FORMULA 1 - 2016

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2016 Season Preview with Nico Rosberg

Nico Rosberg shares his thoughts on the upcoming 2016 Formula One season.

Onboard the 2016 Mercedes F1 Car + Live Commentary!

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2016 Season Preview with Lewis Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton shares his thoughts on the upcoming 2016 Formula One season.

A new Silver Arrow is born: Lewis Hamilton presents the 2016 Mercedes F1 W07

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Button: F1 needs to be "unreachable" for most drivers

Formula 1 needs to be "untouchable and unreachable" to most drivers in order to return to its glory days, according to McLaren driver Jenson Button.

Echoing the thoughts of teammate Fernando Alonso, the British driver reckons the current cars are simply not challenging or fast enough.

Button also feels that, while the tweaks introduced this year have made the engines somewhat louder, it is still not enough.

"Formula 1 needs to be loud. It need to be crazy fast," Button told selected media, including Motorsport.com, on Tuesday.

"It needs to be almost untouchable, unreachable for most people. It's not at the moment.

"Drivers in GP2 are driving around two or three seconds slower than us and other categories as well. There needs to be a bigger step up.

"Kids should be excited about the prospect of seeing a Formula 1 car and seeing one. I think that's lost a little bit.

"Hopefully next year with these new rules we'll get a bit of that back, but there still needs to be a bit more sound, I think.

"Our engine sounds great. The other engine manufacturers sound a bit louder, while ours sounds a lot louder, so it doesn't sound too bad, but it's not revving to 20.000rpm, so it's missing something.

"I still think it's still a sexy, fun sport. I just think we need a little bit more noise, and then it's even better."

Wider tyres needed

Button suggested the plans to make Formula 1 cars faster next year will only pay off if mechanical grip increases significantly.

"The regulations next year are supposed to change," he said.

"If we have a lot more mechanical grip the racing will still be great, but the cars will seem much quicker in corners, which is good because then the driver fitness is important, and the driver possibly could be the limiting factor in a corner, which is exactly what we need as it is a sport."

He added: "I don't feel the tyres are giving us as much grip as we want and I think a driver will always want more grip from the tyre.

"It's mechanical grip, which is positive because it means you can still race. The ultrasoft is good and it will help in places like Monaco and Canada. It really takes us back to three years ago, because the tyres have been getting harder every year.

"Even if the tyres are supersoft they are not the same supersofts from three years ago, it's a harder supersoft, it's more like a soft."

Qualifying changes not necessary

The McLaren driver also fears the planned new qualifying format will only make things more complicated for the fans, as he joined the group of drivers to say the current system was working well.

"There are many things in Formula 1 that need to be changed and I think F1 understands that," Button added. "And there is change happening, which is good. Qualifying wasn't really one of them.

"I think it's important for Formula 1 as a whole to understand that we always need to look for more possibilities to make the sport better and maybe this will be great for the fans and they'll enjoy it.

"I just hope they understand it, because personally it's very confusing and I know the sport pretty well. If it works correctly and the fans like it, I love it, because that's s a big part of our sport.

"But I like the system now, and if this new knockout system will be better, I don't know, but it seems very complicated."

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Perez: Force India has tyre degradation headache

Sergio Perez says Force India needs to get on top of its tyre degradation problems before it can make huge steps forward with the VJM09.

The Mexican driver has enjoyed a near-flawless day of running on just his second day of pre-season testing, completing 126 laps with a best time of 1m 25.593s, having spent the day concentrating on longer stints and race simulations.

Despite leaving the circuit satisfied with the healthy bank of data logged for his technicians to digest, Perez says progress made with managing tyre degradation on all compounds has been slow and is concerned with the high cliff drop off he suffered towards the end of stints.

“I didn't feel that comfortable with the car today, it was quite windy, especially in the afternoon,” Perez said. “But still a very good day with plenty of information and I'm quite optimistic. We were focusing on degradation as right now that's our weakness point. I think everyone out there is struggling with degradation points.

“We are exploring and trying to understand the tyres as best as possible because these tyres are quite difficult to understand. There is still a cliff in the tyre. But it's not like before getting into that cliff the tyre is performing well, the tyre is already at a bad stage. Once you hit that stage you basically cannot drive, you have to box.”

Perez says Force India can be optimistic about retaining its top-five team status in F1 and feels at a circuit which the Silverstone-based squad traditionally struggles at he believes any pain felt now will not be as significant at tracks which play to his strengths.

“When you look at the Barcelona test, it's been the weakest track in the history of the team,” he said. “So to be here and to be more or less competitive, more or less fighting with the people around us, means that we have done a massive step. I want to believe that in the good circuits for us we can be quite strong.”

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Are They Back? Red Bull ‘close to Williams’ – Ricciardo

Daniel Ricciardo expects Red Bull to start the season close to Williams on pace but behind Mercedes and Ferrari.

“I would say the two sure things for now is Mercedes and Ferrari, I think they’re the top two,” Ricciardo told NBC. “Behind that it looks close, I would say Williams and we are more or less there, close to them.”

“And then the rest, who knows. Toro Rosso, all these other teams, could be pretty close behind Mercedes and Ferrari.”

Ricciardo said the team “got a little bit more” out of its Renault power unit today and “were able to run a few more settings which will be representative to what we’re going to have in Melbourne”.

“And we know for the first few races not to expect too much but then we should get some steps soon after that,” he added. “I think for now we’re on target.”

