Mark Webber managed to stay out of trouble and despite having to switch to dry tyres to early, finished in a strong 4th place at the Monaco Grand Prix. It is his highest finish of the season and takes his point tally to 15. With David Coulthard crashing out Webber still is the only one of the 2 drivers to score points this season.

With his points Red Bull finds itself tied in 5th with Williams in the constructors championship.

“That was good, a great result which gives us a lot of points. It wasn’t the most exciting race in the world in terms of racing, but it was very difficult early on in the wet conditions and we were aqua-planning at Casino. It was definitely over the edge for the intermediate tyres for a few laps when it was raining hard, but then it started to dry and we had to think about changing tyres. It would have been good to have had a little bit more fuel as we had to change to dry tyres maybe five laps earlier than we would have liked. It wasn’t ideal, but the team did such a good job, both at the track and at the factory in Milton Keynes, it’s great to get a strong result.�

Hot on our recent article on Formula One Safety, the issue of the Grand Prix Drivers Association (GPDA) has again been thrown into the spotlight. It seems that the GPDA is going through a rough time right now. Recently Jarno Trulli, Fernando Alsono and Mark Webber has spoken out about the issue by criticising those drivers not in the association. Lewis Hamilton, Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa are not members of the GPDA. Also Force India’s Adrian Sutil is not a member.

"There are some drivers who couldn't care less but they take advantage of the work done by others," Trulli told Autosprint. "What these sensationally uninterested drivers don't understand is that the GPDA has a price. We fund it with a fee on the points scored.

"If the top six drivers are the uninterested ones, then there's a lack of money to survive and it's always the unlucky ones, the ones who get paid less, that have to sustain the costs. The figures are little. The entry fee was one thousand dollars, now it's probably one thousand euros, then you pay something like two hundred dollars per point scored.

"But what I don't understand is that you might not want to be part of the GPDA, then you can do what you want, but at least pay the money since you go on track too.�

"I'm not saying they should get involved, I'm saying as a grand prix driver you should be sensible about safety because you are driving," said Trulli.

"It's you getting in the car and going fast so the GPDA is only there not to do any politics. Any time we sit in a room, we discuss privately anything which we have in common – which is racing and safety.

"Apparently, there are some people who do not care about it – but they get the benefit anyway. And what is really concerning me and all the GPDA drivers is at the moment more and more drivers are pulling out of GPDA for no particular reason. But they are getting the benefit of all the work we are still doing.

Trulli expressed his frustration in the interview that the drivers who choose not to be part of the association simply don't understand how important the work it does is.

"The most outrageous thing is that a top driver doesn't give a damn about his safety," he added. "For me, that's unacceptable. Even drivers that were part of the association and left pretend not to understand, and don't read what we do.

"If it wasn't for the GPDA, and for Riccardo Ceccarelli of Formula Medicine, then if one of these guys had an accident during winter testing he would have risked his life. The minimum safety requirements were lacking yet they don't care and leave the association, this means they are truly insane."

Lewis Hamilton however again confirmed at the Turkish Grand Prix that he has no current intentions of joining the association. In addition he does not intend paying any fees to the association.

"I won't go on about whether I'm joining or not because you guys know the deal," he told reporters when asked about the GPDA situation.

"We spoke about it plenty of times, but they've not approached me and asked me if I want to support them. But in all honesty it's like asking you (the media) to pay for our driver salaries, or that sort of thing.

"I don't understand why I need to. I pay for my racing licence, which goes towards the FIA safety regulations. So I don't understand why I need to be paying more."

This lead to the great safety campaigner Sir Jackie Stewart to observe “I think this is one area where Lewis might be feeling he is a bit special,� the triple champion said, “and that is wrong. He should be part of the GPDA.�

Mark Webber indicated that the association remains very interested in having Hamilton involved. "He will be very welcome any day to come along and just flick a couple of views around," he said. "It is good to have someone at the front of the grid in the quick car, to be helping us out and taking the sport forward, because he is the future of the sport.

"Someone like Kimi (Raikkonen), we know he is not interested and that is fine. And some guys in the past were not interested but they paid their way because they knew every single lap they did, whether testing or racing, there were GPDA people saving them."

Felipe Massa has recently rescinded his membership of the GPDA. "I didn't always like the way it was run," the Ferrari driver told the Italian sports daily La Gazzetta dello Sport.

