Hamilton's Hot Test Time Sheets

Getty Images

Lewis Hamilton is ignoring predictions that his Mercedes team will be untouchable heading into the new Formula One season.

McLaren’s Fernando Alonso has said Mercedes, who have won 32 of the last 38 grands prix, are looking “stronger than ever”, while Valtteri Bottas of Williams does not expect another team to challenge them when the season gets under way in Melbourne later this month.

Hamilton topped the timesheets on Wednesday morning as Mercedes again demonstrated they have the pace to match their bulletproof reliability. But the Briton, attempting to win his third consecutive championship, does not expect the upcoming campaign to be a forgone conclusion.

“Honestly, I have not looked at where everyone else is,” Hamilton, who completed 72 laps at the Circuit de Catalunya on Wednesday, told Sky Sports F1. “Everyone naturally is going to hype us up, every single person is going to hype us up, but you really don’t know what fuel load Ferrari are on.

“I think they have got a strong package, even Williams look like they have got quite a strong package, so I would not take any notice of what they are saying to be honest.”

Mercedes have covered more distance than their rivals in the six days of winter testing in Barcelona so far, and Nico Rosberg was the fastest for the Silver Arrows on Tuesday.

“I’ve the feeling it’s the best season’s start we’ve had in the last couple of years,” said their executive director, Toto Wolff, whose team have won the last two constructors’ championships.

“But we still haven’t seen what the other frontrunning cars are capable of extracting performance-wise. We’ve haven’t seen Ferrari, Williams, and Red Bull.

“So let’s keep our feet on the ground and see where we end up on Saturday afternoon in Melbourne, which will give more indication.”

Related articles

• Formula 1 Pre-Season Testing 2016: Times and Tuesday Report from Barcelona
• New Mercedes F1 car breaks cover
• F1 2016, Barcelona test, Day 2: Sebastian Vettel sets the pace yet again on the ultra soft tyres, and driver reactions
• F1 preseason starts with teams targeting Mercedes again
• Alonso says Mercedes 'stronger than ever'
• Formula 1 News: Ferrari Leads In Barcelona Testing As Alonso Feels Good About McLaren Chassis

Crutchlow in Catalunya Test Crash

Cal Crutchlow was involved in a high-speed crash in a MotoGP test session at the Catalunya circuit in Spain.

Crutchlow, 26, was on his second fast lap when he lost control at around 125mph, wrecking his Tech 3 Yamaha.

The Briton, who finished fifth in Sunday's Grand Prix , walked away with grazing on his back and shoulders.

He said on Twitter: "Massive massive crash second lap on wet patch under bridge no-one could see. 200kph. Am ok! Went back out as we have a job to do."

"So sorry to the boys as the bike was totalled."

The start of Monday's testing session was delayed due to heavy overnight rain and Czech rider Karel Abraham also suffered a crash.

Crutchlow's bike cleared the perimeter fence after he skidded in the braking zone while in fourth gear.

The Coventry rider lay still on the gravel for several seconds before getting slowly to his feet and being taken away for medical checks.

He was able to get back out on track but was off the pace, ending the morning session outside of the top 10.

"I got thrown a long way and there is basically nothing left of the bike.

"Luckily I am not hurt because it was fourth gear and really fast, so it could have been a lot worse."

Lorenzo Wins at Circuit de Catalunya

Yamaha Factory Racing’s Jorge Lorenzo stormed to victory at the Gran Premi Aperol de Catalunya in front of his home crowd ahead of Dani Pedrosa and Andrea Dovizioso.

After a wet morning warm-up, the field got away in dry conditions this afternoon, and it was Repsol Honda Team’s Pedrosa who got the holeshot from the second row, hotly pursued by Yamaha´s Ben Spies, who also had a tremendous start from fourth. Lorenzo pushed his way past Casey Stoner into third, as the whole grid was tightly bunched in the first lap.

Within a few corners, Monster Yamaha Tech 3’s Andrea Dovizioso muscled his way past Stoner, who subsequently ran wide a lap later, also letting through Cal Crutchlow. With 23 laps left, Spies, who looked to have the superior pace, made a move on Pedrosa, yet ran wide and dropped his bike in the dirt. This put paid to what had been his most promising start to a race yet.

