Two-time World Rally Champion Marcus Gronholm has confirmed he will return to motorsport and contest a full programme of Global Rallycross events in America this year.

Gronholm will form part of the Best Buy Team along with British driver David Binks. They will both drive 600bhp Ford Fiestas built by Andreas Eriksson and Olsberg’s Motorsport Evolution firm.

The Finn tested his Fiesta for two days in Los Angeles last week before confirming his commitment to a season-long schedule for the first time since retiring from a 17-year professional WRC career at the end of 2007. The 44-year-old Finn won 30 of the 152 WRC rounds he started.

Gronholm said: “It’s great to be back in business with a full programme and a clear championship to aim at. What’s more, there is such a buzz around GRC, I think it is a form of motorsport that is set to explode. It’s great for the stadium audience, great for the TV viewer with 70ft jumps over your competitors and fast and furious racing that delivers results quickly. It’s simply addictive.”

Gronholm and Binks will face tough competition in the six-round GRC, which starts in Charlotte on May 26. Last year’s champion Tanner Foust and Monster World Rally Team star Ken Block are two of the big names who will line up against the Best Buy team.

Gronholm added: “There are all kinds of drivers coming into the series from very different action sport backgrounds, so I while I am 100 per cent clear that our ambition is to win, we’ll just see how we get on in Charlotte and take it from there. We’ve tested well, the OMSE-prepared Ford Fiesta feels great and frankly I can’t wait to kick off.”

The six-round series features five events that partner with NASCAR, IndyCar and the X Games. The opener takes place on May 26 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway, running as part of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Coca-Cola 600 bill.

The final round of this year’s World Rally Championship – the Catalunya Rally – will include a stage through the centre of host town Salou.

The Spanish event, which shifts from its October date to November 8-11, will retain its mixed surface format, with the opening day running the gravel content, including a completely new stage.

The Salou-based event will include 251 competitive miles, virtually identical to last season. The popular Terra Alta test has had an extra five miles added, making it the longest mixed-surface stage of the rally at just over 27 miles.

The seafront stage will run on Friday (November 9) evening. The 1.2-mile blast runs parallel to the beach, where the spectators will be located.

The second and third days of the event will run entirely on asphalt, including classics such as El Priorat and the return of Riudecanyes. The powerstage will be the 2.5-mile Serra d’Almos stage.

Peter Sauber has announced he is transferring a third of the stake in the Sauber Group to CEO Monisha Kaltenborn.

Sauber, the founder, team principal and president of the board, will retain the other two thirds.

India-born Kaltenborn, 41, was appointed CEO of the Swiss squad in 2010, following BMW’s exit from Formula 1.

“When BMW pulled out of Formula 1 in 2009, Monisha was instrumental in the team’s survival and since then she has been doing outstanding work in her capacity as CEO,” said Sauber. “Transferring one third of the stake to her represents an important step for me in providing continuity.

“My desire is to ensure that the company continues to be led as I would want over the long term. Monisha Kaltenborn and my son Alex, who joined the company as Marketing Director in 2010 and has since also been a member of the Board of Management, both embrace this aim. It means we can offer our employees a positive outlook for the future.”

Kaltenborn added: “For me this step is a mark of the greatest possible trust, which I will do everything in my power to justify.”

Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz believes Formula 1′s thrilling start the season may be great news for fans, but he feels it has turned the sport into a lottery for teams.

Five different drivers from five different teams have won the first five races of the season in one of the most open championship starts in the sport in recent times.

While Mateschitz acknowledges the unpredictability is great for the fans, he feels this year’s tyres are making the racing a lottery, as he thinks no team has managed to understand how they work so far.

“F1 is more exciting and more unpredictable than ever before,” Mateschitz told AUTOSPORT. “Obviously, caused by the rule changes before the season, the top teams moved closer together. I always had confidence in the potential of our RB8 and I still have, no doubt.

“But everyone has to learn F1 again. It has become a kind of lottery to find out the window in which a tyre works.

“And I do not believe this just happens on purpose to create more overtaking and tension in the races. I suppose no-one really understands these tyres.”

Mateschitz also admitted he has been surprised by the pace of the Lotus team this year, but he reckons the squad’s success across the season will depend on it being capable of staying on par with its rivals in terms of development.

“Lotus has been the biggest surprise of all. I think Kimi indeed had the pace to win in Bahrain. The question is how long Lotus will be capable to keep the pace of development work the other major outfits will show. If they can keep up with them they will be a force to be reckoned with.”

McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh believes winning the Monaco Grand Prix would be a deserved reward for Lewis Hamilton.

The British driver has started from pole position twice this year, and he would have been first on the grid in Spain had he not being sent to the back of the grid for not having enough fuel onboard at the end of qualifying.

Hamilton, however, is yet to finish higher than third this season and Whitmarsh says he would like his driver to be the sixth winner in 2012 in next week’s race in Monte Carlo.

“He is in that frame of mind, he deserves it – there is absolutely no doubt about it,” said Whitmarsh. “We have to work hard, make sure he has got a good car, make sure we don’t make any mistakes, and make sure he is in a position to fulfil his potential at a circuit where he has won in F3, GP2 and F1.

“He has won it in every category – so he would like to win it again.”

Although Whitmarsh believes his team will be in good shape for fight for victory in the principality, he is aware that it is impossible to make predictions this season.

“We have won more Monacos than anyone else, we go there with the belief that we can win, but anyone who makes predictions in this sport at the moment would be nuts,” he said.

“It really is virtually impossible to make these predictions – five races in, five winners, five different constructors – and it could be after Monaco six races and six different winners. I hope not six constructors, I hope we can win that.”

Lola Cars has announced that it is going into financial administration as it continues to search for possible investors.

The group, which was formed in 1958, said the latest economic downturn has caused a serious cash-flow problem that had forced it into making the decision.

It also blamed the move on the HMRC not paying ongoing R&D tax credits.

“It is with enormous regret that a decision has been taken to issue Notices of intention to appoint an Administrator to Lola Cars International Limited and Lola Composites Limited,” said Lola in a statement.

“This step allows the board to continue its discussions with possible investors and prospective purchasers with a view to securing the best outcome for the staff, creditors and customers of both businesses.”

Lola creations have claimed five LMP2 Le Mans 24 Hours titles since 2000. The company has also worked with major manufacturers including Nissan, MG and Honda. Last year it captured the LMP1 and LMP2 constructors’ titles in the ALMS and the manufacturers’ title in LMS.

Lola said the board will not make any further comment until 21st May.

The company had already gone into administration in 1997.

Valentino Rossi says the top six, rather than a repeat of his 2011 podium, will be Ducati’s main target at MotoGP’s forthcoming French Grand Prix.

The Italian scored his only rostrum of the season at the Le Mans circuit last year, but he insists this year’s focus is on making incremental progress – and therefore seeking only to better his seventh-place finish at Estoril.

“Le Mans is another place where the weather can be challenging, particularly at this time of year, but it’s also the track where I had my best result with the Ducati last year,” Rossi said. “We’ll see how it goes, but we’d like to do a little better than we did in Portugal.

“We’ll prepare for the race by working on the bike like we did at Estoril, starting from the base setup that we’re now a bit more familiar with and trying to continue with the settings one step at a time, in such a way that we reach Sunday at the maximum of our current potential.”

Rossi added that the rain-cancelled Estoril test had hindered Ducati’s ongoing development work, but said that Le Mans would have come too early for any changes to be implemented anyway.

“It’s a shame that we lost the post-race test in Portugal because we would have continued our development work, and as we had very recent data from the race, we could have made some interesting comparisons,” he explained.

“Still, this won’t influence us much from a technical point of view at Le Mans, as any updates would have arrived later anyway.”

Rossi’s stable-mate Nicky Hayden said he expected the Le Mans circuit to suit Ducati, even if the low grip levels could cause problems.

“I certainly wouldn’t say Le Mans is my favourite track on the calendar, but there are some things that I like about it. Sometimes it lacks grip somewhat, which I don’t like so much; on the other hand, it has a fair amount of hard braking, and I think some of those parts should suit our bike well,” Hayden said.

“We’ll get to France, see what kind of weather we get, and try to get a good result.”

Ducati team manager Vittoriano Guareschi added that Le Mans will “give us an opportunity to check the work that we’re doing on the GP12′s setup: Valentino used it all weekend at the last GP, so we’ll continue like that in an effort to also make progress.”

Kurt Busch has been fined by NASCAR for a pit road incident last weekend following the conclusion of Saturday’s Sprint Cup Series race at Darlington Raceway.

The 2004 champion hit the back of Ryan Newman’s Stewart Haas Chevy on pit road and crew members from his team and Newman’s were later involved in a scuffle.

Busch had been a top-ten contender before a late spin, while Newman also spun behind him trying to avoid hitting the #51 car of Busch, but their incidents seemed unrelated to the post-race issue, which was under investigation from NASCAR.

Having reviewed the facts, the sanctioning body has issued a US $50,000 fine for Busch and has also placed him on probation until July 25.

His motorhome driver, Craig Stickler, acting as part of his crew, was fined US 5,000 and placed on probation until the end of the year for pushing a cameraman during the altercation between the Phoenix Racing and Stewart Haas crews.

Andrew Rueger, a crew member for Newman, was fined US $5,000 and placed on probation until June 27 for failing to obey instructions from a NASCAR official, while Tony Gibson, crew chief for the #39 car of Newman, received the same probation period due to Rueger’s actions.

The Williams mechanic badly burned in the fire in the team’s pits after the Spanish Grand Prix has returned back to Britain to receive further medical care.

Having spent the last two days in a hospital in Barcelona as the result of the injuries he suffered when fuel caught alight at the back of the garage, the mechanic was flown to a British hospital to continue his recovery.

Williams chief operations engineer Mark Gillan said that the mechanic was in a stable condition despite the burns he suffered.

“There were a number of people who attended the circuit medical centre, mostly as the result of smoke inhalation,” said Gillan about the injuries members of his team suffered.

“One team member remains in hospital having suffered burns, but he is in a stable condition and in good spirits and has returned to England today for further medical care.”

Williams is still conducting a full investigation into the incident, which is believed to have happened as fuel was being prepared for transportation in the garage.

Gillan added: “Investigations into the actual cause of the fire are ongoing and are being performed in collaboration with the local authorities and the FIA.

“The extent of the damage is still being accessed and will not become fully clear until both the cars and equipment have returned to the factory. What is clear is that our garage IT equipment and infrastructure have been badly damaged.”

Other teams have offered assistance in any way they can to help Williams prepare for the Monaco Grand Prix, but Gillan admits that it faces a tough challenge ahead of the event.

“On the back of a win [in Spain] we go to Monaco with high hopes but there is a prodigious amount of work to be done prior to the event to recover from the fire,” he said.

Marco Andretti is convinced that the Andretti Autosport team is in good shape for next weekend’s Indy 500 after topping the fourth day of practice at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Andretti’s 40.2367s lap was clocked at 223.676mph, putting him just ahead of Penske’s Helio Castroneves (222.025mph) and his Andretti team-mate James Hinchcliffe (221.864mph), and he said that he was delighted with how his car was developing.

“I’m really pleased with where we are at with the race car so far,” Andretti said. “I have just been really working on the car in a pack, and just trying to stay flat in traffic.

“We have the car to the point now that I am confident to say we would be the ones to beat if the race was today.”

It was a tougher day for the race’s high-profile rookies. Rubens Barrichello was left 29th fastest in his KV Racing entry, and said that he was struggling to unlock the car’s pace.

“We are still trying different things but just can’t find the speed,” he said. “However, what was good today was learning to run in traffic, which I haven’t really been able to do much of, and working out my lines. We have another day of practice tomorrow, so we will see what it brings.”

Meanwhile, Fan Force United’s Jean Alesi did not run at all after the team opted to do some work on his Lotus engine. The former Benetton and Ferrari F1 driver expects to be back out on track on Wednesday.

Pos Driver               Team                              Time          

 1. Marco Andretti       Andretti Autosport                40.2367s
 2. Helio Castroneves    Team Penske                       40.5359s  + 0.2992
 3. James Hinchcliffe    Andretti Autosport                40.5653s  + 0.3286
 4. Graham Rahal         Chip Ganassi Racing               40.5671s  + 0.3304
 5. Ryan Hunter-Reay     Andretti Autosport                40.5746s  + 0.3379
 6. Charlie Kimball      Chip Ganassi Racing               40.5997s  + 0.3630
 7. Will Power           Team Penske                       40.6929s  + 0.4562
 8. Dario Franchitti     Target Chip Ganassi Racing        40.7136s  + 0.4769
 9. Takuma Sato          Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing    40.7530s  + 0.5163
10. Scott Dixon          Target Chip Ganassi Racing        40.7608s  + 0.5241
11. Alex Tagliani        Bryan Herta Autosport             40.7788s  + 0.5421
12. Josef Newgarden      Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing       40.7886s  + 0.5519
13. JR Hildebrand        Panther Racing                    40.8723s  + 0.6356
14. Ryan Briscoe         Team Penske                       40.8916s  + 0.6549
15. Oriol Servia         Panther Dreyer & Reinbold Racing  40.9188s  + 0.6821
16. Bryan Clauson        Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing       40.9311s  + 0.6944
17. Simon Pagenaud       Schmidt/Hamilton Motorsports      40.9579s  + 0.7212
18. Townsend Bell        Sam Schmidt Motorsports           40.9748s  + 0.7381
19. Tony Kanaan          KV Racing Technology              40.9800s  + 0.7433
20. Justin Wilson        Dale Coyne Racing                 41.0455s  + 0.8088
21. Sebastian Saavedra   AFS Racing/Andretti Autosport     41.1006s  + 0.8639
22. Ed Carpenter         Ed Carpenter Racing               41.1496s  + 0.9129
23. Mike Conway          A.J. Foyt Enterprises             41.1620s  + 0.9253
24. Wade Cunningham      A.J. Foyt Enterprises             41.1746s  + 0.9379
25. James Jakes          Dale Coyne Racing                 41.2220s  + 0.9853
26. E.J. Viso            KV Racing Technology              41.2777s  + 1.0410
27. Michel Jourdain Jr.  Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing    41.2833s  + 1.0466
28. Ana Beatriz          Andretti Autosport                41.2948s  + 1.0581
29. Rubens Barrichello   KV Racing Technology              41.3916s  + 1.1549
30. Simona de Silvestro  HVM Racing                        42.7930s  + 2.5563

Double R Racing will make its F3 Euro Series debut at Brands Hatch this weekend with a pair of cars for regular British championship drivers Geoff Uhrhane and Fahmi Ilyas.

Anthony Hieatt’s team is using the event, plus the following round at Spielberg, to allow its drivers to gain experience of the Hankook rubber that will be used at the Norisring event in July, when both the British championship and Euro Series run together for the first time.

“We’ve never done a European championship round before so we’re really looking forward to giving Geoff and Fahmi some extra time in the car, especially as it’s our home track,” said Hieatt, “The team always likes racing at Brands and the mileage will be good for both drivers, their deals were done very late so an extra race meeting can only be good for them.

“Having some experience on the Hankook tyres will be good too, we’ll be using them when we visit the Norisring in British F3 so getting a good understanding of how they work will be useful. We’ve also decided to do the F3 Euro Series round at the Red Bull Ring at the start of June too, so we’ve got a busy few weeks ahead.”

Fellow British squad Carlin will also increase its car count for Brands. Joining Euro Series regulars Carlos Sainz Jr and Will Buller will be British F3 regulars Jazeman Jaafar and Harry Tincknell.

Mattias Ekstrom believes that Audi must raise its game at Brands Hatch this weekend if he is to avoid losing touch with Mercedes drivers Gary Paffett and Jamie Green in the championship.

Paffett leads the standings with 43 points with his HWA team-mate Green 13 behind and Abt Sportsline man Ekstrom five further back and level with BMW driver Bruno Spengler.

And after finishing around 20 seconds behind the winner at each of the first two rounds, the two-time series champion is adamant that Audi must bounce back at the British circuit this weekend.

“We analysed the first two races and now we’ve got to try and find the thread again that we lost somewhere along the way,” said Ekstrom. “But you can find something again as quickly as you can lose it. So finding it is the task now.”

Audi won at Brands Hatch last year thanks to eventual champion Martin Tomczyk triumphing in the wet in his Phoenix Racing A4, but none of its cars has finished higher than third so far this year.

Head of Audi Sport Wolfgang Ullrich said at Lausitz that the main problem encountered by the new A5 DTM has been a result of the Abt, Phoenix and Rosberg teams “not finding the real window for our set-up to get the tyres working as they should”.

He said that getting back into contention to add to Audi’s three previous DTM wins at Brands was the minimum requirement from the Brands Hatch weekend.

“Our aim is to get back – preferably as early as at Brands Hatch – to where we were in all the years, which is being in contention for victory,” he said.

“That’s why between the Lausitz and Brands Hatch we’ve had two intensive weeks of hard work that we’ve made optimum use of.”

Porsche Supercup race winner Sean Edwards will emulate his father Guy by racing in the Le Mans 24 Hours this year.

Edwards Jr, who has four Supercup wins to his name, will make his debut in the French enduro on June 16/17 with ProSpeed Competition.

The 25-year-old will share the Belgian team’s GTE Am class Porsche 911 GT3-RSR with fellow Le Mans debutant Bret Curtis and Saudi Abdulaziz Al Faisal, who contested last year’s 24 Hours in a Porsche.

Edwards explained that Curtis, who has been a regular in the American Le Mans Series since 2009, had been instrumental in putting the deal together. They raced together in a Black Falcon Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 in the opening round of the Blancpain Endurance Series at Monza last month.

“I raced with ProSpeed at the Spa 24 Hours in 2009 and we sat down with [team boss] Rudi Penders at Monza and things moved pretty quickly,” said Edwards. “Bret is the key guy; he’s made this happen.

“It’s taken me a few years to get to Le Mans because teams always ask if you have experience there. Now I’ve finally got in, I’m hoping this will be the first of many.”

Edwards explained that the deal to do the race his father contested nine times in the 1970s and ’80s was the fulfillment of a childhood dream.

“I always wanted to do Le Mans as a kid,” he said, “and dad is really pleased for me.”

Both Edwards and Curtis are having to resort to chartering jets in order to take part in the Le Mans Test Day, which is mandatory because they are rookies. Edwards is racing in the Porsche Carrera Cup at the Red Bull Ring and Curtis in the BES at Silverstone.

Citroen protege Thierry Neuville has moved a step closer to contesting the full World Rally Championship schedule after Nasser Al-Attiyah handed the Belgian his Qatar Citroen for Rally New Zealand.

Neuville was initially confirmed for nine events in the Citroen Junior entry, with further rallies dependent on his performance.

Al-Attiyah has to miss the New Zealand event in order to train for the London Olympics, where he is competing in skeet shooting. The 2011 Dakar Rally winner therefore requested that Neuville take his car for the 22-24 June event.

“We are official entrants in the World Championship and it is mandatory for us to compete in every round,” said Al-Attiyah. “It didn’t take much thinking time to realise who should take my place in the #7 Citroen DS3 WRC.

“I trust Thierry, but most of all I want him to be able to gain as much experience from taking part in this event as possible and for it to be beneficial to him.”

Neuville said he was touched by Al-Attiyah’s gesture.

“This is more than just a great opportunity, it is a real honour for me to be trusted in this way by the team,” he said.

Neuville took the best result of his WRC rookie campaign so far with fifth in the last round in Argentina – albeit running under Rally 2 after an early incident.

Lotus boss Eric Boullier says he is not frustrated by the failure of his team to win the Spanish Grand Prix, because he thinks a victory is just around the corner.

Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean had gone in to Sunday’s race as many people’s favourites for the win on the back of impressive long-run form in practice.

However, neither was able to match the pace of runaway leaders Pastor Maldonado and Fernando Alonso in the opening stages, and Raikkonen’s late-race charge came too late to allow him to finish better than third.

Although Raikkonen was disappointed about the end result after crossing the line within four seconds of the winner, Boullier has said he was not disheartened at all by the near miss.

“No I don’t share the sentiment,” Boullier told AUTOSPORT about Raikkonen’s post-race reaction. “We are all here to win, but the pace of the cars is very tight.

“It didn’t work out with the first two sets of tyres and we didn’t have the pace that we expected. So from that point it is difficult to win.

“It is true that, when you see the pace at the end of the race, when we were closing on the leaders, with three more laps maybe we could win.

“But this is racing. To win we need to keep working and we have to use the next opportunity to do it.”

Lotus has shown itself to be strong on all types of tracks this season, and Boullier thinks that if the team can keep up its current form then a win should come soon.

“It is good to have drivers who want to win, and are pulling the team forwards,” he said. “I think if we can keep this consistency like we are doing now, definitely it [a win] is on the cards.”

Casey Stoner says Honda still needs to smooth out the chatter issues that threatened to upset his bid for victory in MotoGP’s previous race at Estoril.

The Australian’s apparent ease at the front of the field belied severe chattering problem, which Stoner said forced him to ease off and allowed Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo to close in.

With the planned post-race test at Estoril cancelled due to rain, Stoner says the team needs to hope for dry weather at Le Mans in order to work on the problem before Sunday’s French Grand Prix.

“It was disappointing that the weather in Estoril on Monday prevented us from testing,” Stoner said. “We need to work on the chatter issue we have on the bike so let’s hope we have some dry sessions from day one in Le Mans so we can get out on track and work on it.”

The phenomenon of chatter aside, Stoner said he was confident heading into Le Mans, particularly after winning at Jerez and Estoril – circuits he has not traditionally thrived at.

