Massa manages 3rd in Monaco

Fernando Alonso gave McLaren their 150th Grand Prix victory, leading teammate Lewis Hamilton to a dominant one-two around the streets of Monte Carlo. Third-placed Felipe Massa was a minute adrift of the McLarens by the flag, and the rest of the field was lapped. Although Massa was never in contention for victory, he had no trouble staying clear of the rest of the pack. Kimi Raikkonen managed to climb up to 8th position from 16th, after his crucial mistake in qualifying.

Massa cruises to Spanish GP win

Felipe Massa took his second successive victory with a dominant performance in the Spanish Grand Prix after his third consecutive pole position.

Local hero Fernando Alonso could only finish third after tangling with Massa at the start of the race, while Lewis Hamilton now takes the championship lead thanks to his third consecutive second place finish.

Massa, winner of two races this year, is three points behind Hamilton, with Kimi Raikkonen, who retired from today's race, eight points adrift.

Alonso tried to go around the outside of Massa at the first corner, but banged wheels with the Ferrari as he did so, sending the McLaren across the gravel and allowing Hamilton and Raikkonen to sweep past.

Massa proceeded to command the rest of the race, although he had a scare at his first pitstop when a small fuel spillage caused a dramatic fire on the side of his Ferrari as he pulled away.

But the damage was only superficial, and the Brazilian was able to resume his dominant progress towards another win, extending his advantage to nearly 20 seconds before backing off in the closing stages.

Alonso made a spirited early attempt to pass Raikkonen on the outside at Turn 10, and then benefited when the Finn suffered a rare Ferrari failure and parked with electrical problems after just 10 laps.

Schumi in Spain

Michael Schumacher told the press at the Spanish Grand Prix that he is happy to be involved with the Ferrari team still. He is glad to see that his 'friends' are doing so well and is enjoying his observatory role whilst always being on call for the team when it seeks his input.

"I help in any way I can. As far as team briefings are concerned I'm there when they need me," Schumacher said.

When asked if he was looking at drivers he answered: "No, I'm more looking at the team structure, what's going on inside the team. They are doing incredibly well, the re-structuring has been very good. I'm happy to see the way things are going. I was part of the team for such a long time that you make so many friends. Therefore, I'm happy that we as a team are doing well."

The German hinted that he would be interested in a more involved role with the team by saying he misses seeing his ex-colleagues more often.

"The difference is certainly very obvious. It is an interesting experience to not wake up every morning and be thinking about driving. It's exciting watching the races. I hang around talking to the team after tests but you do wish that you could spend more time with the guys."

New aero parts tested this week in Spain

As we head back into Europe now, the developments for the F2007 start to come thick and fast. With testing taking place in Barcelona this week it was time for Ferrari to try out some new parts. A good aero package on this circuit gives good results and Ferrari haven't been short on new pieces.

A new front wing has been introduced where the end parts of the main plane now slant more upwards towards the endplates.

The engine cover has had an overhaul and now includes different gills which are situated further back on the bodywork. The cover itself does not slant down as much and resembles more like the BMW Sauber engine cover.

The sidepods have been redesigned and the reason for that is that the oil and water radiators have been resized and are smaller

The aero fins which are situated just off the sidepods, near the wing mirrors have been doubled in length.

It all seems to be good though as Ferrari have topped both 2 days of testing so far.

Brawn - Ferrari still my priority

Former Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn has made clear that he favours a return to the Italian team over Formula One rivals when he completes a sabbatical at the end of the year.

"I have had a few phone calls from different people and I've told them the same," the Briton told Autosport magazine in an interview.

"I won't enter any discussions with anybody until my situation is clear at Ferrari.

"Once I know my position in July, if there is no solution at Ferrari and I do want to get back in, I'll see what opportunities are around," he added.

Brawn, the tactical mastermind behind Michael Schumacher's seven championships with Benetton and Ferrari, took a sabbatical last October after the German driver had announced his retirement.

British-based Honda, without a point in three races this season, have openly expressed an interest in securing his services.

However most Formula One insiders expect Brawn to return to Ferrari, moving into a team leadership or management role rather than as a technical director.

"I have a lot of allegiances with Ferrari, there's no doubt," said Brawn.