With 21 laps remaining, the front five of Pedrosa, Lorenzo, Dovizioso, Crutchlow and Stoner started to pull out a gap to the following group, led by San Carlo Honda Gresini’s Álvaro Bautista. On the same lap, Avintia Blusens’ Yonny Hernandez ran off track, yet managed to avoid the gravel trap.

Two laps later Lorenzo went past Pedrosa on the brakes down the home straight, while Stoner took Crutchlow for fourth shortly after. Further down the field, Ducati Team’s Valentino Rossi passed LCR Honda MotoGP’s Stefan Bradl for seventh, and started pursuing Bautista. Spies, who did manage to remount after his crash, had made his way back to 12th at this point.

Pedrosa made use of superior drive on the straight with 14 laps left, as he passed Lorenzo in the slipstream, yet could not shake him on the ensuing lap. One lap later, Lorenzo was too late on the brakes into the first turn, letting Dovizioso close the gap once more, and making yet more work for himself to catch his compatriot at the front.

Dovizioso had a moment eleven laps before the end, dropping off the pace just briefly, while Crutchlow ran very deep into the first corner in his battle for fourth. Stoner, Pedrosa and Bradl were the only bikes in the top ten with the hard compound rear tyre, yet at the half way point there was no obvious advantage, as Lorenzo was slowly closing the gap to the Spanish Repsol Honda rider.

With just six laps remaining, Lorenzo was right on the rear wheel of Pedrosa, as the pair were involved in a nail-biting tussle for the lead. It was the Repsol rider who subsequently made a mistake with a big wheelie, which allowed Lorenzo past in the following corner. Behind the pair, Dovizioso, Stoner and Crutchlow where involved in a battle for third, whilst they were followed further down by Bautista and Rossi fighting it out for sixth.

With three laps to go, Lorenzo started to open up a small advantage, while Crutchlow was on the back of Stoner’s rear wheel, though was struggling to find a way past. The final lap however, saw the Australian drop the Brit and hunt down Dovizioso.

Yet in the end it was Lorenzo who took the chequered flag by over five seconds from Pedrosa, with Dovizioso holding off Stoner to take his first podium this year. The reigning world champion finished fourth, which is the first time he hasn’t stood on the podium since Jerez last year. The top ten were completed by Cal Crutchlow, Álvaro Bautista, Valentino Rossi, Stefan Bradl, Ducati’s Nicky Hayden and Ben Spies. Top CRT honour went to local rider Aleix Espargaró on board his Power Electronics Aspar machine.

MotoGP Catalunya Pre-Race Media

Thursday’s pre-race press conference for the fifth round of the MotoGP™ championship at the Gran Premi Aperol de Catalunya saw championship leader Jorge Lorenzo joined by Dani Pedrosa, Valentino Rossi, Stefan Bradl and Yonny Hernandez.

Yamaha Factory Racing’s Lorenzo, fresh from a dominant victory in the wet at Le Mans, leads the championship standings by eight points at present. The Catalunya circuit has yielded success for the Spaniard in the past, where he has recorded one win and two second-place finishes in the last three years. He commented: "I’m arriving in a good state. I’m very happy, very motivated. It’s my home race. I’m from Mallorca, but have lived in Barcelona for a long time. It’s also a track where I’ve had great results in the past. I think for the 1000cc Yamaha it could be a good track. I hope we have a weekend with good conditions, but if it rains we’ll be ok as well.

"It’s [the season] been very tough with a lot of competition, especially in the front group with Casey [Stoner] and Dani. The races have a very high pace and are physically demanding. To be at the front you can’t stop concentrating, you have to be at the limit all the time, and of course not crash. To do this is always difficult, but I’m a little bit older and more experienced than the pervious years, so this can make it a bit easier."