Ricciardo enjoyed Red Bull’s most productive day of testing so far as he completed a race simulation in the RB12. He agreed drivers are likely to have to make an extra pit stop with Pirelli’s latest generation of tyres.

“I think it looks like that for now,” he said. “It’s so hard to tell in the winter because the track’s cool. When we come here it’s going to be 20 degrees hotter or whatever. But maybe that means it’ll be even harder on the tyres.”

“So we’ll see. I think we did a three-stop or something, I would guess right now one more stop for the races but we’ll see what happens.”

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Issues with Ferrari F1 power unit frustrate Ericsson in new Sauber

Marcus Ericsson has conceded to a frustrating first day of pre-season Formula 1 testing in the new Sauber, after being held back by power-unit issues.

Ericsson's running was also hampered when the right-rear wheel fell off the C35 during the afternoon session at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya, bringing out the only red flag of the day.

The Swede still managed 55 laps overall, but it could have been more if not for the problems with the latest Ferrari power unit.

"Unfortunately not so many laps today. We had some issues all day long," he said.

"First of all there was an engine change overnight that took quite a bit longer than expected.

"Then when we got out on track there were still some issues relating to the power unit that held us back, restricting us to just doing outlaps.

"Of course it's a bit frustrating, but that's how it goes sometimes over the first couple of days in a new car."

With regard to the wheel, Ericsson added: "We don't know yet, they're investigating it, but basically it fell off when I turned into the corner."

Despite the woes, Ericsson was still reasonably impressed with what he felt from the car, echoing team-mate Felipe Nasr's positive first taste.

"I got two decent runs, we did some long runs on medium in the afternoon, so I got a small impression at least and it's fair to say we've taken a step forward in all areas," said Ericsson.

"I want to do more laps to be more specific, but definitely it feels like a stronger package.

"With regard the engine, there's definitely good potential there. The driveability has definitely improved. I also feel the braking stability has improved.

"On the aero side the car feels better in the high-speed corners, it feels stable.

"They are the two main things I felt on the limited number of laps I did, but when you drive it feels like a nicer package. It's easier to predict what it's going to do."

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Formula 1 and It's Rational irrationality

Irrational behaviour is common among human beings. We smoke cigarettes, we drink alcohol, we eat unhealthy foods, we support useless football teams and we don’t floss. We all seem to have a compelling reason – conscious or subconscious – to justify what we are doing. We smoke because we want to be cool, we don’t floss because we cannot be bothered, we drink because we want people to like us, we eat bad food because it is easier and we support bad football teams because our friends do. There is a twisted rationality in all things irrational… which brings me on to our friend, Bernie Ecclestone.

The reason I write about the rational and the irrational, is that Formula 1 is in a phase where very little seems to make sense. There is rampant negativity at a time when there is much to look forward to. F1 decision-makers want to change qualifying when qualifying does not need changing, they want to cut costs but also want new cars that will push costs up, they want to waste energy on noise when the industrial relevance of the sport is in saving energy, they say the sport is rubbish and would not sell tickets, when they want people to buy tickets and to subscribe to a payTV service.

What's going on?

Where is the rational thinking behind these irrational moves?

I think it is fair to say that some of the recent confusion is to do with misdirection and diversionary tactics. If you light a firework off to the left, everyone looks in that direction and you can get away with all kinds of things on the right.

Misdirection is at the very heart of most magic tricks, which rely on the fact that the human brain has a limited amount of attention and focussing on one thing can make one oblivious to others that should be patently obvious.

So if Bernie Ecclestone is saying the sport is rubbish and he wouldn’t buy tickets to watch it, what is he really doing? He is, after all, the series promoter, the man charged with making the sport bigger and better. Some think that it is Bernie trying to drive down the value of the business so he can buy it back from the investment types because he has had enough of them ripping money out. This theory makes no sense at all to me. Bernie is an employee and while he and the family trust do own some shares but they do not have control. Or do they?

Are there shareholder agreements that mean that CVC Capital Partners have to do whatever its employee wants them to do? That would be odd, I imagine? And what would CVC’s investors think of such a bizarre arrangement?

Some say that maybe Bernie funded the CVC Fund and so is secretly the boss, but there seems to be no evidence that this is true. CVC’s Fund IV was raised in 2005 and had a value of $7.26 billion. According to Forbes, Bernie is not worth that much… but then is Forbes reliable?

There is another argument that Bernie has simply gone bonkers from old age and is just making it up as he goes along. I don’t believe that one for a minute.

Conspiracy theorists will tell you that CVC has to do what Bernie tells them to do, because he has videos or dark nasty secrets about the shining white knights at the private equity firm, but let us reject all that and ask why might CVC accept Bernie’s actions, thinking they will lead to the potential to make more money. This, remember, is their only goal in Formula 1, unless one adds that they wish to avoid embarrassment, which is a goal of sorts.

CVC knows that no matter what they say, they want to sell the business but, despite the best efforts of their sycophants getting front page stories saying that the whole thing is worth more than $8 billion, CVC knows that the Formula One group is not going to be sold at a price it wants. It was all supposed to be done before Christmas. The price is clearly too high, no matter what the glossary of the Idiot’s Guide to Investment says about enterprise value.