"If we find a nice solution there, if we find something that they would like me to do and something that I would find a challenge, I would be delighted because they are a great group of people.

"I'm not sure I'd just want to go back to what I was doing before," he added. "Plus, other people have moved into that role and are clearly doing a very good job. It would be unfair for me to go back into that role.

"So it could be a different role within Ferrari or it could be a similar role I played at Ferrari when I arrived, which was a restructuring one."

Bahrain - Massa storms to victory from pole

Felipe Massa stormed to a lights-to-flag victory in the Bahrain Grand Prix ahead of McLaren's Lewis Hamilton to get his championship back on track. Kimi Raikkonen made it onto the podium again in third while Nick Heidfeld edged Fernando Alonso for fourth place.

"In the first stint the car wasn't really well balanced and I was struggling," Massa explained. "The second stint was fantastic and the car performed really well on scrubbed tyres and I took away some front wing and I could build a good gap. In the last sector I had hard tyres and had a gap to enjoy so I was just keeping the pace and looking after the car going through the traffic."

Malaysia - Kimi disappointed with third

Kimi Raikkonen was disappointed to finish third in today's Malaysian Grand Prix and slip two points behind Fernando Alonso in the drivers' championship. Raikkonen kept his cool for the entire race, picked up a position when Massa lost his rag and went off track and applied severe pressure on rookie Lewis Hamilton in the final ten laps, but could not do better than third.

Fernando Alonso stormed to victory in the Malaysian Grand Prix, taking the lead in the very first corner and never looking back. Lewis Hamilton resisted pressure from Ferrari all day to finish second and complete a one-two for McLaren ahead of Kimi Raikkonen. Massa lost his pole when both mclarens passed him on the first turn and then went down to 5th when he went off track chasing Lewis.

"I'm happy to get some points but a bit disappointed how the race ended up," said Raikkonen. "The whole weekend was quite difficult but I think we needed to compromise too many things and we lost too much speed because of those things, but it was one of those weekends where we needed to do what was most important and try to get as many points as we could. We just didn't have enough speed today and couldn't do much more."

"I think we did the best we could and at least we scored important points, so we need to make everything 100 percent right at the next race," he added.

"I think we know the reasons why we were not quick in this race, but unfortunately, as I said, we were in a position where we couldn't do anything else," Raikkonen went on. "Hopefully we can turn the tables in the next race and fight for a win again."

Ferrari to inspect Raikkonen's engine

Ferrari are to take a close look at Kimi Raikkonen's engine at the Malaysian Grand Prix to see if it needs to be changed following the minor problems he had in the closing stages of the Australia race.

Raikkonen dominated at Albert Park two weeks ago, but was instructed to slow down in the closing stages because of issues the team had picked up on their telemetry.

Ferrari's engine chief Gilles Simon said: "We had a small water leakage so the pressure dropped a little. And we were concerned about water temperature of course. That is why we asked him to be careful."

With engines needing to last two-race weekends, those small problems will be a concern for Malaysia - where high temperatures and long straights put extra stress on the power units.

Should the team feel that Raikkonen's engine may not last the full race distance then they may opt to change it prior to qualifying. This would hand the world championship leader a ten-place grid penalty.

Schumacher to have corner at Nurburgring

The Nurburgring will rename one of its corners. Track organisers decided to re-christen it 'Schumacher S' to honour Michael Schumacher who won the Formula 1 championship seven times in his career.

The German Grand Prix will be held at the Nurburgring on 22 July. The German will visit the race. Speaking about this special honour Schumacher said: "I am really proud to be honoured like this."

In July Schumacher will be the first driver to challenge his very own corner. Before the German Grand Prix, Schumacher will go on track to 'open' his corner.

New chapter for Ferrari off to a great start

Jean Todt was a happy man after Sunday's Australian Grand Prix. The Ferrari team boss saw the team's new driver win for the first time in the Italian team's car and Massa bring in a few points.

"I was very happy to get two telephone calls, the first from Michael as I was going up to the podium, which I handed to Kimi and the other from Luca di Montezemolo who was jumping for joy as if this was our first win in a decade. And indeed that is the feeling for us all!"

Ferrari team boss Jean Todt also says Kimi Raikkonen seems to be a lot happier at Ferrari than he was at McLaren. The Finn has been smiling a lot more, and especially after he took victory in the Australian Grand Prix.