However fellow countryman Rubens Barrichello was not impressed "It is a personal decision," the Honda veteran told Spanish newspaper Diario AS in Istanbul, "but it's not good for the rest of us.

"If the association wants to be a strong influence on the FIA, it is very important to have the Ferrari drivers on-board. If we have the 20 guys of the grid discussing these things, then every situation is possible."

All of this lead to Fernando Alonso also coming out saying he could not understand the drivers who did not want to be part of the association. Given the GPDA is really the main vehicle for the drivers to raise safety fears.

"It is true there are drivers not in the GPDA, which is their own decision, but in my opinion it is not good," said Alonso, when asked by autosport.com about the situation regarding GPDA. "As I have said another time, everyone can choose what they want - but it is difficult to understand how drivers don't want to be involved in an association of drivers that want to save our lives when we are racing.

"The accident that Kovalainen had last week, we will work on it with the FIA very closely, we will make some proposals and at the end we will find a solution. And these type of accidents will not be repeated. So drivers who don't want to be involved with that, it makes no sense."

Richard Woods, Director General of the FIA Institute, told the Independant newspaper that there has always been genuine interest in working with the drivers, and that this has frequently been the case.

“There’s a constant dialogue between the drivers and the FIA and they are welcome to attend the key safety research meetings where all the detailed work is done. The GPDA has regularly sent speakers and delegates to FIA Institute events such as this season’s medical summit in Bahrain and Sid (Watkins) and Gerard Saillant (FIA Institute President and Deputy President) value these contributions greatly.

Here at OzRacingWrap we would have to say we agree with Trulli, Webber and Alonso. It is staggering to us that any driver would view the association as optional. In fact we think further the FIA should make it a condition of being sanctioned to drive in Formula 1 that a driver must firstly pay the fee and secondly be a member of the association.

For those drivers who feel the association does not achieve anything, we have only look to the recent Turkish Grand Prix. In the support GP2 race a stray dog wondered onto the track and was collected by Bruno Senna. The GPDA immediately became involved with track officials to agree a work around of the problem. If there was no GPDA it would be much harder to get agreement, However the appropriate officials of the GPDA were able to be contacted and a solution found to allow the Grand Prix to go ahead.

Perhaps it has been to long since the last death in Formula 1 and some of the younger drivers are starting to take safety for granted. We can only hope that such a attitude will not come back to bite them. Motor sport will always be dangerous and the search for safety must be ongoing. What is safe today may not be tomorrow, as the cars find ever increasing speed.

Mark Webber has confirmed to reporters at Instanbul that he is seeking to extend his time at Red Bull.

Hot on the heels of his 5th in qualifying, Webber told reporters "We are talking now," he went on to say "I am free next year, but I am massively keen to stay here. I hope to stay here.

"What I love about this team is that I am employed to drive the car, and if I have to do a track day or a PR day then I would rather skip it - rather than go and talk to people that don't want to see me and I don't want to see them. That is great."

"I have always said I won't be around forever fighting for 12th, 13th or 14th," he added.

"I would just go do something else. I have no interest in doing that anymore, and I am massively motivated at the moment to come up and rack up the points, alongside Fernando (Alonso), and fighting like at Barcelona.

"That is good. It motivates you during the week, and you are looking forward to each race when it is like that.

"When you are getting smoked down the back every weekend and it is tough, then I would rather go ride my mountain bike with my dog."

Super Aguri have today confirmed they will be withdrawing from F1 with immediate effect. The moves comes after Honda decided not continue its support of the team.

In their press release the team noted that a sponsor from last season had defaulted on payment. This combined with the rules that would require the team in 2009 to build its own car meant they did not have the funds to continue.

Whilst a proposal was put to the Honda board for German outfit Weigl Group to take a stake in the team, the board was not prepared to put any further funding or support in.

Whilst not the sole factor the decision not to allow customer chasis in F1 is a large part of the problem. Prodrive abandoned their plans to enter F1 this season when it became clear they would need to build a car for the 09 season.

The future of Toro Rosso is also clouded by the need to build a car with the Red Bull interest in the team up for sale.

The statement from the team reads as follows

Super Aguri Formula One Team has today announced its withdrawal from the 2008 FIA Formula One World Championship.

