Latest F1 news in brief
- Barrichello slams Brazilian media after 'crap' comment
- Sauber sorry for departing Rampf after Sepang 'debacle'
- Button flies 30 hours for McLaren simulator tests
- F1 teams had input into India's GP circuit
- Coulthard urges F1 to hold fire on rule changes
Barrichello slams Brazilian media after 'crap' comment
(GMM) Rubens Barrichello has slammed his critics who claim he angrily described the Williams and Virgin cars as "porcarias".
In his native Portuguese, the mild obscenity translates roughly as "piece of junk" or even "crap", after the 37-year-old finished the Malaysian GP a lap down, while his rookie countryman Lucas di Grassi was lapped three times in the Virgin.
"After the race I joked during a press conference with di Grassi that we needed to greatly improve our 'porcarias' to catch up with the new championship leader and our friend Massinha," Barrichello clarified.
"It was totally (in) fun and everyone who was there felt it in exactly the same way. But some others said I had spoken badly of my team.
"While people in his country (India) look on the bright side and applaud Karun Chandhok for finishing 15th, some Brazilians insist on looking at things the other way," he added.
Sauber sorry for departing Rampf after Sepang 'debacle'
(GMM) Peter Sauber said he felt most sorry for departing technical boss Willy Rampf in the wake of the Swiss team's Malaysian "debacle".
After a deceptively impressive winter season for the formerly BMW-owned squad, the C29 car has struggled for pace so far in 2010.
On the grid formation laps at Sepang, Pedro de la Rosa's Ferrari-powered car suffered an engine failure, and teammate Kamui Kobayashi's V8 unit lasted just 9 laps more.
Malaysia was 56-year-old German Rampf's last race at the helm, with former Force India technical director James Key, 38, starting work on 1 April.
"I feel most sorry for Willy Rampf. For nearly 15 years he was our loyal technical boss, and at his very last race he has to live through such a debacle," 66-year-old team chief and founder Sauber told the Swiss newspaper Blick.
"Until the last day he fought for our team, and I know how much these losses affect him, even if he cannot do anything about it," he added.
Ferrari is investigating the precise cause of the two engine failures, but Sauber said on Sunday that the problem was with the pneumatic system.
The failure aboard Fernando Alonso's works Ferrari, meanwhile, was different.
F1's three new teams aside, Sauber is the only entrant yet to score a single world championship point in 2010.
Peter Sauber, who is still looking for a main sponsor for his Hinwil based team, said: "Yes, it is our worst ever position.
"I knew that it would not be easy for us, but I didn't count on it being quite so hard," he added.
Button flies 30 hours for McLaren simulator tests
(GMM) After the checkered flag flew in Bahrain, McLaren ordered Jenson Button to shortly begin a 30-hour return to Europe.
Flying to F1's next stop, Shanghai, would have cost the reigning world champion just five hours in the air, and only a couple more hours would have had him relaxing in his Japanese girlfriend Jessica's native Japan.
But McLaren wanted Button, 30, to instead complete the 21,000 kilometer marathon for just a single working day at the wheel of the sophisticated driver simulator at Woking.
He will then fly from the UK back to Asia for a holiday, prior to completing the journey to China for round four next weekend.
"Thirty hours travel for one day," Button smilingly contemplated before leaving Kuala Lumpur. "But it will be worth it, hopefully."
After winning in Melbourne, Button comparatively struggled in Malaysia, climbing to eighth on Sunday while his teammate Lewis Hamilton finished a highly-commended sixth from lower on the grid.
Button is struggling with the balance of the MP4-25, while McLaren want him to hone the latest developments that are due to be added to the package in Shanghai.
"The great thing is our car is improving all the time, but I'm still not 100 per cent happy with its balance," the Briton said.
"Hopefully we can sort out some of the problems in the simulator. It's a long way back but they wouldn't be sending me unless there were a few things to test."
F1 teams had input into India's GP circuit
(GMM) F1 teams contributed to the design of India's new grand prix circuit.
Under construction since last November outside the capital Delhi, the layout was penned by the formula one regular Hermann Tilke's German company.
But Mark Hughes, vice president of promoter Jaypee who have signed a ten-year race contract with Bernie Ecclestone, said the teams have also been involved in the shape of the track that could be the fastest on the calendar after Monza.
"We sent the details to all the teams and they programmed the information into their simulators and gave us feedback on where we could make improvements and add overtaking opportunity points," he said in an interview with Reuters.
Hughes, formerly involved with the Bahrain race, said he expects the privately-funded $350 million venue to host its inaugural race next October.
Coulthard urges F1 to hold fire on rule changes
(GMM) Despite recently slamming F1's boring new formula, David Coulthard now insists the constant sniping about the sport's dubious spectacle is "getting a little wearing".
After the 2010 season opener, the former grand prix driver wrote in his Telegraph column that the processional Bahrain race was the fault of ex-FIA president Max Mosley.
Scot Coulthard hit out at not only the refuelling ban, but also the 18,000rpm rev limit, long-life gearboxes and engines and the single tire supplier.
But with the weather intervening to spice up the subsequent action in Australia and Malaysia, the 39-year-old has now changed his tune.
"The sport seems to be under permanent review at the moment but let's just hang on a minute," said the winner of 13 grands prix, referring to the latest reports about Bernie Ecclestone still wanting to make some rule changes.
After Bahrain, Coulthard backed calls for two mandatory pitstops and tires that are designed to degrade faster.
But he wrote in his latest newspaper column: "Not every football match is a classic and no one is calling for the beautiful game to be ripped up by its roots.
"I saw enough at searing Sepang on Sunday to suggest that the powers-that-be play it by ear for now," added Coulthard, admitting that three weeks after boring Bahrain "everything is looking a lot rosier".