Latest F1 news in brief

Budget worth it for Mercedes to win every race

F1 budget worth every cent and more – Wolff
Gutierrez admits Haas targeting debut points
Details of changes for 2016 Ferrari car emerge
Humiliating 2015 'good for McLaren' – boss
Wehrlein still waiting for Manor news
Red Bull to use race drivers for wet test

F1 budget worth every cent and more – Wolff
(GMM) Mercedes has no thoughts whatsoever about reassessing its commitment to formula one.

The German carmaker left McLaren to become its own works team at the start of the decade, and in the new 'power unit' era has been utterly dominant.

That recent success, however, has been thanks to a huge annual budget, but team boss Toto Wolff insists it is worth every cent and more.

"We have very precise figures, in fact," he told the Austrian newspaper Tiroler Tageszeitung newspaper.

"In the last season we generated 3 billion dollars in advertising value, meaning that is the sum we would have to invest in TV and print advertising to achieve a similar result to our commitment in F1," added Wolff.

He said Mercedes therefore has no thoughts at all about quitting the sport.

"As we saw with Toyota and BMW etcetera, many teams come and go. But with us it is something different.

"The first Mercedes that was ever built was a racing car. Motor sport is in our DNA, and even hard times would not change this," Wolff insisted.

Esteban Gutierrez (L) says Haas (R) wants to score points in Australia

Gutierrez admits Haas targeting debut points
(GMM) Haas is targeting points finishes in its debut season, driver Esteban Gutierrez has confirmed.

While F1's newest teams like HRT, Caterham and Manor struggled more for mere survival than for points, the American outfit Haas is coming into F1 with a different model.

The team is working closely with Ferrari, even taking on the Maranello marque's Mexican reserve driver Gutierrez and being described by many as the red camp's 'B' team.

Bosses Gene Haas and Gunther Steiner are therefore targeting immediate points.

During a visit to Haas' North Carolina headquarters, Gutierrez confirmed: "That is our target, from the beginning. We want to be there," the 24-year-old told USA Today.

"Obviously, we want to be careful on our expectations. We're working hard to be prepared with the best car possible, but we will not know until the first test," he added.

"From the perspective of being a new team, (points) is an ambitious challenge. But we're here to compete. I think we have done things pretty well so far from team preparation and we want to target that."

Haas released a video this week showing that its team transporters have been colored all white with red lettering ahead of next month's Barcelona test.

Gutierrez's teammate will be the highly-rated former Lotus driver Romain Grosjean.

"Initially we haven't talked much," said the Mexican, "but now I'll have more contact with him because we need to work together to integrate the team and achieve the best results.

"Personally my goal is very simple," he told the Mexican edition of GQ magazine. "To work with my teammate to always go forward, whilst at the same time trying to beat him."

Ferrari is dtiching its inferior pull-rod front suspension, something AR1.com has harped on for years

Details of changes for 2016 Ferrari car emerge
(GMM) In Italy and across the world, anticipation about Ferrari's new car for 2016 and a potential championship bid is building.

A five-day countdown at the Maranello team's website has begun, with some speculating that the as-yet unnamed 2016 challenger will be unveiled on 18 January.

That, however, would be unlikely, given that official testing does not kick off for another five weeks.

But Ferrari has been named among the three teams that will test Pirelli's wet tires at Paul Ricard later this month.

However, only 2015-specification cars will be used.

"I don't think I'll do the test in January," Kimi Raikkonen said just before Christmas. "After all, only older cars will be there.

"Fortunately I think we still have Esteban Gutierrez," he told the Finnish newspaper Turun Sanomat, referring to the 2015 Ferrari reserve and new Haas race driver.

It is interesting that Gutierrez might be used by Ferrari for the Paul Ricard test, as there have been rumors the Maranello team has benefitted from the collaboration with Haas as it pushes to make key car changes for 2016.

The front suspension of the 2016 Ferrari, for instance, has reportedly been completely overhauled, and Italy's Autosprint magazine now claims that the rear of the car is also narrower.

The report also suggested Ferrari has re-arranged the layout of the Ferrari engine's energy recovery systems for the new car, whose project codename is 667.