Participating in Formula One since the 2006 season, the Team, which scored its first championship points after only 22 races (Spanish Grand Prix, 2007) and finished ninth overall in the 2007 Constructors’ Championship, will cease all activities as of 6th May 2008. Aguri Suzuki, Team Principal, SUPER AGURI F1 TEAM

“In order to realize my dream to become an owner of a Formula One Team, I applied for a grid position in the FIA Formula One World Championship in November 2005. Since then, I have participated in the championship for 2 years and 4 months as the SUPER AGURI F1 TEAM, but regretfully I must inform you that the team will be ceasing its racing activities as of today.

The team has competed against the many car manufacturer backed teams and has succeeded in obtaining the first points after only the 22nd race finishing in 9th place overall in the 2007 Constructors’ Championship. However, the breach of contract by the promised partner SS United Group Company Limited resulted in the loss of financial backing and immediately put the team into financial difficulties. Also, the change in direction of the environment surrounding the team, in terms of the use of customer chassis, has affected our ability to find partners.

Meanwhile, with the help of Honda, we have somehow managed to keep the team going, but we find it difficult to establish a way to continue the activities in the future within the environment surrounding F1 and as a result, I have concluded to withdraw from the Championship.

I would like to express my deepest thanks to Honda, Bridgestone, the sponsors, all the people who have given us advise during various situations over the past couple of years all the Team Staff who have kept their motivations high and always done their best, Anthony Davidson who has always pushed to the limit despite the very difficult conditions, Takuma Sato who has been with us from the very start and has always fought hard and led the team and lastly our fans from all over the world who have loyally supported the SUPER AGURI F1 TEAM."

In just the last race we saw a crash that not that many years ago would have left the driver badly injured or dead. The fact that Heikki Kovalainen was able to walk away unhurt is a testament to the improved safety in FORMULA ONE. It is almost unbelievable that he will drive in next weeks Turkish Grand Prix.

His accident comes on the heels of the equally frightening accident in Canada last year, which saw the car of Robert Kubica become completely airborne. Again the driver somehow survived.

Of course it wasn’t always this safe. As Sir Jackie Stewart notes in his autobiography ‘Winning is not enough’ during a 11 year period in his career some 57 drivers died.

Indeed Sir Jackie was one of the first drivers to really demand increases in safety and making the Grand Prix Drivers Association a bastion of safety in FORMULA ONE.

No doubt also the work of Professor Sid Watkins also greatly saw the vast reductions in death, that for so long were an accepted part of the sport.

However motor racing remains a dangerous sport, as we sadly found out in Australia earlier this year. The risk of Death can not be removed from a sport where a car is driven at such speeds. It is important however that the Grand Prix Drivers association continues to push safety issues when they see them.

A example was provided during this years Australian Grand Prix, when the Toyota of Timo Glock was launched over the raised kerb of a access road. Such raised kerbs should not be on the circuit and it was somewhat surprising this was not picked up in any track inspection. The Grand Prix Drivers Association needs to ensure next that bump is not there.

Thankfully we can safely say that no driver should ever again be wishing 57 of their friends good bye in the future but we must not become complacent and let safety drift into the background.

In a rather surprise move Mark Webber has told BBC Sport that the affair had bought the affair into disrepute.

"I'm not interested in commenting on Mosley specifically - however what concerns me is that the current scandal has brought the sport into disrepute," said the Australian.

"Formula One is the pinnacle of motorsport, all of us involved have worked very hard to get there, and whether we like it or not, we are role models.

"Whether Max chooses to resign or how the vote will go at the extraordinary meeting on 3 June is a matter for him and the FIA membership, but my point is that Formula One simply cannot have scandals of this type."

"He's in a very, very influential position and it's a very, very important role that he has," he said. "And I think that makes it difficult when any of these scandals become public. It would be more challenging for him to do his job." In regards to others in the F1 paddock not commenting on the affair Webber said "I think they are waiting for the extraordinary meeting to take place and obviously a lot of people are sitting on the fence and waiting for the right protocol to see what will happen," Webber said. "I'm sure after 3 June we will have more reaction."

<p>In a press release today Super Aguri  confirmed that the planned sale of the team had fallen through.  The team is now fully dependent on Honda providing finanical support until an alternative can be found.  If Honda withdraw support, it is likely Aguri will fold, possibly prior to the Spansih Grand Prix.

<p>The statement is as follows "Super Aguri F1 Team confirms that it has been informed by Magma Group, the potential purchasers of the team, that its investors no longer wish to fund the intended acquisition.

<p>"It is with deep regret that Aguri Suzuki is now forced to consider the future of the team, however negotiations with other parties continue."