“The past two tracks have not historically been my best but I’ve managed wins at both of them so I’m hoping we can go to Le Mans and be competitive again,” Stoner said.

“I’ve had some mixed results there in the past, the track layout is unique, it’s a little stop-start with a lot of braking and I think this year both the Hondas and Yamahas will be competitive there.”

Honda stable-mate Dani Pedrosa said he needed to improve his pace in the opening phase of the grand prix, having fallen away from both Stoner and Lorenzo in the opening laps at Estoril.

“In the past I felt comfortable riding [at] Le Mans, [and] had good results in 125cc and 250cc but not really in MotoGP, so I have something small inside me I want to achieve,” the Spaniard explained.

“We’ve had three good races so far, I’m riding well, but I missed something in all of them, especially on the first laps, where I’ve been stronger in the past. I need to put everything together and if we get better starts, we will start wining races.”

Pastor Maldonado did more than enough with his victory at the Spanish Grand Prix to be able to tell his critics to ‘shut up’, says Williams board member Toto Wolff.

The Venezuelan driver delivered a stunning performance at Barcelona to produce the maiden victory of his Formula 1 career, and prove that his value to the team is more than just the millions of pounds of sponsorship he brings.

Wolff knows that Maldonado has faced criticisms in the past for being a ‘pay driver’, but now he thinks those who were against him can no longer complain.

“I think silencing his critics is being diplomatic with language,” Wolff told AUTOSPORT. “I think he has shut them up with his performance in Spain.

“I have said it many times before that the economic environment [in motor racing] has changed. If you want to run in GP2 you need one and a half million pounds, so the drivers there are not only quick and talented but these guys have been able to attract partners too.

“Pastor has been very successful in attracting partners and many others have been too. So let’s forget about this phrase ‘pay driver’, as we have to get used to this situation in the future.”

Wolff believes that Maldonado has made big progress with his driving this year, and thinks that the lessons of his final-lap crash in Australia were valuable in helping him improve.

“It is a lot about learning, and Pastor learned a very hard lesson in Melbourne,” Wolff explained. “He thought about it a lot and before the race, when we discussed the strategy, he said: ‘I am OK coming out of lap one in a position that is not in the lead. I am out there to score points.’

“He wasn’t putting himself under pressure, which I think is very important. In the race, he was faultless and he was very well managed from his race engineer about conserving the tyres.”

Frank Williams says Pastor Maldonado is worthy of a place at his team even without the considerable backing he brings, judging by his performance at the Spanish Grand Prix.

Maldonado delivered a surprise victory at Barcelona on Sunday, as he withstood race-long pressure from Fernando Alonso to end Williams’ eight-year victory drought.

And although it is no secret that Maldonado owes his place at the Grove-based outfit to the backing that Venezuelan oil company PDVSA brings – this year it is paying £29.4 million – Williams says that his driver is the real deal.

When asked if Maldonado was only at Williams in the first place because of money, Williams said: “Yeah, he was to some extent. I’m not denying that. But if we thought he’d been a wanker, he wouldn’t have got in the team no matter how much money he had.

“He did a very sensible job in GP2 and he fully deserves to be in the team with or without the dosh. The truth is that if you haven’t got the dosh, you can’t go Formula 1 racing.

“But we’ve got a real racing driver as well. I am just astonished by the way he just controlled himself, and didn’t make a mistake at all.”

Williams is well aware that there was plenty of opportunity for Maldonado to have slipped up on Sunday, especially because it was the first time he had been in a position to win.

“When a driver who has not led before and is out in front, he tends to make a mistake,” explained Williams. “But from what I saw, he didn’t come near it. He was calm on the radio the entire time. Given what we have seen in GP2 and F1 qualifying, he’s very skilful

“It’s the first race he’s led and led and led and, as the race goes on, you become under more pressure to not think about the podium, not think about what your mother’s going to say, and not think how much the prize money is going to be.

“So you think don’t crash, don’t make mistakes, brake a little bit earlier, and look after it. That’s what you’ve got to do and that’s what he did.”

Williams believes that Maldonado could go on to deliver more success in the future, especially because he thinks the driver is outperforming the machinery at the moment.

Speaking about Maldonado’s potential, Williams said: “It could be very considerable indeed. We certainly couldn’t say we’ve got a winning car. We’ve got a very good car, and we’d be sad to lose him.”

Ben Spies says Le Mans will be another chance to rebuild his confidence and improve his performance after a torrid start to his 2012 MotoGP campaign.

The Texan has struggled for pace since the championship began, finishing a distant 11th in both Qatar and Spain – races in which his Yamaha stable-mate Jorge Lorenzo finished first and second respectively.

Estoril was at least an improvement, with Spies qualifying fifth and finishing eighth despite admitting to several major mistakes.

The 26-year-old said the performance had been important in rebuilding his confidence after the poor opening, and is aiming to continue the progression this weekend in France.

“I’m looking forward to getting back on the bike again this week,” Spies said. “My confidence has been rebuilding well now we’ve found a good set-up that works so I think we can make another step and improve our performance again at Le Mans.

“It’s not my favourite track but I’m going to give it 100 per cent as always to achieve a good result on Sunday.”

Team boss Massimo Meregalli said he is confident Spies will be fighting with the front of the pack this weekend in France.

“Last year was not a perfect weekend for Yamaha at Le Mans, a track where traditionally we have been very strong. This year we arrive with a very competitive package so we are confident that we can perform well,” Meregalli said.

“Ben has not had an easy start to the year but has been working hard with the team to have a competitive set-up and to rebuild his confidence. I am sure we will see him fighting with the front pack this weekend.”

Spies’s team-mate Lorenzo, who arrives at Le Mans just one point behind Honda’s reigning champion Casey Stoner, said he would have one eye on the championship fight.

“We arrive in good shape having always been in the first two positions in the three races of the year so far, I want to keep this going in Le Mans,” the Spaniard said.

“Last year we struggled, especially in acceleration but I feel that this year is going to be a little different. It’s a good track for my riding style so we will try to fight for the win again, but [we're] always thinking about the championship.”

McLaren Formula 1 driver Jenson Button will try out the passenger version of Mercedes’ latest DTM car when the series visits Brands Hatch this weekend.

Button will receive instruction from Mercedes’ DTM driver and McLaren F1 reserve Gary Paffett before giving his compatriot a passenger ride around the Kent circuit.

Button will also sign autographs for fans outside the Mercedes-Benz hospitality unit at 11.10 on Sunday, before joining a live Q&A session chaired by DTM regular and BBC F1 pundit David Coulthard.

“Brands Hatch is one of the circuits where I cut my teeth in junior single-seaters and I have many fond memories of the place – in Formula Ford, the Formula Ford Festival, and in British Formula 3. It’s one of the greatest tracks in the world, and a place with an awful lot of motorsport history,” said Button.

“Gary’s also given me the chance to drive the DTM ‘race taxi’ with him – it’ll be the first time I’ve driven Brands since doing F3 there back in 1999. It’s going to be very cool.

“I think the DTM weekend will be a great event – it’s a fantastic series with some excellent, close racing and some of the best drivers in the world. For me, it’s going to be a great personal experience and a fantastic opportunity to get up-close and personal with all the British fans who have been supporting me over the years.”

Paffett currently leads the DTM standings after two rounds, having taken victory in the Hockenheim season-opener and second place behind BMW’s Bruno Spengler at Lausitz.

Lewis Hamilton produced an ‘extraordinary’ performance in the Spanish Grand Prix to charge from the back of the grid to finish eighth, reckons his team boss Martin Whitmarsh.

The Briton was excluded from qualifying after a mistake in the garage meant he did not have enough fuel to complete an in-lap and provide a petrol sample after taking pole position.

Despite the setback, Hamilton executed a well-judged two-stop strategy that Whitmarsh thinks will silence those who suggest the former world champion is too aggressive.

“Lewis was extraordinary,” said Whitmarsh. “After a fantastic qualifying effort, and the undoubted frustration and shock at what happened after that, I am so proud of him.

“We knew we had to do something like a two-stop, but we knew how difficult that would be. So, from the get go, Lewis had to look after the tyres. And this is someone who is often criticised and called the racer who cannot think it through and cannot look after his tyres.

“He did an extraordinary job. To do 31 laps on a set of tyres, and give it another 100 metres and he would have got past Nico [Rosberg] as well, he had to race, hussle, overtake and be assertive and aggressive at the right moments. He proved he could operate and he got himself in the points.”

Despite praising Hamilton’s charging drive, Whitmarsh did concede that McLaren had to learn lessons from what happened over the weekend, as it squandered a real opportunity to win.

“Clearly there are some negatives and disappointments that we take away from this weekend,” he said. “To have to race from the back of the grid is tough, really, really tough – so we have to learn, we have to improve and we have to be better.

“But equally there are some positives. The car is quick, Lewis has demonstrated levels of maturity, resolve, and control, to add to the speed and talent that we knew he had.

“We leave here eight points off the drivers’ championship [lead], and 11 off in the constructors’. In two weeks’ time, hopefully we will be leading both. It is that sort of a championship.”

Ferrari has said it expects Felipe Massa to lift his performance at the Monaco Grand Prix, amid the first signs that the team is losing patience with his lack of results.

At the start of what was viewed as a vital campaign for the Brazilian driver, he has scored just two points so far, with team-mate Fernando Alonso jointly leading the world championship on 61.

Massa’s lack of results means that Ferrari is currently lying fourth in the constructors’ championships behind Red Bull, McLaren and Lotus.

In a statement issued on its website after the Spanish GP, Ferrari highlighted Massa’s poor form this year compared to previous seasons, and said it was clear what was expected of him.

“In Montmelo, Felipe was very unlucky, both in the race and in qualifying, but everyone, he more than anyone, is expecting a change of gear starting right away with the Monaco Grand Prix,” said Ferrari.

Although Ferrari remains committed to Massa for now, AUTOSPORT understands that the outfit is now seriously evaluating options for the future – both short and long-term – if the situation does not change.

While Sauber driver Sergio Perez remains a prospect for the longer term, Ferrari is also understood to be evaluating Force India duo Paul di Resta and Nico Hulkenberg as well as Lotus test driver Jerome d’Ambrosio.

Although the latter’s inclusion as a candidate is a surprise, the Belgian does have the advantage of being available immediately, and would be happy to take a half-year deal which would allow Ferrari to spend longer thinking about its options for a new team-mate for Alonso in 2013.

Adrian Sutil is confident that he will have the opportunity to return to Formula 1 despite being without a seat for 2012.

The German, who raced for Spyker/Force India from 2007-2011 before losing his seat for this year, returned to the F1 paddock at last weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix.

While there are no opportunities currently available, he believes that if he is patient there will be chances to make a comeback.

“I’m always looking, but I have nothing at the moment,” Sutil told AUTOSPORT. “I chose this grand prix to come back because it’s the first in Europe. It feels good to be back in the paddock and to see some people.

“That is the key to getting a drive and hopefully very soon. At the moment, there are no seats available and I have to wait. But people know that I am ready and on hold. I have to wait for the call.

“I talk to many different teams, but they can’t say anything right now. They say that they are maybe interested, but you can’t get more. They tell me to hold on, keep fit and then maybe there is an opportunity. I have to believe in it and it will come.”

Sutil emphasised that he is determined to return to the sport in a professional capacity, not as a pay driver.

The German turned in some impressive performances as Force India climbed the grid during his time there and he believes that proves that he merits his place on the grid.

“We are not offering money,” said Sutil. “After five years, people know that I’m good and I don’t need to bring sponsors.

“I want a normal salary for my driving and that’s it. I want to get treated like a race driver and it’s important for the whole sport that the real talents are in the seats and not the drivers with the biggest money behind them.”

Sutil is certain that the suspended sentence he was hit with in January for causing bodily harm will not damage his chances of landing a drive or prevent him from visiting any countries that host races.

“It’s over and there are no restrictions for me, I can travel and I can do everything that I did before,” he said. “We had time to check all of that out.”

Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing’s rookie driver Josef Newgarden topped the timesheets on the third day of practice for the Indianapolis 500 on Monday.

Newgarden managed a best lap of 40.4519s at 222.486mph to put himself clear of Andretti Autosport’s Ryan Hunter-Reay and his team-mate Marco Andretti.

Newgarden’s time was the quickest of the week so far, and he said that he expects the speeds to climb further as more cars start to run in traffic.

“It looks like everyone was trying to race runs, and we kind of jumped in as well,” he said. “It was a lot of fun. It was good to run out there with the guys, and I think we need to do more of that probably and figure out how the car operates in the draft a little bit.

“I certainly learned a lot of the way it reacts today, and we just got to keep progressing with and trying to make it even more comfortable during the race.”

Ganassi driver Scott Dixon and Sunday pacesetter Sebastian Saavedra (AFS/Andretti) rounded out the top five.

Pos  Driver              Team/Car                      Time      Gap

 1.  Josef Newgarden     Fisher DW12-Honda             40.4519s

 2.  Ryan Hunter-Reay    Andretti DW12-Chevy           40.6065s  + 0.1546s

 3.  Marco Andretti      Andretti DW12-Chevy           40.6285s  + 0.1766s

 4.  Scott Dixon         Ganassi DW12-Honda            40.6323s  + 0.1804s

 5.  Sebastian Saavedra  AFS/Andretti DW12-Chevy       40.7636s  + 0.3117s

 6.  JR Hildebrand       Panther DW12-Chevy            40.7835s  + 0.3316s

 7.  Dario Franchitti    Ganassi DW12-Honda            40.8250s  + 0.3731s

 8.  Oriol Servia        Panther/DRR DW12-Chevy        40.8527s  + 0.4008s

 9.  Takuma Sato         Rahal DW12-Honda              40.8924s  + 0.4405s

10.  James Hinchcliffe   Andretti DW12-Chevy           40.9079s  + 0.4560s

11.  Tony Kanaan         KV DW12-Chevy                 40.9536s  + 0.5017s

12.  Justin Wilson       Dale Coyne DW12-Honda         41.0007s  + 0.5488s

13.  Ana Beatriz         Andretti/Conquest DW12-Chevy  41.0121s  + 0.5602s

14.  James Jakes         Dale Coyne DW12-Honda         41.0892s  + 0.6373s

15.  Ryan Briscoe        Penske DW12-Chevy             41.1016s  + 0.6497s

16.  Helio Castroneves   Penske DW12-Chevy             41.1470s  + 0.6951s

17.  Will Power          Penske DW12-Chevy             41.1783s  + 0.7264s

18.  EJ Viso             KV DW12-Chevy                 41.2192s  + 0.7673s

19.  Bryan Clauson       Fisher DW12-Honda             41.2212s  + 0.7693s

20.  Simon Pagenaud      Schmidt DW12-Honda            41.2390s  + 0.7871s

21.  Townsend Bell       Schmidt DW12-Honda            41.2574s  + 0.8055s

22.  Wade Cunningham     Foyt DW12-Honda               41.3250s  + 0.8731s

23.  Graham Rahal        Ganassi DW12-Honda            41.3837s  + 0.9318s

24.  Alex Tagliani       Herta DW12-Honda              41.3897s  + 0.9378s

25.  Mike Conway         Foyt DW12-Honda               41.4990s  + 1.0471s

26.  Rubens Barrichello  KV DW12-Chevy                 41.5274s  + 1.0755s

27.  Ed Carpenter        Carpenter DW12-Chevy          41.5684s  + 1.1165s

28.  Michel Jourdain Jr  Rahal DW12-Honda              41.6725s  + 1.2206s

29.  Jean Alesi          Fan Force DW12-Lotus          42.5499s  + 2.0980s

Pastor Maldonado reached a new high in the Castrol EDGE Rankings following his surprise maiden victory in the Spanish Grand Prix.

The 27-year-old became the first Venezuelan to win in Formula 1, and in the process delivered Williams its first grand prix win since 2004, after holding off a late charge from the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso.

The spoils of victory were reflected in the Rankings, with Maldonado rocketing 30 places to an all-time high of 56th – putting him 12th in the F1 standings.

Also boosted by rostrum success was Finland’s Kimi Raikkonen, who finished just half a second behind Alonso after a ferocious late charge.

Third was still enough for the Lotus driver to gain 26 places and move to 109th, the closest he has been to breaking the top 100 since late 2010.

In contrast to his fellow podium men, Fernando Alonso’s second place was enough to gain him points, but not ground, in the Rankings and he stayed fifth.

He did however move closer to Lewis Hamilton in fourth and indeed the outright Rankings lead, as the top four drivers all suffered slides.

Of the quarter, current leader Sebastian Vettel’s fall was the most severe – the German effectively counting the cost of his 2011 dominance.

Force to pit for a new nose and delayed by a drive-through, only a late charge allowed Vettel to finish sixth.

That was a far cry from the dominant pole position-victory combination in last year’s Turkish Grand Prix however, the round to be dropped under the rollover system. The result was a slide of 1,000 points, leaving Vettel on his lowest points total since mid-2011.

The same phenomenon accounted for Webber’s slide too. Also forced to pit for a new nose, the Australian finished 11th – opposed to his second in Istanbul – and slipped back into the clutches of Jenson Button in third.

Button, for his part, never got going on a weekend in which he struggled with both understeer and oversteer.

An afternoon in traffic resulted in a ninth-place finish, and his own mini-slide – although he effectively closed on Webber in second given the Australian’s more pronounced loss.

Lewis Hamilton also suffered a Rankings fall and is now in danger of being overhauled by Alonso – although he at least had a caveat for his eighth-place finish following a disastrous qualifying mistake.

Starting therefore from the back of the grid, rather than pole, Hamilton executed a two-stop strategy with an intelligent and measured drive to eighth, a decent damage limitation.

In the Rankings, he limited the damage caused by Saturday’s woes and scored enough points to keep himself fourth, just ahead of Alonso.

To see the full Rankings, visit www.castroledgerankings.com.

The Williams F1 team has confirmed that a further two team members have been released from hospital and have returned home after being treated for smoke inhalation following its pit garage fire at the Spanish Grand Prix.

One member of the team, who suffered burns in the incident, remains in hospital in Spain but is expected to return to the UK for further treatment within the next 48 hours.

A statement from Williams reported that investigations into the cause of the fire are still on-going.

Team principal Sir Frank Williams said he was pleased to have been able to welcome the majority of the team back to the factory on Monday.

“I was pleased to welcome back to the factory the majority of our team this morning. One of our people remains in Spain for further medical assistance, but we are all looking forward to his imminent return,” Williams said.

“Everyone at Williams F1 is extremely relieved that this event was contained as quickly as it was and the damage which occurred was, relatively speaking, limited in its nature.

“While the incident was unexpected and definitely most undesirable, it has demonstrated the genuine cohesiveness, camaraderie and spirit of co-operation that exists within the Formula One paddock.

“The astonishing response from the teams and other paddock personnel was immediate, unconditional and overwhelming.”

Nico Rosberg believes Mercedes can still be a serious contender in the world championship fight this year, despite a disappointing Spanish Grand Prix.

The German struggled with tyres throughout the Barcelona weekend, and finished seventh after losing positions in the closing stages of the race.

However, having not lost much ground to the championship lead (currently shared by Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso), Rosberg believes that the next races on the calendar will be better suited to the Mercedes package.

“I only lost two points on the championship lead, which was good, and I am still only 20 points away which is good, as long as we can push on and improve,” explained Rosberg on his own video blog.

“Hopefully the conditions in Monaco and Montreal will favour us again. It is possible. But it is difficult to understand how the next race is going to be: let’s wait and see. For us onwards and upwards as Ross [Brawn, team principal] would say.”

Rosberg said that the Mercedes form over the Spanish weekend was simply a consequence of it failing to get on top of the tyre situation.

“It was a difficult weekend for us,” he said. “It is really unbelievable in F1 at the moment – the ups and downs of everybody. That Williams win is fantastic for them and I am very happy for Frank [Williams], his 70th birthday and the win is fantastic stuff.

“For us, it was a much more difficult weekend. It was just tyre management. In qualifying we were eating the tyres and that was why we were struggling more than some other teams like Williams. It was the same in the race.”

IndyCar series returnee Sebastian Saavedra topped the second day of practice for the Indy 500 with a lap of 40.6272s (221.526mph) in the AFS Racing/Andretti entry.

The Colombian, who returned to Indy Lights this year after a full IndyCar season in 2011, led a day dominated by young drivers, with Sarah Fisher Racing duo Bryan Clauson and Josef Newgarden completing the top three.

Saavedra said that his laptime was made possible by how well the five Andretti drivers are working together in preparation for the May 27 race.

“There’s some big strategy at Andretti Autosport, and we’re five cars and all of us have homework to do every day,” he said.

“We have things to try, and we sit down all together to see what works, what we need to try for the next day, but everything is a big strategy. Everything needs to be very well established. It’s the professional way to do it.”

Ganassi’s Scott Dixon and Dale Coyne Racing’s Justin Wilson rounded out the top five.

Meanwhile, Rubens Barrichello’s ongoing adaption to oval racing continued, with the F1 veteran’s confidence levels getting a boost after KV Racing team-mate Tony Kanaan validated the set-up of his car.

“At the end of the day, I got Tony to drive my car because I needed to see if I was developing the car in the right way or not,” Barrichello said “He was getting the same speed as me, so that gives me more confidence to carry on my work. It is only the second day, and luckily at Indianapolis I have another week to practice.”

Barrichello ended the day with the 29th fastest time. Fellow F1 icon Jean Alesi was a further six spots back in his Fan Force car, although he was quickest of the two Lotus-powered entries.

McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh has admitted that he should have told Lewis Hamilton to abandon his Spanish Grand Prix qualifying lap as soon as the team realised it had not put enough fuel in his car.

A mistake in the garage prior to Hamilton’s final run in Q3 meant that the British driver did not have enough fuel to be able to complete an in-lap and provide a mandatory sample for the FIA.

But rather than give up on the challenge for pole, McLaren let Hamilton complete his lap before ordering him to stop.

That decision ultimately led to the 2008 world champion being excluded from qualifying and moved to the back of the grid, which was a more severe penalty than the team was expecting.

Speaking about the matter after the race, Whitmarsh said that he should have acted differently.

“With hindsight I was wrong, but I don’t think I or very many people anticipated that, as a consequence, we would be starting from the back of the grid,” said Whitmarsh.

“With hindsight I could have called it a different way, and he could have just come in at the end of the out lap. But frankly I did not expect the penalty that he received.”

Whitmarsh revealed that the team only became aware of the fuel situation once Hamilton was on his qualifying lap.

“Part way through that last qualifying lap, the data indicated that there was not as much fuel on board as we thought,” he said.

“We knew there is a black and white regulation that says you have to be able to give a litre [sample] at the end, so I took a call which was: right, that is a black and white regulation, there is no negotiation, let’s make sure we can comply.

“We stopped the car and pumped out 1.3 litres as it turned out, but we didn’t know that until several hours later. It could have been three litres and I would have been moderately embarrassed. Whatever the outcome I was going to be embarrassed.”

Renault Sport F1 managing director Jean-Francois Caubet has admitted that he didn’t expect the revived partnership with Williams to yield wins so quickly.

Pastor Maldonado’s surprise victory in the Spanish Grand Prix came in only the fifth race since the Williams-Renault link-up was renewed and although Caubet was always confident that wins would come, he saw it as a longer-term project.

“We thought we needed three years to win and after five races we did,” Caubet told AUTOSPORT. “It’s a fantastic feeling.

“The last win was in 1997 with Jacques Villeneuve [at the Nurburgring]. It is emotional for Renault. When we signed Williams it was huge news in Renault because we have been in Formula 1 for 45 years and Williams is part of our history.”

Caubet is hopeful that there could be further victories this year.

He paid tribute to the quality of the car that the team has produced and credited the team’s fighting spirit for it delivering top results so quickly.

“Yes, I think so,” he said when asked if the win is repeatable. “In Australia, straight away the Williams was a good, competitive car. We have a good engine and fantastic drivers.

“We thought we could be about fifth or sixth in the championship and it would take two or three years to win but because of the fighting spirit, we did it now.

“Williams never give up. This is key. We were sure that they would be back and it was clear that the had the budget and the technical people to do so.

“They have the right people. In Formula 1, you must have the right balance between people with experience and [new] people with creativity.”

Williams chief operations engineer Mark Gillan has offered his thanks to rival teams who reacted so quickly to the fire in its pit garage after the Spanish Grand Prix.

A major fire broke out in the garage shortly after a team photo was taken in celebration of the first Williams victory since 2004.

But prompt action from crew members from nearby teams, including Force India and Caterham, ensured that the damage was limited.

“On behalf of Williams, I’d like to thank all of the team members from other teams for their helped during the fire,” Gillan told AUTOSPORT. “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.”

Gillan confirmed that Williams has lost a large amount of equipment in the fire. But despite this he has no doubts that the team will be fully operational in time for next week’s Monaco Grand Prix both in terms of equipment and crew.

“We had a lot of damage and we have lost a lot of equipment, including IT equipment,” said Gillan. “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.”

Initial inspections of Bruno Senna’s car, which was in the garage when the fire erupted as it had not finished the race, suggest that the chassis is undamaged.

However, Williams will not be certain of that until it has examined the car more closely back at its Grove base.

Ferrari still needs to make a ‘massive’ step forward with its car if it is to win the world championship this year, despite Fernando Alonso’s second place in Spain moving him back to the head of the standings.

That is the view of its team principal Stefano Domenicali who thinks that, although updates introduced at Barcelona have delivered as expected, much more progress is needed over the remainder of the campaign.

“This has to be a push for all the engineers at home to make sure that we improve the car,” Domenicali said about Alonso now being joint leader of the title chase with Sebastian Vettel.

“That is the only thing we can do if we want to win this championship. We need to make a massive step and keep improving the downforce.

“But with all the problems we had since the beginning of the season, at least we are there [at the head of the title race]. Still, there is a lot of improvement that we need to bring because our target has not changed.”

Ferrari had gone in to the Spanish GP weekend well aware that the updates needed to deliver a sign of clear improvement. But its front row start and battle for victory was more than even it expected, with Alonso admitting that he was “surprised by the weekend result”.

However, Domenicali believes it was important to show that efforts back at Maranello are paying off.

“At least I am happy for the team at home who are pushing and working hard, to see the sign of their work,” he said. “In a difficult condition with a lot of pressure, it is not a problem for me; it is a problem for the people who have to manage the engineering of it, to deliver the job.

“I am happy because I saw the job of the last weeks delivered the right sign in terms of trend. But we know it is not enough.”

iSport International will build a new GP2 car for Jolyon Palmer after the Briton had another race weekend blighted by electrical problems in Spain.

Palmer did not even make the start of race two at Barcelona on Sunday, after his car broke down on the warm-up lap with a repeat of electrical gremlins which have plagued the start of his 2012 season.

iSport boss Paul Jackson revealed that the team will now switch to a new car for the next round of the series in Monaco.

“Another difficult weekend with continuing electrical problems on Jolyon’s car, which have proved impossible to identify,” said Jackson.

“The decision has now been taken to build a replacement car for Monaco around a different chassis and engine with all new electrical components. So the team has a busy week ahead, but will re-group in Monaco and hope to put these troubles behind us.”

Jackson also praised the efforts of technical staff from GP2 and the FIA, who have helped iSport try to get to the bottom of the problems on Palmer’s car.

“We have had support from the people at GP2 and some external help from the FIA technical staff, but all to no avail,” he said.

“We would like to thank all who have offered help and assistance and look forward to concentrating on performance, rather than chasing a problem.

“Monaco is a special event with many good memories and results for us, so we hope to turn our fortunes around in the principality and kick start our season with some strong results.”

Williams has promised not to get carried away and believe it can challenge for wins at every track now, despite Pastor Maldonado’s dominant performance at the Spanish Grand Prix.

The Grove-based outfit ended an eight-year victory drought at the Circuit de Catalunya, with Maldonado brilliantly holding off Fernando Alonso for his maiden F1 triumph.

But despite strong performances at the Barcelona track often being an indicator that a car will be good for the remainder of the campaign, Williams thinks the unpredictable nature of this season means there is no guarantee or more success in the future.

Williams board member Toto Wolff told AUTOSPORT: “I can get used to this kind of stuff, I like it. But I think we cannot expect results like this to happen on every occasion, or that we will be there now as a top contender.

“We have seen Sauber run very competitively in Malaysia, and we have seen [Nico] Rosberg having a tremendous race [in China], while here it was us. So it is a tricky situation which the engineers need to understand.

“But it definitely gives the team a boost of confidence and a boost of motivation. It is going to boost Pastor and it will boost Bruno [Senna]. So let’s live with the euphoria now before we go back to work.”

Wolff, who is playing a more active role at the team following the departure of chairman Adam Parr recently, says the team never expected to be so strong when it arrived at the Spanish GP.

“If you are realistic you cannot dream of the victory,” he said. “We have seen that various teams won various races, and you see the Mercedes has gone up and down.

“Whether it is about finding the right window for the tyres to work, or if it is a combination of other things, it is still to be analysed.

“But I didn’t dream about the win, and I didn’t dream about it after qualifying either. Our aim was to keep it calm and score solid points. This is what Pastor’s target was in the morning, so he was not going flat out and crazy for the win.”

NASCAR officials said they would investigate a pit-road altercation after the conclusion of Saturday’s race at Darlington involving Ryan Newman’s Stewart Haas and Kurt Busch’s Phoenix Racing teams.

The scuffle took place after Kurt Busch hit he back of Ryan Newman’s car on pit-road once the race had finished already. Crew members from both teams were then involved in a shoving incident, where a NASCAR official trying to split two crew members ended up lying on the hood of the #51 car of Busch.

NASCAR’s Vice President of Competition Robin Pemberton said they were reviewing the facts of what took place, having heard from some of those involved. He added that any resulting penalties, if levied, would be announced later this week.

“We’re still getting all the facts straight,” Pemberton said. “We talked to Ryan [Newman] a little bit and he talked to Kurt [Busch] afterwards and Kurt said that he didn’t mean to hit him on pit road, he was taking his helmet off and looked up and he ran in the back of him.

“There was a lot of stuff going on down there and nobody said anything other than maybe [a NASCAR official] fell back on the hood. Our guys didn’t say anything and we didn’t see that there was anything aggressive towards one of our officials.”

Busch spun with six laps remaining after he had been running in the top ten late in the race. Newman, who was following him at the time, also spun while trying to avoid hitting the Phoenix Racing Chevrolet of his rival.

The 2004 Sprint Cup champion was filmed while verbally abusing an ESPN pit reporter during the 2011 season-finale at Homestead, which added to a few more incidents he had before that, resulting in him losing his drive with Penske Racing.

“It’s easy to say that Kurt blew a fuse again,” Newman told SI.com. “I’m not sure why he did it and tried to run over our guys and NASCAR officials. And nobody is. I think the chemical imbalance speaks for itself. Kurt drilled me in pit lane and said that he was taking his helmet off, and he didn’t see where he was going.

“I’m pretty sure there were 42 other guys that are taking their helmets off and doing whatever for the last 10 years, and that’s the first time that’s happened to me.

“Circumstances I think are that he lied and was so frustrated that he doesn’t know how to deal with his anger.”

Danica Patrick said she accomplished the goals she set for her second Sprint Cup outing, her first at Darlington, finishing 31st on Saturday night’s 500-miler.

The Stewart-Haas driver had an uneventful race at one of NASCAR’s toughest venues, having started the weekend 1.5 seconds off the pace in Friday’s opening practice, where she also had a first brush with the wall.

However, she showed improved pace throughout the weekend despite a slow start to her race, soon falling a lap down as the event unusually ran caution-free for the first 171 laps.

On lap 282, when she was already three laps down, Patrick had her only incident of the day when she was penalised for a hitting the cone that marks the end of the commitment line at pit entry, dropping another three laps behind eventual winner Jimmie Johnson.

Despite her result, Patrick seemed satisfied to have crossed the finish line with her car in one piece, taking some valuable lessons out her first Cup race at Darlington.

“I think I held my own alright,” Patrick said. “And, the other one was to finish, and both of those things happened. So, overall, good night. I will be much less worried coming back to this place.

“My goals were to run respectable, at times even passing and having decent speed and to finish. We did both of those things, so I think overall it was a really successful weekend at a track that could have been a disaster.

“This is a step in the right direction. I can finally thank Tony (Stewart) for putting this one of the schedule.”

Patrick will be back in a Cup car in two-week’s time to face the longest NASCAR race of the season at Charlotte, where she expects to make yet another step towards becoming competitive in Cup.

Rick Hendrick praised Jimmie Johnson and his team following the organisation’s 200th Sprint Cup victory which they claimed on Saturday at Darlington.

Despite Johnson being the driver who had led the most laps during the season ahead of his team-mate Jeff Gordon, It took 17 races for the organisation to move up from 199 wins after the five-time champion had most recently won at Kansas last year.

The team had come close to win a number of races this year but different circumstances had prevented their drivers from getting to Victory Lane, suffering a massive blow at Martinsville last month, where Johnson and Gordon led most of the race and battled for victory between them until their hopes were dashed in an incident during a late restart.

Hendrick paid tribute to late team members as legendary crew chief Harry Hyde, who was instrumental to the outfit’s early success in the 1980s. He also dedicated the milestone win to the memory of family and team members who died in an airplane crash close to Martinsville in 2004.

“I didn’t think it was ever going to happen,” said Hendrick. “I thought we were going to haul those [200th-win commemorative] hats around forever!… When we got to 199, we got stuck.

“I was at a wedding for one of my best friends in the western part of North Carolina. And at eight o’clock we jumped on the helicopter and got [to Darlington]. I’m so proud of the guys and all of the folks from Harry Hyde that helped me get this thing going, to everybody…

“I just want to thank everybody and those folks that gave it all and gave their lives in ’04, my family and my friends, this is a special night we’re going to remember them.”

Jimmie Johnson, who has contributed to the organisation’s tally with 56 wins, was reminiscent of how Hendrick and Gordon gave him the chance to kick off a successful career in NASCAR’s elite series in 2001.

Since then, Johnson is accountable for more than half the races the team has won.

“I wouldn’t have won a bunch of these now if it wasn’t for his vision and [sponsor] Lowe’s coming on board to believe in me in the beginning,” said Johnson.

“I wouldn’t be here today to contribute to these great wins. But in typical Rick Hendrick fashion he said, ‘We got 200, now let’s go get 250′, so we didn’t even savor it. He’s already put the pressure on us to go win 250!”

Hendrick Motorsports ranks second in the all-time NASCAR Sprint Cup winning teams behind Petty Enterprises which claimed 268 wins, 197 achieved by Richard Petty alone.

The Williams team is working with the fire services and the police to determine the root cause of the fire that broke out after the Spanish Grand Prix.

Williams said the fire, which erupted some 90 minutes after the team had won its first race since 2004, had originated from the fuel area.

The Grove squad confirmed four members of the team were injured in the incident. One has already been released while the other three are now receiving treatment at local hospitals.

“The Williams F1 Team would like to thank all of the teams and the FIA for their support in today’s incident,” said the team in a statement.

It is so far confirmed only nine members were from F1 teams but other team personnel were understood to be involved.

Caterham said four of its members had been taken to the medical centre for examination, while another Force India mechanic had also suffered from smoke inhalation and was under observation.

Formula 1′s ruling body, the FIA, said a total of 31 people were seen by medical staff from the circuit. Seven had been transferred to local hospitals.

“The FIA is collaborating closely with the Spanish authorities investigating this incident and will be providing a further update as soon as more information becomes available,” said the FIA.

Charles Pic – DNF: “I didn’t get a very good start today. From then on I was working well on my pace and got the right side of the HRTs again. Things were going well for me then on lap 26 I suddenly lost drive and came back into the pits, where unfortunately I had to retire. We could see then that we have experienced a problem with the drive shaft, so we need to understand why that happened. There’s a lot of work for all of us in the next two weeks to improve for Monaco as we have not had the weekend we hoped for. After going to Sir Frank’s 70th birthday event last night I am pleased for him that he had this result today for Pastor and his team. For our side we look ahead to the next race and some more progress.”

Timo Glock – 18th: “I had a pretty good start. The first lap was good and I had a bit of a fight with Lewis for that lap. In general after that when positions were settled I just tried to keep the tyres alive as long as possible and we struggled with rear end instability again. From my side I can only push around 80% at the moment. It’s still not perfect and we’re missing pace, so we have to analyse and get on top of the problem before Monaco. On a lighter note, congratulations to Pastor Maldonado and the Williams F1 Team. They’ve done a great race result today.”

John Booth, Team Principal: “It is obviously very disappointing that we were unable to bring both cars home today. We have suffered two drive shaft issues this weekend – one of those was in the race – so we’re sorry for Charles to suffer a DNF after his efforts all weekend. With Timo’s car we have not made the progress with the car balance that we wanted to and this is preventing him from being as quick as he can be. There have been times when we have got on top of the problem and we are good, and times when we are not quite getting what we need to out of the car, as was the case in today’s race. A disappointing result for us but a brilliant win for Pastor and our congratulations to the Williams F1 Team on that. A busy week ahead for us now, but we look forward to the next race in Monaco.”

Lewis Hamilton believes that he has proved his doubters wrong after making only two stops during the race at Barcelona.

Hamilton started at the back of the field after being penalised for running short of fuel at the end of qualifying and was forced to try a different strategy than the rest of the drivers, eventually climbing to eighth, one place ahead of team-mate Jenson Button.

Despite his reputation for aggressive driving, the 27-year-old was able to conserve his tyres far better than Button, who is normally associated with exceptional tyre management.

“People are always saying how aggressive my driving style is so hopefully this will prove a few people wrong that I can nurse my tyres,” he said.

“It is very easy just to go 100 per cent and ruin your tyres and kill you race by making silly mistakes so today was about being controlled, calm and collected.

“I was the only one to do a two stopper, despite everyone always telling me how aggressive my driving style is and how much better my team-mate is on tyres than me. I think today is a good demonstration that they are perhaps wrong.”

The British driver was pleased with how competitive the McLaren has been and says that the team can bounce back from a difficult weekend with a strong result in Monaco.

“I think our car will continue to be competitive. Our team has done a great job improving our car and things will come together for us and when they do we will get the results we deserve,” he said.

“Monaco is a track that I love and I hope that we will have a much better weekend there and it is now my home circuit. The team needs a little bit of a boost, they have been working very hard and they deserve better.”

Felipe Massa is confident that he would have finished in the top 10 at Barcelona had it not been for what he believes was an unnecessary drive-through penalty.

The Ferrari driver was forced to take an unscheduled tour through the pitlane on lap 28, a penalty for ignoring yellow flags.

The delay meant that 15th place was the best he could manage, with Massa later admitting that he was unsure why he was penalised.

“Honestly, I don’t think I did anything wrong and I believe it is better to look into the detail of what happened, because I was in the middle of a group of cars and I definitely did not try to overtake anyone,” said the Brazilian.

“It’s a real shame, because up until then, the race was going well for me and a place in the top 10 was comfortably within my reach. I was in the group with the Red Bulls and the McLarens and I could match their pace.”

With his team-mate Fernando Alonso finishing second, Massa is confident that Ferrari is now getting to grips with its 2012 challenger.

“I am happy that Fernando was able to fight for the win all the way to the end, as it shows our car’s potential has definitely improved. We still don’t have the quickest car, but it seems we are going down the right road.”

A number of Formula 1 personnel are being treated by medical staff at the Circuit de Catalunya for burns and smoke inhalation following a major fire in the Williams garage after the Spanish Grand Prix.

Shortly after a team photo was taken to celebrate Pastor Maldonado’s victory, around 90 minutes after the end of the race, it is believed that fuel exploded while it was being prepared for transportation as part of the post-race procedure.

The explosion filled the garage with black smoke, which poured into the pits and paddock, and personnel from a number of teams as well as track officials moved quickly to put the blaze out.

A number of team members were caught up in the incident, with those suffering from burns and smoke inhalation being taken to the medical centre.

While there has been no official confirmation of the number of F1 personnel involved in the incident or the extent of their injuries, Williams, Force India and Caterham have confirmed that their staff members are being treated.

Williams has said that four of its crew are being looked at in the medical centre, although the extent of the injuries is unknown.

Force India has confirmed that one of its team members was being treated for smoke inhalation, while Caterham has issued a statement confirming that four of its crew are being attended to too.

“Caterham F1 Team was involved in a fire that started in the Williams F1 Team’s garage after the end of the Spanish Grand Prix,” it said in a statement.

“All the team’s employees have been accounted for and four people have been taken to the circuit medical centre for examination; one with a minor hand injury and three with respiratory issues.

“A further statement will be issued when more details about the incident are confirmed.”

Michael Schumacher will lose five places on the starting grid for the Monaco Grand Prix following his crash with Bruno Senna in Spain.

The Mercedes driver crashed into the back of the Williams when fighting for position at the end of the straight on lap 13, with both drivers retiring.

The stewards deemed the seven-time champion was to blame for having caused the collision and he will be dropped five places on the starting grid at Monaco.

Schumacher believed the accident had been Senna’s fault.

“I just took a minute to watch the video and if you look at the overhead shot you can see that he moves right to defend his inside position, but in the braking phase he moves back left right in front of me,” said Schumacher.

“Then I tried to avoid to the inside again, but too late. Then it’s done because that’s in the braking phase. Very frustrating. Very much annoyed about that.”

Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel were confused as to why they needed to have their front wings replaced during the Spanish Grand Prix.

Both Red Bull Racing drivers had their races compromised by front wing changes, despite their being no visible sign of damage on either occasion.

The mysterious problem was particularly costly for Webber, with the Australian eventually finishing outside the points in 11th.

Vettel was still able to finish sixth and retain his lead in the championship, albeit now shared with Fernando Alonso.

“I don’t know [what the problem was], to be honest,” said Vettel. “I didn’t think I had any damage on the nose.

“I came on the radio and said it felt like damage or something stuck. We know that there is a lot of rubber on the track and it’s likely that maybe a big piece of rubber gets stuck and then it ruins the aerodynamics.

“I wasn’t sure and I tried another lap, but it wasn’t the right thing to do so we decided to come in and change the nose just to make sure. That cost us quite some time but ultimately it was the right thing because I was told that something on the front left of the wing was actually broken. I don’t know why. I didn’t hit anybody or anything.”

Webber, meanwhile, blamed the delay for leaving him stuck in traffic and unable to fight for a point-paying position.

“I don’t know where I got damage on my front wing but I had to pit for a new nose,” Webber added.

“I lost a lot of time with that obviously, not only that lap but the two or three before when it started playing up.

“Then when you’re out of position round here, you have to do the longest range stop possible and look after your tyres, and then when you catch people, the tyres just get killed. It’s chicken and egg. If you push past them, you’ve got to pit earlier and commit to another stop.

