Melbourne, 18 March 2012: Sahara Force India picked up a point in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix as Paul Di Resta grabbed the final point in a dramatic last-corner squabble. Team-mate Nico Hulkenberg was an innocent victim of the first lap carnage as he was hit from behind, which damaged the rear suspension and led to an early retirement. Hulkenberg started from 9^th.

Force India who finished sixth last year, have retained Paul Di Resta as the driver and recruited rookie Nico Hulkenberg in place of Adrian Sutil.

Paul said: “It’s always nice to start the season with a point, but it was not looking too promising until the last few laps when my engineer told me that I was catching the cars ahead of me. Fortunately I had saved quite a bit of KERS for the last corner, which helped me get a good run on Vergne and beat him to the line for tenth. So it was a pretty exciting final lap. It’s a good way to start the season, but it’s clear we have a lot of work to do because we were struggling for pace at the start of each stint, which hurt my overall race pace. Even so, considering where I started and the weekend we’ve had, I don’t think I can be disappointed to have come away with a point.”

Nico who was on soft tyres was disappointed after his early exit: “I don’t seem to have much luck at Albert Park. My first race here in 2010 was less than a lap and today was a repeat of that. I’m still not really sure what happened, but I got hit when I turned into the first corner on lap one. It’s such a shame because I had made a great start, moved up a couple of positions and then I just felt somebody tap me from behind. There was a puncture and the suspension was damaged so my race was over and I had to park up. These things happen when 22 cars are battling going into a tight first corner, but it’s really frustrating to miss out after such a good qualifying session. The good thing is that I will be back in the car in five days’ time, which is the best way to bounce back and get over the disappointment.”

Robert Fernley, Deputy Team Principal

“We always felt that today’s race was likely to be full of drama and it didn’t disappoint – particularly the closing lap of the race when Paul did an excellent job to grab the final point in the dash to the line. He drove a very clean race, stayed out of trouble and made the most of the strategy, but ultimately he struggled for absolute pace over the duration of the stints, which is something we need to address. As for Nico, he was simply the innocent victim of the turn one chaos. He got hit quite hard from behind going into turn one, which caused some serious damage to the left rear suspension and he immediately came on the radio to say that he needed to park the car. We have to take this on the chin because it’s part of racing, but it’s disappointing for Nico who needs all the race miles he can get at the moment. Still, he’s shown what he is capable of and he can be proud of the job he has done this weekend.”

Pirelli provides a chance for variety of strategies

Pirelli’s 2012-specification tyres delivered on their promise to provide a greater variety of race strategies by decreasing the performance gaps between the compounds this year. The new versions of the P Zero Yellow soft and P Zero White medium were nominated for the Australian Grand Prix, but the drivers had very little dry running with them before the start, as Friday’s free practice sessions in Albert Park were characterised by rain.

The top finishers adopted a two-stop strategy for the race, as was the case last year, but with the pace of the medium and the soft compound only differing by around 0.5 seconds per lap, the way in which they used the tyres was different – with some drivers favouring two stints on the soft tyre and others preferring two stints on the medium. Sauber driver Sergio Perez once more was the only person to adopt a one-stop strategy, starting on the medium tyre and changing to the soft on lap 24, to claim eighth place.

One of the turning points of the race was a safety car on lap 36, which bunched up the field and allowed Red Bull Racing’s Sebastian Vettel to claim second place by passing McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton in the pits. Up to that point McLaren’s tyre strategy had been working perfectly, with the team choosing to pit both cars on the same lap for their second stops just before the safety car. When the safety car came in with only 16 laps to go, all the drivers apart from the Toro Rossos were on the P Zero White medium tyres. At the restart, race leader Jenson Button demonstrated the rapid warm-up time of the medium compound even in the cool conditions of the afternoon by pulling out a second within the first sector, to eventually claim his third victory in Australia. Vettel, who finished runner-up, had adopted a completely different strategy by using the soft tyre during his medium stint. Last year, Vettel’s winning margin was 22 seconds; this year Button won by just over two seconds.