CVC could sell the business for less but there are a couple of things that get in the way with that theory: ego is the first, as PE types generally have fairly sizeable egos and they don’t like to be seen to lose; secondly, there is the question of debt. They have at least $4 billion of it, probably more. In the usual run of things, the debts are paid by the seller from the money delivered by the buyer. The money left over after that is then divided between the other shareholders and therein lies the problem because a lot of these people signed up for shares prior to the Singapore IPO that never was and they were only doing that because they were promised a decent return on their investment. When the IPO was called off, they were left holding shares that they did not really want. To keep them happy CVC has been sweating the assets and providing regular dividends, often by adding more debt. They may hope that the situation will get better and the value of the business will rise, but there is no sign of that happening. The current commercial rights deals struck between the teams and the rights holder required some fairly serious concessions, both financially and in terms of power. The car manufacturers and the big teams are now in a powerful position and as the sport looks ahead to negotiating new commercial deals from 2021-2030, this group is going to be pushing for yet more money and power. If they don’t get it, they will refuse to stay involved and, so the theory goes, the Formula One group will be unable to fulfil its undertakings to the FIA and their 100-year deal will be broken. Then the teams and the FIA can start a new Premier League-style FIA Formula 1 World Championship without the middle men, or with a promoter who will accept a more restrained percent of the take, rather than the 40-odd percent of today. The problem here is that the debt needs to be paid, or at least serviced, and if the interest payments are more than the revenues the rights holder will not be able to meet its obligations. Borrowing more money will be hard and will not really help, while paying off debt would mean fewer dividends for the investors.

This all means that the best option is to try to break up the alliances of those who are now powerful and perhaps try to be rid of the manufacturers and so isolate the non-affiliated teams so that they run to Uncle Bernie for protection. The CRH also wants to make sure that no new players arrive, like reinforcements in a battle, to bolster the ranks of the manufacturers. They don’t want to see Alfa Romeo buying Toro Rosso, or Aston Martin acquiring Force India. They don’t want Volkswagen at all.

In the old days, under different management, Ferrari always played along with the teams and then switched sides when they got the deal they wanted. But now there is a new boss with different ambitions. Perhaps Sergio Marchionne even sees himself as a future commercial boss of Formula 1 after his Fiat days are done? He is trying to get more manufacturers to join the game, to pick off more of the teams and strengthen the position of the players against the promoter.

The FIA is sitting back, waiting and watching and will then jump one way or the other when the dealings are done. It would probably prefer to go with the manufacturers because that would allow new deals, far better for the federation than what was agreed by the previous management at the federation.

The last thing that CVC wants is stronger opposition and thus chaos is a better option.

The man from VW said it last week.

“The situation is not predictable enough to make the kind of investment required. On the regulations front, there are a lot of rumours around the engine side and the supporting technology side. Before you commit the kind of money needed you must see five years of rules stability – there can’t be the possibility of rules changes, of more or less engine cylinders coming in, or the hybrid system changing away from technology you are developing on road cars. On the ownership side, there are also big questions the sport must answer. If you are a big business making a big investment you expect to have some influence on the set-up, with an assurance the present ownership will last. In F1, it seems the owners will not be there forever and that creates some instability.”

So, if chaos is the game we are playing, the thing that is required is not only unity and solidarity between the teams but also no daft ideas that will help those who seek to divide and conquer. But then, all these supposed new regulations and the talk surrounding them may all just be delaying tactics to help the clock move onwards towards 2020. In the past the team alliances have always been broken by the rights holder, usually working with the FIA, but this time things are a little different.

Rational irrationality is the order of the day…

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RAIKKONEN TESTS HALO-STYLE COCKPIT ON HIS FERRARI

While a variety of cockpit head protection designs have been trialled across single seater cars in recent years, Thursday morning in Barcelona saw Ferrari trial the device known as the Halo on Kimi Raikkonen’s car.

The Finn completed a couple of installation laps with the Halo attached to his car, before returning to the pits to have the device removed before his testing session continued as normal.

Raikkonen’s initial response to the Halo was promising, with the 2007 World Champion saying his view was unaffected. “[The] first impression on the visibility test is positive,” he said. “The structure does not hamper [visibility].”

The FIA and the Global Institute for Motor Sport Safety have been working on driver head protection solutions for years, although the search for a suitable system intensified after the summer of 2009, when Henry Surtees lost his life to a loose tyre in a Formula Two race at Brands Hatch, a week before Felipe Massa was hospitalised by flying debris during qualifying at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Various options for further protecting drivers’ heads have been proposed and trialled over the past decade, from closed cockpits to an assortment of devices aimed at deflecting objects without affecting extrication or visibility. It has been a complex process, and one that is still underway.

A number of potential cockpit protection options are still being researched, however the latest F1 Commission meeting recognised that the Halo, originally developed by Mercedes, is the preferred option for introduction as soon as the 2017 FIA Formula One World Championship season.

“The good news is that the three structures we tested performed as expected or better than expected,” FIA Safety Direct Laurent Mekies told AUTO. “On top of that we have received great guidance from Charlie [Whiting] from the beginning of the project, and a lot of support from the teams who provided us with all their calculations and design power, which has made this step forward possible.

“We are pushing very hard to integrate it as early as possible,” Mekies continued. “I’m sure it will trigger a few connected research topics, to assess visibility, extrication and some of the other aspects, so I’m expecting some validation testing to be done in the course of the next six months. But we’re all trying to make that cut.

“The real deadline is the teams’ timing to modify their cars accordingly and our capability to assess all the connected issues,” Mekies concluded. “Design is done very much in advance in F1, therefore if we want to make 2017 it needs to be decided in the next few months. Nobody wants to rush these things but we are all trying to go as fast as possible.”

MIKA: Looks really impractical and stupid to me - For F1...