“I was out of position because of whatever happened with the nose. I was stuck behind the Force India and you could see the McLarens doing nothing, Seb was just chipping away doing nothing special. It’s amazing. The tables have turned.”

Jenson Button says his problems with the McLaren will not be solved overnight after finishing ninth at Barcelona.

Button started in tenth position, but finished behind Lewis Hamilton, who started from the back of the grid after being penalised for not having enough fuel during his final qualifying run.

The Englishman was unable to match the speed of his team-mate and has complained of a lack of balance and ultimate pace throughout the weekend.

“The last few races the pace has been very good in the race but I really struggled with the car itself. It is not just one end, I felt that I just had very low grip,” he said.

“I am normally good at looking after tyres and having a good consistency, it is something I always work on but I can’t do that at the moment and I don’t know why. I am really struggling with the car at the moment. It is not an overnight fix.”

Button was initially confident that he could get a good result in Spain after working on his long run pace, but was unable to get the McLaren to work in traffic.

“It is surprising with long run pace because that is something I always work very hard on so we need to look at the consistency for next race and try and work out why I can’t work with these tyres,” he said.

“I thought we were on for a better result than that. I am alright in clear air but then as soon as I am in traffic I can’t keep any heat in the tyres. I don’t know why that is, I turn the steering wheel like everyone else does but it doesn’t seem like that at the moment.”

The Circuit de Catalunya pitlane had to be evacuated following the Spanish Grand Prix after a big fire broke out in the Williams garage.

The fire is initially believed to have been caused by an explosion in the area behind where the cars are worked on.

The pitlane was evacuated and firefighters and ambulances arrived at the scene. It is currently unclear whether there are any injuries.

Williams was still celebrating its first victory since the 2004 season, achieved by Pastor Maldonado moments earlier.

Force India’s Otmar Szafnauer told Sky that one of his team’s mechanics had been taken to the medical centre for smoking inhalation.

Williams said one of its mechanics was also in the medical centre, but was unsure about the injuries if any.

Heikki Kovalainen – 16th: “I think we got as much out of the car as we could this afternoon. I had a good start, passed Senna and was hanging on to the pack ahead up until the second stops. The first stint on the options was good, and we stayed on the soft tyres right up until the last pitstop but maybe the last stint on the hards was a couple of laps too long. Still, it was a decent race and we showed we have decent pace on Sundays, more than enough to easily pull away from the teams behind, but not quite enough to be able to fight throughout the whole race with the cars ahead. We knew this track was going to be one of the tougher ones for us, but now we go to Monaco which will give us a chance of fighting higher up, so we’ll keep pushing to close the gap and aim to take another step forwards at the next race.”

Vitaly Petrov – 17th: “I’m pleased with how I drove this afternoon and, like Heikki, I don’t think we could have got much more performance from the car today. Yesterday we found a good KERS map for qualifying but this afternoon it wasn’t working as well in the first and second stints, and I think that’s where we lost some time to Heikki. The tyre degradation was higher than we’d seen in the long runs in practice, so we need to look again at why that happened and how we can fix it for future races. Apart from that it was one of those afternoons when we got as much out of the race as we could so now we’ll move on to Monaco where the circuit layout and the difficulty of passing should give us a better chance of pushing the cars ahead throughout the weekend.”

Mark Smith, Technical Director: “I am pleased with the performance from both drivers today. They kept pushing throughout the whole race and made sure they didn’t make any mistakes, particularly at the start of the race. Our early pace was good and we used the tyre strategy well to keep ourselves within touching distance of the midfield pack, but again we saw the issue with blue flags, having to let the cars ahead pass articifially lengthened the gap to the cars we had been fighting with, but we have to deal with that on tracks like this where we knew we would be lapped at some point. We now have a busy couple of weeks before the next race, with an aero test in the UK, part of the program that is helping us keep edging closer to the midfield, and we will go to Monaco, hopefully aiming to repeat the sort of performance we saw last year when we finished 13th and 14th.”

Mercedes believes a problem with Nico Rosberg’s car caused his severe tyre management issues during the Spanish Grand Prix.

The German fell from fifth to seventh late on as his tyres wilted and Kamui Kobayashi’s Sauber and Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull overtaken him, with McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton doing likewise.

Mercedes technical chief Bob Bell, who was heading the team this weekend in the absence of the unwell Ross Brawn, said a potential technical problem cost Rosberg downforce and made it even harder for him to look after the Pirellis.

“We didn’t have the basic pace we needed this afternoon, and we were hampered further with an issue on Nico’s car,” Bell said.

“There was a clear loss of downforce measurable on the data, which made it even more difficult for Nico to look after the tyres properly, but whether this was down to damage or another factor is something we will have to investigate this evening.”

Rosberg admitted that he had been baffled by his tyre situation during the race – while also praising his long-time employer Williams for its return to the top step of the podium with Pastor Maldonado.

“I had no more rubber left on the tyres and I could just see people going by,” said Rosberg. “Fifth place would have been an OK result. It’s not that good.

“It’s been a strange whole weekend. Fantastic for Williams and for Frank and for Maldonado. All well deserved and it’s great. For us, just strange. Tyre management is an issue and the way our car handles the tyres.”

Although Rosberg’s team-mate Michael Schumacher has been highly critical of the 2012 Pirellis and the style of racing they demand, Rosberg said he had no complaints and was simply confused about how to get the best out of the tyres.

“I’m enjoying it but scratching my head at the same time. It’s very strange,” he said.

Kimi Raikkonen is confident that he will break through for a grand prix win for Lotus in 2012, after finishing on the podium at the last two races.

After following Sebastian Vettel home in Bahrain, Raikkonen was amongst the frontrunners again in Spain, eventually finishing third behind Pastor Maldonado and Fernando Alonso.

While he was slightly disappointed with the result, the 2007 world champion said that he is now confident that the car is capable of winning races this year.

“I am a bit disappointed because if we had done everything right in the first part of the race, we could have put ourselves in first place,” he said.

“There is no issue with the speed of the car, but it is so close between all the teams that if you have a small problem or a small issue it can cost you a lost. Our car can do it, but everything has to fall in the right place to be able to win.

“If you get the chance you should take it. Hopefully we can keep doing what we are doing now. We will see when we can win but so far it is a good step and the car feels strong everywhere.”

Raikkonen added that if the Spanish Grand Prix had been 10 laps longer, he would have been capable of fighting Maldonado for the win.

“I had a very good start and had chance to overtake on the outside, but we did not have enough speed and I hit the limiter in fifth position,” he said.

“The first stint was okay, but I didn’t have the speed to stay with [the leaders]. It was a bit disappointing. We changed the tyres and it seemed to be pretty good, but we were too far away. We needed 10 more laps and we could have fought for the win.”

Fernando Alonso believes Charles Pic could potentially have cost him a shot at victory in Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix after ignoring blue flags during the race.

The Marussia driver was given a penalty for having not let Alonso through quickly enough, the Spaniard losing valuable time in his fight for the lead with Pastor Maldonado.

Alonso finished the race three seconds behind the Williams driver and admitted he was unimpressed with Pic. Although he acknowledged that Maldonado and Williams were ultimately faster, he hoped Pic’s penalty would act as a warning to backmarkers.

“We were a little bit unlucky,” said Alonso. “We had a Marussia that got a penalty, which is obviously not a solution now, but hopefully people will start to understand that they need to respect the rules and today they didn’t and they got a penalty, but maybe not enough for the penalty which could have cost us a victory.”

The Ferrari driver, whose team had big hopes of taking a step forward in Spain thanks to the upgrades introduced, admitted he was surprised to be so strong all weekend.

Alonso now shares the championship lead with Sebastian Vettel, and believes that he has flattered his car so far.

“Definitely we are a little bit surprised by the quantity of the points we have and surprised by the weekend result,” Alonso said. “We were confident to improve the car, we were hoping for some signs of improvement here in Barcelona and in Bahrain we were out of Q3 and in race, P9 one minute behind the leaders.

“So we arrived here with optimism about the upgrades but the overall weekend pace has been better than expected because we were quick in qualifying and quick in the race.

“But this, how I feel after the weekend, I still don’t know where we are. We need to wait for more races for the championship to stabilise a bit. I think we overperform for the car we have and maybe other cars underperform a little. It is very strange, as we saw this weekend.”

Despite the strong showing, the two-time champion is refusing to believe Ferrari has a car capable of winning everywhere yet.

“We’ll see,” he said when asked if Ferrari had turned the corner. “When we are first and second in one qualifying and first and second in the championship then we will have the best car. Consistency and ability to develop is important because two tenths can be six or seven positions.

“But what we can say is we had the most difficult start to the championship with a car that was not competitive at all, and after one quarter of the championship we are leading with Vettel, so we have to be proud of our position. Maybe not so proud of the competitive package we have but we are working on that.”

Raffaele Marciello utterly dominated the 71st running of the Grand Prix de Pau in his Prema Powerteam Dallara-Mercedes.

The Ferrari Driver Academy recruit got a superb start and just drove away from the opposition. He had a small worry with lapped traffic for around three laps in the closing stages, but other than that he never saw another car.

“My car was perfect,” said Marciello. “Forty minutes is a very long race around here, but I managed the car very easily.”

A long way behind him, Carlos Sainz Jr claimed second in this FIA European Formula 3 Championship round and also emerged as the victor in the concurrent British F3 International Series classification.

Sainz led a long train of cars for much of the race, suffering from severe wear on the rear tyres on his Carlin Dallara-Volkswagen. On some occasions he came under threat from team-mate Jazeman Jaafar and the second Prema car of Daniel Juncadella. In the closing stages it was Jaafar who looked most at risk of losing his place, but the Malaysian held on confidently under sustained pressure from Juncadella. Sainz’s result leapfrogs him back ahead of Jaafar to lead the British standings, and he is also now ahead in the European championship.

“I’m not so happy with the race – the Prema guys were so much quicker than us,” he said. “But I’m happy with the result because it means we’re leading both championships.”

Pipo Derani was the best of the Fortec Motorsport runners and claimed third place in the British classification; the Brazilian passed Felix Rosenqvist (Mucke Motorsport) when the Swede made a mistake and ran wide at the Gare turn. Alex Lynn (Fortec) and Jack Harvey (Carlin) were close behind in the train.

There were numerous incidents among the British series runners: Harry Tincknell smacked his Carlin Dallara into the Pont Oscar tyre wall, while Fortec team-mates Hannes van Asseldonk and Felix Serralles collided at Gare, forcing van Asseldonk out. Meanwhile, Spike Goddard bent his steering when he hit a kerb, forcing a pitstop and promoting Double R Racing’s Duvashen Padayachee to National Class victory.

Michael Schumacher reckons Bruno Senna’s defensive driving caused their collision early in the Spanish Grand Prix.

Both drivers had to retire as a result of the incident, in which Schumacher’s Mercedes ran into the back of Senna’s Williams at Turn 1. Senna had not yet made his first pitstop, while Schumacher was on fresh tyres.

“I just took a minute to watch the video and if you look at the overhead shot you can see that he moves right to defend his inside position, but in the braking phase he moves back left right in front of me,” said Schumacher.

“Then I tried to avoid to the inside again, but too late. Then it’s done because that’s in the braking phase. Very frustrating. Very much annoyed about that.

“We’ve had already a strange manoeuvre from him in Brazil last year and a lap before he had a get together with [Romain] Grosjean, I don’t know what exactly happened there.

“I hope they [the stewards] understand the video pictures good enough to clarify that.”

But Senna was adamant that he had done nothing wrong and that Schumacher only had himself to blame.

“Of course he’s not going to say it’s his own fault, but at the end of the day he had much newer tyres than me, I was on very old rubber by then, so I guess our braking points were uneven for Turn 1,” said Senna.

“I’d already seen Grosjean braking very late and hitting me into Turn 1, and I didn’t want Michael to do the same.

“When I went to brake, he probably just tried to cross and he hit me, so what can you do?”

Spanish Grand Prix winner Pastor Maldonado said he always felt like he had the race under control even as Fernando Alonso closed in after the final pitstops.

Maldonado gave Williams its first Formula 1 victory since the 2004 Brazilian GP as he resisted pressure from Ferrari driver Alonso at various stages to win at Catalunya.

“It was so close. We were looking to manage the tyre degradation so I couldn’t push that hard, just to keep the tyres alive for the end of the race and Fernando got very close,” said Maldonado.

“There were some moments where he was so close especially at end of the straight, but I was managing the gap and controlling everything.

“Our pace today was very strong, the car was fantastic, so was the team. We did a small mistake at the last pitstop but it did not affect our performance.”

Maldonado said the car underlined how much progress had made since last season, when it endured its worst ever campaign and scored a mere five points.

“I think it’s a wonderful day, unbelievable for me and all the team,” he said. “We have been pushing so hard since last year to improve race by race and here we are.

“It was a tough race because of the strategy as well, it was hard especially because of rear tyres, after a couple of laps we were struggling with them, but I need to say I am pretty happy because car was so competitive since the first lap.”

The Venezuelan has been strong in Monte Carlo – venue for the next grand prix in a fortnight – throughout his career, and acknowledged that expectations for the next race would now be high.

“It will be a great opportunity for us to be strong again,” said Maldonado. “We need to keep continuing like that to develop it as soon as possible. Consistency will be the most important thing in this championship.”

Pastor Maldonado scored his maiden Formula 1 win and ended a Williams victory drought dating back to the end of the 2004 season as the Venezuelan defeated local hero Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari in an absorbing Spanish Grand Prix at Barcelona’s Catalunya track.

The Williams and Ferrari were absolutely together going into the final laps, but the superbly composed Maldonado was able to edge away and secure victory, leaving Alonso to fend off Kimi Raikkonen’s flying Lotus for second.

Alonso had taken the lead at the start by beating Maldonado into the first corner, and then inched into a three-second lead during the first stint, as they pulled clear of the rest of the field.

But the combination of a stunning out-lap by Maldonado and Alonso getting stuck behind Charles Pic’s Marussia on his in-lap saw the Williams leapfrog the Ferrari at the second pitstops, and then storm away for a few laps until 7s clear.

Alonso then started coming back at Maldonado, getting the gap down to 4.2s before the Williams had a slightly slow final pitstop with a left-rear issue. A few laps behind Raikkonen, who was running much further before his final pitstop, meant the leaders were absolutely nose to tail going into the closing laps as both tried to keep their tyres intact.

For a while it looked inevitable that Maldonado would succumb to Alonso’s pressure, but it was the Ferrari that started to lose pace in the final stages, and the lead gap began to increase again – allowing Maldonado to take a very unexpected victory by 3.1 seconds.

Raikkonen’s fresher tyres allowed him to gain on the leaders at a ferocious rate as the race neared its end, but he ran out of time to catch Alonso, finishing six tenths of a second adrift.

Romain Grosjean finished fourth in the other Lotus, with Kamui Kobayashi pulling off some characteristically bold passes on the way to fifth for Sauber.

Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel produced a late charge to take sixth after losing ground with a drive-through penalty for failing to heed yellow flags and requiring a new front wing at his final pitstop.

Nico Rosberg’s Mercedes and both McLarens fell victim to Vettel’s surge up the order, with Rosberg then fending off last-place starter Lewis Hamilton for seventh as the Briton managed to make a two-stop strategy work against expectations. His team-mate Jenson Button struggled for pace all day and finished ninth.

Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg resisted huge pressure from Mark Webber, who lost ground on lap one and needed an out-of-sequence pitstop for a new front wing.

Behind the Toro Rossos and the second Force India of Paul di Resta, Felipe Massa had another bad race for Ferrari. Penalised for a yellow flag infringement, he finished only 15th.

Retirements included Michael Schumacher and Bruno Senna, who tangled at Turn 1 when the fresh-tyre-shod Mercedes ran into the back of the yet-to-pit Williams, and Sergio Perez. The Sauber picked up a puncture while trying to attack the Lotus pair at the first corner, and later parked just after a messy pitstop.

PROVISIONAL RACE RESULTS

The Spanish Grand Prix

Catalunya, Turkey;

66 laps; 307.104km;

Weather: Sunny.
Classified:
Pos  Driver        Team                       Time

 1.  Maldonado     Williams-Renault           1h39:09.145

 2.  Alonso        Ferrari                    +     3.195

 3.  Raikkonen     Lotus-Renault              +     3.884

 4.  Grosjean      Lotus-Renault              +    14.799

 5.  Kobayashi     Sauber-Ferrari             +  1:14.641

 6.  Vettel        Red Bull-Renault           +  1:17.576

 7.  Rosberg       Mercedes                   +  1:27.919

 8.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes           +  1:28.100

 9.  Button        McLaren-Mercedes           +  1:25.200

10.  Hulkenberg    Force India-Mercedes       +     1 lap

11.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault           +     1 lap

12.  Vergne        Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +     1 lap

13.  Ricciardo     Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +     1 lap

14.  Di Resta      Force India-Mercedes       +     1 lap

15.  Massa         Ferrari                    +     1 lap

16.  Kovalainen    Caterham-Renault           +     1 lap

17.  Petrov        Caterham-Renault           +     1 lap

18.  Glock         Marussia-Cosworth          +    2 laps

19.  De la Rosa    HRT-Cosworth               +    3 laps
Fastest lap: Grosjean, 1:26.250
Not classified/retirements:

Driver        Team                         On lap

Perez         Sauber-Ferrari               38

Pic           Marussia-Cosworth            36

Karthikeyan   HRT-Cosworth                 23

Senna         Williams-Renault             13

Schumacher    Mercedes                     13
World Championship standings, round 5:                

Drivers:                    Constructors:             

 1.  Vettel        61        1.  Red Bull-Renault          109

 2.  Alonso        61        2.  McLaren-Mercedes           98

 3.  Hamilton      53        3.  Lotus-Renault              84

 4.  Raikkonen     49        4.  Ferrari                    63

 5.  Webber        48        5.  Williams-Renault           43

 6.  Button        45        6.  Mercedes                   43

 7.  Rosberg       41        7.  Sauber-Ferrari             41

 8.  Grosjean      35        8.  Force India-Mercedes       18

 9.  Maldonado     29        9.  Toro Rosso-Ferrari          6

10.  Perez         22

11.  Kobayashi     19

12.  Di Resta      15

13.  Senna         14

14.  Vergne         4

15.  Hulkenberg     3

16.  Schumacher     2

17.  Massa          2

18.  Ricciardo      2       
All timing unofficial

Arden International’s Luiz Razia scored victory in the GP2 sprint race at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya in Spain on Sunday morning.

Razia led from start to finish from pole position, but had runner-up Nathanael Berthon for company for the first 16 laps. The Racing Engineering man shadowed his every move for much of the race before dropping back to finish 5.2 seconds in arrears at the chequered flag for his first podium finish in the category.

Points leader Davide Valsecchi finished third for DAMS, having failed in his bid to pass Berthon around the outside at the first turn, but came under pressure from James Calado (Lotus GP) in the closing stages. Calado had battled past team-mate Esteban Gutierrez and Caterham’s Giedo van der Garde on the opening lap with some impressive passes.

Carlin’s Max Chilton made a poor start from the front row, and finished fifth after Calado passed him with a tidy move at the hairpin on lap five.

Van der Garde held off Gutierrez for sixth, with Stefano Coletti eighth for Coloni ahead of Felipe Nasr (DAMS).

Fabio Onidi, who started third, went straight on the opening corner and would later spin his Coloni machine and get collected by Ocean’s Nigel Melker.

Jenson Button believes he still has the chance of a decent haul of points in the Spanish Grand Prix, despite his struggles over the Barcelona weekend.

The McLaren driver was eliminated in Q2 in Spain, after failing to find a good balance on his car, but will start 10th on the grid following Lewis Hamilton’s demotion to the back of the field.

But although conceding that his difficulties make it unlikely he can repeat the kind of charge that Kimi Raikkonen delivered in Bahrain, Button still thinks progress is possible.

“It is not the easiest as we have seen in the past,” explained Button. “We saw a lot more overtaking last year than previous years with KERS and the DRS, and I overtook Fernando [Alonso] and Mark [Webber] within one lap, so it is possible to overtake here.

“If we have a good car, and it is in the right place and working, we will have a really good race. Starting P10, there are a lot of points up for grabs – and as you saw with Kimi, he qualified in P11 in Bahrain and he almost won the race – so there are a lot of opportunities still.”

Button says he has not really found the answer for his balance struggles over the Spanish weekend.

“I’ve had a lot of understeer in high speed, but a very unstable rear end in low speed,” he said. “So it has been difficult to try and understand the balance and try to improve it.

“We have tried many different things to try and get temperature into the tyre. Some have worked but basically I don’t feel I had the car in qualifying that I had in practice.

“I know the pace is there, as Lewis did a fantastic job all the way through qualifying – and it shows the pace is there. But being one second off, you know something is not right and you are not turning something on.”

Lotus duo Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean will know within a few laps of the start of the Spanish Grand Prix if they have a car capable of delivering victory.

That is the view of third place starter Grosjean, who says that the team will be in pretty good shape if it has delivered a balance as good as the two drivers had in Bahrain a fortnight ago.

With many labelling Lotus as favourite for the win on the back of its very strong race pace in Friday practice, Grosjean sees no reason to dismiss the team’s chances – but says the pair will only know for definite early in the race.

“If we have the same surprise as we had in Bahrain, by starting the race and having a car that is fantastic, then we will look at a good result again,” said Grosjean.

“We will see after the start, and how the car is in the first few laps. If I have the same feeling as I had in the first few laps in Bahrain, then I will think about it.”

Raikkonen too feels positive about the fact that Lotus has often proved to be quicker in race pace this season than in single-lap qualifying trim.