Throughout the final 10 laps, the top four drivers were covered by just over five seconds, with the final podium  places remaining undecided right up to the final lap. A long first stint – which took him all the way up to second place at one point – was a vital ingredient in boosting former World Champion Kimi Raikkonen from 18th place on the grid to a points-scoring seventh, which he claimed for Lotus on the final lap. The fastest lap of the race was set on the P Zero White medium tyre, by Jenson Button, who took the 13th victory of his career. The longest stint on the soft tyre came from Perez, who completed 33 laps, and the longest stint on the medium tyre was 26 laps from Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg.

Pirelli’s motorsport director Paul Hembery commented: “The Australian Grand Prix certainly lived up to expectations, and we fulfilled our objective of providing scope for more strategies by reducing the performance gaps between the compounds and extending the window of peak performance. An interesting element was that there were many pit stops that were not for wear level but instead for degradation, confirming what we wanted to achieve strategy-wise. We also saw more use of the medium tyre than the soft tyre, contrary to last year. Despite this range of strategies there were some very tight battles all the way down the field right up to a dramatic final lap, with one driver crashing out and eighth, ninth and 10th places crossing the finish line practically together! The wear and degradation of the tyres was around 0.1 seconds per lap on the soft tyre – with the frontrunners choosing to pit twice, despite the rapid pace at the front of the field. Jenson Button and McLaren deserve kudos for a stylish victory and also Mark Webber, who scored his best-ever finish on home territory.

ends

Weather: Rainy – air 25°C, track 21°C

Pedro de la Rosa F112 – 02 #22 24th

Narain Karthikeyan F112 – 01 #23 23rd

By F1 Special Correspondent

16 March 2012: Spanish F1 outfit, HRT seems to have hit a roadblock again and are doubtful starters for the Formula 1 World Championship season opening Australian Grand Prix at the Albert Park in Melbourne on Sunday unless they come out with something dramatic on Saturday. With HRT around 13 second off the pace of Schumacher’s time today, it is very difficult for the team to get the qualification.

Fastest Indian in the world and the only Indian F1 driver on the grid this year, perhaps had to wait till Malaysia to race the new car on Race Day. Exactly one year back, Narain making an F1  comeback with the HRT team failed to be on the starting grid as both the cars failed to pass the 107 per cent rule as they were off the pace. . “It will be difficult for us. I’m not thinking now about the speed of the cars,” Lus Perez Sala, HRT F1 Team Principal. said in the FIA Friday press conference. “We are trying to fit all of things to make do as best as possible to make it FP3 tomorrow,” he added.

Today, Narain Karthikeyan did three laps in the first Free Practice session and another 16 in the second by had to halt due to hydraulic problems but teammate Pedro de la Rosa could do only an installation lap. Narain was better off this year as the team which failed to get the car ready for the pre-season tests managed to get him 9 laps during the promotional filming opportunity a few days back. So it was a mixed day for HRT, as F1’s back-markers took to the track Friday.

Narain played down saying: “Today we ran with a new car in mixed conditions, so tomorrow will be like starting all over again because it looks like conditions will be dry. With few laps and a new car, we were unable to assess the balance of the car. But it was important to do some mileage and we completed 19 laps which isn’t too bad, but we still have a long way to go. As for the new car, these problems are common, they tend to happen in preseason testing and this is our testing”.

HRT came to Melbourne having completed a shakedown with only one chassis. That went to Narian Karthikeyan, who completed three laps during morning practice before rising engine temperatures caused him to coast to halt. In the afternoon the Indian managed a further 16 laps before a hydraulic problem forced him to sit out the rest of the session.

The team, meanwhile, had put in full day and a night hurrying to get de la Rosa’s car assembled. He eventually appeared during FP2, though after an installation lap another hydraulic problem forced him to climb out of the car with no further running possible.

“We managed to complete our installation lap in order to check the systems, but afterwards we detected a problem with the hydraulic system which forced us to stop,” explained the Catalan. “This is all part of the learning process, we’ve arrived here with a new car and just to have been able to get out for the second session was a feat, but we would have liked to have done more and learnt more. The last parts of the car arrived late and thanks to the brutal effort put in by the whole team, we were at least able to complete the installation lap and, thanks to this, we know where the problem is for tomorrow and can fix it.

