Euro Sports Events

With the first European race on the Formula 1 circus taking place next weekend at the Circuit de Catalunya at Montmelo, north of Barcelona the teams have been trying to get a handle on how their rivals are doing.

One of the biggest gainers this year so far has been BMW Sauber, with strong performances in all the Grands Prix to date. And Renault have been testing their modified car, with Fernando Alonso hoping to do well in front of his home crowd.

With changes made to the suspension and nose cone it remains to be seen whether the team is really in with a chance this season, or need to go back to the drawing board to play catch up.

Today is the last day of testing at the Barcelona circuit at Montmelo and with the rain pouring down it is unlikely to be particularly useful for many of the teams.

Two teams that it will make little difference to are Super Aguri, missing due to near financial collapse, and Toro Rosso, whose new car was damaged beyond repair by newcomer Sebastien Bourdais yesterday. With no spare care, Sebastian Vettel will miss on on his test drive today anyway.

Meanwhile Michael Schumacher has been testing for Ferrari and has criticised plans to ban tyre warmers next year. With the planned reintroduction of slicks, driving with them cold presents a safety issue, although he has welcomed their reintroduction saying racing with them is “more fun because there’s more grip”.

Stricken Super Aguri suffered a setback yesterday when they announced that a proposed buyout by Magma Group has fallen through.

The team had been the only one not to make it to the Barcelona track at Montmelo for testing due to ongoing negociations and although in a statement they revealed that negotiations with other potential backers were continuing, the future of the team is currently uncertain.

The team’s drivers are Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson.

All teams except Super Aguri are at the Montmelo track ahead of the Barcelona Grand Prix which starts a week on Friday. According to Yahoo Sports, Michael Schumacher will be test driving a car set up for next year’s regulations to start collecting data.

More info to follow as it is released.

After Sunday’s poor start to the Bahrain GP by Lewis Hamilton, which he afterwards admitted was his fault for having failed to put the car into start mode, McLaren are looking at their race start procedures to see what can be improved to remove this kind of doubt in future.

It also appears that Hamilton may have hit another car before running into the back of Fernando Alono due to the fact that his nose wing was broken before the impact. While McLaren haven’t ruled out the chance that the wing broke of its own accord, this possibility was downplayed by McLaren COO Martin Whitmarsh as it has not happened before.

With three weeks until the next Grand Prix at Barcelona, Hamilton and McLaren have some time to play with; however, with BMW Sauber looking stronger than ever before, this season is going to be much more than a 2 team competition and if Renault are able to deliver their promised performance improvements in time for Barcelona Hamilton cannot afford to drop too many more points.

An extremely poor start for Lewis Hamilton, followed by contact with the backof Fernando Alonso’s car forcing an early pitstop meant that he was fighting much of the race from the rear. The race was dominated by Ferrarri and BWM, a team that has made huge progress this year, achieving their first pole position today with Robert Kubica.

Both the McLarens were slightly off the pace, although Hamilton may have suffered more than just a broken nose cone in the incident with Alonso. The British drivers seemed to have an accident prone day, with Jenson Button knocking both himself and David Coulthard off the track when he attempted to overtake his friend. However, it was Button who came off worse, and after having his nose cone replaced the car was clearly not race fit, forcing him to retire.

However, it was a good day for Felipe Massa, who not only won today’s race but it was also his first finish this season after retiring in both Australia and Malaysia.

1. Massa
2. Raikkonen
3. Kubica
4. Heidfeld
5. Kovalainen
6. Trulli
7. Webber
8. Rosberg

9. Glock
10. Alonso
11. Barrichello
12. Fisichella
13. Hamilton
14. Nakajima
15. Bourdais
16. Davidson
17. Sato
18. Coulthard
19. Sutil

Retired

Piquet
Button
Vettel

Raikkonen now heads the drivers championship, with BMW Sauber at the top of the constructor’s competition.

The next F1 Grand Prix will take place in Barcelona in three weeks.

BMW Sauber driver Robert Kubica took pole position in qualifying today, as he pipped Felipe Massa to the post at the last minute. Lewis Hamilton is in third place on the grid, with Kimi Raikkonen just ahead of Hamilton’s McLaren teammate Heikki Kovalainen.

A slight rule change was introduced in the qualifiers to prevent a repeat of the Malaysian Grand Prix, when the McLarens were deemed to have blocked rival teams on flying laps by their low speed out-lap, with the introduction of a minimum lap time. However, no driver was penalized for tomorrow’s race.

A stewards inquiry took place due to Massa ignoring a yellow flag at one stage of the race, however his conduct was not found to be dangerous and no penalty was applied.

The race starts at 12:30 BST.

Lewis Hamilton has been upping his fitness level to help him in the heat of Bahrain. On an island hopping trip to Thailand with his trainer and Force Indian driver Adrian Sutil he has been participating in various sports, such as swimming and tennis to improve his fitness ahead of the Bahrain GP.

Meanwhile the sex scandal involving Max Mosley refuses to die down. After being asked by Bernie Ecclestone to stay away from Bahrain and being told he was persona non grata and not welcome ruling Prince, it seems that Lewis has come out against him too, backing the line of BMW, McLaren-Mercedes, Toyota and Honda and saying “I think it’s key to set a good example”.

Mind you, there can be little love lost between McLaren box Ron Dennis and Mosley after their public spats during the Ferrarri scandal that blighted last season.

Click here to view the results of Friday’s first practice session

Tickets for the Valencia Grand Prix have now gone on sale, with the Spanish press reporting long queues as locals bought up tickets, selling out the first release in just one hour.

Meanwhile, it appears that Ferrarri has dropped plans to debut a radical new nosecone in Bahrain. The cone, which has been tested by Marc Gene, has a hole in it to improve airflow and will probably be delayed until the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona, later this month.

After Lewis Hamilton’s disappointing performance in the Malaysian Grand Prix last month, he’ll be looking to capitalize on his points advantage in the forthcoming Bahrain Grand Prix on Sunday. Hamilton remains at the head of the drivers’ table after 2 Grand Prix, having picked up 4 points for coming in 5th.

He is due to appear at the Bahrain GP press conference on Thursday at 13:00 BST (15:00 local time). The full lineup of drivers is: Lewis Hamilton (McLaren), Nick Heidfeld (BMW Sauber), Nico Rosberg (Williams) and Jarno Trulli (Toyota).