Repsol Honda Team’s Dani Pedrosa, who missed last year’s round with a broken collarbone, will be looking to close the gap to his teammate Casey Stoner and Lorenzo with a victory in front of his home crowd. He said: "I’m happy to be here. It’s been a great start to the season, although last race wasn’t so good. Last year I missed this one and had to watch it on the TV, which is not the greatest feeling. I have won here in the three classes and I aim to get a good result this time. It’s a hard track, especially for the bike and the tyres; you have to have a good set-up on the bike here. As Jorge says, it’s important to keep the pace up and be on the limit all the time."

Ducati Team’s Valentino Rossi, fresh from a private test at Mugello, stated that finding pace in the dry was the main aim for the Italian outfit this weekend: "We were in Mugello last week and we were lucky with the weather. We could try some new stuff to try to improve our speed and performance in the dry. We tried a different swingarm and some improvements in the electronic system under acceleration. To understand if we have made a step we will have to wait until tomorrow. We know that in the rain we’re fast, but our target is to be faster in the dry. It’s [Catalunya] one of my three favourite tracks of the season. I love to race here and I love the atmosphere with the fans.

LCR Honda MotoGP’s Stefan Bradl, who recorded his best result in fifth last time out is looking to not get carried away this weekend and keep progressing as he has been: "When we come to a track where we haven’t tested, Friday is always really tough for me because I only have the reference from last year in Moto2™. I need to adapt little things and try and get it together, but this track I really like. It’s a really good one for a MotoGP bike. We hope to have some good weather this weekend."

Avintia Blusens’ Yonny Hernandez, who is the first ever Columbian rider to record points in the MotoGP class, is aiming to put in a solid performance on his team’s home ground: "For me it is like home because my team is from here. I feel very good on this track and I expect to have a good race and get a good result for me, my team and for my family. I’ll try to do my best. To share the track with Valentino, Lorenzo and Pedrosa is like a dream for me."

Towards the end of the press conference, when both Lorenzo and Pedrosa were prompted about their now seemingly friendly relationship, which was far from that in the past, Lorenzo joked: "In 2003 we were enemies, in 2005 more, and then in 2008 even more. Now we can have a hug [after Qatar race]….maybe in three years we can get married."

Criticism of Fire Crews Circuit Catalunya

Force India's deputy team principal Bob Fearnley has fiercely criticised the response of the circuit's fire crews to the Williams garage incident at the Spanish Grand Prix yesterday.

Pastor Maldonado took the chequered flag to give Williams their first taste of success for 132 races, their last back in Brazil in 2004, and becoming the first Venezuelan to win in F1 history.

But just 90 minutes after the race ended, as founder Sir Frank Williams gave a speech to every team member in the garage, a blaze, believed to have originated in the fuel area, quickly took hold.

As thick, acrid black smoke billowed from the garage, Williams personnel, along with those from Caterham and Force India in the neighbouring garages, fought to bring the blaze under control.

Once managed, Fearnley hit out at the laid back response of the fire crews at the Circuit de Catalunya and demanded that more attention is paid to how much training they receive.

"Incompetent would be a very polite way of saying what these people have done here today," Fearnley said. "There's no training, no procedures. I went down to see how my man is, and I had to fight my way in.

"We need to look seriously at the training of people at the circuits. I'm not impressed at all."

Meanwhile, Williams chief operations engineer Mark Gillan extended the team's gratitude to their rivals for their help in dealing with yesterday's fire which resulted in 31 team members being attended to by circuit medical centre staff, seven of whom remain in hospital.

"On behalf of Williams, I'd like to thank all of the team members from other teams for their help during the fire," Gillan said. "We were overwhelmed by the support. It was really impressive.

"Williams would like to say thanks to the teams, the FIA, FOM and all of those who came to help. It was a serious issue and I am very grateful indeed.

"What happened after a great result is very disappointing, but things were limited by the fast response of our team and everyone who helped."

He added that while the fire destroyed a significant amount of the equipment, he had no doubt they would be competing at the Moncao Grand Prix in just under a fortnight's time.

"We had a lot of damage and we have lost a lot of equipment, including IT equipment, Gillan continued. "Over the next couple of days we will be looking at where we are parts-wise.

"We will have everything we need to run operationally at Monaco, but we may be missing a few of the extras because obviously we don't carry a complete set of spares for everything."