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BARCELONA TEST: RAIKKONEN AND FERRARI GO FASTEST OF ALL

Kimi Räikkönen set the quickest lap of pre-season testing in Barcelona so far, as the Ferrari driver also debuted the new ‘Halo’ head protection system, which could become a feature of future F1 cars.

Räikkönen this morning emerged for his installation lap with the device fitted to his Ferrari SF-16H and after returning commented that “the first impressions of the visibility test is positive”. The device, initially developed by Mercedes, is among a number of solutions that have been the subject of intensive recent testing by the FIA.

With the brief trial complete, Räikkönen returned to the main body of his day’s work, discovering something of the performance potential of the new Ferrari ahead of the season-opening grand prix in Melbourne in a little over two weeks’ time.

The Finn first posted a good time on the soft compound Pirelli and then three hours into the morning session he bolted on a set of Pirelli’s new ultrasoft tyres to set a time of 1:22.765. The lap was the fastest of testing so far, edging out by 0.45s the ultrasoft lap set last week by team-mate Sebastian Vettel.

Today, Räikkönen’s best lap was good enough to eclipse second-place Felipe Massa by 0.428, though encouragingly for Williams, the Brazilian’s time was set on the soft tyre, two steps up Pirelli’s range in terms of hardness.

Massa was the only one of the top four drivers to set his best time on a tyre other than the ultrasoft, with third-placed Nico Hulkenberg of Force India and fourth-placed Max Verstappen of Toro Rosso using the purple-banded tyres for their best times. Hulkenberg finished 0.486 behind Räikkönen, while Verstappen was 0.617 adrift of the Finn’s benchmark.

After Toro Rosso team-mate Carlos Sainz claimed yesterday’s largest single lap total with 166, Verstappen did the same today, with the Dutch driver getting through 159 laps of the Circuit Bercelona-Catalunya.

Nico Rosberg was fifth-fastest, using the medium tyre to post a best lap of 1:24.126, 1.3s behind Räikkönen. Team-mate Lewis Hamilton was in P11, some three seconds off the pace as he did race simulation work on the medium tyre.

Sixth place went to Sauber’s Felipe Nasr, while McLaren again had a good day with Fernando Alonso completing 118 laps on his way to seventh spot on the timesheet. The Spaniard finished ahead of Manor rookie Pascal Wehrlein, Red Bull Racing’s Daniil Kvyat ands Renault’s Jolyon Palmer.

With Hamilton 11th, the final position on the timesheet went to Haas’ Romain Grosjean. After the team only managed a single lap on Wednesday following a turbo issue, Grosjean managed a decent 78-lap total today but the team’s problems continued as the Frenchman brought out the red flags three times across the day.

First he went off at Turn 4 to end morning running and then he stopped twice more in the afternoon, going off at Turn 1 and then stopping five minutes before the end of the session, a halt that brought the day’s running to an end.

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TODT: ECCLESTONE MUST STOP SAYING F1 IS SH*T

FIA president Jean Todt has urged Bernie Ecclestone to stop criticising Formula 1, amid more bad mouthing from the self-styled supremo of the sport,

Ecclestone has rung in another new season with a familiar round of criticism, after last year crudely describing the sport he runs as crap.

Todt told Auto Bild Motorsport: “Can you imagine someone going to see a new movie if the director said: My film is ****?”

“If you want to sell a product, criticism must be internal, not external. We have to represent a positive image of Formula 1 again,” said the Frenchman.

So unlike Ecclestone, Todt hails F1’s controversial yet cutting-edge ‘power units’.

“We have to get them cheaper and louder,” he admits. “And it cannot be that a team has difficulty getting one. Apart from that, the hybrid engine is one of the best things formula one has done.”

Indeed, he hopes the direction in which F1 is heading will attract more car manufacturers to the grid, like Audi.

“An entry of Audi would be fantastic for the sport,” Todt declared. “Their technology is advanced and they would be determined from the outset to be competitive. But they are also part of a large group that has to resolve other problems now.”

“But I am sure that, if we make the world championship more attractive, as good businesspeople they cannot ignore formula one,” added Todt.

Ecclestone, meanwhile, has also been critical of Todt himself, accusing him of focusing too much on the ‘mobility’ side of the FIA and neglecting F1.

“The FIA has two pillars,” Todt insisted, “motor sport and mobility. One of my priorities is of course traffic safety: each year 1.3 million people die on the road – 500 children every day. Formula 1 is a luxury problem.”

“It would be entirely out of place if the president of the FIA is concerned about the details of F1. But I do have good support people,” he added.

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TODT: SENNA WANTED TO COME TO FERRARI AND WE WANTED HIM

FIA president and Former Ferrari team principal Jean Todt has revealed that Ayrton Senna expressed interest in joining Ferrari in 1994 and that talks between the two did take place.

“He [senna] wanted to come to Ferrari and Ferrari wanted him,” he told Auto Bild Motorsport. “I had a long meeting with him (in 1993) and I was fascinated by the sound of his voice – he spoke very slowly and extremely clearly.”

But Todt told the Brazilian legend at the time that Ferrari already had Jean Alesi and Gerhard Berger under contract, to which Senna replied: “In Formula 1, contracts have no value.”

However, Todt disagreed and stuck with Alesi and Berger, but recalled that “I called him again to make him an offer for 1995, but he declined as he had already decided on Williams.”

In 1996, Ferrari under Todt’s stewardship snapped up Michael Schumacher to lead the team and the rest is history.