As Massa drove to a strong win leading a Ferrari one-two (the first 1-2 for any team this season), Mark Webber was able to drive a great,if fairly boring, race and finish in 7th position securing 2 Championship points. He now has 4 points and 10th position in the drivers title race.

Teammate David Coulthard finished 18th.

The RedBull press release quotes Mark as saying“The guys did a good job here all weekend. There were quite a few incidents in the first few laps, which we were able to capitalise on. The first lap went okay for us, but it was very tight on the track, you always have to be careful here on the first few corners. There was oil or something on the track too at the start, which made things difficult. After that I got my head down and spent the rest of the afternoon chasing Jarno (Trulli).�

<p>"The full membership of the FIA will be invited to attend the meeting at which the widespread publicity following an apparently illegal invasion of the FIA President's privacy will be discussed.

<p>"The FIA has noted that Mr Mosley is preparing legal proceedings against the newspaper in question.

<p>"It is anticipated that the meeting will take place in Paris. It will be held on the earliest practicable date. No further comments will be made by the FIA regarding the matter at this stage."

<p>In addition Mosley responded in particular to the earlier BMW and Mercedes-Benz statement speaking to Reuters he said ""Given the history of BMW and Mercedes Benz, particularly before and during the Second World War, I fully understand why they would wish to strongly distance themselves from what they rightly describe as the disgraceful content of these publications.

<p>"Unfortunately, they did not contact me before putting out their statement to ask whether the content was in fact true.

<p>"No doubt the FIA will respond to them in due course as I am about to respond to the newspaper in question."

With BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Honda and Toyota all raising concern about the Max Mosley sex romp, the question now has to be how long before he goes? The German car manufacturers BMW and Mercedes-Benz have issued a joint statement labeling FIA president Max Mosley's behaviour as 'disgraceful.

Their statement read "The content of the publications is disgraceful. As a company, we strongly distance ourselves from it."

"This incident concerns Max Mosley both personally and as President of the FIA, the global umbrella organisation for motoring clubs. Its consequences therefore extend far beyond the motor sport industry. We await a response from the relevant FIA bodies."

This was followed by the following statement from Toyota, "Toyota Motorsport does not approve of any behaviour which could be seen to damage Formula One's image, in particular any behaviour which could be understood to be racist or anti-Semitic," said the statement.

"Senior figures within any sport or business, including motorsport, must adhere to high standards of behaviour. When all the facts are known, it will be for the FIA to decide whether Mr Mosley has met the moral obligations which come with the position of FIA President."

Fellow Japanese manufacturer Honda in its statement "It is necessary that senior figures in sport and business maintain the highest standards of conduct in order to fulfil their duties with integrity and respect," It then went onto say "The Honda Racing F1 Team [are] extremely disappointed by recent events surrounding Mr Mosley and we are concerned that the reputation of Formula One and all its participants is being damaged.

"We request that the FIA gives this matter careful consideration and reaches an immediate decision in the best interests of F1 and Motorsport."

Whilst it seemed Max hoped to ride out the storm, that option seems to get smaller and smaller. Apart from the teams raising the issue, we now also find out that as reported in The Times newspaper, the Crown Price of Bahrain had asked Mosley not to attend the event in order to keep the focus on the grand prix.

There is also the issue of the Nazi aspect to the whole thing and Mosley having to deal with Racism in F1 and in particular earlier this year with Lewis Hamilton in Spain. A situation that may very well arise again during the Spanish Grand later this season.

With Jean Todt now freed of his day to day duties at Ferrari, the time is right for Max to step down and handover to Todt.

<p>Mark Webber believes Formula One wunderkind Lewis Hamilton's "novelty" value will wear off.

<p>The Red Bull racer says Hamilton has a uniqueness in the sport but it has a "shelf life."

<p>Webber has also warned that the British McLaren star, who rocked F1 last year by almost winning the championship in his rookie season, will have to get used to a downside in his career.

<p>Hamilton, 23, finished second to Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen last year and leads this year's series after his recent victory in Melbourne and fifth place in last Sunday's Malaysian Grand Prix.

<p>"His career has gone off like a rocket ship but it won't always be like that," Webber told The Independent newspaper.

<p>"He's young and he's black which makes him unique in this sport, but that's got a shelf life.

<p>"He won't stop being black but it will stop being a novelty.