“The result is one of the best this year in qualifying but we had a chance to do better,” he said. “I had some mistake in corner nine so we lost two tenths, but it is good.

“The race is going to be different again, but usually our car is better in the race than qualifying.”

Charles Pic is confident that there is a lot more to come from him this season despite an impressive start to his rookie Formula 1 campaign.

The Frenchman outqualified Marussia team-mate Timo Glock for the second race in a row in Spain. He has also shown strong race pace, impressing the team with his speed on high fuel-loads in particular, despite having no significant experience of the 2012 Marussia before the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

“It’s only my fifth race so I still have many things to learn,” Pic told AUTOSPORT. “But even though I feel better and better with each race, I still have many areas to work on and improve on.

“I think that we can be better in qualifying. Our race pace has been good, especially in Bahrain, so we will have to see how we will be [in Spain].”

Despite the fact that Marussia’s lack of competitiveness means that his performances largely go unnoticed, Pic is confident that the team has recognised his progress.

The Frenchman has won races in every category he has competed regularly in prior to F1 but despite being used to victories in GP2, Formula Renault 3.5, Formula Renault and Formula Campus he is not struggling to adapt to live at the back of the grid.

“You try to optimise the car you have and give your best,” said Pic. “This is no different to other categories in that regard.

“The difference is that there is a much bigger gap between the cars in Formula 1 so even if on some weekends you are doing a very good job, it maybe isn’t shown by the result. But the team can see it, which is the most important thing for me.

“I know that my engineer is pretty happy and team is happy, even though I still need to improve. But overall what I’ve done in the first races is positive.”

Sebastian Vettel remains hopeful that Red Bull Racing did the right thing in qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix by deliberately saving tyres.

With the German realising early on that he did not have the pace to fight for pole position, Vettel elected to conserve rubber in the final qualifying segment by not completing a flying lap.

And although that decision means that Vettel starts down in seventh on the grid – having gained one place from Lewis Hamilton’s demotion to the back of the grid – he sees positives from the situation.

“I think it is never easy to come back to the front when you start behind, but we thought we were smarter to try to save some tyres,” explained the world champion.

“I think a new set of tyres does give you some flexibility in the race and it will give you a bit of speed, so we will see if we can use that in the race.”

The speed differential between the soft and hard compound rubber, allied to different degradation scales, means that strategy choices remain quite open for the race.

Vettel thinks that the tyre call is not straightforward, and that changeable weather conditions on Sunday could turn the formbook on its head too.

“I think everyone has a lot of homework to do,” he said. “But I am pretty happy with the car. This has been our best weekend so far with consistency, but going into qualifying we didn’t have the grip to get the maximum out of the tyre.”

Williams believes it has the pace to genuinely fight at the front of the Spanish Grand Prix – even though it concedes victory will be hard.

Pastor Maldonado will start from pole position at the Circuit de Catalunya following Lewis Hamilton’s exclusion from qualifying.

And with the Venezuelan having been strong throughout the Spanish weekend, chief operations engineer Mark Gillan believes that the team has the potential to keep up its good form in the race.

“A win would be tough, but based on our race pace in practice, we’re definitely in the race,” explained Gillan, who is confident that the team’s progress in qualifying pace has not come at the expense of its race pace.

“We’ve improved the car just generally. We’re not just going for qualifying performance. If you get the better qualifying, you’ll get the better race pace as well. To be honest, our Friday running was good. We used to be pretty confident of the Sunday pace.”

Gillan thinks the progress that Williams has made with its FW34 is simply the result of small improvements to the car – but because the field is so tightly packed it has made a noticeable difference.

“We brought a number of bits here, and I’d say a majority found their way onto the car,” he said. “Things are so tight, that small differences can make large differences in terms of where you finish in qualifying.”

He also believed that the step forward in Q3 form was helped by it being able to save a new set of options for Q3.

“Tyre usage is really the important thing,” he said. “For us, saving the new set of options for Q3 made a big difference. We haven’t had the pace in Q1 to be able to do that [so far this year], or the confidence to do that, and a lot of teams obviously run two tyres. Friday was a good step forward for us.”

Lotus GP’s Conor Daly scored his maiden GP3 victory in the second race of the opening weekend of the season at Barcelona in Spain.

From third on the grid, Daly outsprinted polesitter Robert Visoiu (Jenzer) via the grass into Turn 1, as front row starter Tio Ellinas of Manor took the lead having blatantly jumped the start.

When Ellinas pitted for his drive-through penalty on lap six, Daly was able to cruise to victory 3.2 seconds clear of Visoiu. Mathias Laine finished third, as his MW Arden team-mate David Fuminelli lost his fourth position with a drive-through penalty due to setting a purple sector while yellow flags were out.

That promoted Lotus’s Aaro Vainio to fourth, ahead of Patric Niederhauser (Jenzer). Antonio Felix da Costa (Carlin) barged his way past Lotus man Daniel Abt in the battle between Saturday’s penalised leaders to finish sixth from 14th on the grid.

Ellinas finished 15th, with Fumanelli 17th. Saturday’s runner-up Marlon Stockinger finished 19th for Status after a horrendously poor start, while opening race winner Mitch Evans was only 20th after pitting to have a punctured rear tyre replaced.

MW Arden driver Evans still leads the championship by two points, however, ahead of Daly.

Jimmie Johnson claimed his and Hendrick Motorsports’ first victory of the season and the team’s 200th NASCAR Sprint Cup win on Saturday night at Darlington Raceway.

The five-time champion led 133 of the 368 laps but had to fend off Joe Gibbs Racing’s Kyle Busch and reigning champion Tony Stewart (Stewart-Haas), while saving fuel to make it to the finish without an extra stop, following his last visit to the pits with 67 laps remaining.

While Busch seemed to be his main opponent for a while, Stewart eventually emerged as the greater threat until fuel pressure issues at the final restart cost him a last shot at the lead in the green-white-chequered finish.

That allowed Johnson to pull away and claim his third career win at Darlington, but more importantly Rick Hendrick’s long awaited 200th win, following 16 races without a victory for Johnson or the leading NASCAR organisation.

“We’ve been awfully close to getting the 200th win for the last month or two and I’m very happy that we closed the deal today,” said Johnson, who had led the most laps during the season entering Saturday’s race but had not won since the Kansas Chase race in October 2011.

“My mind goes back to the early days of Hendrick Motorsports, the people that won those early races, worked on those early cars, helped Rick build Hendrick Motorsports to what it is today.”

Denny Hamlin led 56 laps through the night and eventually finished second behind Johnson, following a good final restart that allowed him to go past his team-mate Busch and the struggling Stewart.

The three-time champion battled through a broken clutch in the closing stages to finish third, matching his best career result at Darlington, one of only two current Cup tracks where he has yet to win.

Busch was fourth for JGR ahead of a frustrated Martin Truex Jr (Waltrip Toyota), who gave up the lead during the fifth caution of the day, pitting for fuel and tyres as Johnson and Busch, among others, stayed out and gambled on saving fuel.

Roush Fenway’s Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards were sixth and seventh respectively but it was their team-mate and points leader Greg Biffle who seemed to have the edge to fight at the front, leading 74 laps before dropping back in the end with handling issues to finish 12th.

Kasey Kahne also led laps for Hendrick Motorsports and finished eighth ahead of Australian Marcos Ambrose (Petty), who recovered from being a lap down on the leaders. Joey Logano rounded out a great day for JGR with 10th as all three team cars finished in the top 10.

Danica Patrick finished 31st on her second Cup outing, running trouble-free to cross the finish line six laps down after being penalised for hitting the commitment cone on pit entry in a late stop.

Despite Hendrick’s milestone, the team’s day was not all joy as Jeff Gordon carried on his streak of bad luck – suffering two different punctures that caused yet another poor finish.

Results – 368 laps:

Pos  Driver              Team/Car                         Time/Gap

 1.  Jimmie Johnson      Hendrick Chevrolet           3h25m45.000s

 2.  Denny Hamlin        Gibbs Toyota                     + 0.781s

 3.  Tony Stewart        Stewart Haas Chevrolet           + 1.164s

 4.  Kyle Busch          Gibbs Toyota                     + 1.389s

 5.  Martin Truex Jr     Waltrip Toyota                   + 2.037s

 6.  Matt Kenseth        Roush Fenway Ford                + 2.442s

 7.  Carl Edwards        Roush Fenway Ford                + 2.701s

 8.  Kasey Kahne         Hendrick Chevrolet               + 2.872s

 9.  Marcos Ambrose      Petty Ford                       + 3.213s

10.  Joey Logano         Gibbs Toyota                     + 3.303s

11.  Clint Bowyer        Waltrip Toyota                   + 3.479s

12.  Greg Biffle         Roush Fenway Ford                + 3.947s

13.  Paul Menard         Childress Chevrolet              + 4.016s

14.  Regan Smith         Furniture Row Chevrolet          + 4.068s

15.  Brad Keselowski     Penske Dodge                     + 4.086s

16.  Kevin Harvick       Childress Chevrolet              + 4.163s

17.  Dale Earnhardt Jr   Hendrick Chevrolet               + 4.265s

18.  Jeff Burton         Childress Chevrolet              + 4.480s

19.  Aric Almirola       Petty Ford                       + 5.035s

20.  Mark Martin         Waltrip Toyota                   + 6.085s

21.  Kurt Busch          Phoenix Chevrolet                + 7.748s

22.  Casey Mears         Germain Ford                      + 1 lap

23.  Ryan Newman         Stewart Haas Chevrolet            + 1 lap

24.  Juan Pablo Montoya  Earnhardt-Ganassi Chevrolet      + 2 laps

25.  David Gilliland     Front Row Ford                   + 2 laps

26.  Landon Cassill      BK Toyota                        + 2 laps

27.  Dave Blaney         Baldwin Chevrolet                + 3 laps

28.  David Ragan         Front Row Ford                   + 4 laps

29.  Bobby Labonte       JTG Daugherty Toyota             + 4 laps

30.  Reed Sorenson       FAS Lane Ford                    + 5 laps

31.  Danica Patrick      Stewart Haas Chevrolet           + 6 laps

32.  Travis Kvapil       BK Toyota                        + 6 laps

33.  AJ Allmendinger     Penske Dodge                    + 11 laps

34.  Jamie McMurray      Earnhardt-Ganassi Chevrolet     + 23 laps

35.  Jeff Gordon         Hendrick Chevrolet              + 29 laps

36.  David Reutimann     BK Toyota                       + 54 laps
Retirements:
     JJ Yeley            Robinson Blakeney Toyota         132 laps

     Cole Whitt          Turn One Chevrolet                35 laps

     David Stremme       Inception Toyota                  32 laps

     Joe Nemechek        NEMCO Toyota                      27 laps

     Mike Skinner        Hamilton Means Toyota             20 laps

     Scott Speed         Go Green Ford                     20 laps

     Josh Wise           Front Row Ford                    19 laps

Lewis Hamilton vowed to ‘race his heart out’ to try and come through from the back of the grid after being stripped of pole position for Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix.

The McLaren driver had taken pole by half a second, but did not have sufficient fuel in his car to get back to the pits and provide a fuel sample, as required by the regulations. He had to stop on his slowing-down lap and was later disqualified from the session, putting him to the back of the 24-car field.

“This is such a disappointment,” said Hamilton. “Today’s qualifying session was one of the best I’ve ever driven – the whole car was just rolling so smoothly – it felt fantastic.

“But, on my slowing-down lap, my engineers told me to stop on the track, and I didn’t know why. Later, to hear that I’d been excluded from qualifying, was of course extremely disappointing.

“But, now, looking ahead to tomorrow, I think it’s clear that it’s going to be an incredibly tough race for us. Even so, as always, I’ll never give up and I’ll give it everything I’ve got. It would mean so much to me to get a good result here in Spain: it’s such a pleasure to come here and the support I get is amazing.

“As I always say, and as I always do, whatever grid position I start a grand prix from, I’ll always race my heart out.”

Team boss Martin Whitmarsh said McLaren could take some solace from the fact that it clearly had a quick enough car to make good progress in the race.

“You won’t be surprised to hear me saying that today was a very disappointing day for all at Vodafone McLaren Mercedes,” he said.

“But, if I may start by stressing the positives, both today and yesterday our car has shown itself to be both fast and stable at this most testing of circuits, and as a result Jenson [Button] was extremely quick yesterday and Lewis extremely quick today.”

Rookie Josef Newgarden was quickest for Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing on the opening day of practice for the first Indianapolis 500 of IndyCar’s new rules era on Saturday.

The day was largely a shakedown for the 24 drivers who were ready to run, but Newgarden still managed an early lap of 40.8627s at an average speed of 220.250mph.

JR Hildebrand, who came agonisingly close to victory as a rookie at Indy in 2011, was second quickest for Panther Racing, followed by Newgarden’s new team-mate Bryan Clauson.

“The team has done it all year. People have seen before that they can produce a good road/street car, and there’s no issues oval-wise,” said Newgarden. “They’ve built really good, reliable, comfortable racecars for me, and they’re doing the same for Bryan now.

“That’s all it is, really. They make our job really easy, and I think that’s what you guys are seeing. It bodes well, if anything, it’s not really a big deal to be quick on this day, but it speaks well for the team.”

Dale Coyne Racing’s James Jakes and KV Racing Technology’s Tony Kanaan completed the top five, while several drivers among the Penske/Ganassi/Andretti group which will be favourites for victory chose not to run on Saturday.

Pos  Driver               Team/Car                 Time      Gap

 1.  Josef Newgarden      Fisher DW12-Honda        40.8627s

 2.  JR Hildebrand        Panther DW12-Chevy       40.9662s  + 0.1035s

 3.  Bryan Clauson        Fisher DW12-Honda        40.9776s  + 0.1149s

 4.  James Jakes          Dale Coyne DW12-Honda    41.2304s  + 0.3677s

 5.  Tony Kanaan          KV DW12-Chevy            41.3335s  + 0.4708s

 6.  Charlie Kimball      Ganassi DW12-Honda       41.3415s  + 0.4788s

 7.  Helio Castroneves    Penske DW12-Chevy        41.3571s  + 0.4944s

 8.  Simon Pagenaud       Schmidt DW12-Honda       41.3825s  + 0.5198s

 9.  Justin Wilson        Dale Coyne DW12-Honda    41.3929s  + 0.5302s

10.  Scott Dixon          Ganassi DW12-Honda       41.4281s  + 0.5654s

11.  Oriol Servia         Panther/DRR DW12-Chevy   41.4367s  + 0.5740s

12.  Takuma Sato          Rahal DW12-Honda         41.4403s  + 0.5776s

13.  Graham Rahal         Ganassi DW12-Honda       41.4657s  + 0.6030s

14.  Will Power           Penske DW12-Chevy        41.5341s  + 0.6714s

15.  EJ Viso              KV DW12-Chevy            41.5723s  + 0.7096s

16.  Ryan Briscoe         Penske DW12-Chevy        41.5759s  + 0.7132s

17.  Sebastian Saavedra   AFS/Andretti DW12-Chevy  41.6463s  + 0.7836s

18.  Alex Tagliani        Herta DW12-Honda         41.7936s  + 0.9309s

19.  Rubens Barrichello   KV DW12-Chevy            41.7943s  + 0.9316s

20.  Michel Jourdain Jr   Rahal DW12-Honda         41.8856s  + 1.0229s

21.  Mike Conway          Foyt DW12-Honda          42.0263s  + 1.1636s

22.  Ed Carpenter         Carpenter DW12-Chevy     42.0636s  + 1.2009s

23.  Jean Alesi           Fan Force DW12-Lotus     42.9721s  + 2.1094s

24.  Simona de Silvestro  HVM DW12-Lotus           44.9201s  + 4.0574s

Klaus Graf and Lucas Luhr’s Pickett Racing HPD utterly dominated the American Le Mans Series’ six-hour race at Laguna Seca on Saturday.

The polesitting car was very briefly headed when the rival Dyson Lola-Mazda got an over-enthusiastic start, but Chris Dyson realised his error and immediately let Graf back past. After that, the Pickett crew was unstoppable, lapping several seconds per lap faster than its rivals for most of the day.

Dyson was not only unable to hang on to the HPD, but struggled to fend off the LMP2 cars, even before a variety of problems saw Dyson and team-mates Guy Smith and Johnny Mowlem dropping 20 laps down.

Second overall went to the Level 5 LMP2 class HPD of Scott Tucker, Luis Diaz and Franck Montagny, which won its class after a battle with the team’s second car and Conquest’s Morgan-Nissan. The #55 Level 5 machine was ultimately eliminated in a crash with a GTC car, while Conquest flew from the back of the grid before being delayed by electrical problems.

Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner recovered from some pit delays to win the ferociously close-fought GT class for Corvette, with their team-mates Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia battling hard to make it a one-two for the yellow cars, just ahead of the BMWs, Extreme Speed’s #01 Ferrari, the #45 Flying Lizard Porsche and the Falken Porsche. A scant 10 seconds covered the top seven in class after six hours of racing. BMW’s Bill Auberlen tried his utmost to get between the Corvettes in the final moments, but had to settle for third. The polesitting Aston Martin was only eighth after pit problems and a penalty for causing a collision.

LMPC also saw a very close late battle, with a last-gasp pass by Colin Braun on RSR’s Bruno Junqueira giving the CORE Autosport driver victory in the car he shared with team boss Jon Bennett. The second CORE car – in which Tom Kimber-Smith starred – was right behind, while Merchant Services’ #8 car had been in the thick of what was a four-way fight until a tangle with Kimber-Smith left Kyle Marcelli in the Turn 3 gravel just minutes from the end.

TRG’s #66 car took victory in GTC, the Jeroen Bleekemolen/Emilio di Guida/Bret Curtis crew finishing 12s clear of the GMG Porsche.

McLaren says its focus now is on scoring as many points as possible in the Spanish Grand Prix, after accepting the stewards’ decision to demote Lewis Hamilton to the back of the grid.

Hamilton was stripped of his pole position after the FIA ruled that he had breached the rules in not returning to the pits after completing his qualifying lap.

The stewards who discussed the matter did not accept that a team error, which meant not enough fuel went in to Hamilton’s car prior to his final run in Q3, was grounds for force majeure.

When asked by AUTOSPORT for a reaction to the stewards’ decision, a McLaren spokesman said: “We accept that the stewards did not agree with our interpretation of force majeure. Our aim is now to maximise the points we can score tomorrow.”

Pastor Maldonado will start from pole position for the Spanish Grand Prix after Lewis Hamilton was excluded from qualifying for not returning to the pits after setting his best lap.

Hamilton’s McLaren was found to not have had enough fuel on board to comply with the rules that demand a car returns to the pits under its own power after qualifying with enough petrol for a one-litre sample to be provided to the FIA.

Only under circumstances of ‘force majeure’ are drivers allowed to stop on that slowing down lap – and stopping deliberately because there is not enough fuel to finish the tour and supply that sample is not acceptable.

Following a meeting with the stewards at the Spanish Grand Prix, McLaren was informed that the ‘technical’ problem that it suggested was the reason for Hamilton being told to stop was not enough grounds to justify its action.

The team explained that not enough fuel had been put into the car ahead of the final qualifying lap – which the FIA did not agree was enough reason for ‘force majeure’

As a result, the stewards ruled that Hamilton be excluded from qualifying, but would be allowed to start from the back of the grid.

“The stewards received a report from the Race Director which stated that during post-qualifying scrutineering a sample of fuel was required from car 4, however, the car failed to return to the pits under its own power as required under Article 6.6.2 of the FIA Formula One Technical Regulations,” said the stewards in a statement.

“The Stewards heard from the team representative Mr Sam Michael who stated that the car stopped on the circuit for reasons of force majeure. A team member had put an insufficient quantity of fuel into the car thereby resulting in the car having to be stopped on the circuit in order to be able to provide the required amount for sampling purposes.

“As the amount of fuel put into the car is under the complete control of the Competitor the Stewards cannot accept this as a case of force majeure.

“The Stewards determine that this is a breach of Article 6.6.2 of the FIA Formula One Technical Regulations and the Competitor is accordingly excluded from the results of the Qualifying Session. The Competitor is however allowed to start the race from the back of the grid.”

The result means that Maldonado will start ahead of Fernando Alonso for Sunday’s race.

Speaking before being informed of the penalty, Hamilton reckoned that in the event of a penalty he could still deliver good race pace.

“Looking at our long runs, I think our long runs were not too bad,” he said. “The option tyre was not spectacular with the set-up we had, but we have made some changes so it should be better in that sense.

“The long run on the prime was very good, but then again so was it with the guys just behind me. Overtaking here is very, very tough as it has showed in previous years, but we do have DRS.

“I would hope we can overtake but I would doubt it – but I would do everything I could to move forwards.

“Definitely the guy in front, the top two or three, generally have an easier job because they have a lot clearer air. But we will give it our all and we hope with improved pit stops as well we hope we can make steps forward.”

Revised Spanish GP grid:

 1.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault

 2.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari

 3.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault

 4.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault

 5.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari

 6.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes

 7.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault

 8.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes

 9.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari

10.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes

11.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault

12.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes

13.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes

14.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari

15.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari

16.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari

17.  Bruno Senna           Williams-Renault

18.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault

19.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault

20.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth

21.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth

22.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth

23.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth

24.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes

Dani Sordo scored the biggest win of his career so far by cruising to victory on his Intercontinental Rally Challenge debut in Corsica.