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ARRIVABENE: I CONFIRM TO ALL THE WISE OWLS THAT THE ENGINE IS OK

Speculation and innuendo swirling in the Barcelona paddock suggesting there are problems with Ferrari’s 2016 power unit, but the team’s F1 boss Maurizio Arrivabene is playing down talk of a crisis.

Within sight of the end of the pre-season period, cooling holes have appeared in the side of the works team’s red car, Haas was grounded all day with a turbo issue on Wednesday, and Sauber has also had problems.

Indeed Gene Haas admitted to some frustration.

“I have learned pretty quickly that Barcelona is not North Carolina,” he smiled, referring to the unexpected complexity of F1 compared to the more familiar world of Nascar.

Asked how much the team is having to rely on Ferrari, the American added: “Quite a lot, because we get the whole powertrain from them.”

Kimi Raikkonen, however, played down the problems, “The point of testing is to test. The goal is to push the car to its limit, and when you reach it, it breaks.”

As did Sebastian Vettel, “I am not concerned about what happened to Kimi. Obviously, you don’t want these things to happen but if they do here, during a test, it’s ok. It would be worse if they happened in a couple of weeks, so it is not an issue.”

According to the paddock grapevine, however, the problems are deeper than that. Auto Bild is talking about excessive vibrations, after Ferrari drastically re-arranged the complex elements of its power unit package for 2016.

“I have always said that we are not arrogant, but I’m not worried at all,” team boss Arrivabene told Italian media.

“The car is new and it is normal that there are some areas to develop, but I confirm to all the wise owls that the engine is ok,” he added.

“I think Mercedes is top of the class and the one to beat, but we are here to bother them and we will find out in Australia,” said Arrivabene.

But as is becoming clearer by the day, it seems Mercedes is still sitting strongly atop its title-winning perch.

McLaren-Honda chief Eric Boullier summarised: “Mercedes is fast and reliable. Ferrari is not as fast and not as reliable. The rest is conjecture.”

Jos Verstappen, the father of Toro Rosso sensation Max, agrees in the pages of De Telegraaf newspaper: “The only thing we can say for sure is that Mercedes is the fastest.”

[skalls]

MIKA: Looks really impractical and stupid to me - For F1...

Perfect for F1 then lol,

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HAMILTON: THESE TYRES ARE NOT PARTICULARLY GOOD

The heat is back on Pirelli as a new Formula 1 season looms with drivers not happy with tyres for the forthcoming season.

For the sake of the racing, the official supplier has added a new layer to its compounds for 2016 to limit the tyres’ effective lives and force pitstops.

The rules have also been tweaked so that three compounds instead of two can be used by drivers every weekend, and the new ‘ultra soft’ has been turning heads in Barcelona.

Still, world champion Lewis Hamilton sounded unimpressed on Wednesday, “These tyres are not particularly good. Actually I wish we had last year’s tyres because these aren’t as good.”

Auto Motor und Sport, the specialist German source, thinks it knows why.

In the third year of stable regulations, the 2016 generation of cars have more power and downforce, and yet lap times are no faster compared to a year ago.

“The reason is the high pressures prescribed by Pirelli,” reported correspondent Michael Schmidt.

Following some tyre blowouts mid last year, Pirelli got the FIA’s support in mandating high minimum tyres pressures that the teams must obey.

For 2016, it is believed the pressures are on average 5 PSI higher than at the same time last year.

“It’s like driving on eggshells,” one unnamed driver is quoted as saying.

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HAAS: IF WE HAVE A BAD DAY I CAN’T SAY THAT’S FERRARI’S FAULT

Formula 1 newcomer Gene Haas got a taste of how frustrating Formula One can be, when his Mexican driver Esteban Gutierrez spent Wednesday stuck in the team garage while rivals clocked lap after lap in perfect sunny conditions.

The Haas team needs to get more time on track with the season fast approaching, but Gutierrez only did 23 laps on Tuesday before a fuel system problem cut short his run.

Although the team changed the turbocharger overnight, Gutierrez came off the track after just one installation lap Wednesday morning because of a problem with high revving.

“The past two days have been very frustrating,” Haas said, butlast week was a different story.

The first four days of preseason testing on the same Catalunya track near Barcelona saw Gutierrez and No. 1 driver Romain Grosjean of France — who has 10 career podium finishes — do more than 300 laps between them.

“We had an especially good week last week, but this is more what a typical normal week would be,” the 63-year-old Haas said. “I don’t really have an explanation of why we’re experiencing these problems now.”

Ferrari supplies the car’s engines, but Haas does not attribute any blame to Ferrari for the recent frustrations.

“Ferrari has a lot of responsibility toward providing the technical assistance. But there’s no reason why we can’t take some of that responsibility on ourselves and make sure that the car we put out there actually works,” Haas told reporters.

“If we have a bad day, I can’t sit there and say ‘Well, that’s Ferrari’s fault.’ We’ve got to take responsibility for how we perform on the track. We’re going to figure this out.”

Having enjoyed success in NASCAR since founding his team in 2002, Haas was granted his F1 license two years ago. After initially intending to race last year, the entry was postponed to give the team more time to properly prepare.

Haas, however, freely acknowledges he remains baffled by the technical intricacies of F1 racing.

“It’s a little bit overwhelming to be honest with you …. The complexity of the cars and engines and what we are doing with them is way beyond anything I ever expected,” said Haas, who is the founder of tool-building giant Haas Automation.

“I don’t think the fans understand how complex it is. Even I didn’t know. I was kind of naive, too, about what goes into making one of these cars run.”