<p>"And he'll find that some of the column inches, maybe even this season, are totally negative and totally incorrect.

<p>"That's not easy to deal with."

<p>According to Webber, only the British are obsessed with Hamilton and comparisons with seven-times world champion Michael Schumacher are more than a little premature.

<p>"Look, he's talented, we all know that," he said.

<p>"But he's been in the sport for five minutes. People compare him with Schumacher. There is no comparison.

<p>"When he wins the championship, then he's got six more to win before he can be compared to Schumacher.

<p>"Yeah, he had a great first year. It was extraordinary what he did. But great sports stars are measured by their longevity. Pele, Steffi Graf, whoever."

Mark Webber recorded his first finish of the year and in the process collected his first points with a strong seventh.

“The start wasn’t fantastic, but we knew a lot of people would be on soft tyres at that point of the race. I got a really good run through Turns one and two and came out in fourth position. The first stint went okay, but I struggled a bit during the second stint with poor grip, although we kept trying to chip away at the times. I also got stuck behind Sato at a crucial point in the race and lost around two seconds, when we should have stayed in front of Heidfeld. I’m pleased for everyone at Red Bull to get two points, it’s been a tough start to the year for us and it’s great to get the car to the finish today. A big thanks to Renault too.�

After a somewhat troubled start to the weekend for Red Bull, Mark Webber secured eighth position in qualifying. His teammate David Coulthard will start from 12th.

Both cars made it through practice three and qualifying with no further sign of the suspension issue that earlier had cast doubts over their taking part in the event.

Pole went to Felipe Massa from Reigning world champion Kimi Raikkonen. For the first time Lewis Hamilton was out qualified by his teammate Heikki Kovalainen and they will start 4th and 3rd respectively.

Following a accident involving the failure of David Coulthard's front suspension, stewards requested information from the team regarding why they should not be excluded from the rest of the event on safety grounds.

Having reviewed the information, just prior to the start of practice 3, the stewards have confirmed the cars can take part in the event but will remain under review.

In effect this means that should either of the teams cars suffer a similar or component related failure during the rest of the weekend, Stewards reserve the right to ban the team.

The enquiry follows the collapse of Coulthard's car in Melbourne in a collision wiht Massa and thoughts the front suspension may not be strong enough given this recent failure.

Speaking to the Mail on Sunday, Ecclestone said: "The only way the race could stay in Melbourne, or anywhere else in Australia, is if it is staged during the night so that the public in Europe can watch it.

"At the moment, it is ridiculous that people are asked not to sleep in order to see it live. That can't carry on.

"The alternative is to pull the race completely from Australia. I've spoken to (new prime minister) Kevin Rudd and he's told me it would cost too much to re-stage the race, so I guess that's it. We won't be going to Australia for too much longer." It is amazing that it is to much for Europeans to be asked to stay up one night, but the rest of the world can put up with having to do it for nearly every race.

After a day off to have treatment for a trapped nerve, David was back in action and was evidently fit and well, as he was second quickest today. Today was his turn to try the latest aerodynamic updates on RB4 that Mark ran for the first time yesterday.

As for the Australian he concentrated on fine tuning the package and set-up work prior to Melbourne.

“This was the last test session until after the Bahrain GP and in many ways, for those of us on the test team, it feels like the end of a season that has run pretty much non-stop since the end of last year,� commented Chief Test Engineer, Ian Morgan. “The result of all the hard work is that the cars go to Australia having completed a high mileage, showing good reliability and what seems like an encouraging level of performance. Now it’s a case of getting to Melbourne to see where we really are.�

image courtesy of WilliamsF1

Barcelona Test Livery

Revealing the fifth in a series of six anniversarial racing liveries today at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona, two Williams FW30s will take to the track carrying the handwritten best wishes of the team’s seven World Champion drivers.

Alan Jones, Keke Rosberg, Nelson Piquet, Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost, Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve all sent the team personal congratulations as it embarks on its fourth decade of Formula One and at the Italian Grand Prix later this year, will record its 500th Grand Prix start.

With comments as suitably Australian as “I was the first� from Alan Jones to Nigel Mansell’s “Fabulous 28 wins, Red Five�, the livery is a celebration of some of the most evocative and talented names to have graced the sport in the past thirty years.

