yet to announce its plans for 2012, with Sutil, Paul di Resta and Nico Hulkenberg all under consideration for the two available seats. Sutil has already requested the team make a decision sooner rather than later, but insists Force India is not his only option for next season, with Williams and Renault yet to decide on its drivers too.

"Who says that I am just waiting for Force India?" he was quoted by Autosport on Thursday. "I can survive also somehow in a different way, let's say. I don't think after so many years doing a good job in this team I have to shiver and think about my future, or something. I am relaxed. I like this team. But, if it doesn't work out then I find something else."

Sutil also revealed that he is being kept well-informed on developments by team principal Vijay Mallya, even if he couldn't say exactly why the decision had been delayed.

"We are having a very good relationship since a long time," Sutil added. "He [Mallya] is very loyal to me and I am very loyal to him, so that is important. He told me some things I can't share with you at the moment.

"We all agreed - we want to announce it as soon as possible for both sides. It is also important for the team to announce the drivers as early as possible so they can adjust the drivers for their car for the next season. Everything, when it gets late, you feel it on the performance. Same on me and same for the team - for both sides it would be better to announce it as soon as possible."

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Vitaly Petrov becomes ROC's first Russian driver

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News | 01/11/2011

• 31/10/2011

  Vitaly Petrov - "It's just a shame...

• 30/10/2011

  Bruno Senna - "It was a mixed race...

• 30/10/2011

  INDIAN GP - RACE - LOTUS RENAULT GP...

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Following on from Lotus Renault GP's third driver and 2011 GP2 series champion Romain Grosjean, Russian Formula 1 star Vitaly Petrov has signed up to compete at the 2011 Race Of Champions in Düsseldorf. Vitaly will become the first driver from Eastern Europe to compete at the event. He joins a star-studded field that includes three F1 world champions for ROC 2011 at Düsseldorf's ESPRIT arena on December 3-4.

A podium in this year's first race in Australia was followed by a string of points finishes to leave Vitaly in the F1 world championship top ten.

That form is all the more impressive given that, unlike most of the F1 field, Vitaly did not learn his race craft in karting. Born in the Russian town of Vyborg, he had no easy access to a local kart track so he began competing in rally sprints and ice racing events. But after winning every race in the 2002 Lada Cup, Vitaly was soon on a more conventional road to the top of motor racing via successful years in GP2. Now he has earned an invitation to compete at the Race Of Champions.

Vitaly said: "It was a great honour to be the first Russian driver in Formula 1 – and now I'm delighted to become the first Russian to compete at the Race Of Champions. I've followed the event for a long time and I know that all the drivers claim to be there for fun, while pushing as hard as ever in the cars. I've never raced in an event with such a quick turnaround of machinery but perhaps my unusual background in rally sprints and ice racing can help me. I'll give it my best and see what happens."

The Race Of Champions is an annual end-of-season competition that brings together the world's greatest drivers from all motor sport's disciplines – including Formula 1, world rally, touring cars, Le Mans and the X-Games – and sets them free to battle head-to-head in identical machinery on a specially constructed parallel track. Drivers pair up for the ROC Nations Cup, this year scheduled for Saturday 3 December, before the individual Race Of Champions takes place on Sunday 4 December.

ROC race organiser Fredrik Johnsson said: "We're always aiming to expand our horizons at the Race Of Champions so we're thrilled to have our first Russian driver on board. Vitaly had a great GP2 career and he has carried that over to Formula 1 in the past two years. We look forward to seeing him take on ROC's best in December."

Competing alongside Vitaly and Romain will be Michael Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel and Jenson Button amongst others.

Hyo Won Kim

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News | 18/10/2011

• 17/10/2011

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• 16/10/2011

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Hyo Won Kim, a CFD Aerodynamist for LRGP and former engineering graduate at the University of Cambridge, arrived in Enstone in March of last year. For the inaugural Korean Grand Prix Hyo Won was tasked with the role of unofficial Korean liaison for the team. Following a successful debut last year, he returned in a similar capacity for the 2011 race week. Here, he tells us how he got on…

Monday
My race "weekend" was in fact a full week, which is perhaps because of the one-off nature of my special role in the Korean GP. I arrived at the Korea International Circuit together with support crew Mick Wilson and Stephen Leadbeater. (The rest of the team by this point was preparing to leave Japan.) Our job is to make sure that the freight boxes are received, unloaded, and then organised in the right manner so that the garage set-up can begin swiftly.

So, I began by meeting a member of the organising committee to check over the list of items we have ordered from the circuit for the garages and hospitality complex. This includes forklifts, which will be used to unload and unpack our freight boxes, and a generator, which will be used to provide electrical power to the garage throughout the week.

We managed to complete all the day's work in good time and treated ourselves to some Korean BBQ to wrap up the day.