Haas is the first American F1 team since Carl Haas (no relation to Gene) and Teddy Mayer fielded cars in the series in 1986.

A strong first season back in F1 will doubtless draw attention back home, but Haas hopes U.S. fans will be patient.

“If people were expecting us to go out in the next few races and suddenly compete with the big boys, that isn’t realistic,” Haas said. “We’ll see how it goes down the road, how difficult it is. I can understand how the teams struggle in this business, even the big ones.”

Understandably, Haas is reluctant to make predictions for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on March 20.

“The base expectation would be to go to the race and be reliable,” he said. “I think it’s maybe more of a challenge than we expected.”

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INDIAN STATE BANK CALLS FOR MALLYA’S ARREST

Embattled business tycoon Vijay Mallya on Thursday rejected calls for his arrest.

Amid the ongoing fallout from the collapse of his airline Kingfisher, the State Bank of India on Wednesday had also asked an Indian court for the seizure of the Force India chief’s passport over unpaid loans.

Local reports also said the court was asked to seize Mallya’s assets including his new $75 million severance payout by the liquor giant Diageo.

Confirming the applications had been made, a lawyer for Mallya told the IANS news agency: “We are filing our objections today on the merit that the tribunal was not the right forum to seek a defaulter’s arrest or impound his passport.”

Mallya reportedly owes the bank more than $200 million.

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RED BULL TO TEST F1 COCKPIT CANOPY CONCEPT IN APRIL

Red Bull will test its own proposed solution to the issue of Formula cockpit protection later this month.

On Thursday, Ferrari surprised the F1 world when Kimi Raikkonen emerged from the pits for his installation lap with a black ‘halo’ mounted on his cockpit.

It was a carbon mock-up of the solution conceived by Mercedes and developed in conjunction with the FIA.

As well as Raikkonen’s short run, conducted to get his feedback about visibility, the FIA has in recent months tested the ‘halo’ by firing tyres and debris at it under controlled conditions in England.

According to a Ferrari spokesman, Raikkonen said the visibility during his run on Thursday was “ok”.

“We have tried to accelerate the project in the last 12 months with an aim to have something that we can practically apply on F1 cars for 2017,” said FIA safety chief Laurent Mekies.

But the FIA has also left the door open to other potential solutions, despite declaring the ‘halo’ as the “preferred option” because it has been the most developed.

“Other options, such as transparent cockpit protection, will continue to be evaluated,” said the governing body.

The leading transparent solution – more of a jet-fighter canopy with bulletproof glass than a ‘halo’ – has been devised by Red Bull, although images have not been released.

“We will try our solution in late April at a show-run (F1 car demonstration),” Red Bull team boss Christian Horner told Auto Motor und Sport.

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Vettel unconcerned about reliability issues

Sebastian Vettel is not letting Ferrari's reliability troubles get to him, adamant it is better to experience it in testing that during a race weekend.

Although the German completed 151 laps on Day Two of the second Barcelona test, Kimi Raikkonen's running was limited to just 72 laps on Day One.

The Finn was responsible for one of the day's red flags as a gearbox issue brought his SF16-H to a halt out on track.

It was not the first time during the pre-season that Ferrari had lost track-time but Vettel insists he's not worried about it.

"No, not concerned. Obviously these things happen," he said. "Of course you don’t really want them to happen, but better here than in a couple of weeks during a race weekend.

"There have been some issues that we had to solve last week and also an issue yesterday – but there are still two days to go so I am not panicking!

"Today it really went well, and with all the different programs that everybody is running, you never can say who is behind. And if you decide to run eight instead of probably a necessary five laps, that is not making a huge difference in the end. It is just numbers."

But while the reliability may not be where Ferrari want it, the pace seems to be.

Both Vettel and Raikkonen have shown good pace during pre-season although the latest two days went to Mercedes and then Williams.

Vettel, though, says it is too early to predict how this season is going to pan out.

"Our goal is it to do better there than we did last year – how much better we will see. Right now everybody is only guessing where he stands.

"Before it was always a question of how much – or little – fuel everybody was running – today there are ten other things that have to be considered when looking at the time sheets.

So in the end it is all guesswork when making statements about who is where in the pecking order. The feeling is good – and that is what is important for me."

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Ricciardo: Not going to get my hopes up

Daniel Ricciardo is refusing to set targets or get his hopes up ahead of the new Formula 1 season.

The Red Bull racer put in the laps on Wednesday at the Circuit de Catalunya, racking up 135 without any reliability issues.

His best time for the day was a 1:25.235, which put him sixth on the timesheets.

However while many of those ahead were on the soft or super-soft tyres, Ricciardo's fastest time was set on the medium Pirellis.

With just two days of pre-season testing remaining, the Aussie says he's not getting his hopes up ahead of his home grand prix later this month.

He told Motorsport.com: "I'm not gonna set too many targets in terms of where we are going to end up.

"I'm not going to get my hopes up with anything. I'm just going to enjoy the weekend.

"First because we are going racing and second because we'll get some sun, be at home.

"I don't want to our hopes up, but at the same time I'm coming here to race and we'll be in the race, hopefully more towards the front.

"I think it will be similar to the end of last year. I expect us to be close with Williams and probably Force India.

"The question is how far in front are Mercedes and Ferrari."

As for Renault's progress, the three-time grand prix believes this season's campaign will be better than the last.

"The whole team has given us a lot of confidence that we'll find bigger steps this year with the power unit," he said.

