'We've really got to get our act together'

Nico Rosberg has said Mercedes needs to get its act together so that it does not get left behind by its rivals in the championship.

Rosberg won the first race of his career with Mercedes earlier this season but a run of six consecutive points finishes came to an end at the British Grand Prix when he finished off the pace in 15th. Mercedes is now 44 points adrift of the battle between McLaren, Lotus and Ferrari for second in the constructors' and Rosberg says his team need to up its game at the coming races.

"The others are really attacking now, especially the teams up front, and we've really got to get our act together to make sure that they don't get away from us in the mid-season - that's very important," he said on his YouTube video blog. "I'm looking forward to Hockenheim; it's a track that suits us much more, it's a race at home, and I'm very optimistic and I think we can do a top result there."

Rosberg said he felt a podium was possible ahead of the Silverstone weekend.

"I went into the weekend really optimistic, thinking if everything goes well I'll be in for a podium, but in the end it was really a weekend full of setbacks. The weather was up and down, which led to a generally pretty crazy weekend. Qualifying didn't go my way. I had a few issues with warm-up because of a slow out lap, and if you do a slow out lap you don't get the temperature in the tyres and then you just struggle from there on.

"But still, from 11th on the grid - Alonso won from there in Valencia - so I thought, okay, with a good pace everything is possible. But even in the race things just got worse and worse with a bad first lap and then I was just not quick enough in the race. It was really disappointing to be finishing 15th with no points. It's a long time since I haven't scored points, so that's not ideal."

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Webber pips Alonso to victory at Silverstone

Mark Webber took victory at a dry but enthralling British Grand Prix after passing Fernando Alonso for the lead four laps from the end of an intense strategic battle between Red Bull and Ferrari.

Alonso led the race until lap 48 when Webber passed the Ferrari around the outside into Brooklands. The move was a long time coming as Alonso was on soft tyres in the final stints while Webber enjoyed more sustained pace on a set of hards. Sebastian Vettel came through for third after a fairly quiet race, ahead of Felipe Massa and the Lotuses of Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean, who showed impressive pace to come back from a broken front wing early on.

Michael Schumacher dropped from third on the grid to seventh at the finish and Lewis Hamilton also had a disappointing race as he finished eighth. McLaren appeared to make a strategic error by bringing Hamilton into the pits early for his second stop in attempt to fend off Grosjean. Bruno Senna and Jenson Button took the final two points positions in ninth and tenth.

The strategic fight was set up at the start of the race because the dry conditions allowed drivers to choose their starting tyre compounds. Alonso and Hamilton were the only two of the top ten to opt for the hard compound tyre, and it turned out to be the wrong choice as the final stint on soft tyres cost Alonso.

The race got off to a frantic start with a lot of action taking place in the opening five laps. Vitaly Petrov failed to take the start after an engine problem, but when the lights went out Alonso defended robustly from Webber, while further back Massa got ahead of Vettel for fourth place. Paul di Resta's race came to a very early end as he clipped Grosjean's front wing. A right rear puncture spat di Resta off the track and caused enough damage to force his retirement, while Grosjean had to pit after losing out in a good battle with Button and Kamui Kobayashi.

The Lotus was quick in clear air at the back, but further forward Schumacher's Mercedes was not fast and he was holding up Massa, Vettel and Raikkonen behind. That allowed Alonso and Webber to pull a gap before the first pit stops as the race settled down, with Massa taking until lap 11 to find a way past Schumacher in to Brooklands using DRS.

A few laps later and Brooklands was the scene of another Pastor Maldonado crash. Sergio Perez attacked the Williams - which had just pitted - around the outside but Maldonado understeered in to the side of him, taking Perez out of the race as the pair spun.

Vettel was one of the first to pit and used the undercut to jump Schumacher and Massa in to third place, but was never really in contention to challenge the leaders from there.

Hamilton took the lead at one stage having done a long first stint on hard tyres, but a short second stint on softs betrayed McLaren's strategic error and dropped him behind Schumacher and Raikkonen, with the Lotus showing strong pace once it got in clear air. The DRS zone on the Wellington straight facilitated overtaking and saw the quicker cars moving through the field.

It was on the final pit stops that the race swung, with Alonso having to put on soft tyres for a final 15-lap stint. After some initially encouraging laps, Alonso then slipped back towards Webber and lost the lead four laps from the end before showing enough pace to secure second.

The action continued further down the field, with Kobayashi locking up when pitting and taking out four members of his pit crew. The incident dropped him just behind a close battle for ninth between Nico Hulkenberg, Senna and Button, and Hulkenberg lost out with two laps left when running wide at Copse trying to retake a position from Senna.

The forecast rain never came, but the race was still great entertainment for the 120,000 capacity crowd which made it in to the circuit and the result sees Webber close to 13 points behind Alonso in the drivers championship.

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De Villota injured in testing crash

Maria De Villota has suffered "life threatening injuries" following a crash testing for Marussia at the Duxford Aerodrome near Cambridge.

De Villota hit a Marussia support truck when returning to the pits following her first installation lap in the car. Following confirmation from the team that she was taken to hospital, an East of England Ambulance Service spokesman said: "A woman has sustained life threatening injuries and following treatment at the scene by paramedics, she has been taken to Addenbrookes Hospital for further care."

Marussia confirmed that De Villota was transferred to hospital following the accident, issuing the following statement:

"At approximately 09.15hrs BST this morning, the Marussia F1 Team's Test Driver Maria De Villota had an accident in the team's MR-01 race car at Duxford Airfield where she was testing the car for the first time. The accident happened at the end of her first installation run and involved an impact with the team's support truck.

"Maria has been transferred to hospital. Once her medical condition has been assessed a further statement will be issued."

A statement from the Cambridgeshire Police confirmed that De Villota had been seriously injured.

"We were called by the ambulance service at 0925am with reports that a racing car had been in collision with a lorry at low speed at Duxford Airfield. We have since discovered that the driver has a serious injury. We have notified the health and safety executive because the incident was on private land."

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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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