“We start tomorrow with one problem less, and will surely run into another one, but that is part of the learning process. We knew that this Grand Prix would be difficult so we need to be patient”.

“We are trying to fit all of things to make do as best as possible to make it FP3 tomorrow. Then we will see in qualifying. For us Melbourne is a place where we are going to take certain information from the cars and go forwards for the next races.”

In Pedro de la Rosa’s case, today was his first contact with the F112. The team worked the entire night yesterday to ensure that the car was ready on time and, although the last adjustments took place this morning and he couldn’t take part in FP1, in the end Pedro made it out on to the track in the afternoon. After the installation lap, the team detected a hydraulic problem which impeded him from continuing to run. The problems have been identified and the team is already working in order to be ready from the off tomorrow.

Pedro de la Rosa: “We managed to complete our installation lap in order to check the systems, but afterwards we detected a problem with the hydraulic system which forced us to stop. This is all part of the learning process, we’ve arrived here with a new car and just to have been able to get out for the second session was a feat, but we would have liked to have done more and learnt more. The last parts of the car arrived late and thanks to the brutal effort put in by the whole team, we were at least able to complete the installation lap and, thanks to this, we know where the problem is for tomorrow and can fix it. We start tomorrow with one problem less, and will surely run into another one, but that is part of the learning process. We knew that this Grand Prix would be difficult so we need to be patient”.

Luis Pérez-Sala, Team Principal: “It’s been a complicated day but we knew what we were in for. The fact that we haven’t done pre-season testing means that we must get things right, not get ahead of ourselves and detect problems in order to fix them. What the majority of teams have done during winter, we have to do here. Narain was able to complete 19 laps and accumulate certain information. Pedro could only get through one lap, but it was an important one because the team has worked non-stop to make sure the car was finished on time for today, and they achieved it. Tomorrow we will continue to progress.”

ends

As the 2012 season begins, the Team Representatives who were present at the FIA Friday Press Conference were – Luis PÉREZ-SALA (HRT), Paul HEMBERY (Pirelli), Eric BOULLIER (Lotus), Ross BRAWN (Mercedes) and Adam PARR (Williams).

Here goes the Press Conference report

Luis, it must have been an extraordinary experience coming here, you had so much work to do. Just give us some indication of what it’s been like?

Luis PÉREZ-SALA: For us it has been almost a success just to be here in Melbourne because it has been very tough. We missed the crash test at the beginning of February and then almost until the end of February we were working to try and pass the crash test. Then, once we have done that, we went to a filming day at Barcelona, this helped us a bit, and here we have been working last night, the whole night, to have ready at least the second car. And in P1 we were running only with one car, several laps, three or four laps, and then in P2 we could afford to run at least the installation lap with Pedro’s [de la Rosa] car.

How worried are you about qualifying, do you think you can get both cars in [to the race]?

LP-S: It will be difficult for us. I’m not thinking now about the speed of the cars, now we are trying to fit all of things to make do as best as possible to make P3 tomorrow, doing several laps and then we will see on the qualifying. For us Melbourne is like a place where we are going to take certain information from the cars and go forwards for the next races.

Your championship really starts in Malaysia.

LP-S: We hope! I will see. For us the most important thing is to be here as we are and then to try to learn as much as possible. Of course the team is a bit tired as well, they have been working hard for the last month and I would like them to relax a bit and take information and we will see if it’s Shanghai or Malaysia-Shanghai, whenever we start to do our real pace and then trying to improve and to get better and better through the season.

Good luck

LP-S: We need it!

Paul, obviously this is the start of your second season. How different is it this year to one year ago?

Paul HEMBERY: I would probably have made similar comments to Luis last year at this time, having to get ready in a short space of time. Obviously experience is great, you understand, even from the small things like logistics, which help a lot in this world because it’s a complex world from a logistical side and there’s a lot of things that go on in the sport that I guess are invisible to the outside world. So, yeah, it’s a much better position to be in.

The teams are saying that the tyres don’t seem to be degrading as much, is that the case? What’s been the reaction to the new tyres?