"He seems to be a bit more smiling with us, which you know is not our speciality. But still, we are very happy with him and he seems to be happy with us," Todt said.

"Our relationship is just professional and friendly. He spends time with the engineers, the engineers are happy with him," he added. "And he spends time with the team. On Saturday I had dinner with him and Felipe and they were happy. It is just a good atmosphere and confirmed what everybody feels in the team."

Kimi and Ferrari Storm to Victory

Kimi Raikkonen stormed to a dominant victory in the Australian Grand Prix, his debut for Ferrari. The Finn took his tenth career win ahead of McLaren's reigning champion Fernando Alonso and F1 debutant Lewis Hamilton. Kimi also claimed pole position in qualifying and also had the fastest time in the 3rd practice on Saturday morning. Felipe Massa was forced to start last due to an engine change but made it up the field to finish in 6th place.

"The weekend has been very good and the race maybe looked easier than it was but my radio broke just before the start of the race so it wasn't ideal, but we had a clear plan about what we wanted to do," Raikkonen revealed.

"It was a good race, I didn't push too hard and just tried to pace myself," he added. "We were quite quick at the start and I didn't have to push as hard as I could have and then it was just a case of bringing it home. I've had good races here before but never been able to win and it's always nice to win on your first race with a team which I haven't done before."

"I've really enjoyed it and it's the perfect start to the season," he concluded.

Rapid Massa wraps up test in style

Today marked the end of a long test session at the Sakhir that involved nine teams over six days, preparing for the World Championship that gets underway on 18th March in Melbourne, Australia.

Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa, both ran with a new 056 engine today, completing all the F2007 development programme which the team had defined prior to arriving in Bahrain.

Massa finished his work even before the lunch break, which meant that, in the final part of the day, Raikkonen was able to go back to using the aerodynamic package that he had already tried on Tuesday. Both drivers worked mainly on finding the best set-up for the car.

Massa completed 45 laps with a best time of 1:29.989s, while Raikkonen put in 77 laps with a best of 1:30.534s.

For Massa, his time was the fastest of the entire test and was the fourth time in the six days that he topped the timesheets.

With winter testing now over, the team will be concentrating on preparing for the trip to Australia.

On Thursday 8th March at Fiorano, Luca Badoer will carry out the shakedown of the cars that will take part in the first Grand Prix of the year.

Brawn rules out returning as tech director

Brawn rules out returning as tech director

By Jonathan Noble Monday, February 19th 2007, 13:09 GMT

Ross Brawn has confirmed that returning to Ferrari as team boss in 2008 is 'an option', after ruling out a comeback as technical director.

The Briton is on a sabbatical from Ferrari, after deciding that he needed a break following a decade in charge of Maranello's technical department.

Speaking to German magazine Auto Motor Und Sport, Brawn has said that he will sit down for talks with Ferrari's management this summer to sort out his future.

"Ferrari gave me so much that it is only fair if I speak first with them," said Brawn, who made it clear that he would not return to the team in his former technical director role. "If I return, I need a new challenge."

When asked whether he was interested in taking on the role of team principal, as a possible replacement for Jean Todt, Brawn confirmed: "That is an option for the future."

Schumi to test the F2007?

It is very possible that retired seven time world champion Michael Schumacher will return to the wheel of a Ferrari in 2007.

We have learned that at the same time as producing personalised team equipment and race overalls bearing the names of its race and test drivers, Maranello based Ferrari also ordered that Schumacher-branded versions be prepared in the event that the 38-year-old German wants to drive.

For example, we can reveal that four 'Michael Schumacher' branded 2007-spec overalls are already waiting to be worn.

The team's new 'advisor' attended a day of Barcelona testing this week, but Schumacher is expected to conduct a few days at the wheel of the F2007 at another venue - probably Fiorano - later this year.

Bahrain to be crucial test - Raikkonen

A truer picture of each team's competitiveness will be drawn at the upcoming Bahrain tests, according to Kimi Raikkonen.

Some observers think the Finn's new Ferrari moved closer - and perhaps even clear of - the dominant McLarens at the Barcelona test this week.