Driving an SMG-run Mini, Sordo spent the first part of the rally in a close fight with A-Style Ford driver Giandomenico Basso and championship leader Andreas Mikkelsen (Skoda UK).

But after Basso was eliminated in a road section incident on Thursday night and Mikkelsen lost nearly three minutes with a Friday morning excursion, Sordo was free to control the pace for the rest of the rally.

In Sordo’s wake, the main excitement of the final day was Jan Kopecky and Pierre Campana’s battle for second. Kopecky (Skoda) won five of the six Saturday stages – but lost a lot of time to local favourite Campana’s Munaretto Peugeot on the first pass of the 29-kilometre Marinca-Cagnano stage, keeping the battle close.

Bryan Bouffier had a quiet run to fourth in a Delta-run Peugeot, a long way clear of Mikkelsen, who lost further time with a puncture late on Friday so drove steadily through Saturday. Craig Breen was the best of the Sainteloc Peugeot drivers in sixth as he recovered from day one driveshaft issues and a brush with the scenery on Saturday morning.

Leading results:

Pos  Driver                Team/Car             Time/Gap

 1.  Dani Sordo            SMG Mini           3h22m01.6s

 2.  Jan Kopecky           Skoda                 + 17.9s

 3.  Pierre Campana        Munaretto Peugeot     + 32.4s

 4.  Bryan Bouffier        Delta Peugeot         + 53.5s

 5.  Andreas Mikkelsen     Skoda UK            + 4m19.0s

 6.  Craig Breen           Sainteloc Peugeot   + 5m28.7s

 7.  Jean-Marc Manzagol    Peugeot             + 6m22.1s

 8.  Sepp Wiegand          Skoda Deutschland   + 6m54.8s

 9.  Herrmann Gassner Jr   Red Bull Skoda      + 7m10.2s

10.  Jean-Mathieu Leandri  Sainteloc Peugeot   + 7m39.9s

McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh has all but admitted that Lewis Hamilton’s pole position for the Spanish Grand Prix hangs in the balance, ahead of a stewards’ meeting to discuss the circumstances that forced the British driver to stop on track after his qualifying lap.

Hamilton secured McLaren’s 150th pole position at the Circuit de Catalunya on Saturday, but shortly after taking the chequered flag he was ordered to stop by the team because of an unidentified problem.

Under the rules, drivers are supposed to return to parc ferme under their own power and with a minimum of one-litre of fuel on board to be able to supply a sample to the FIA.

It is not acceptable for drivers to stop early simply to save petrol for the sample – because that would give them a competitive advantage as they could run with less fuel, and therefore less weight, during their qualifying lap.

Following a directive issued at the 2010 Canadian Grand Prix, after Lewis Hamilton and McLaren were given a reprimand and a $10,000 fine for stopping deliberately on a slowing down lap after qualifying to save fuel, the FIA has made it clear that only genuine technical problems would be acceptable.

FIA race director Charlie Whiting said in a note issued on race morning in Canada: “Any team whose car stops on the slowing down lap after the race will be asked by the stewards to explain why this happened.

“If they are not satisfied that the reasons were beyond the control of the driver or team, and feel that this has been done deliberately to gain a competitive advantage, appropriate action will be taken.”

Whitmarsh would not expand on the reasons for Hamilton being told to stop, but said that the FIA had been able to take its sample.

“There was enough fuel to take a fuel sample, but we stopped the car – and we are now talking to the stewards about that,” he explained. “There was 1.3-litres of fuel taken out of the car.”

Rules state that cars must have one litre of fuel onboard.

“Competitors must ensure that a one litre sample of fuel may be taken from the car at any time during the Event.

“Except in cases of force majeure (accepted as such by the stewards of the meeting), if a sample of fuel is required after a practice session the car concerned must have first been driven back to the pits under its own power.”

When asked if he was confident about Hamilton’s pole position standing, he said: “I don’t know. But I hope so – Lewis did a fantastic job throughout that session and we have all seen how difficult it is at the moment to be consistent, to switch everything on at the right time.

“Lewis and his team did a great job, so it was a massive margin by the situation within F1 at the moment so undoubtedly he deserves to be there.”

Whitmarsh refused to be drawn on offering any insight into the reasons behind Hamilton being given the order to stop.

But a suggestion that the problem was in the pits rather than on the car could point to a problem in the pits meaning not enough fuel went into the car ahead of his final run.

“It is a technical problem that happened in the garage that didn’t impede the performance of the car in anyway, and we stopped the car when it had 1.3-litres of fuel in the car,” said Whitmarsh.

He added: “There was a technical problem that led to that situation. I think it is not for me to decide; but I would believe that to be a force majeure but it is up to the stewards to decide.”

Whitmarsh was adamant, however, that Hamilton had enough fuel in the car to be able to complete his in-lap and supply the one litre sample.

Felipe Massa blamed traffic in Q2 for his disappointing 17th place on the Spanish Grand Prix grid.

While the Brazilian’s Ferrari team-mate Fernando Alonso fought for pole and qualified third in the upgraded car, Massa brought up the rear of the Q2 field – but said the result did not reflect his pace at all.

“I had traffic. I was on my lap and there were many cars going slow on their out-laps,” he said. “I had to completely change the braking positions, so I lost four tenths or half a second for sure because of this. It’s a shame. Looking at how competitive qualifying was, it’s a lot of positions.”

Asked if he was certain he would be fully competitive in the race, Massa replied: “I definitely expect a much stronger race tomorrow.”

Although Ferrari introduced several new parts for Barcelona, Massa hinted that Alonso might have gone beyond the car’s natural potential to get as high as third.

“I think our step was like we expected, to be honest. It was not more than we expected, it was like we expected. Fernando did a great job, definitely, in qualifying,” said Massa.

“But what we see in the evolution of the car and how it improved, it was not more or less than we expected in terms of numbers and everything. It’s not really a huge step forward. It’s a little step.”

Mark Webber believes that a front row grid position was possible despite failing to make it through to Q3 at Barcelona.

Webber stayed in the pits at the end of Q2 after posting a time that put him in second position behind Lewis Hamilton early in the session.

The Australian had planned to save a set of soft tyres for Q3, but ultimately the plan backfired on him as the track conditions improved and he was knocked out.

Initially Webber was confident that his lap was good enough to take him through to Q3.

“I think in Q2 just how much the track was improving caught us out. My first lap in Q2 was competitive, P2 to Lewis, but one tenth of a second was enough to cost us a front row.

“As soon as I got back they said ‘Mark perfect lap, get ready for Q3′, but with 60 seconds to go I started to shit myself and that was it,” he said.

“I think I was in a position definitely to go through to Q3 having used one set but we used them at the wrong time because we got exposed by the track positions. In China and Malaysia the track conditions haven’t changed that much and that is what bit us in the arse.”

However, the policy did allow Webber to save four sets of tyres for tomorrow’s race, and he is confident that he will be able to make the most of his predicament after setting competitive times throughout the weekend.

“I was still very encouraged by the times we did in relation to other people, but then ultimately the track manipulated itself into a position where my first run wasn’t enough,” he said.

“I have a lot of options tomorrow, three sets of primes and a new set of options.”

TV UNILATERAL

Q. Lewis, McLaren’s 150th Formula One pole position today. You really had to manage to the process though, particularly with the tyres. You were in the groove from the start, but what happened at the end when you stopped out on the track?

Lewis HAMILTON: Well, firstly it was a fantastic qualifying session for me. Really, I’m very happy with the way… I think it’s one of the best ones I’ve ever had. Amazing job by the guys in the garage. Huge thanks to the guys in the factory for bringing us the upgrades, which have worked fantastically. I stopped on the track. I was told to stop. I don’t really have any idea why. But the car was feeling great today. It’s a great day for the team, I think. I don’t know what happened with Jenson, but he’s got great strength and pace throughout the race, so I have no doubt that he will make his way up through the grid.

Q. Pastor, a sensational session for you and Williams. Where did you find the speed from?

Pastor MALDONADO: I think we’ve been working so hard from the beginning of the year trying to understand these tyres and to develop our car around the tyres and I think we actually did a really good step forward for this race. We need to continue to like that, keep pushing. I think at the moment there is a great atmosphere in the factory, a great atmosphere here in the team, the car looks pretty consistent and fantastic, especially in the race pace, so I’m looking forward to tomorrow. It’s a great feeling to be here, it’s my first time in the top three, so I’m really happy and hopefully we will continue like that and I would like to say thanks to the whole team.

Q. Fernando, a lot of updates also on the Ferrari. Are you heading in the right direction now?

Fernando ALONSO: Yeah, I think so. Obviously for us it was impossible to even dream about being in the top three in the four races, we just had eyes on Q3 with no new set [of tyres] left or anything like that, so definitely it’s a step forward. The grid is so compact now that if you improve two or three tenths it makes a huge difference in terms of positions: five or six positions. So we did a step forward. I still doubt how much we did, because I think maybe P3 is a little bit over-performing what we can do at the moment. But I’m extremely happy with the lap; it was perfect. I don’t think there is much more to come. I think I could put 100 more sets of tyres on and I could only repeat the lap time probably. It is the way it is. I’m extremely happy for today and hopefully we maximise or capitalise on this good starting position tomorrow with a good result.

Q. Back to you Lewis. Obviously a lot of tyre tactics going on in qualifying today. What about the race tomorrow? What’s your read on how things are going to shape up and what kind of shape do you feel you’re in to become the fifth different race winner in five races?

LH: Well, we’ve looked after our prime tyres, which is generally the better tyre for the race, or so it seems at the moment – the longer lasting tyre. Also the option tyres are all in good condition so… I think it’s going to be a massively tough race tomorrow. Of course, I’ve got these two great drivers next to me. I’m really happy to see this guy [Pastor Maldonado] up here and to see Williams up here and also Fernando. It’s really great to see my old team-mate up here as well and I’m going to have a great battle with these guys and I really hope we’re going to put on a great show for all the fans.

PRESS CONFERENCE

Q. Lewis, congratulations. That was a great lap at the end. You must be so satisfied with it?

LH: I really am. I think every time you go out, every time you qualify you’re searching for that perfect lap. You’re searching to put the car in just the right sweet spot, where you’re gaining all the time you could possibly gain and you’re not losing anywhere and I really felt that throughout Q1, Q2 and Q3… after Q1 I was like ‘damn, that should have been my Q3 lap’ but I was really grateful that I was able to continue that throughout the session and yeah, fantastic feeling really – overwhelmed.

Q. Lewis, you’ve started third on the grid here for the last three years and you haven’t yet won this grand prix, you’ve been twice second. Do you really want to tick this box, win this grand prix, one of the ones you haven’t yet won?

LH: Well I’m very much aware that I have an incredibly tough race tomorrow with these guys who are massively quick – also on their long runs – and just how tricky it is in general. But it would mean a huge amount for me to win here in Spain. It’s always been a great place for me, it’s beautiful weather all the time and the people are just incredible and the support that I’ve had continues to grow year by year. And it’s become such a pleasure for me to come here. So, to win at one of the circuits where they have one of the biggest fan bases for Formula One in general, would be fantastic.

Q. Can you explain why there should be such changing fortune, even between team-mates? For example, your team-mate didn’t get through to Q3, his [Maldonado's] team-mate didn’t get through into Q2 even and his [Alonso's] team-mate starts 17th. It seems extraordinary the changing fortunes even for team-mates.

LH: I think it’s surprising all of us. We are all very surprised. Obviously we are very happy that we’re up here! It just fantastic to see how close it is. You lose a tenth or two, that means you have to use your next set of tyres which then has a knock-on effect for the next session if you do or don’t get through. And so it’s massively competitive and it’s great for… I’m sure the fans are loving it – maybe not enjoying Q3 so much, but we definitely did.

Q. Pastor, where did it come from? How much did you get sorted out in Mugello? Do you think it’s a knock-on effect after Mugello?

PM: I think all the guys in the factory did a wonderful job because the upgrades we have for this race, everything is working on the car. I was pretty happy yesterday in the free practice and the balance is there. Even though our strongest point has always been in the race, so I’m looking forward for tomorrow. Actually we improved – our worst thing was the qualifying pace so pretty happy for that, pretty happy for the team, for my country, for myself. It’s a great job today.

Q. Is this a favourite circuit, one of your best? I know Bruno [Senna] said it was one of his favourite circuits…

PM: I think all of us, we know very well this circuit, we enjoy this circuit because of the combination of corners we find here, even the teams know very well. I think we have been working so hard in the winter tests here and so we find a good balance in the car and a good compromise for quali and race.

Q. Did you feel yesterday ‘hey, we can really do something here’? Did you already feel that yesterday?

PM: Yes. I think yesterday we were thinking about top ten, it was possible. This morning I was quite surprised about our performance because the car was so quick with lower fuel. This morning it was possible.

Q. Fernando, I don’t think anyone was ever going to discount you here. I don’t know what it was, maybe the crowd, or Ferrari etc, etc, How much satisfaction, third on the grid?

FA: Really happy. No doubt that this is a special weekend for me. And as I said on Thursday, there is always some extra motivation, some over-performing a little bit of what you have on hand, and yeah, thanks to the updates we had here, definitely we did a step forward, in the right direction because we hardly get into Q3 in the first four races and now we arrive with a little bit more comfortable way and then in Q3 the lap was good. I said before in the other conference with another hundred new tyres I would repeat the same time – I don’t think there is any time left. But the points are given tomorrow, not today. We did as much as we could today and we are happy to start in a much better position that what we did in the previous grands prix. But we need the points tomorrow. Especially… the grid positions are mixed a little bit as you said, with some of the people that are in front of us in the championship, they start at the back tomorrow – so we need to take benefit of this good position today and score more points than them.

Q. We remember in particular your start last year. Are we going to see a repeat of that?

FA: I’ll tell you tomorrow. Definitely, a little bit like Pastor and Williams, our race pace is much better than qualifying pace – that is normally our weakest point and we suffer on Saturday some bad positions and then compromise a little bit our race pace. So tomorrow we have a privileged position to start, so the first corner will be important if we can gain some positions, but it’s important also not to lose. The race tomorrow is very long with the tyre degradation and, as I said, we must score points tomorrow, good points, with this position we have. So, aggressive start yes, crazy start not.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q. (Adrian Huber – Agencia EFE) Fernando, will you be happy tomorrow repeating this position or will you be looking for something more?

FA: You never know in Formula One. I think a podium position, we tend to agree in the team, if someone tells us two or three days ago, before coming to Barcelona, or after the Mugello test, that in Barcelona you will be on the podium, I think we all agree, we all be happy with that position. Today, obviously with this position, that dream or that target is closer. But I think the race is very long tomorrow and we saw even in Bahrain, Kimi started ninth, (11th), he was P10 or P11 in lap one and he nearly won the race in the end, so the positions are not crucial anymore as previous years. I think it will be an extremely tough race tomorrow to take care of the tyres again. Degradation, DRS, KERS to overtake. Pitstop strategy, we will see probably a lot of pitstops for everybody. The more pitstops you have, the more risk you have to have a problem in the pits. There are a lot of factors tomorrow that we need to take account. It will be a difficult race. A podium, I think, will be a good result for us and happy.

Q. (Leonid Novozhilov – F1 Life) Lewis, are you happy? What are you feeling now? What do you think about tomorrow, this position?

LH: I really feel fantastic. I’m very, very happy. Normally you can always be happy with a pole position of course, but for some reason even more so this time than maybe any other qualifying that I’ve had, except for the first pole position I have had in Formula One. Just because, as I was just saying, you’re always looking for that perfect lap, and I really, really felt that I got everything just, just sweet there and got absolutely everything out of my car. I didn’t miss apexes or anything like that. It’s an incredibly feeling when you have that. It’s really just a very unique experience. But tomorrow’s going to be a tough race. As you were just saying, Fernando had a great start here last year and it’s such a long drive down to turn one – but he was also saying people are coming to win from quite far back, or to compete for wins from quite far back, so tomorrow’s just going to be about looking after your tyres, getting the right pitstops at the right times and really being patient, I think, at the most important times during the race.

Q. (Fulvio Solms – Corriere Dello Sport) To all three drivers; they have chosen new rules and tyres to have an unpredictable Formula One. Do you think this championship is just unpredictable, or technically less logical as well?

FA: I don’t think they choose the tyres for the championship to be unpredictable. We have the tyres that we have.

LH: I’m not sure that they were expecting it to be as it is, but I definitely think that it is a bit unpredictable at the moment, massively close. There have been several different winners in the races and you can make such a big difference, if you don’t finish one race but then you win the next race, it can still keep you in contention so it feels for me – out of all the championships that I’ve been in – it feels to me to be one of the most exciting ones. Regardless if I haven’t won yet, it just feels like one of the best, I imagine, for people to watch.

PM: I think that the tyres are the same for everybody so all the teams and all the drivers are working hard to adapt ourselves, even the cars to these tyres and to get the best performance we can.

Q. (Marco degli Innocenti – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Pastor when you reached Williams, there were a lot of people, among journalists too, who expressed doubts about you and they said that you have got the seat because of your rich sponsors and so on. Now, are you convinced that you have proved that you are one of the top drivers, thanks to your qualities?

PM: I’m think that I’m lucky, I’m lucky to have not only a sponsor behind me but also a country behind me, pushing me so hard. Here I am, doing my job, doing my best, trying to improve every time. I have a mission, which is to be back with Williams to the top, so here we are. We still need to keep pushing, to keep improving and I think that is possible.

Q. (Silvia Arias – Parabrisas) Pastor, congratulations, I want to know about the start tomorrow. What do you think? Is it going to be easier to attack Lewis at the first corner, or defend from Fernando?

PM: I think it’s going to be a very tough race, because not only us three but even the other drivers have a very close pace. Our strongest point was always race pace so hopefully our car will be very consistent and pretty good in the race. I hope to continue like that, I hope to stay in the position, the podium is very important for us, the points, so it’s very important to keep calm and to do good race.

Q. (Laurentzi Garmendia – Berria) Lewis, we have such a close championship in terms of times in qualifying, but I think your gap was over half a second to Pastor. Does it surprise you? It looks like a dominant car.

LH: Yes, I’m definitely surprised to have such a big gap. I wasn’t surprised that it was a good lap because it felt that I switched the tyres on the right way and I feel that I extracted everything but yeah, considering that all the sessions are so close, all the teams are so close, I definitely wasn’t expecting to have such a big gap. That’s quite a big gap for us but we definitely can’t take it for granted. I think we’ll go to other races and it will be slower and in some races we will be faster but we really, really hope that with the continuous upgrades that we get we can try to maintain the pace that we have, especially through qualifying but most importantly to try and improve through the race.

Q. (Mike Doodson – Honorary) Fernando and Lewis: I think we all agree that it’s a good thing when Williams is doing well in Formula One and both of you have had moments this year when you’ve been racing with Pastor or the other Williams driver. I wonder if either of you or both of you could tell me where the car has strong points that you’ve noticed while racing with it on the circuit.

LH: I can’t remember exactly what your strong points are but for me it’s fantastic to see Williams up here, really, really very happy for them. I know Sir Frank quite well since I’ve been here and I’m a huge admirer of him and his team and to see them up here again, I think Formula One’s just not been the same without Williams being at the front, competing. So it’s good, it’s great for them and for the whole team. I’ve always thought they had quite a good car, it always looked quite beautiful but I think this year it’s performing as well as looking good, so we’ll definitely be on our toes to try and make sure we’re ahead of them.

FA: Yeah, I don’t know. Obviously I fight a little bit more with them than Lewis probably in these four races. The car looks strong in race pace as Pastor said and basically taking care of the tyres. I remember in China they did like 32 laps with the same set of tyres that no one could adapt to. Apart from the car, they are doing a very good job, setting up the car with the engineers – I know some of them, very talented and a fantastic job from the drivers as well. Pastor has this year proved, not only today, but many times this year that he’s doing a fantastic job, also with Bruno but less lucky sometimes. In Australia, on the last lap, Pastor crashed behind me but I was already fighting in the top five so it’s not new that he’s fighting in these top positions so well done to all of them.

Q. (Jaime Rogriguez – El Mundo) Fernando, after the last free practice this morning, did you imagine that after qualifying could be fighting for pole? When did you feel the real change in the car?

FA: No, obviously this morning’s practice we didn’t think we could be in the top five or top six. I think P8 to P12 was more or less our position after practice, same as after yesterday’s practice as well, that we were fastest in the morning and P14 in the afternoon, so we were something in between those positions in practice as well. Yeah, I’m happy and a little bit surprised to be in front of one McLaren, both Red Bulls, both Lotuses, so definitely this is not what we were expecting but qualifying went like this, it went our way this time and as I said, today means nothing if we don’t finish the job tomorrow.

Q. (Carlos Miguel – La Gaceta ) Fernando, are you worried that you might not to be able to finish the race in the same position you are in now, or are you worried the rhythm of the Renault – because they were very strong on Friday – and maybe some of the guys behind. I ask about Kimi because I think he could be a contender for the race.

FA: Yeah, yeah, definitely, the Lotus will be a threat tomorrow, starting fourth and fifth. They’ve been quick all weekend so tomorrow no surprises if they are fighting for the podium or even for a race win. Sebastian is P8 so he will be fighting for a top position later in the race. With Jenson and Mark having the possibility to chose which tyres to start on, I’m sure that they will prepare something good to recover position because they have the pace. They had the pace yesterday in FP2 and I’m sure that tomorrow they will be quick. The race will be tough to maintain positions because we believe that there are quicker cars behind us but let’s see what we can do. On the other hand, this is not an easy track to overtake on,

Q. (Michael Schmidt – Auto, Motor und Sport) The forecast for tomorrow is significantly cooler, can that change the picture that some cars which hadn’t been up to speed today might fall into the operating window of the tyres tomorrow?