Subscription OSM news service

Williams Maldonado Wins Catalunya

Pastor Maldonado has claimed victory in Spain, rebuffing home favourite Fernando Alonso to secure Williams' first victory since 2004 and the first for a Venezuelan in F1's long history.

Maldonado has been regularly derided as a 'pay driver' since his entry into the elite of motor-racing but around the Circuit da Catalunya it was a demonstration of excellence which paid dividends as he defied Alonso to become the fifth victor in five races. 2012 is the year that just keeps on giving.

The novelty of his position was never apparent as Maldonado, true to his eerie calmness after inheriting pole position on Saturday night in the wake of Lewis Hamilton's demotion, kept his cool under intense pressure from Alonso in the closing stages.

Although the race never quite crackled with the barmy drama that has characterised the season so far, it remained a compelling and unpredictable spectacle throughout. So much for the theory that the familiarity of Barcelona would finally restore order to a campaign of chaos. How it can have done after a day when Williams, one year on from the worst campaign in their history, lapped a Red Bull and McLaren were left trailing by in excess of a minute?

Although pre-race wisdom had insisted that neither Maldonado nor Alonso would be able to retain their frontrunning positions, it was almost instantly evident that the Williams and Ferrari - at least in the hands of their lead drivers - were the fastest packages on view as the pair exclusively jousted for the lead from first corner to last.

Kimi Raikkonen's late charge saw him close to within three seconds of Alonso at the chequered flag but the Finn's subdued post-race demeanour told a telling story. On a track that was billed as providing the ultimate acid test to determine the season's pecking order, Williams and Ferrari - in a throwback to the early years of the century - held a clear advantage.

It might have been different had the Lotus elected the hard tyres rather than the softs at the first round of pit-stops or if Hamilton - outstanding in his defeat of Jenson Button for eighth place having started out from the back of the grid, fourteen places adrift of his McLaren team-mate - had not been fatally undermined by his team's latest misfortune, but it would be crass to suggest that Maldonado's victory was anything other than deserved. Or impressive.

Only once did the team buckle, when a sticky left-wheel nut - F1's version of an Achilles Heel this year, it would seem - at Maldonado's third and final stop saw his advantage halved, but otherwise theirs was a faultless performance. And against Alonso, whose excellence has been a rare model of consistency this year, it needed to be.

Having muscled his way into the lead past the Williams in heart-stopping fashion at the first corner, only the combination of a daringly-early stop from the Grove outfit, a delay behind the Marussia of Charles Pic and the fastest lap of the race from an inspired Maldonado, saw Alonso surrender the initiative. From then on, it was just a question of whether Maldonado could handle the pressure.

Yet he didn't put a wheel off line. Rarely can have a victory resulted in such a feast gluttonous feast of word-eating.

For the Williams team itself, it was a triumph which marked the end of a dark decline into the doldrums. "There have been many great reliefs of great cities in history at the last minute," reflected Sir Frank Williams. "And this was another of them. We really needed this win."

Behind Raikkonen and the relatively-anonymous Romain Grosjean, Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi drove a typically-barnstorming race to fifth, while Sebastian Vettel, unhinged by a drive-through penalty for failing to slow whilst travelling past yellow flag and a problem with his RB8's front wing, clambered back into sixth courtesy of a late push past the two-stopping Hamilton and a innocuous Nico Rosberg.

On, then, to Monaco. With five races run and a quarter of the season elapsed, that's about the only certainty that can be attached to a season that remains an enigma wrapped inside a puzzle driven by a Pirelli.

Subscribe to OSM news service

Spain Will Host One GP from 2013

Spain is likely to stage only one Grand Prix a season from 2013, with Barcelona and Valencia alternating as host.

Local authorities in the country are under pressure to save money as part of a government austerity drive.

Formula 1 chief Bernie Ecclestone told radio station Cadena Ser: "It's simply a way for us to try to help Valencia."

Valencia's local government suggested in January that it wished to renegotiate a race fee of around 25 million euros (£20.6m) a year.

The 2012 calendar contains 20 races, with the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona on 13 May and the European Grand Prix in Valencia on 24 June.

It is unclear whether another race would be introuduced to replace the one that drops off the calendar, although Ecclestone has previously said he would ideally like to extend the calendar to 25 races.