PH: I think it’s early days to see that. They’re certainly degrading – whether it’s enough or not I don’t know – if the comments are too positive Bernie calls me up and gives me an earful! I think the general balance of the car, judging from the comments of the drivers and the teams is that they’re happy with the balance. Part of that is a few of the small changes that we’ve made. Also I think the teams have had more time to design the cars around the tyres this season. So, I think it’s a combination of the two things.

Looking at the amount of running they’ve had today, very little dry running – where would you say the teams are in preparation for this race?

PH: I think you have to ask them that. When they did do a run in the dry I guess they’re all using different fuel loads and they’ve all got different programmes in mind, what they’re trying to achieve in the sessions. But I think the general comment that everyone’s seen so far in testing is that the cars seem to be much closer together in terms of performance this year than last year – and hopefully that’s going to mean we’re going to have a great season.

Adam, first of all, to what extent are we seeing a new Williams team? A number of things have changed, tell us about the team as it stands now.

Adam PARR: We have made a lot of changes but hopefully nothing of any importance because Williams, part of the secret is trying to keep what we have as a team – but we’ve made a number of changes, we’ve got a new technical leadership who’ve been able to deliver this car but we have another 500 people who haven’t changed. I’m really pleased we’ve been able to completely redesign the car top to bottom, change engines, and without missing a trick. We did a lot of mileage in testing, so that’s all gone very nicely. On the board side Claire [Williams] is stepping up to join our board as director of marketing and communications in early April and we’re very excited about that. I think she’s going to be a fantastic asset for this team – and the great thing is no-one can poach her!

Another point is that you’ve got two relatively inexperienced drivers, whereas you had Rubens [Barrichello] with a massive amount of experience. How has that gone and how, in turn, has Alex Wurz been able to contribute?

AP: I think it’s very early to say, isn’t it? But what I do feel is both Bruno and Pastor are… they’re not in their first seasons in Formula One, they are very competitive and I think they can have a lot of fun between the two of them and with the team. Alex is playing the role of a wise head and mentoring them as necessary, and so far, so good.

How much are you asking him to do? Giving him a free rein to talk to the drivers?

AP: Yes, he has an absolutely free rein and he attends the debriefs etc, and how he does it is up to him. He should know better than anyone what he has to do.

Ross, first of all it couldn’t be a better start to the season could it – than to be top on the first day?

Ross BRAWN: Well, it’s certainly better than being at the back! The only reason I qualify it is that we have no idea what people are running on fuel. We’ve had little windows of running on the dry. Our cars were doing different things to try to understand and get some information for tomorrow because we’ve got one hour of timed practice before we have to go into qualifying and, as Paul commented, we don’t really know these tyres very well yet, because testing in the winter in Barcelona with a heavily rubbered track is not giving us all the information we need to know how to use the tyres, what strategy to choose and so on and so forth. So we’re trying to get snapshots in these weather conditions of what’s going on. It’s been a reasonably encouraging start but we’re not getting carried away because different people were doing different things today.

In terms of preparation you missed out the first test with the new car, you obviously hit the ground running with it for the two Barcelona tests – how different has it been starting this season to last season?

RB: We’re much better prepared than we were last year. Last year we were not in good shape at this stage of the season. We’d tried to leave it as late as possible to run the final aerodynamic package and that hadn’t gone that well, and we had some cooling issues, some other functionality issues of the car and that takes a lot of resource out of the organisation fixing those things. So, we made a big effort to strengthen the team, do things more effectively, and to arrive at the beginning of this season in a much better state of preparation. I must commend the people who’ve been involved with that. As Adam was saying, we’re keen to strengthen the team without losing the strengths that we already have. So, Bob Bell has been a great asset to the team, Bob’s been involved in this car from the beginning. He’s done a great job of the organisation, keeping everyone to schedule, getting the right decisions made, so we’re not where we want to be yet in many ways but we’re a lot better than we were 12 months ago. And if we can keep that rate of progress going, then I’m extremely optimistic for the future. We’re in a place now where the car functions well, it cools well, it does all the basic things properly. And all of our resource can be focussed on trying to find performance for the next part of the season.

Everybody’s talking about your supposed front-wing stalling system, is there anything you can tell us?