LH: I think it could be the opposite. If people are struggling today to switch their tyres on then potentially they would struggle even more if it was cooler but that is a real tricky situation to be in, that sometimes three tyres come in and one, your left front doesn’t work and then you just have understeer and you don’t get the time. If it is the case and it’s cooler tomorrow it will be tough for everyone, even the guys who did switch their tyres on today.

FA: Maybe rain.

Q. (Livio Oricchio – O Estado de Sao Paulo) To all drivers: you approach the times that you registered in winter testing today, with the same tyres but 20 degrees hotter asphalt. Can you make an analysis about this?

LH: Did we do these times in the winter?

FA: Yes, 21.6s for Grosjean in winter I think. We did 22.2s, we did 22.5s today, something like that. I think the cars improved a lot between February and now but the temperature… we know that the hotter it is the slower you are. It happens in the winter as well. If you do your best time at 9 ‘o clock in the morning, then you cannot repeat those times in the afternoon. In a way that shows how much the cars improved for everybody from February to here. It’s good.

PM: I agree. I think today was a bit more windy, which is a penalty for everybody.

Pre-season title favourite Mitch Evans kicked off his 2012 GP3 Series campaign with victory in round one at Barcelona.

The MW Arden driver simply had to be patient in third until leaders Daniel Abt (Lotus) and Antonio Felix da Costa (Carlin) were penalised for jump-starts.

Once elevated into the lead, Evans was able to pull away from second-place Status driver Marlon Stockinger and win by 2.6 seconds despite a mid-race safety car to retrieve Kevin Ceccon’s Ocean car, which had stopped on course.

Both polesitter da Costa and sixth-place starter Abt had rolled forward on the grid before the lights went out, but Abt then turned his issue into a brilliant getaway – surging through to second and then passing da Costa into Turn 1. Their drive-throughs dropped them outside the top 20, but they fought back to 13th and 14th, Abt still ahead.

In contrast to Abt and da Costa, front-row qualifier Conor Daly went backwards at the start, and was then overtaken in quick succession by Jenzer’s Patric Niederhauser and MW Arden’s Matias Laine.

Rookie Niederhauser went on to attack Daly’s Lotus team-mate Aaro Vainio for third – briefly making it in front into the first corner before Vainio fought back at Turn 3 and reclaimed the final podium spot for good.

Niederhauser then had to fend of Laine and Daly, who were also caught by the flying Tio Ellinas. A penalty for a yellow flag infringement had dropped the Manor driver from sixth to 16th on the grid, but he recovered to seventh in the race.

Eighth and race two pole went to Robert Visoiu (Jenzer), while MW Arden’s David Fumanelli and Carlin’s Alex Brundle completed the top 10.

Narain Karthikeyan will be allowed to take part in the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday despite having failed to set a time within the 107 per cent in qualifying.

The Indian finished 8.5 seconds off the pace in Q1 after having to stop his car before he could complete a second run.

But the HRT driver will race in Spain after the stewards deemed his time in final practice was fast enough to prove what he could have done.

“We were going to go on the second set of tyres but we discovered some problems and due to safety concerns, not only for myself but the others, we decided that the best thing was to not go back out,” explained Karthikeyan, who failed to set a time on Friday.

“It seems like my bad luck continues to follow me this weekend and, although I’m disappointed about that, there’s nothing else I can do but keep giving it my best shot.”

Giedo van der Garde used a bold tyre strategy to take his first win since joining the Caterham team in the GP2 feature race at Catalunya.

The Dutchman ran third behind battling leaders James Calado (Lotus) and Fabio Leimer (Racing Engineering) at first, and initially had to fend off charging Coloni driver Stefano Coletti.

But whereas most of the field changed all four tyres in their pitstops, Caterham opted to switch just two of van der Garde’s, and the time saved – plus Calado and Leimer having emerged into traffic – allowed the Dutchman to jump to the front.

Van der Garde was able to hang on thereafter and win by just 0.8 seconds over poleman Calado. Leimer was given a drive-through penalty for an unsafe pit release after a close call with Calado when they pitted in unison, dropping him to 12th, and allowing Coletti to join the lead fight for a while before having to settle for third.

Championship leader Davide Valsecchi (DAMS) was a lonely fourth, while Nathanael Berthon salvaged something for Racing Engineering in fifth, with Coloni’s Stefano Coletti fending off Max Chilton (Carlin) and Luiz Razia (Arden) to complete the top six.

Ocean’s Nigel Melker was on course for eighth and race two pole until being penalised for pitlane speeding.

Assertive drives from iSport man Jolyon Palmer and Lotus’s Esteban Gutierrez earned them the final points.

Jenson Button is unsure where the speed he showed in Friday practice has gone after failing to reach the last segment of qualifying at Barcelona.

The Englishman had complained about a lack of balance on the faster soft tyre through qualifying and this morning’s practice session, but the team was unable to make the changes needed to solve the issue despite adding more front wing during Q2.

“To be out in Q2, not by a mistake but by not being quick enough is really surprising. It is going to be a tough afternoon tomorrow,” said Button, who had been quickest on Friday.

“I didn’t get anywhere near the balance I had yesterday in practice. I had a very loose rear end for most of qualifying and then we added more front wing at the end because we had some understeer in the high speed, we did that and that added to my problems.”

It is the first time since Spa 2011 that Button has failed to get into Q3. He will line up next to Mark Webber, who qualified in 12th position, but has saved four sets of new tyres, which Button thinks could be decisive in tomorrow’s race.

“I’m out in Q2, and it doesn’t really help because we don’t have any new tyres left. It is very close around me, not many people have new tyres, but Webber does,” he said.

“If the balance is like this I am going to struggle [in the race], but hopefully we can work out why that is.”

Sebastian Vettel believes he would not have been able to qualify in the top five even if he had set a time in Q3 at Barcelona.

The German decided not to complete a timed lap in the final qualifying segment in order to save tyres for tomorrow’s race, a decision he believes will be crucial.

Vettel will start from eighth position.

The world champion said, however, that Red Bull did not have the pace to be in the top five today.

“A pretty different session today; it was extremely tight,” said Vettel. “From Q1 onwards we decided to go on the soft tyres. The first run in Q2 wasn’t good enough, so I had to go again and it was clear then that if we made it to Q3, we wouldn’t have any new soft tyres left.

“I think we got the maximum at the end there in Q3, we saved some sets of tyres, which we thought going into qualifying would be crucial, but we didn’t have the pace of the top five cars today. Tyres will be important tomorrow, so let’s see what we can do.”

Team-mate Mark Webber completed a disappointed day for Red Bull after being knocked out in Q2.

The Australian did just one run in the session, thinking it would be enough to make it into Q3, but ended up dropping down to 12th position.

“I’m pretty surprised by that; the guys did a good job with the car and were pushing hard all weekend,” he said. “We were quick, but the track kept getting faster and we got caught out. My first timed lap in Q2 wasn’t fast enough. I was P2 after the first lap and we thought we had done enough, but in the end it wasn’t.

“I didn’t use two sets of tyres in Q2, which it turns out wasn’t the right thing to do. I was told not to go out again, but the way that the track improved was a surprise to all of us. We were very strong in the first part of Q2 and I was happy with how I drove my lap. It’s the way it goes sometimes.”

Romain Grosjean is pleased to have qualified on the second row for the Spanish Grand Prix despite having missed free practice three because of a problem with his Lotus.

Grosjean will start tomorrow’s race fourth, one place head of team-mate Kimi Raikkonen.

GrWhile the Franco-Swiss driver admitted his Q3 lap wasn’t perfect, he said that fourth was a good result considering the practice running he missed out on.

“It was a good performance from the team, especially as I didn’t run in FP3 because of a fuel pressure problem,” he said.

“For the set-up we went from what we’d found out yesterday, and it worked pretty well. Everyone did a good job to get the car ready for qualifying after the problems of the morning.

“We can be happy with what we have achieved – of course you always want more but this is the result for today. I think that I could have been a little bit quicker, not too much more.

“Tomorrow is going to be long; our race pace did not look too bad but, of course, we’ll have to manage tyre degradation.”

Raikkonen agreed that Lotus’ race pace looks promising ahead of the race.

“We’ll see how it goes tomorrow in the race; the car has usually been better on Sunday than it has been on Saturday, so if that’s the case tomorrow we’ll be pretty happy,” said the Finn.

“A lot of small details will decide the race, and the tyres are one aspect. Our long runs were promising [on Friday], so we’re not looking too bad.

“Hopefully we get a reasonable start and we can be up at the right end and go for it. I think we’ve got a good car and that’s the main thing.”

Charles Pic – 21st: “I am quite happy to be honest. I think for me all round it is quite a good qualifying. We managed to improve the package for this weekend, but the gap to the cars in front today did not reflect that. I don’t think we really know where we are yet because the car was not 100%. I feel there is more to come for sure. We always seem to be better in the race versus our competitors and I hope that will be true for tomorrow. For now though I am happy with my position and I look forward to the race.”

Timo Glock – 22nd: “A much better day today than yesterday. I think we got on top of the problems a little bit and in Free Practice 3 this morning I had a good feeling. Unfortunately qualifying wasn’t great for me. I made a mistake on my first flying lap, which was then not quick enough, and on the second flying lap on the first set of tyres I ran into yellow flags at turn 3 where one of the HRTs spun, so I couldn’t do much on first set of tyres. On the second set of tyres I just couldn’t get the lap together. The first sector was good; in the second sector I got a bit of traffic; and for some reason I dropped tyre performance in the last sector. It just didn’t come together today and I will have to sit and analyse it and hope for better things in the race tomorrow.”

John Booth, Team Principal: “We approached Free Practice 3 this morning somewhat hesitantly. For the last two race weekends we have found, on Timo’s car in particular, that a good balance on Friday has somehow translated into a car that is not behaving as it should have done for the rest of the weekend. A lot of analysis has taken place over the past week – and at the Mugello test prior to that – and some new parts that we brought to both cars seem to have solved these problems. Timo reported a much improved balance on the car today, even with respect to Friday. Given this, our confidence built in FP3 but was then knocked slightly by a mechanical issue on Timo’s car at the end of the session. We quickly diagnosed the fault on what was a new part and were able to apply a fix to both cars in readiness for qualifying. Unfortunately for Timo, he never really found his rhythm in the qualifying session, so I’m sure there’s a lot more to come from him tomorrow. Charles on the other hand performed brilliantly, as was the case last week, and he is certainly exceeding all the expectations that we had of him for this stage of his debut season. The guys in front still have a little margin on us if we put our best laps together, so tomorrow we will perhaps not be able to enjoy the fight we had hoped for. However, by setting the clear goal of trying to be as close to them as we possibly can, we will at least be able to learn more about where our car development needs to go from here.”

Michael Schumacher has backed his decision not to complete a timed lap in the third part of qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix.

The German was one of three drivers to not complete a flying lap in Q3, opting instead to save a set of tyres for the race.

As a result, Schumacher will start from ninth position, two spots behind his Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg.

“We wanted to save tyres this afternoon, which dictated how we managed Q3,” he said.

“I did not complete a timed lap, and now I still have the choice of what tyres to start on tomorrow. Equally, I thought it was better to start from ninth on the grid than eighth, and be on the clean side.”

According to Schumacher, the decision to not run could well be crucial in what is shaping up to be a tight race.

“It’s clear that some teams have taken a step forward after the three-week break, and I would also say that the field is now even closer together.

“It’s going to be a tight race tomorrow, although the forecast says it should be cooler, and it will be interesting to see if our choices today pay off at the end of the race.”

Sergio Perez says he could have achieved a better result in qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix, even if he admitted the session had gone better than expected.

The Sauber driver continued to show the potential of the Swiss squad’s car by qualifying in sixth position at Barcelona.

But after finishing less than two tenths away from third, the Mexican admitted he was frustrated to not have extracted something extra from his car.

“After the free practice sessions hadn’t been so easy for me, in qualifying the car really felt good,” said Perez. “I think the result is what we were hoping for and perhaps a little bit better than expected.

“The competition is so close that a tenth of a second can really make a big difference, and you always think you could go a bit faster. In this regard it is almost frustrating having finished sixth, because a slightly better position was within reach.

“However, I think we can have a strong race performance. A lot will be down to tyre degradation tomorrow, which is quite high here. I want to do a perfect race and get the maximum possible points, or even come home with a nice surprise.”

Team-mate Kamui Kobayashi will start from tenth position after having to stop his car at the end of the Q2 because of a hydraulic problem.

The Japanese believes a place in the top five would have been possible if he had been able to run in Q3.

“We really had a good performance in qualifying, and I could feel I had not extracted the maximum potential out of the car yet,” he said. “In Q1 I had a bit of traffic and also on my fastest lap in Q2 there was still room for improvement from me.

“I believe I could have been fighting for a top five position, and this was what I was looking forward to.”

Qualifying third for the Spanish Grand Prix is proof that Ferrari is heading in the right direction, according to Fernando Alonso.

Having already stated that the Spanish race was a crucial one for the squad, Alonso made the qualifying session count, comfortably making it into Q3 before locking down a second row start for tomorrow’s race.

“Thanks to the updates we took a step forward in right direction,” said Alonso.

“Now we arrive to Q3 in a more comfortable way, and in Q3 the level is good. If I had 100 more tyres I would do same time, so [there is no] more time left.

“For us it was impossible even to dream about being in the top three in the first four races. We were arriving in Q3 with no new sets [of tyres] left, so that is a step forward.

“I think P3 is over performing what we can do at the moment, but I am happy. There is much more to come.”

Alonso also said that tomorrow’s race will be a golden opportunity for Ferrari to steal some points from the likes of Red Bull Racing, which struggled in qualifying.

“The points are given tomorrow, not today,” he added.

“We did as much as we could today we are happy to start in much better position than we did in the previous grand prix. But we need the points tomorrow. These positions are mixed a little bit, with some of the people in front [of us in] the championship starting at the back tomorrow.

“So we need to take [advantage] of this good position today and score more points than them.”

Team-mate Felipe Massa qualified in 17th position.

Ferrari protege Raffaele Marciello led from start to finish in the first Formula 3 race at Pau to take the most prestigious victory of his career.

Marciello, who moved up from Italian Formula 3 to European F3 competition this season, built a two-second advantage over Prema Powerteam team-mate Daniel Juncadella in the first eight laps.

Then he was suddenly gifted a lead of 15 seconds when Juncadella collided with Pascal Wehrlein at the tight Lycee hairpin. German Wehrlein, in a Mucke Motorsport Dallara-Mercedes, saw a gap that was not there by the time he arrived at the corner and, after he tangled with the Spaniard, an enormous traffic jam piled up behind.

The safety car appeared as cranes winched the two cars off the circuit, and Marciello had to fend off a bold bid by Jazeman Jaafar to sweep around the outside of him at the start-finish kink, but once he had seen off that attack his Dallara-Mercedes pulled away by four tenths per lap.

“It’s fantastic,” said the Italian. “Everything was perfect. The car was faster than everyone behind so I just had to look after my tyres.”

Jaafar’s result gave him victory in the British Formula 3 International Series classification. It moves the Carlin Dallara-Volkswagen driver into the points lead.

“I didn’t have a very good start and lost time early on when I locked up [at the Gare corner]. I focused as much as I could on the restart but didn’t have enough speed to get by.”

Alex Lynn took third overall, and second in the British F3 results, in his Fortec Motorsport Dallara-Mercedes. The Briton confidently held off a race-long attack from Mucke’s Felix Rosenqvist to the flag.

Carlin drivers Jack Harvey and pre-weekend British F3 points leader Carlos Sainz Jr completed the top six, Harvey sustaining a damaged front wing and bent trackrod in the Lycee snarl-up.

Behind them, Harry Tincknell and Felix Serralles made the British F3 top six, with Double R Racing’s Fahmi Ilyas holding off a midfield train in arguably his best performance to date – helped by jumping a couple of places in the Lycee traffic jam.

T-Sport’s Spike Goddard was the only National Class driver in the race when Duvashen Padayachee was pushed off the grid, and pressed A-class runner Geoff Uhrhane to the finish.

Pastor Maldonado is not surprised to have been so fast during qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix.

The Venezuelan was fast in all three segments of qualifying, culminating in Williams’s first front row start in the dry since Mark Webber started the 2006 Monaco Grand Prix from second position.

“[On Friday] we thought the top ten was possible, and this morning I was quite surprised by our performance, because our car was so quick lower fuel,” he said.

“So this morning we thought it was possible.”

With the Williams already having shown consistent race pace in the first four grands prix of the season, Maldonado is also confident that he can turn the grid position into a solid results in tomorrow’s race.

“I think we have been working so hard since the beginning of the year, trying to understand these tyres and develop our cars around the tyres,” he added.

“And we actually made a good step forward for this race. The car looks consistent, especially in race pace, so it’s a great feeling to be here, [my] first time in top three.

“We improved our worst thing, which was qualifying pace. So I am happy for the team, for my country and for myself.”

Lewis Hamilton says qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix was one of the best he has ever had after securing his third pole position of the year.

The McLaren driver stormed to the top spot in the dying seconds of the session with a lap of 1m21.707s, the Briton the only driver to lap the Spanish track in less than 82 seconds.

Hamilton, who beat Williams’s Pastor Maldonado to pole, was elated with the performance.

“It was a fantastic qualifying session for me, very very happy with it – one of the best I ever had,” said Hamilton. “Amazing job by the guys in the garage and thanks to guys in factory who have brought upgrades.

“The car feels great. It is a great day for the team I think. I really feel fantastic. I feel very, very happy.

“You can normally be happy with a position but for some reason this feels better than other pole positions because you are looking for a perfect position. It is an incredible feeling you have.”

Hamilton, who is yet to win a grand prix this year, is under no illusions that the race will be easy, however.

“I am very much aware that I have incredibly tough race tomorrow with these guys who are massively quick and how tricky it is in general,” he said. “It will mean a lot to me to win in Spain.

“It has always been a good place for me, beautiful weather and people are incredible and the support I have continues to grow year by year and it has become such a pleasure. To win where you have such a big fan base will be fantastic.”

Hamilton failed to return to the pits after his final qualifying lap, a move that is likely to be investigated by the stewards as drivers are required to make their way back to the pitlane.

“I stopped on track, I don’t have any idea why,” he said.

Vitaly Petrov – 19th: “I am very happy with today’s performance. It feels great to have it all come together in qualifying today and I want to thank the team for doing a great job and helping me put together a final lap like that. There was even more time to come as I made a small mistake in sector two that maybe cost me two or three tenths, but between FP3 and qualifying we found a good balance on the softs and a KERS map that I could really get everything out of, so it’s great to see it pay off with that sort of performance.

“Tomorrow’s going to be an interesting race. I think a lot of it will come down to who uses the rear tyres best and as we’ve already seen earlier this season, we can fight with the cars ahead on Sundays, so hopefully we can carry through this afternoon’s performance to tomorrow, and who knows what could happen.”

Heikki Kovalainen – 20th: “I’m not unhappy with today’s performance but we could have definitely got more out of the car this afternoon. I made a mistake in turn three that cost me some time but overall I’ve not really been able to find a setup I’m happy with all weekend. We’ve tried a few different things to find a decent balance but for some reason we just couldn’t find a compromise for qualifying today. We’ll put that behind us now and move on to tomorrow where we’ll aim to maintain the sort of race pace we’ve shown in the first four Grands Prix this season. If we can look after the tyres I think we’ll be ok.”

Mark Smith, Technical Director: “I think we probably got close to extracting as much performance out of the cars as we could this afternoon. Both drivers may have been able to find a couple more tenths but I am pleased with the performances they put in and now the focus moves to tomorrow’s race. Tyres will be the defining factor in the race. We have already shown that we can fight with several cars ahead on Sundays and I think that careful management of the tyres and good pitstop strategy should give us a chance of putting in a good performance.”

Lewis Hamilton and McLaren took pole position for the Spanish Grand Prix by a commanding margin over shock front row man Pastor Maldonado’s Williams.

In a session full of surprises, Hamilton was half a second quicker than Maldonado, who had been rapid in final practice, topped Q2, and then held provisional pole for a while.

Hamilton was the only frontrunner to do two runs in Q3, and his initial benchmark stood until first local hero Fernando Alonso in the much improved Ferrari, then the incredible Maldonado beat him.

But there was still more to come from Hamilton, who produced a 1m21.707s to give McLaren its 150th Formula 1 pole. The Briton then stopped on track on his slowing-down lap.

Just behind Maldonado, Alonso held second ahead of Lotus team-mates Romain Grosjean and Kimi Raikkonen, who again proved extremely competitive.

Both Saubers made it into Q3, with Sergio Perez going on to take sixth, but Kamui Kobayashi consigned to 10th as his car expired on the way back to the pits at the end of Q2.

Nico Rosberg was seventh after just one early run in Q3, while both Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull) and Rosberg’s Mercedes team-mate Michael Schumacher chose to save tyres and not doing any flying laps in Q3, so qualified eighth and ninth.

The presence of the underdogs in the top 10 inevitably meant some big names were squeezed out in Q2, and it was Jenson Button – who had been uncomfortable with the McLaren’s handling all day – and Mark Webber who found themselves on the wrong side of the cut-off. The McLaren and Red Bull will share row six, double Catalunya polesitter Webber having been sat in the pits at the end of the session as others improved and pushed him backwards.