"They've told us to be conservative for the first few races and not to expect too much, but I think when we get to Europe and hopefully we'll get a big step which puts up closer to the front.

"I think we are on the right path. Testing has been a lot better for us so far than it was over the last two years, so let's see how we progress."

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Grosjean says Haas needs quick fix for braking issues

Romain Grosjean says his Haas Formula 1 team must quickly get on top of its brake-by-wire issues to keep preparations for its maiden season on track.

The Frenchman caused three red flags on Thursday, the first of which came late in the morning when he locked up and ran into the gravel at Turn 4.

He then suffered a high-speed spin at the first corner in the afternoon, ending up in the gravel, before coming to a halt at Turn 10 the dying moments of the session.

Grosjean explained that the problems, which followed a fuel system issue and turbo failure over the last two days, were related to the brake-by-wire system that was introduced to the sport in 2014.

And he stressed that a quick fix was required if the team is still to hit the ground running for its grand prix debut later this month in Melbourne.

Describing the Turn 1 incident to media at the end of the day, Grosjean said: "[it was like] someone pulled the handbrake at the end of the straight!

"I wasn't 100 percent confident when I braked for Turn 1 when I got back on track, I probably braked 20 metres earlier than I should have.

"This a very complicated system, and as the car is going quicker this week we are finding more issues with that system.

"So we really need to get on top of things, because it's hurting us in terms of preparation, performance and setting up the car."

Overnight update

Grosjean was nonetheless optimistic that the braking issue would be solved in time for his final run in the VF-16 on Friday.

"Hopefully overnight we can do a big update," he added. We have really seen today what's the problem and for tomorrow hopefully we'll have a fix.

Despite the drama, Grosjean still managed to complete 78 laps of running on his return to the cockpit, albeit setting the 12th and slowest time.

"On the aero side, the chassis side, everything feels pretty much the same [as last week]," he said.

"We made long stints this morning, the tyre degradation was good, everything felt good, that was the positive of the day."

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Williams won't run 2016 nose at Barcelona

Williams will hold fire on running its definitive 2016 nose for now, with most of its final update package set to appear only at the Australian Grand Prix.

The team has run with its 2015 nose up until now, with technical chief Pat Symonds saying last week that the outfit was unsure on when it would switch to its 2016 specification.

However, with only one day of testing remaining, chief test engineer Rod Nelson has made it clear that it will not be making an appearance at Barcelona this week.

When asked when the new nose would debut, Nelson said: "You will have to wait and see, but it won't be here."

Performance shift

Williams has worked it way through its reliability check list and has begun more performance work this week, switching to qualifying simulations in the slower afternoon sessions.

Nevertheless, Massa ended up with the second fastest time on Thursday on soft tyres - having had his best lap on ultra softs thwarted by traffic.

Nelson said the times being delivered were encouraging but it was hard to know where Williams stacked up against Ferrari.

"There is no doubt that Mercedes are extremely strong and Ferrari are less so," he said. "We would like to think we are slugging it out with Ferrari.

"We have got some more bits to bring to the car and I am sure they have as well. So operationally we have to be as efficient as we can be and I won't say hopefully they will trip up, but we will do the best job we can.

"It is close – but the Mercedes are gone. We would like to be second up if we could."

Massa upbeat

Massa hailed his day with Williams as the best outing he had had in winter testing so far.

"It was quite good. In fact, I think it is the best day we had up until now," he said. "We didn't have an amazing week last week I would say, but this week is going very well.

"It was quite good for Valtteri [bottas] and today was a very good for me to understand the car.

"That is the main important thing because I managed to understand the car in the best way compared to last week, and changing the set-up, and the behaviour of the car."

But he has admitted that winter testing has not delivered any clear answers about where Williams stacks up right now.

"Where we are is difficult to say but I think we can be competitive," he said. "We know Mercedes is in front, maybe Ferrari is there, but I think there can be many different teams behind.

"I hope we can be there in a big fight, but we will know in the first race anyway."

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Hamilton slams Halo as "worst-looking mod in F1 history"

Lewis Hamilton has slammed the 'Halo' closed cockpit concept as the 'worst looking' modification in the history of Formula 1.

On the back of a wave of criticism from drivers and onlookers about how the Halo design trialled by Kimi Raikkonen was not right for F1, Hamilton went on the attack on Thursday evening.

In a post on Instagram that featured a photograph of Kimi Raikkonen's car, Hamilton declared: “Please no! This is the worst looking mod in Formula 1 history. I appreciate the quest for safety but this is Formula 1, and the way it is now is perfectly fine.”

@lewishamilton Please no! This is the worst looking mod in Formula 1 history. I appreciate the quest for safety but this is formula 1, and the way it is now is perfectly fine.

Wrong direction

Hamilton's outspoken remarks come against the backdrop of a sense of mounting frustrations from drivers about the direction that F1 is heading in.

As well as a number of criticisms about the Halo design, the drivers made it clear in a meeting with F1 race director Charlie Whiting on Wednesday that they were unhappy about plans to change qualifying.

There is also a growing sense of unease about the lack of challenge the current cars are delivering, and how over-complicated rules are detracting from the spectacle.

Fernando Alonso expressed exacerbation on Thursday night about the fiasco regarding qualifying, and the direction F1's rules had taken it.

“It's sad. I am sad,” he said.

"I am sad for the sport because... it doesn't look right, from the outside. When in one week, we change the qualifying format three times - or pretend to change, no one officialised anything.