Vicente Aguilera, president of Barcelona's Montmelo circuit, said an agreement is still yet to be fully agreed.

"We are negotiating and we have a positive attitude," he told sports daily newspaper Marca.

"At this moment nothing is agreed."

Red Bull Fly New Chassis

Red Bull are flying out a new chassis for the final two days in Barcelona armed with a series of high-profile and critical upgrades as the testing season goes into dramatic overdrive.

Sky Sports F1 understands that the World Champion's aggressive new package will include a new rear wing, a new front wing and a heavily-revised exhaust.

The revisions are so extensive that the team have had to bolt them onto a new chassis after round-the-clock work at their Milton Keynes HQ.

Ted Kravitz told Sky Sports News: "It's not only parts, it's a whole new car that's being flown out from the Red Bull factory in Milton Keynes.

"So for all these mechanics in this [Red Bull] garage that's the end of work with this particular chassis. This will be chassis number one and rather than fit all the new parts to chassis number two tonight, which would involve a lot more work for these guys, they've decided to fly out the new car.

"Now that's needed agreement from some of the other teams, but what it's going to mean is we're expecting to see a significantly different car when it rolls out at 9 o'clock. So this test is about to to get much more interesting."

Along with the arrival of a new chassis for Saturday morning, Team Principal Christian Horner and Chief Designer Adrian Newey, conspicuous by their absence at the Circuit de Catalunya on the opening two days of the third-and-final winter, are also flying out from England.

"It seems like they've pressed the button after Jerez," Ted added after learning of Red Bull's plans.

With McLaren also planning to bolt on their Melbourne specifications onto the MP4-27 on Saturday, it means that testing for the start of the new season has effectively been condensed down to just two days for both Red Bull and McLaren and explains why both teams have put their drivers - Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton for the latter, Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber for the former - on rotation over the weekend.

Ted added: "Ominously for everybody else, Red Bull are bringing more performance to this car which is already, we think over the long runs, the fastest here in testing here in Barcelona...

"It's an ominous sign for McLaren who are just adding piece by piece to their car here at Barcelona.

"I think what we can expect to see is maybe some of these improvements that come to the Red Bull, they'll start bringing much better lap times and that will be a shame as far as McLaren are concerned because they've been working very slowly on these upgrades that they've got for Barcelona.

"They'll bring a new front wing, a new rear wing and we'll really see then where everybody stands. Ferrari as well have been bringing more performance to their car - they tested a new front wing on their last run this afternoon. But they've already brought new exhausts.

"So for Ferrari to be bringing a new exhaust layout at this point with only two testing days to go, is a little bit late in the game. So I think when we get to Australia, we will see Red Bull possibly first and McLaren probably second.

"I think Lotus are looking like they're the third-fastest team at the moment, then Mercedes, and then potentially Ferrari only the fifth fastest as we go into Melbourne."

Circuit de Catalunya Faces F1 Worry

On the heels of doubts being raised about the future of the European GP at Valencia, it has been revealed that Barcelona may be unable to afford the cost of hosting the Spanish GP.

The government of Valencia revealed last week that they are looking to renegotiate their deal for the European Grand Prix with Bernie Ecclestone as a way of reducing costs.

Now officials in Catalonia have gone a step further by admitting that they could be forced to scrap the Spanish GP at the Circuit de Catalunya altogether, as well as the track's MotoGP race.

"We may reconsider holding Formula One and motorcycling Grands Prix here," Catalan economy minister Andreu Mas-Colell said during an interview with RAC1 radio.

"It is not clear whether we can do so in the current climate.

"It is not the first thing we will reconsider, but in times like these we have to look line by line at what we are spending money on."

The Circuit de Catalunya has hosted the Spanish Grand Prix since 1991 and MotoGP races since 1992. Its current F1 deal runs until 2016.

Mas-Colell also warned, however, that breaking the contract might actually cost more than hosting the race.

"There are contracts that are more expensive to maintain than to break," he added.

One possible solution mentioned is for Valencia to drop the European Grand Prix in favour of alternating the Spanish GP with Barcelona.