BMW, Renault and even Red Bull have also appeared to be in good shape around the Circuit de Catalunya, which is traditionally a significant winter test.

But Raikkonen observed on Wednesday: "We will see how it really looks at the next test, where everyone will have new things for their cars."

Ferrari, for example, ran several new pieces at Barcelona but are expected to fit an updated suspension specification at the inaugural Bahrain test.


Raikkonen's team-mate Felipe Massa said in Barcelona: "Our new front and rear wings have moved us forwards quite a lot."

Bahrain, staging six days of running starting late next week, is the last pre-season stop before the Australian Grand Prix.

"It will be a crucial test," Raikkonen emphasised.

Schumacher hints Ferrari boss role unlikely

Michael Schumacher indicated on Wednesday that he is not on the verge of becoming Ferrari's new team boss.

According to a rampant rumour, the former champion's current advisory role is merely a prelude to a new career on the pit wall.

But on a visit to the last day of European testing this pre-season, Schumacher - fresh from a holiday in the Maldives - said in Barcelona: "I am not going to go to all the races this year, but I will go to some in Europe."

The 38-year-old's long-time manager Willi Weber also stepped up his rejection of the speculation as he told the newspaper Bild: "If Michael had wanted to have a full time job at race tracks then he would have stayed as a driver."

Weber admitted that Schumacher is attending a lot of internal team meetings at Maranello with Jean Todt, but said it is more a reflection of the successful German's personality than any preparation for a new job.

"If Michael decides to do something, then he does it with 110 per cent of his attention," Weber said.

Ferrari spokesman Luca Colajanni also denied the story, which originally appeared in the magazine Auto Motor und Sport.

"Michael is clearly involved with the team, but this report is nonsense," Colajanni, who is the head of Ferrari's Motor Sport Press Office, said.

Schumacher has had all test data and times communicated to him at home, and has been charged with helping his successor, Kimi Raikkonen, settle into his new team.

Schumacher visits Ferrari in Barcelona

Today Michael Schumacher was spotted at the Circuit de Catalunya. The former Formula 1 World Champion and Ferrari driver arrived this morning to watch Ferrari's test programme from the Italian team's pitbox.

According to the team Schumacher's visit is nothing special. "He is just visiting to see what we're doing," a Ferrari spokesperson told GPUpdate.net. "He likes to see how we are doing and that is the only reason why he travelled to Spain."

According to several rumours Michael Schumacher could replace Jean Todt at the end of the year. Schumacher has never visited the Ferrari factory as often as this winter, the German press is reporting.

We're quick says Massa

Ferrari on Tuesday responded to suggestions that it is struggling in the wake of Michael Schumacher's retirement by dominating the testing time sheets in Barcelona.

After striking problems at the Circuit de Catalunya on Monday, the two ultra-reliable F2007 models finished day two first and second quickest, moving Felipe Massa to observe that the red car 'is going very well'.

"I was able to do many laps with a satisfying level of pace. Everything is heading in the right direction," the Brazilian said, according to reports in the Spanish press.

Massa continued: "Today I could be quick and consistent."

Kimi Finishes First Week In The F2007

Today was the fourth and final day of testing this week for Ferrari, working again at the "Ricardo Tormo" Cheste circuit, on the outskirts of Valencia.

In order to make up for the time lost to bad weather over the past few days, Kimi Raikkonen today continued with the F2007 development programme.

The Finnish driver was able to lap consistently using dry weather tyres, covering a total of 116 laps, the quickest in a time of 1:11.847 - second fastest overall on the day.

The team resumes testing on Tuesday at the Jerez de la Frontera circuit. Felipe Massa and Raikkonen will both driving an F2007.

First Ferrari Drive For Kimi

In overcast and sometimes wet conditions, today was the first day of testing this week for Ferrari, working at Vallelunga’s 'Piero Taruffi' circuit.

Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa took to the track and for the Finn this marked his debut at the wheel of a Ferrari Formula 1 car, as he drove the 248 F1, while his Brazilian team-mate was entrusted with the new F2007.

The day’s technical programme comprised of Raikkonen getting to know the car, while Massa concentrated on development of the new car.

Massa put 74 laps on the new Ferrari with a best lap of 1:14.

Massa and Raikkonen continue testing at Vallelunga tomorrow.