RB: Well, I can tell you it’s great for Formula One, because for me the magic of Formula One is not just the drivers, it’s the technology, the engineering, the innovation, the stories that fill the web pages and the media. It’s something that I think is a great thing for Formula One. When I hear these people talking about how we need to have standard cars and just let the drivers…  they miss the whole point of Formula One, which is the magic of everything that happens in Formula One. You know, we’ve got drivers out there, world champions, who are perhaps not in the best car at the moment and that’s a story. That’s a great aspect of Formula One. We have world champions in much better cars and the teams without the better cars have got to fix that and improve. So it’s great people are talking about different things. Today it’s us, tomorrow it will be somebody else. That’s why Formula One is so fascinating, why it’s so appealing to our fans and enthusiasts.

Eric, sorry to keep you waiting first of all. How much of a setback was losing the first Barcelona test?

Eric BOULLIER: Obviously we missed some track time, some development time of the systems and some track time for the drivers as well, as obviously they were not racing last year in Formula One. But I have to say that number one, we have a reliable car and we were able to do a lot of mileage in Jerez and at the second Barcelona test.

Kimi had some problems with comfort in the car in Barcelona. Is he still having those problems now or was it something different today?

EB: It’s very similar, let’s say. But also it’s a new chassis and you have to adjust a little bit his position in the car.

Are you curing that?

EB: Of course, definitely.

And Romain today? How quickly did he learn the circuit and do you feel confident in him now?

EB: Yes, I think he showed in the second session that he was now ready to drive and he knew the track. This morning you could see that the conditions were a bit tricky and this is why we waited for the best conditions for him to go out and learn the track, as we think… the forecast is for it to be dry on Sunday.

Are they working well together, those two? One would say they might be slightly different personalities?

EB: Yes, I have to say it’s matching quite well. I mean they are team-mates, they are professional drivers and they work well. We have no issues with this.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (Alberto Antonini – Autosprint) May I ask all of you your feelings about racing in Bahrain in four weeks’ time?

RB: We want to go there. It’s been a great place to race in the past. It has its troubles, we hope those troubles are largely behind them and if racing can help bring things together then we should try and do it. We need to monitor the situation, try and make a judgement. People who’ve been there are telling us the situation’s much, much better than it was 12 months ago. So, as I say, if Formula One can help to improve the situation then that would be a great thing for us to do.  But it’s certainly clearly a lot calmer situation than it was 12 months ago.

Q: (Dieter Rencken  – The Citizen) I believe that a letter was addressed and sent to the Federation regarding the Resource Restriction Agreement (RRA) being enshrined in the regulations. If so, which teams signed, which teams didn’t sign and also, what do you hope to achieve and how, please?

RB: I answered the last one.

AP: I think you should do this one as well.

EB: We have many correspondences with the FIA on many many subjects and yes, one of the subjects was the RRA and trying to find a way to maybe make the FIA involved in the process of reinforcing the RRA through an idea like sporting regs. So we just contacted the FIA and Jean Todt to try to set up a group together to discuss the matter.

Q: (Dieter Rencken – The Citizen) My question was also who signed and who didn’t sign the letter. Was it unanimous?

EB: Yes, it was unanimous. Most of the teams have signed it.

Q: (Dieter Rencken – The Citizen) Most. Who not?

EB: Doesn’t matter.

AP: I thoroughly agree with what Eric just said, with everything he said.

Q: (Kate Walker – GirlRacer) Eric, we saw that Kimi didn’t get very many laps in either session today. Was that just comfort or were there problems with his steering column and you changed it?

EB: Second session was just planned. Because of the rain, we didn’t want to run in the wet conditions so we just waited for a dry situation.

Q: (Mike Doodson – Honorary) I was interested by Ross’s comments about the excitement of the technical challenge of Formula One, which is obviously an ongoing thing. But it still costs all of you millions. Some of you have more than a hundred people in your aero department. I wonder if there are any savings that could be made which would be acceptable to the technician in you, for example, a standard under-car aerodynamic profile?