Another change, Autosprint claims, is the nose, with the rounded shape of 2015 giving way to a more Toro Rosso-style setup for the new season.

Eric Boullier

Humiliating 2015 'good for McLaren' – boss
(GMM) McLaren's abysmal season was actually "good" for the team, boss Eric Boullier says.

Following the hype of Honda's return to F1 last year and the reunion of the formerly-dominant Anglo-Japanese collaboration, McLaren slumped to the horror low of just ninth at the end of the world championship campaign.

Boss Boullier admits the humiliation was tough for the team to digest.

"McLaren is a big team, Honda is a big company and both have a great heritage," he is quoted by The Sun newspaper.

"To keep the trust of the people, the credibility, the morale high, it's a hard job. But what we saw was a lot of success in building for the future.

"In some way the bad will be good for McLaren because it brought humility, and strangely maybe, the atmosphere in the company was quite good," Frenchman Boullier was quoted as saying on Wednesday by the correspondent Ben Hunt.

"I'm not saying people were excited by the results – everybody was frustrated – but the atmosphere, the commitment of the people, the understanding, were huge.

"Either the system explodes, or everybody regroups. I guess there was a sense within McLaren to regroup," he added.

Interestingly, it is McLaren-Honda that was named by Pirelli to accompany top teams Ferrari and Red Bull to the wet-tire test at Paul Ricard later this month.

World champion Mercedes' apparent decision to sit out the session was a surprise for some, but a spokesperson for the German team said: "We are happy for others to do the work.

"This allows us to focus on the design of our (2016) car," the spokesperson is quoted as saying by France's Canal Plus.

Pascal Wehrlein is expected to take a Manor seat in exchange for the team getting Mercedes engines

Wehrlein still waiting for Manor news
(GMM) Pascal Wehrlein says he is still waiting to know if he will make his formula one debut in 2016.

Up and down the grid, the only official race seat vacancies still up for grabs for this year are at the backmarker Manor.

Mercedes reserve and new reigning DTM champion Wehrlein, 21, is in the running for a seat, but so too are Alexander Rossi, Will Stevens and the handsomely-backed Indonesian Rio Haryanto.

And Toto Wolff admitted recently that Manor's other candidates are the favorites, as Mercedes is only willing to spend so much on a place for the young German.

When asked about the prospect of making his F1 debut in 2016, Wehrlein said this week: "The situation is unchanged.

"I hope that soon there is something concrete," he told the German website motorsport-total.com.

"As a driver, you want to prepare purposefully for the task ahead."

Wehrlein suggested that if he does not make it into F1 this year, he will instead spend the season defending his title for Mercedes in DTM.

"No matter how it turns out, I look ahead with pleasure into 2016 as I have so much fun in DTM. And perhaps I will get a chance in formula one for the 2017 season," he added.

Wehrlein said there is no point becoming frustrated about the situation in F1, where drivers with more financial backing are increasingly at the front of the queue.

"I cannot change the situation," he insisted. "There are just other drivers who can bring a lot of money.

"These colleagues are of course happy they can do it that way. It doesn't annoy me because I begrudge them a cockpit, but because I really did everything I could in 2015 in order to put myself towards formula one," Wehrlein added.

"It is also true that even the drivers who come into F1 with money are not exactly slow. And some of the teams are in the situation that they are dependent on that money. So it's just the way it is," he said.

Ricciardo and Kvyat will do wet weather testing

Red Bull to use race drivers for wet test
Red Bull will field race drivers Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat at Pirelli's dedicated wet tire test at Paul Ricard later this month, the team has confirmed to GPUpdate.net.

Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren are the three teams attending the test, scheduled to run from January 25-26, to assist Pirelli with the evaluation of prototype wet compounds.

McLaren was the first team to announce its driver plans, with test/reserve pilot and reigning GP2 champion Stoffel Vandoorne being called up for both test days in southern France.

Red Bull has now revealed that Ricciardo will drive for the outfit on the opening day, before handing over to team-mate Kvyat for day two, and the conclusion of the test.

Ferrari is therefore the only team yet to confirm its test line-up.