The 1982 World Champion, Keke Rosberg, for his part commented, “Thanks….for 4 great years� and Alain Prost, Williams’ 1993 Champion added, “Many thanks to all the team – I was proud to win my last World Championship with you.� The team’s most recent title winners, Damon Hill (1996) and Jacques Villeneuve (1997) said in turn “Thanks Frank� and “Thanks for 3 amazing years and the Championship.�

In addition to the good wishes from the seven World Champions, the thirty one drivers who have raced for the team in nearly as many years will grace the monocoque top, including names such as Ayrton Senna, Mario Andretti, Carlos Reutemann and Clay Regazzoni to current racers including Jenson Button, Juan Pablo Montoya and David Coulthard.

Conducted and provided by the Australian Grand Prix press office.

Q. I read some stuff in relation to your driving style suiting the new regulations without traction control and the engine brake, is it true; how are you finding the loss of these systems?

Mark Webber: Yeah, it's certainly more challenging for the driver, there's more work for us to do. I think most of the guys at this level are reasonably handy so it would be very foolish to say that one has got an advantage because of the new regulations but some people have a few opinions out there that it's going to benefit other drivers more than others and we'll see once we get into the race weekend as such.

I mean, to see how people adapt to different venues and we don't have much time when we go to Grand Prix tracks, we've got to get into it pretty quick and when qualifying comes around we've really got to step up to the plate and deliver.

We'll see who is capable of doing that and, you know, testing is reasonably straightforward for most guys because you just drive around the same sort of tracks but when we go to different, more challenging circuits with different conditions then it's something I'm very excited about to see how we go with these new regulations.

There's going to be a few more mistakes, guys are going to have a few more .... but it's certainly interesting, it's a bit of a talking point with the drivers and we'll see how we go in the Grands Prix. Until we've done it it's very hard to say how it's going to feel.

Q. Do you think it will have an effect on the actual racing, obviously you're not going to be sliding around like back in the day but will there be more opportunities to overtake or will it affect the racing in any way for the spectators?

MW: Yeah, I think there will be a little bit more of an opportunity to create pressures, yeah, because there could be some slight errors, very subtle errors, so probably not to the uneducated eye probably won't see them, but to the educated and to obviously fellow drivers around the track there could be some little mistakes which could create more pressure and opportunities to make overtaking a little bit more viable.

There's the usual suspects in terms of the teams in the pecking order, I think, but in terms of the actual racing I think it can only sort of help that little bit, yeah.

Q. Red Bull came out with a radical engine cover last week. While it wasn't the day that you went fastest, do you think you guys are willing to step out of the box to try and bridge that gap or does it need to be a little bit more conservative to try and stick in that mid pack and improve?

MW: Adrian has never really been conservative in his whole life in terms of designing cars so we're trying to - I mean, the engine cover looks very, very different but in terms of actually the effects of the car are very subtle in terms of the aerodynamic tuning device that we're trying to play with and we know what it does to the car in certain situations on the track but we're just trying to work out, it's always a compromise in our industry of where you want the car to be, not strong or weak but in terms of just how you set the car up for different venues.

That particular thing you're talking about is the engine cover so we've been, I'd say, not too adventurous on the sort of the weight saving, all those sort of things have been done very well without a huge amount of risk involved because we need to obviously prove that we can design a reliable car.

So if you come from an aerodynamic point of view to design and conceptually do something totally extreme and off the wall obviously the risks are incredibly high, you could end up really towards the back of the grid very, very quickly if it doesn't work and you don't have much time to recover if you're in the shit so in a way, yes, we do have to sort of tiptoe our way from last year's car and that's the great benefit that Ferrari and McLaren have obviously is tremendous continuity from a very good baseline of cars in the past.

So tricky sort of position to be in and how aggressive we be but Adrian has never really been that conservative. With all that taken into account, what does it mean? It means that Adrian is being as aggressive as he can be within reason, without being ridiculous.

Q. You know Fernando quite well, last year's situation, do you think that showed a weakness in his armour and conversely do you think being back in the Renault fold will actually help bring him back up to the fold this year?

MW: The second part, unquestionably he's going to be in a happier environment so he should perform better and the first part I think all great sportsmen and women do have chinks and we've seen that last year Fernando was disappointed with the way things were, I suppose, operating within the team that he was in.

Now whether that's him getting flustered, whether that's him being fairly ripped off or what, not many people know really the ins and outs of it all but his team mate was performing very well and Fernando wanted to - he normally, like most drivers, like to be in a position that they can still control, hard enough with his race and everyone else let alone having to have your team mate all over you like a rash and normally have him covered but he didn't have that luxury last year and that was something that was probably frustrating for him.