Tuesday
We were joined by the setup crew who arrived in Korea on Monday. We stopped at McDonalds to grab a quick breakfast on the way to the circuit. The lady owner remembered us from last year – I suppose 20 odd foreigners dressed in the same kit in the remote city of Mokpo is pretty difficult not to take any notice of. I placed an order for what is probably the longest list of burgers and drinks and discovered my hidden flair in serving fast food. After the breakfast, we arrived at the circuit where set up work kicks off at full throttle. I got called upon throughout the day for things to follow up on with circuit liaisons and their contractors.

Coming back for the second time (as I attended the inaugural Korean GP last year in a similar capacity), I fully expected to be dealing with a range of things during the course of the week but I was not expecting to get called upon by the local police! It turned out that one of our hire vans had made a contact with another car in a car park after breakfast. I felt a strange sense of déjà vu as the police station happened to be next to a hospital that I visited with an ill mechanic during last year's Korean GP weekend! (…but that time in an ambulance!)

Catering guys borrowed me to go food shopping at a local supermarket for food for the team. The catering guys seem to have a habit of clearing a supermarket's stock pile. Of course, we were not the only team here so there was a bit of an off-track race for food as well. Strictly first come, first served. Pushing around several fully-loaded shopping trolleys, we managed to turn more than a few heads.

As the last task of the day, we visited the hotel where Vitaly and Bruno were staying for the Korean GP. The drivers were yet to arrive but their race kits from Japan had already been dropped off. Not only do they need to be laundered with specific instructions, the sheer quantity makes it difficult for them to turn it round within our requirements. We learned our lesson from last year and visited them a day earlier, saving us from having to get involved in some arm twisting at a local laundry.

Wednesday
The electricians from the circuit seemed to have trouble communicating with the teams. So when they found out that I was Korean, they grabbed me to talk to a couple of other teams that they had left to deal with. Other than that it was a relatively quiet day as far as my liaison role is concerned. So I helped the boys complete the garage set up trying not to get in their way too much in the process.

The hospitality team bought a lot of food to feed us and had been accumulating a small mountain of receipts written in funny squiggles. Fortunately, it does not take me long to decode these squiggles so Simona Legati can get on with her book keeping.

Thursday
To our horror, we arrived at the circuit to find that the generator had cut out overnight as it ran out of diesel. The original refuelling schedule published by the circuit proved difficult to maintain and our request to top up last night had not reached the right people. After a lot of arguing, we agreed on a protocol that will ensure that it does not happen again. The generator powers a lot of equipments garage that the cars' preparation and operation depend on. The last thing we wanted was for a power surge to damage our equipments when restarting or have a power cut in the middle of a session.

Later in the morning, I got to join the drivers and engineers for the track walk in the morning. This is a welcome opportunity for me to have a chat with them and learn a few things about the circuit.

I returned to the team building after the track walk to find a backlog of photocopying to be done. The menus were all in Korean and unwilling to give any hints as to what their functions are. Fortunately, unlike Robert Kubica's sat nav last year, there was an option to change the language to English – saving me from being a full time photocopy-man.

After the pit stop practices, we got an early finish at 6:30pm. This gave us a chance to revisit the Korean BBQ for some pork belly and a few beers.

Friday
Friday is one of the longest days of the week. It is the day when we have the earliest start time. While the mechanics and engineers were busy preparing for the first free practice, I headed to the hotel to pick up the mechanics' and drivers' overalls and the rest of the kit.

'My Home Race' article in the Korean GP Preview magazine sparked some interest among a few Korean reporters who wanted to have a chat. It's nice to know that our magazine gets good exposure. I hope that through this the Koreans will get to know our team better.

Saturday_ Throughout the morning I was on loan to the marketing department to pick up our guests who arrived in Mokpo by train. They were Mr. Jin Choi from Genii's Asia office and special guests from Mongolia.

Due to parc ferme on Saturdays after qualifying, Saturday is always a guaranteed (well, almost) early finish day. Parc ferme starts at 6:30pm, at which point the cameras in the garages take over from FIA marshalls who oversee the cars until that point. With little time left to this changeover point, the generator technicians had to carry out a maintenance check on the generators. This meant that the generators had to be switched off for a short while for the check up to take place. With time running out, I had to push them to ensure it was completed before the official parc ferme conditions commenced. Later, as I was leaving the paddock, I was told that a mix up between two other teams' resulted in one of the team's generator cutting out at the eleventh hour!

Sunday
By this time, most of my work had wound down as there was little trouble-shooting left to do (it would be rather worrying otherwise!). I just had to make sure that the generators had enough diesel to get through the race and the pack-up. The forklifts needed to have sufficient diesel for pack-up after the race, too – which, fortunately they did. This meant that I was able to enjoy the race day by showing some guests around and watching the race from the garage with the mechanics.

Once the race was over, I lent my spare pair of hands wherever I could with the pack-up. It is a brutal test of fatigue and willpower. Hats off to the race team who endure this about 20 times a year!