"If I was a sportsman from another sport, I would look at Formula 1 a bit surprised about that. I don't think it's right - and the changes, too many changes. The complexity of the rules, also for the spectators, is quite high.

"All my friends here in Spain, they want to switch on television, watch battles, big cars, big tyres, big noise and enjoy the race, like they do with other sports.

"But for us they only know MGU-H, MGU-K, state of charge, supersoft, use mandatory mediums. Things like that... it's no wonder they switch off the television."

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Renault confident of smaller engine deficit to Mercedes and Ferrari\

Renault is confident that it has closed the gap on Mercedes and Ferrari this season, after delivering a half-second per lap improvement with its 2016 Formula 1 engine.

As it begins a restructuring and ramping up of efforts with its own works team, the French car manufacturer has enjoyed a much better time during testing than the previous two campaigns.

And Renault engine technical director Remi Taffin thinks that a plan to realise a half-second leap over the winter has been achieved.

When asked by Motorsport.com if the gap to Mercedes had been halved as hoped, Taffin said: “To be fair it is very difficult to compare Mercedes. I guess they are hiding their gains, and they will probably raise it when we get to Q3.

“But, we know where we have to go, we know what the goal is, and now we have got to the point where we know we can get there.

“The concepts are on the table, we have some proven facts from the dynos and we proved that bringing more than half a second over the winter is feasible. We did it. And we just have to get more steps in.”

One second is the target

Renault F1 chief Cyril Abiteboul believes that the half-second gain is more than other manufacturers have made – and hopes to deliver a similar step again later this year.

“We’ve no obvious indication so far as to what the others have made. I’ve heard things on the grapevine, but nothing for sure,” he said.

“[Half a second] is more than what we understand Ferrari and Mercedes have been doing. I’ve absolutely no clue as to what Honda have been doing. They are still a bit of a mystery for us.”

When asked if he hoped for another half-second leap in 2016, he said: “That’s the plan, that’s the target.

“We are aiming to gain one second over the season engine-wise, and we are also aiming to make some gains, which are not quantified as of now because still we are chasing a baseline on the chassis side. But there is also an expectation of a gain on the chassis.”

Development plan

Taffin said that, although it has gotten closer to Mercedes and Ferrari, Renault is not pretending it is on a par with them yet.

“I guess we should be closer to them – but the gap will still be there,” he said. “It is fair to say that, depending on how we assess this season and the steps we can fit in, I think the aim is still, starting 2017, to be fighting with them if we are to produce overall a good car.

“To be fair, if we are still working with Red Bull, maybe they can be a contender, I don't think they are going to be losing their skill for building winning race cars.”

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Williams thinks it can beat Ferrari and be second to Mercedes in F1

Williams believes it can be get ahead of Ferrari and be second to pacesetter Mercedes based on its form in pre-season Formula 1 testing.

The Grove-based outfit focused on reliability during the first week of testing and has shifted emphasis to performance during the last few days without going for headline times.

When asked for his read on where Williams stands in the pecking order, chief test engineer Rod Nelson said: "It's very close and every day's a little different.

"There's no doubt that Mercedes are extremely strong. Ferrari less so.

"We'd like to think we're slugging it out with Ferrari.

"We've got some more bits to bring to the car and I'm sure they have as well.

"Operationally we have to be as efficient as we can be.

"We'll do the best job we can. Merc's gone but we'd like to be second."

Nelson was pleased with the progress Williams has made in the last couple of days as it began stretching the limits of the car with qualifying simulations.

"The last couple of days in particular have been very good for us," he said.

"We spent most of last week looking at reliability stuff and doing our homework, and now we've started stretching the car a little bit more.

"We are still doing some longer runs looking at race pace and with a push towards qualifying - we're doing a one-hour quali session every day.

"We're not after headline times - we're doing the [qualifying simulation] session in the afternoon when it's generally slower because we want the best test conditions in the morning."

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ZETSCHE: I DON’T UNDERSTAND ECCLESTONE’S SALES PITCH

Daimler chief executive Dieter Zetsche, whose dominant Mercedes Formula One team have been champions for the past two years, has taken issue with Bernie Ecclestone for talking down the sport only weeks before the start of the new season.

Zetsche told reporters at a Mercedes E-class presentation at the former Portuguese Grand Prix circuit that he could not comprehend why Ecclestone would make such comments.

“At the Geneva Motor Show I was not going on the stage to say I would never drive a Mercedes and customers should better not do it,” he said.

“I don’t understand how someone who is not only the CEO but partial owner of that product talks that way about this product,” added the German. “If he feels about that, it should be discussed internally how to change it, but not as a sales pitch.”

Ecclestone has been at loggerheads with Mercedes, whose British driver Lewis Hamilton is chasing a fourth title this season, and their closest rivals Ferrari, accusing the manufacturers of wanting to control the sport.

The two carmakers provide power units to eight of the 11 teams, meaning that their customers generally vote in line with them in key meetings.

Ecclestone, the sport’s commercial supremo and shareholder, told Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper last month that Formula One was the worst it had ever been and he would not pay to take his family to watch it.

The 85-year-old British billionaire subsequently told Reuters that his comments were meant as a wake-up call to teams ahead of a key meeting of the core Strategy Group to discuss 2017 rule changes.

“I wasn’t talking down the sport at all, quite the opposite. I was trying to sort of explain that unless we did something that’s the way we’d be going,” he said.

In the same Daily Mail interview, Ecclestone had accused Mercedes and Ferrari of running an illegal “cartel”.