RB: I’m a little bit reluctant to have standard parts on the car. I’m a great supporter of the concept of the Resource Restriction Agreement, that we have a certain amount of money, a certain number of people we can use and we try and get the cleverest people to do the best job and we win because those people are doing a better job than other people in other teams, not because we’ve spent twice as much as somebody else. Certainly Mercedes’ principle is not to steamroller Formula One with unlimited resource and win on the power of what we’ve spent. We’re very prudent, we want Formula One to be a good example and we believe that the Resource Restriction and some sensible technical regulations and sporting regulations is the best way. There is an argument that perhaps we need to make sure that as we tighten the resource restriction that we don’t end up moving all the activity into the aerodynamic field because that’s perhaps the area of greatest return for investment, and we do need regulations to make sure that we keep a spread. So I think there can be quite strong constraints to make sure that we don’t have cars which are just purely focused on aerodynamics but I’m not a great fan of standardising parts but perhaps in keeping parts within a closer constraint.

AP: I agree with Ross. The prime area of means of controlling costs should be controlling expenditure and that’s what the Resource Restriction Agreement… in part the Singapore agreement which was signed by all teams 18 months or so ago. That’s the primary way of controlling costs because in the past, attempts to cure them purely by technical rules just squeezed the balloon into another shape. However, I think there is also a desire to look at areas of the car that have become ludicrously over-complicated. An example is used of the corners of the car. I think we have over 130 moulds for one brake duct now. And I’m not sure that that does genuinely add to the show. What does add to the show is when people come up with clever ideas, and you can only really have that if you control overall spending, because otherwise it is the more money you’ve got, the more clever ideas you should be able to come up with. So I think it’s a combination of both, as Ross said, and I also feel… I read just a few days ago that Mr Ecclestone was commenting that we should introduce budget cuts into Formula One, so I think you could say that there’s quite a consensus now about doing something further.

EB: I do share the same visions as my colleagues. Using the restriction on the resources and expenditure is one of the best ways, obviously, and we need to adjust a little bit the technical and maybe the sporting regulations to cut some costs and that’s going to be much better. We need to keep the Formula One philosophy.

LPS: For us, we are maybe the team that has the lowest budget on the grid. It’s not going to be easy for us to reduce the budget, no? Even we are trying to reduce our budget more and it’s not easy. I’m not sure what we can afford. Maybe we say regulations dictate the budget cut. I don’t know.

Q: (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Ross, before, you were talking of the magic of Formula One. In the last few days, Flavio Briatore has said that for him, this is a Formula One where only cars are now counting. Drivers are not making the difference as they did in the past. They don’t have that big a personality. Do you agree with that?

RB: I think there is a good equilibrium to try and achieve. If the car starts to become a totally prevalent factor then we don’t want that. Equally, as I say, we want a situation where if there’s a great driver in not such a great car then he will struggle a bit. You’ve always got two drivers in the same team, so there’s a competition going on there as well, so if there is a very good car, then you’ve still got two drivers within that team. There’s very few poor drivers that have won World Championships so I think that tells us that the great drivers win the World Championships. Getting an equilibrium is something that we should be mindful of. But I think that at the other end of the scale is let’s have GP1: standard cars, all that sort of stuff – and I think we would be shocked how quickly we would lose interest in Formula One if we did that.

Q: (Dieter Rencken  – The Citizen) I would like to return very briefly to the letter. The four team principles here, did you sign the letter please? It’s a very simple question.

RB: Yes, we signed the letter.

AP: Do you think I wouldn’t sign a letter to do with cost control?

RB: The teams asked the FIA to continue the process of looking at cost control. It’s something which the FIA are very keen to do as well, so it was a letter of support to the FIA to say that we want to continue the process of reducing costs and look at fair ways of introducing the regulations or procedures to keep the costs under control and further reduce the costs. If we had a Formula One where teams like the smaller teams at the back of the grid could be commercially viable – more commercially viable – then I think that’s a healthier Formula One, so have to find ways of trying to achieve that.

Q: (Kate Walker – GirlRacer) It emerged last week that the Lehman Brothers’ stake in Delta Topco has to be sold by the middle of 2014. Could you confirm whether or not you are interested either individually or as a group in purchasing that 15.3% stake,  per team or by FOTA or however you can guys can get a better slice of the F1 pie?