Incredibly driven and competitive and, as I say, most of the guys - you don't last long at this level unless you are so you've got to be, he'll be back very strong next year and don't forget the guy that he beat for two world championships before he even launched the .... was pretty handy so I think he's got pretty thick skin, Fernando, so he should be all right.

Q. What about Lewis this year, obviously now the weight of a great nation is on his shoulders do you reckon he'll be able to hack it?

MW: Yes, he will. I think whether McLaren can produce a car that was as fast as last year in relation to Ferrari remains to the seen. Great team and Heikki looks like he's doing well in testing as well so he'd be more balanced .... this year and that could help Lewis again in terms of not having to worry about some of the internal stuff but also it's his second year and inevitably there's a bit more pressure on.

Q. Bernie obviously has ruffled a few feathers. Should the national government, I guess, be stepping in to ensure the survival of the Albert Park event?

MW: Well, it is a national event. I mean, it is held in Victoria and Melbourne but obviously it's something which the whole of Australia can be proud of. I mean, the amount of people switching on to watch that first Grand Prix of the year, we're so lucky to have the first Grand Prix, it's such a coup that we've actually got that and there's other countries obviously fighting like hell to hold an F1 Grand Prix.

It would be nice if we can find a way to continue to hold the event there. As I say, it's been a tremendous event for us for several decades now in South Australia and in Victoria and it would be brilliant for generations to come to be able to see not just the F1 cars - obviously that's the main event - but in terms of all other things that go on there as an event it's a fantastic weekend out.

Yes, it's expensive, yes, it's all those sort of things, but like you say maybe there's a way we can find that nationally it's an event that we should continue, and sporting event and an event that we should continue to be proud of.

Q. With testing, I guess there is so many variables. How much attention do you pay to other teams and how do you measure your performances?

MW: Yeah, I mean we look at the long run times basically which means any teams that are doing a run over sort of 15 laps or more in one stint then we obviously can get an idea of what sort of fuel loads they're running and then we get an idea of what the weight of the car is.

We have guys analysing and dissecting every inch of the track, it's our industry but, yes, we've got an idea of who is where and the lap times that everyone gets at the end of the day are not a real true reflection of the lap times that people are doing consistently.

Q. Obviously Ferrari and McLaren are leading the way. Can the gap to them be closed this year, do you think?

MW: It's going to be a tough ride for the teams - I mean, BMW are looking very keen to do that; obviously they shut development down very early for the last year's car to focus on this year's one because they were comfortably third in the constructors' and were in a position to do that and they've bought a car out which doesn't seem to be on the level they would have hoped for.

Yes, they've improved it in the last few weeks but it's, I don't think, anywhere really near in a position to challenge a Ferrari or McLaren yet so that's the team that I think a lot of people expected to be able to launch into them but it hasn't happened. And once you're in season, I mean, to design bigger bullets it's very hard to out develop those sort of teams unless you start with a total lemon from somewhere but you're not going to get near it.

Q. Reliability, obviously, was the sticking point last year. How has that been so far in testing and have you been doing race simulations and how have they gone?

MW: The reliability has been really encouraging for us, especially from the Red Bull for the Milton Keynes side, we've had a few Renault issues which have stopped us on track but as far as gearbox and a lot of the Achilles Heels that we had last year, a lot of that equipment has been pulled down very well at the end of each night so we're very encouraged by how those components are running at this early stage and all things being equal we should have at least the most reliable car that we've had for a long time coming into the season, which is good.

Q. The FIA has plans to introduce a cap on team spending, as I understand it. Is there any way in the world this could happen and if they do manage to get it through what effect do you think it will have on the competition?

MW: Well, I think it's way off yet. Obviously I know Max has given some vibes out that it's not far away but for the sport to have ceilings put on different areas of the team financially would be quite a challenge, in my personal opinion, to be able to sort of control how that would happen. Would it help the racing, or how would it affect the sport? God only knows.

I mean, I don't know mate, I really don't know what it would do for the sport. Obviously the clever guys will still be competitive and the guys who aren't quite as clever would be still sitting just away from that but obviously, having said that, funding does make a big difference to the performance.

I know Ferrari have just come out and said, I think, they've got an extra 100 million Euro this year and they're in good shape so it's nice to be in that position if you could be, yeah