Latest F1 news in brief

Bottas to Ferrari if Ferrari releases Raikkonen

Hakkinen understands Mercedes 'team order'
Managers want Bottas to be champion – Hakkinen
Secret F1 income payment system leaked
Ferrari exit 'unavoidable' for Alonso
Renault admits 'something wrong' at factory
Sainz happy to survive Verstappen hype
Honda to use engine 'tokens' mid-season
Massa wants more test freedom in F1
Nasr says no Sauber upgrades yet

Hakkinen understands Mercedes 'team order'
(GMM) Mika Hakkinen says he can understand why Mercedes issued a 'team order' towards the end of the Spanish grand prix.

After the Barcelona race, championship leader Lewis Hamilton claimed he "ignored" his team's advice to bring the car home rather than try to chase down teammate Nico Rosberg.

"I'm here to race, not to finish second, so naturally I ignored that," the Briton said afterwards.

"I'll definitely be making sure that it's not said again," Hamilton added.

But former two-time world champion Hakkinen said he can understand why Mercedes issued the order.

"Overloading the engine at that point would not have been wise," the Finn said in his latest interview with Hermes.

"I fully understand why the team asked him to save the car. They didn't say it because they didn't want Lewis to win — the reason was technical."

Managers want Bottas to be champion – Hakkinen
(GMM) Mika Hakkinen says he does not want to add more fuel to the rumors surrounding Valtteri Bottas.

In Barcelona, the Williams driver had to address speculation he has been targeted as a potential Ferrari star of the future.

Also making comments over the Spanish grand prix weekend was Didier Coton, Bottas' day-to-day manager who admitted that the 25-year-old could eventually move to another team.

Hakkinen, the former two-time world champion, is also involved in Bottas' management,

He said this week: "Didier Coton already spoke about this in Barcelona. I don't want to say any more.

"Valtteri's job is to do everything he can to succeed as a driver, while the managers are responsible for ensuring that one day he has the chance to be world champion," Hakkinen said in his latest interview with Hermes.

Bottas' third 'manager' is the Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff.

Secret F1 income payment system leaked
(GMM) Ahead of a crucial meeting about F1's future on Thursday, the inequality of the sport's secret payments system has been exposed.

According to The Times newspaper, the revealed figures will put Bernie Ecclestone "under severe pressure" to scrap the system that saw Ferrari receive from the commercial rights holders $37 million more than champions Mercedes last year.

And the difference in income paid to the big teams like Red Bull – who "bizarrely" also got more than champions Mercedes – and the struggling midfielders including Force India and Sauber, is revealed to be up to $100 million per year.

"How can the smaller teams possibly organize their budgets or compete when the figures are so unequal?" said a business strategy expert.

"These figures show why some sponsors will not take risks by going into F1," he added.

Another source told the newspaper: "The sport treats small independents abominably with a payments system that is hopeless, unfair and divisive."

Meanwhile, it emerges that even the F1 drivers are concerned about the state of the sport.

Daniel Ricciardo announced on Twitter that because "We want to hear from you the fans what you think about our sport", the Grand Prix Drivers' Association will launch a 'global fan survey' in Monaco next week.

Don't believe what you read from the Spanish media – Alonso was asked to leave Ferrari after they signed Vettel for $80M per year

Ferrari exit 'unavoidable' for Alonso
(GMM) Luca di Montezemolo has backed away from his earlier criticism of Ferrari.

The former Ferrari president's claim that the Maranello team was "lucky" in 2015 had triggered renewed suggestions he is simply bitter about his ousting.

"I'm tired of all this," he was quoted by Ansa news agency on Wednesday. "All I say now is 'Forza Ferrari!'"

Montezemolo's comments come amid an increasing feeling that Fernando Alonso made a big mistake by leaving the resurgent Ferrari for struggling McLaren-Honda.

Emilio de Villota, a former Spanish driver, admitted it is "a little frustrating for the Spanish fans" to see Alonso's current plight.

"People say he would have been better to stay at Ferrari," he told El Confidencial, "but that would not have been the solution, as we see that (Sebastian) Vettel is still third.

"What Fernando did was an unavoidable risk," added de Villota.

Indeed, having utterly dominated in Spain, Nico Rosberg is now confident Mercedes can maintain its advantage over Ferrari at the next race, in Monaco.

"The last sector in Barcelona is very similar to Monaco's tight corners," he is quoted by AS newspaper, "and our car was very good there so I'm optimistic."

Rosberg has won in the Principality for the past two years.

Renault admits their engines are lemons

Renault admits 'something wrong' at factory
(GMM) Renault has admitted there is "something wrong" at its Viry-Chattilon base.

The French marque is struggling to get to the bottom of a fundamental problem in the area of its piston design that has led to multiple failures in 2015.