RB: Individually as in me personally or…? It’s certainly not something we’ve considered.

EB: It’s not something that has been considered.

Q: (Wei An Mao – La Vie Creative) Yesterday, I asked the drivers – now you – that since 1996 Melbourne has been on the calendar, do you think it is important to keep it in F1 and should it be changed to a night race after 2015?

EB: I think this year the schedule is a little bit later than in previous years, and there are still around 300,000 people attending the weekend so I would say why not?

RB: We very much enjoy being here. It’s a great race, the huge enthusiasm from the city and from the fans. It’s a really enjoyable race, so we have to find a way of moving forward and trying to keep the race and finding solutions. If the solution is a night race, then we have to find a way of achieving that but personally – and I think as a team – we would be very disappointed if we couldn’t continue racing in Australia. It’s a great place to start the season.

AP: I was in Western Australia over the last few days and interestingly, WA suffered a 20percent decline in tourism in 2011 whereas Victoria’s tourism has grown, and I think the state has a tremendous record of attracting great events and there’s no doubt that that puts Melbourne on the map around the world. If having a night race meant more excitement, more publicity, a bigger global audience for the race here, then I think it’s something that the state should very seriously consider. As Ross said, whatever happens, we really want to come back, because it is a fantastic weekend, really fantastic.

PH: I agree with the comments made. They’ve put a lot effort into creating an event for the fans. If you walk around the infield, there’s a lot of activity going on and if anybody follows motor sport in Australia, that’s something that they do very well. There are other events like the Clipsall which is an amazing event, if you ever get the chance to go there over in Adelaide I recommend that you do so. So I think yeah, as long as it’s viable for the promoter and they can make it work and it seems that the fans seem to like it then I think everyone’s very happy to be here.

LPS: I’ve been driving in Adelaide which was a nice track and now here where I drove in the Lamborghini Trophy in 1999, fantastic track, the fans and everything, for us to come here is a nice place to come.

Q: (Naoise Holohan – ManipeF1) Adam touched on Bernie’s comments on the budget cap a few minutes ago. I’m just wondering how much consensus there is among the teams to bring it in. Is it a viable option at the moment, and what has changed from a couple of years ago when the vast majority of the teams refused to go with the budget cap option?

AP: I think, to be specific, Mr Ecclestone’s comments were about budget capping. The teams have agreed a different process: the Resource Restriction Agreement and the Singapore Agreement. I’m not suggesting that we should change the overall structure at this point. I think there is, however, a very high degree of consensus amongst everybody – the FIA, Formula One and the teams – that we should continue to reduce costs.

Q: (Matt Coch – pitpass.com) Luis, how confident are you that you’ve got the money to reach the end of the season?

LPS: I’m confident to reach the end of the season, I’m confident of the money. It’s secure.

Q: (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Ross, with the  FIA saying that your F-duct system is legal, how long do you think it will take the other teams to copy the same solutions and do you think that this could be an advantage that you could carry on for a while as was the case of the Brawn with the double diffuser?

RB: Innovation is the lifeblood of Formula One racing, I’ve oversold that point already. Obviously I’m not going to go into detail of what people are calling the F-duct. I’m surprised they are calling it that, because I don’t quite know what that means. We have an interesting system on the car and it’s not complicated at all, so I’m sure other teams are looking at it and they need to decide if it’s worthwhile or not. But it’s not in the same magnitude as the diffuser concept that we had or even the exhaust concepts the cars ran the last few years. It’s obviously helpful, that’s why we’re doing it but it’s not a massive performance gain.

AP: That’s a relief to hear, so we can stop developing ours.

RB: I would like you to spend all your money on it, Adam, and then we can get on with other stuff.

AP: It wouldn’t take long!

Ends

Baracelona, 5 Mar 2012: Narain Karthikeyan, had the honour of becoming the first driver to lap the F112, the car with which HRT F1 Team will compete this season, on March 5th. He completed a few installation laps for the promotional shooting at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona even as the engineers heaved a relief saying:  “All the hard work has finally paid off.”