"On the dyno the engines are reliable," chief Cyril Abiteboul said, "but when we come on track they are not.

"Obviously there is something wrong in our validation process, from dyno to track. It's just like aerodynamics, when the wind tunnel is not telling the truth; it's exactly the same in the engine world," he told F1's official website.

But the Frenchman said Renault is working hard to solve its problems, and keen to race away from earlier suggestions it might split with Red Bull or even quit F1 altogether.

"We are living through a tough moment," said Abiteboul. But "this marriage has all the reason in the world to last.

"So we have to do a better job on-track, but we also have to a better job off-track," he insisted.

Carlos Sainz Jr. may be better than the over-hyped Max Verstappen

Sainz happy to survive Verstappen hype
(GMM) According to some, Carlos Sainz has been the 'revelation of the season'.

The build-up to the Spaniard's debut season in formula one was totally overshadowed by Max Verstappen, who at 17 is the youngest driver in F1 history and already compared by some to the great Ayrton Senna.

But Sainz, the 'other' Toro Rosso driver with a famous father, has actually scored more points than Dutchman Verstappen so far, and in Barcelona was hailed for qualifying fifth.

"I don't know if I am the revelation of the year," he smiled when asked by Diario Sport newspaper, "but the start for me has been positive and I think I have surprised a lot of people.

"Now I have to continue at this level because the same people forget very quickly," Sainz added.

But he is relieved that, after all the Verstappen hype, he has managed to make a mark in 2015.

"We have all seen how good Max is," said Sainz, "it was not exaggerated, but just because he is good does not mean I am not as well.

"These first races have shown the people who thought that he would destroy me."

Honda to use engine 'tokens' mid-season
(GMM) Honda will "soon" begin to spend its tokens to improve the performance of its F1 engine.

To date, improvements made to the Japanese marque's 'power unit' have been for reliability purposes.

It means that McLaren's works supplier still has in its possession the 9 'tokens' it was awarded at the beginning of the year by the governing FIA, which can be exchanged for in-season performance upgrades.

F1 chief Yasuhisa Arai would not say exactly when Honda will begin to use the tokens, but it will not be done at the very end of the season.

"That would not make sense," he told Spain's Marca. "We will (use them) when we know that we will gain (from them), and it will be soon, after the tests."

Arai is no doubt referring to the two in-season tests, including the two-day Barcelona session that has just ended.

The only other test will be in the days after the Austrian grand prix at the Red Bull Ring in late June.

And Honda is not ruling out using all 9 tokens in one hit.

"We're studying it," said Arai, "but we have not decided."

Massa wants more freedom

Massa wants more test freedom in F1
(GMM) Felipe Massa would prefer if teams were given more freedom to decide their in-season testing plans.

For cost reasons, there are now only two official group tests within the annual race calendar — immediately after the Spanish and Austrian grands prix.

The two-day Barcelona session, attended by Brazilian Massa, has just ended.

"Tests are always important," he told UOL Esporte. "It's always good to do laps to understand the car better.

"But even if it is important, I think a test like that in Barcelona is less important because we have just raced here, and now we are going to a completely different track so it's not so easy to get things ready for Monaco," said Massa.

However, the 34-year-old said he understands that cost restraints in formula one make post-race tests more affordable for struggling teams.

"It is not a matter of preference," said Massa, "it is just what some teams are able to do.

"There are some teams that could test anywhere, but others not — that's why they test after the race because it costs less."

Interestingly, Massa said that Williams would be among the teams who might choose to test privately, even though the British team's budget is not one of the biggest in the sport.

"For us, it would be interesting to test somewhere else, but we have to understand the whole situation," he insisted.

Felipe Nasr says Sauber has not rolled out any upgrades yet – no money no upgrades

Nasr says no Sauber upgrades yet
(GMM) Felipe Nasr is expecting Sauber to suffer at the next few races.

Early in 2015, the Brazilian rookie emerged as a potential star of the future, finishing fifth in Australia and scoring more points in China.

But Nasr, 22, warned before the Spanish grand prix – where he qualified 15th – that a lack of performance upgrades could mean Sauber begins to struggle.

"I think I'm doing my best with what I have," he said after the Barcelona round.

"I think I capitalized well in the early races to score as much as possible when I had the opportunity."

Sauber, with probably the second-smallest budget in F1 and having struggled for survival over the winter, benefitted early in 2015 from Ferrari's vastly improved engine.

But the Swiss team then arrived in Spain where key rivals unveiled substantial performance upgrades.

Nasr, meanwhile, said: "I'm driving the same car with which I started the year in Australia. There's nothing different, just small details."

He said the C34 car will only be upgraded "mid-season". UOL Esporte said the upgraded Sauber is expected no earlier than Belgium in late August.