Karthikeyan too was excited: “The shakedown of the F112 felt good and it is a nice feeling to have the honour to be the first driver to test it. The first impressions are quite good; it’s definitely a step up from last year. We couldn’t do any set-up work or stuff like that but everything seems to be working fine and there are no major problems so we can look forward to the season now.

“Everyone has worked hard and the new team management has put everything together in a very short period of time. They’ve done a proper job with the car and I’m sure that it’s a big step forward from last year, so hopefully we can take the competition to the teams we were fighting last year”.

Earlier on Feb 3, HRT announced Karthikeyan as their second driver to complete the driver line-up for 2012 season. The first Indian to make it to the Formula 1 World Championship, will be entering into his third F1 season. Hispania Racing Team (HRT) will have 40-year old Pedro de la Rosa besides Narain.

HRT’s new car was scheduled to debut in the second pre-season test at Barcelona on February 21 but could not do it. But the team has carried out work shifts to cover 24 hours a day to make sure it could make it, for the first time in its history, to the first Grand Prix of the season having run previously as the car passed the last crash test and was homologated a befor the filming opportunity. The car was able to run after the team took advantage of one of the filming days available during the season.

The car made it to the circuit from Munich, Germany, just after one in the afternoon and the mechanics and engineers got straight down to business, working on relevant adjustments. It was a combined team effort, working against the clock, which saw its rewards four hours later when Narain Karthikeyan led the car out onto the track. Pedro de la Rosa, Dani Clos and Tonio Liuzzi were also present, as were Carlos Gracia, President of the Spanish Motorsports Federation and Salvador Servià, General Director of the Circuit de Catalunya.

The tests were carried out without any setbacks and the car carried out over ten laps. The team was able to check that the car functioned properly both from a mechanical and aerodynamic point of view as from a systems standpoint.

The team will prepare the necessary material in the upcoming days and head down under for the first Grand Prix of the season which will take place at Melbourne, Australia, in just two weeks.

The 35-year old Karthikeyan, who finished all but one of the 8 races he started in 2011 for HRT before the drive was handed over to Daniel Ricciardo, came back for a one-off home race to show his expertise and many feel that his performance at the historic inaugural Indian Grand Prix at the Buddh International Circuit is the reason for clinching the final seat on the grid. However, it is well-known that HRT was struggling not only at the back of the grid but was trying to rope in drivers who can bring in sponsors but Narain feels that he is fast enough among the contenders which brought the drive and believes that he and the team can benefit from the relationship.

Team principal Luis Péres-Sala, said: “I’m very satisfied today as it is a very important day for us because we were able to test some things out with the new car during this filming day. I’m very proud of each and every member of this team because everyone has contributed their little bit for this to be possible. Now we have to focus on Australia because we still have a lot ahead”.

Pedro de la Rosa said “Any sort of mileage before Australia is vital to see that the car is in good conditions. From here it is our job to try and improve it and make it progress”.

Jerez (Spain), 9 Feb 2012: It was a day of limited running for Sahara Force India in Jerez following a small off for Jules Bianchi early in the session. The mechanics worked hard to repair the right rear corner of the car, but ultimately the team was missing one small brake component, which prevented the car from returning to the track. The replacement part is expected to arrive this evening to allow Nico Hulkenberg to get his first run in the car on 10th morning, said a team release.

Day 3 Stats:

Chassis: VJM05-02

Laps: 1.5

Mileage: 6 km

Fastest lap: None set

Jules Bianchi: “I made a small mistake on my second run. The tyres were a bit cold and I spun into the gravel and touched the wall with the right rear wheel. It was not a very big impact, but it caused some damage. I’m very sorry because my mistake has cost the team a lot of time and effort. Going away from here I want to focus on the positives because we had a very good day yesterday and I’ve really enjoyed working with the team this week.”

Andrew Green, Technical Director:  “A bit

frustrating to lose some track time today, but we will take it on the chin because we had two very productive days earlier in the week with plenty of mileage. The damage to the car was not that significant, but a lack of spares at this time of year meant we could not go back out in the afternoon. The car will be ready for tomorrow morning when Nico gets his test programme underway. We will resume the aero work we started this morning and make the most of the tyres that we saved from today’s limited running.”