It was a bad day for Felipe Massa as well, the Ferrari driver registering his worst grid position so far in this already-disappointing season as he qualified behind the Force Indias and Toro Rossos in 17th.

While Maldonado stormed towards the front, his Williams team-mate Bruno Senna pushed too hard in his efforts to keep up – spinning into the gravel at the end of Q1 and ensuring an instant exit.

Vitaly Petrov outqualified Caterham team-mate Heikki Kovalainen for the first time as the back-of-the-grid teams lined up in the usual order. Charles Pic was quicker than fellow Marussia man Timo Glock, and HRT’s Narain Karthikeyan will needs stewards’ permission to race as apparent mechanical issues left him a long way from the 107 per cent margin.

Pos  Driver                Team                 Time            Gap   

 1.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes     1m21.707s   
 2.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault     1m22.285s   + 0.578 
 3.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari              1m22.302s   + 0.595 
 4.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault        1m22.424s   + 0.717 
 5.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault        1m22.487s   + 0.780 
 6.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari       1m22.533s   + 0.826 
 7.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes             1m23.005s   + 1.298 
 8.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault     No time
 9.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes             No time
10.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari       No time

Q2 cut-off time: 1m22.904s                                    Gap **

11.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes     1m22.944s   +  0.839

12.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault     1m22.977s   +  0.872

13.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes 1m23.125s   +  1.020

14.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes 1m23.177s   +  1.072

15.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m23.265s   +  1.160

16.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m23.442s   +  1.337

17.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari              1m23.444s   +  1.339

Q1 cut-off time: 1m24.362s                                    Gap *

18.  Bruno Senna           Williams-Renault     1m24.981s   + 2.398

19.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault     1m25.277s   + 2.694

20.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault     1m25.507s   + 2.924

21.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth    1m26.582s   + 3.999

22.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth    1m27.032s   + 4.449

23.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth         1m27.555s   + 4.972

24.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth         1m31.122s   + 8.539

107% time: 1m28.363s

* Gap to quickest in Q1

** Gap to quickest in Q2

Jean Alesi moved a step closer to his Indianapolis 500 debut on Friday as he completed two of the three phases of the mandatory rookie orientation programme – but he must finish the course when official practice starts next week before he can be approved to qualify.

All Indy newcomers must go through the ROP, in which they lap at ever-greater specified speeds in 10-lap runs.

Alesi had the track to himself for his Friday mileage, with most other rookies going through the ROP on Thursday. The ex-Formula 1 driver is contesting Indianapolis with the Lotus-supported Fan Force United team, which is stepping up from Indy Lights for the event.

“[Getting through two phases] was very important to me, obviously, because it’s all new,” Alesi said. “The car, the circuit are new and it’s been a long time since I drove a single-seater.

“I enjoyed it very much. It went very well. I had good feedback from the car and the track and I learned a lot. Doing all the phases alone, really helped me. The team around me is very experienced, so anywhere I turn, when I speak to one of the guys, they give me good advice.”

Sebastian Vettel denied Pastor Maldonado a shock timesheet-topping performance in the final seconds of the third practice session for the Spanish Grand Prix at Barcelona.

Most of the hour had seen a variety of surprise underdog names taking turns on top, before reigning champions Vettel and Red Bull re-established the expecting order with the German’s final lap.

It was Sauber’s Sergio Perez who led the way for most of the morning, setting the quickest time of the first half hour on the harder tyres, then being swiftly usurped by first Nico Rosberg, then Jean-Eric Vergne as the Mercedes and Toro Rosso tried softs.

Once Perez was on softs too, he was swiftly back in front, lapping in 1m23.742s.

That held until the final two minutes, when his team-mate Kamui Kobayashi jumped to the top, followed by Red Bull’s Mark Webber.

But before this pair could get to the pits, they were being usurped as Maldonado came through to put his Williams on top with a 1m23.336s.

The Venezuelan would not stay there, as with seconds left on the clock, Vettel edged him out by 0.168 seconds.

Maldonado, Kobayashi, Webber and Perez found themselves pushed back to second through fifth places, ahead of Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, Vergne, and fastest McLaren driver Jenson Button. The sister McLaren of Lewis Hamilton looked poised to grab first place on the Briton’s soft tyre run, only to encounter heavy traffic in the middle of the chicane, leaving Hamilton an unrepresentative 16th.

Romain Grosjean did not complete any flying laps after a fuel pressure issue stranded his Lotus at Turn 10 early on, while Timo Glock was the other man to park trackside following an apparent issue at the final chicane in the closing minutes. The German stopped his Marussia just past the pit exit.

Pos  Driver                Team                   Time               Laps

 1.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault       1m23.168             13

 2.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault       1m23.336s  + 0.168   19

 3.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari         1m23.350s  + 0.182   19

 4.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault       1m23.578s  + 0.410   16

 5.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari         1m23.742s  + 0.574   22

 6.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari                1m23.807s  + 0.639   15

 7.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m23.833s  + 0.665   14

 8.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes       1m23.909s  + 0.741   13

 9.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault          1m23.936s  + 0.768   16

10.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes               1m24.070s  + 0.902   23

11.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari                1m24.179s  + 1.011   16

12.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes   1m24.323s  + 1.155   17

13.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m24.331s  + 1.163   15

14.  Bruno Senna           Williams-Renault       1m24.409s  + 1.241   18

15.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes   1m24.599s  + 1.431   15

16.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes       1m24.778s  + 1.610   15

17.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes               1m24.825s  + 1.657   17

18.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault       1m25.911s  + 2.743   20

19.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault       1m26.587s  + 3.419   20

20.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth      1m27.469s  + 4.301   18

21.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth      1m27.689s  + 4.521   16

22.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth           1m28.207s  + 5.039   24

23.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth           1m28.373s  + 5.205   13

24.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault          no time               2 

All Timing Unofficial

Frank Williams thinks his team has all the ingredients it needs to move itself back to the front of the field in Formula 1, having begun a recovery from its worst ever season.

A technical reshuffle has helped deliver a car that is much improved on last year’s disappointing FW33, and the Grove-based outfit has scored more than three times as many points so far this season than it managed in the whole of 2011.

But although it still has some distance to go before it can rediscover its winning ways, team principal Williams is upbeat about the state of the outfit right now.

“We seem to have lost the knack of making poignant cars, but it’s not so easy to find it [in F1] because it’s very competitive now,” he told AUTOSPORT.

“On the face of it, the regulations aren’t a myriad of high class mathematical problems; they are quite straightforward engineering problems. We’ve done it before and we just have to be more clever and more organised, maybe get one or two people in. We can make better cars than we have done. My job is to find the money; the engineers’ job is to make racing cars.”

The arrival of engineering chief Mark Gillan and technical director Mike Coughlan to oversee the technical aspect of Williams appears to be paying off, and Williams says there are no excuses for the outfit not continuing to improve.

“Do we have the right people? Well, the proof of the pudding is the proof of the pudding. I don’t think we lack very much. We have people with strong ambitions and good, strong optimism too. We’re proud of what we do.

“We make good racing cars, coupled with a good engine. We have the same engine as three or four other teams. We have the same tyres as all the other teams. It’s a bunch of human beings. The trick is to get the best group.”

Jean-Eric Vergne believes that it is only a matter of time before he puts his qualifying struggles behind him after missing the cut in Q1 in the previous three Formula 1 races.

The Frenchman has turned in some impressive race drives this year and qualified a strong 11th in Australia. But he accepts that he needs to find the right balance between aggression and caution in qualifying to get the best out of himself.

“It’s just experience,” he said when asked by AUTOSPORT what he needs to do to improve in qualifying. “One time you do not push enough, one time you push too hard. How do you find the right middle? Hopefully it will be soon.

“I will find it and I’m not stressed about it. I take it not as a problem but as something that I need to improve.

“[Qualifying is] the first time I drive with low fuel, which makes the car a little bit different to drive. It’s easy to miss out in qualifying.”

Despite his qualifying difficulties, Vergne is happy with the start he has made to the season.

In Malaysia, he claimed his first points for eighth place after climbing the order during the first stint of the race while running on intermediates when most switched to full wets.

Vergne has no doubts that he can achieve such results consistently as his experience builds.

“There have been a lot of good things from the first race that encourage me and the team. It’s just a question of time and everything will be right.

“We can have some strong results. I’m not worried and the team is not worried, we will just keep working and it will pay off.”

Scuderia Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost has backed the Frenchman to improve in qualifying.

“Jean-Eric is a little bit too aggressive in qualifying,” Tost told this week’s AUTOSPORT magazine. “But I am convinced he will change this.”

Ferrari Driver Academy starlet Raffaele Marciello took a shock pole position for the two European Formula 3 Championship/British F3 International Series races on the Pau street circuit.

Marciello, who ended Friday free practice firmly in the tyre wall at the exit of the Parc Beaumont right-hander, bounced back to beat all the race favourites.

“Yesterday I crashed in FP2 and was not so fast,” said the Italian F3 graduate. “So today it was a surprise.”

Marciello enjoys the benefit of the experienced Daniel Juncadella – a podium finisher in Pau last year – alongside him in the Prema Powerteam Dallara-Mercedes camp.

“It’s difficult to learn the track and Dani is fast, so yesterday I studied the data,” said Pau novice Marciello. “Here it is difficult to overtake, so I just have to get into the first corner in the lead…”

While Juncadella topped the other qualifying group on second-fastest times, meaning he will start alongside his team-mate this afternoon on an all-Prema front row, it was a one-off blistering effort from fellow Spaniard Carlos Sainz Jr that topped the group overall.

Sainz will therefore be on the front row for Sunday’s Grand Prix de Pau, alongside Marciello.

“I was quite happy with the performance of my car and my performance,” said Sainz, who is also a newcomer to the track. “I’m really happy to be on the front row for my first time here, but my second lap was not so good.”

Sainz’s Carlin Dallara-Volkswagen team-mate Jazeman Jaafar secured a second-row slot for both races. He was outpaced by Marciello in his group but is pleased to be the leading British series contender on the grid for the first race.

Pascal Wehrlein (Mucke Motorsport) shares the second row with Jaafar for Saturday’s race, while Fortec runners Pipo Derani (with a last-lap effort) and Alex Lynn, plus long-time first-session pacesetter Jack Harvey (Carlin) and Mucke’s Felix Rosenqvist, all put in times sufficient for the third and fourth rows.

Remarkably, the biggest incident of the session was suffered by poleman Marciello, who kept it out of the barriers when he went off and recovered to go quickest.

Valtteri Bottas says he is not getting impatient with his ambitions to move up to a Formula 1 race seat, despite continuing to impress during his Friday testing duties for Williams.

The Finn is scheduled to take part in 15 Friday practice sessions this season to help prepare him for F1, and so far he has shone in comparison to team-mate Pastor Maldonado.

But although his obvious speed – allied to the fact that he has now been able to deliver some sponsorship – makes him an obvious candidate to step up to a race seat as soon as possible, Bottas is happy to wait for now.

“Of course as a racer, I want to be a racing driver in this class as soon as possible but in the end, this is now how things are for me this season,” Bottas told AUTOSPORT.

“For me it’s the Fridays, and for me this season is really great for learning a lot about F1 and also proving myself. If I could get the race seat then I think the preparation I have got from testing on Fridays will have been really valuable.”

Bottas says that he is making good progress in learning about the intricacies of F1, and feels he can develop much more over the remainder of this campaign.

“I’m learning more and more all the time,” he said. “The main thing that I needed to learn was the tyres. Of course there’s a lot of other stuff that you need to learn in F1, and I’m still learning more and more every Friday, especially from the tyres and how they behave, and how to squeeze time out of them.

“I think there are small bits everywhere really where I can do more. I’ve never done a proper long run – really long runs, like 20 laps. I still don’t have a perfect idea of how the tyre really lasts from lap 15 to 25, so that’s maybe something to experience at some point.”

Danica Patrick says her only goal for her second NASCAR Sprint Cup Series outing at Darlington is to see the chequered flag at one of the championship’s toughest venues.

Despite running a full season in the Nationwide Series, Patrick will only be making her second Cup start in the #10 Stewart Haas Racing Chevrolet on Saturday night, following a tough baptism in NASCAR’s elite series in the Daytona 500, where she was involved in incidents in both the qualifying race and the main event.

The former IndyCar star struggled during the first practice session where she ranked slowest, 1.5 seconds off pacesetter Kevin Harvick, having a brush with the wall which left the tradiional ‘Darlington stripe’ on the right side of her car.

“This is a tough place and everything they said about it is true,” said Patrick following her first few laps at the 1.366-mile oval. “This ‘lady in black’ is very intimidating. I’m just trying to get comfortable with what the car needs me to do: where to brake, how heavy to brake and those kinds of things.”

Despite a tough first outing in her Cup car on Friday, having run earlier in the day in her Nationwide series Chevy, Patrick made good progress during the second practice session, ranking 24th and improving her speed steadily.

Later in the day she ran her fastest lap on her second qualifying flyer, finishing 38th fastest out of 47 cars.

Although she was guaranteed the start on Saturday’s race thanks to her car’s top-35 status in the owners’ standings, being driven by David Reutimann since the second race of the year at Phoenix, her time would have allowed her to make the field regardless.

“I just want to finish, which is going to be a challenge I think,” Patrick said. “The cars definitely move around quite a bit and you’re carrying a lot of speed through these corners and there’s going to be a lot of other guys that are around you running really hard.

“It’s a narrow track. Let’s face it, it’s got great big straightaways, but there’s one lane going in and out. Just getting to the end of the Cup race is going to be the accomplishment for me. It’s also going to be the best for experience.”

Antonio Felix da Costa gave Carlin the first pole of the 2012 GP3 season at Barcelona.

The Portuguese driver edged out Lotus duo Conor Daly and Aaro Vainio in a top three covered by just 0.090 seconds.

Mitch Evans held pole for MW Arden early on, but was edged back to fourth on the grid, 0.193s off the pace.

Status driver Marlon Stockinger completed the top five, while Manor’s Tio Ellinas secured sixth and top rookie honours despite missing free practice – although he is under investigation over a potential yellow flag infringement.

Daniel Abt (Lotus), Patric Niederhauser (Jenzer), practice pacesetter Matias Laine (MW Arden) and Dmitry Suranovich (Manor) completed the top 10.

Auto GP champion Kevin Ceccon will start on the back row after failing to set a time in his Ocean car.

Pos  Driver                  Team       Time       Gap

 1.  Antonio Felix da Costa  Carlin     1m38.642s

 2.  Conor Daly              Lotus      1m38.720s  + 0.078s

 3.  Aaro Vainio             Lotus      1m38.732s  + 0.090s

 4.  Mitch Evans             MW Arden   1m38.835s  + 0.193s

 5.  Marlon Stockinger       Status     1m38.867s  + 0.225s

 6.  Tio Ellinas             Manor      1m38.894s  + 0.252s

 7.  Daniel Abt              Lotus      1m38.945s  + 0.303s

 8.  Patric Niederhauser     Jenzer     1m38.988s  + 0.346s

 9.  Matias Laine            MW Arden   1m39.151s  + 0.509s

10.  Dmitry Suranovich       Manor      1m39.164s  + 0.522s

11.  David Fumanelli         MW Arden   1m39.175s  + 0.533s

12.  Tamas Pal Kiss          Atech CRS  1m39.201s  + 0.559s

13.  Alex Brundle            Carlin     1m39.228s  + 0.586s

14.  William Buller          Carlin     1m39.512s  + 0.870s

15.  Robert Visoiu           Jenzer     1m39.553s  + 0.911s

16.  Kotaro Sakurai          Status     1m39.701s  + 1.059s

17.  Antonio Spavone         Trident    1m39.932s  + 1.290s

18.  Alice Powell            Status     1m40.002s  + 1.360s

19.  Fabiano Machado         Manor      1m40.278s  + 1.636s

20.  John Wartique           Atech CRS  1m40.578s  + 1.936s

21.  Ethan Ringel            Atech CRS  1m40.640s  + 1.998s

22.  Jakub Klasterka         Jenzer     1m41.053s  + 2.411s

23.  Robert Cregan           Ocean      1m41.112s  + 2.470s

24.  Carmen Jorda            Ocean      1m42.066s  + 3.424s

25.  Vicky Piria             Trident    1m43.509s  + 4.867s

26.  Kevin Ceccon            Ocean

Pickett Racing’s HPD dominated LMP1 qualifying for the American Le Mans Series’ Laguna Seca round on Friday.

Klaus Graf took the car, which had also been quickest in testing and practice, to the top spot with a commanding 1.795-second advantage over the Dyson Lola-Mazda that completes the slender LMP1 entry.

Level 5 continued HPD’s good day with a one-two result in LMP2, Christophe Bouchut setting the class pole time, as a suspension problem prevented Conquest from running in the session. Class newcomer Dempsey Racing was third.

In another tight GT qualifying session, Darren Turner put the Aston Martin at the head of the field. The Briton had a four tenths of a second margin over second-placed Tommy Milner’s Corvette, behind which just a tenth of a second covered the two BMWs, both Extreme Speed Ferraris, the second Corvette and the top Flying Lizard Porsche.

Former racing driver and legendary auto designer Carroll Shelby died on Thursday at the age of 89.

Shelby was a highly successful sportscar racer in the 1950s, winning the 1959 Le Mans 24 Hours in an Aston Martin shared with Roy Salvadori. His career also encompassed Formula 1, where he would make eight starts in championship rounds, including a best finish of fourth in the 1958 Italian Grand Prix.

He also set a number of speed records at the Bonneville flats before his racing career was cut short due to his heart condition. However, he remained involved in racing, building the legendary Shelby Cobra sportscar before starting his long association with Ford in the 1960s.

Following the launch of the celebrated Shelby Mustang, he would later be key in the development of the Le Mans winning Ford GT-40.

“In the history of our company there are a handful of men who have stamped their imprint on the heart and soul of what we do at Ford Racing and Carroll Shelby is definitely one of them,” said Ford racing director James Allison.

“I’m just so fortunate to have had the opportunity to meet him and our thoughts and prayers go out to his family. We at Ford and his legions of fans will have a silent moment to reflect on what he’s done for the company. It’s personal for me and I’m sure it’s personal for many fans.”

Shelby’s memory was honoured on Friday night at Darlington Raceway with a moment of silence before the start of the NASCAR Nationwide Series race.

“Carroll Shelby was a giant in the motorsports industry and the automobile industry overall,” said NASCAR president Mike Helton. “Known primarily as an innovative automotive designer, he started building his legacy as an outstanding driver. Along the way, his name became iconic.

“On a personal level, he was simply a good friend to so many of us. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family.”

Among a host of tributes to Shelby on social media sites, American racing legend Mario Andretti tweeted: “Sad to hear legendary Carroll Shelby passed away. His automotive contributions made him a real icon.”

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series points leader Greg Biffle beat Jimmie Johnson to pole position for Saturday’s 500-mile race at Darlington.

The Roush Fenway Racing driver just edged the Hendrick Motorsports racer with a lap of 27.281 seconds, at an average speed of 180.257 mph, to claim his second pole of 2012, having started from the top spot earlier this season at Bristol.

Biffle, a two-time Darlington winner, had been second fastest in the first practice session behind Richard Childress Racing’s Kevin Harvick, also running second best in final practice behind Penske’s AJ Allmendinger.

The former Truck and Nationwide Series champion joked after his run that his qualifying effort was almost hampered by a small balloon flying in front of him as he was set to start his first flying lap.

“It may sound stupid but that red balloon over there caught me more off-guard than anything,” said Biffle. “I gave up in Turn 4, saw this thing in the middle of the track and almost lost concentration.

“But that was a pretty on-edge lap. I felt like I left a lot on the table on Turns 1 and 2 but I guess I got through [Turns] 3 and 4 pretty good.”

Johnson beat Hendrick team-mate Kasey Kahne to second despite setting identical teams by virtue of his better ranking in the points standings. The five-time champion was the first of at least five cars to brush the wall in the opening practice, getting the traditional ‘Darlington stripe’.

A third Hendrick-built Chevy, Ryan Newman’s Stewart-Haas Impala, was fourth fastest ahead of the Toyotas of Joe Gibbs Racing’s Kyle Busch and Michael Waltrip Racing’s Martin Truex Jr.

Roush’s Carl Edwards was seventh ahead of pre-race favourite Denny Hamlin, who ran very consistent laps during the second practice, showing strong race pace in his JGR Toyota Camry. Last year’s surprise winner Regan Smith and RCR’s Jeff Burton rounded out the top 10 in qualifying.

Scott Speed, making his third start of the season, was the fastest of the non-guaranteed drivers in 29th, while Danica Patrick will line up 38th for her second Cup race, her first at Darlington.

Scott Riggs, Michael McDowell, Stephen Leicht and Mike Bliss failed to make the field.

Ford driver Jari-Matti Latvala has tested a rally car again for the first time since breaking his collarbone in a skiing accident last month.

The Finn drove the Ford Fiesta RS WRC for two days in Sardinia, completing the test on Friday evening – a month to the day since the training accident happened.

Latvala completed more than 270 miles of driving at competitive speed as he prepares for his return to the World Rally Championship on the sixth round of the series, the Acropolis Rally which starts in Loutraki on May 24.

“I am feeling very good. I am very happy after the test,” Latvala told AUTOSPORT. “I have had the physiotherapist who was working with me in Finland here with me in the test – this has been a good help.

“We took the first day a little easier, to see how the arm will cope and take all the impacts. But on the second day we drove more. Today [day two of the test] we did three 30-kilometre runs. In Greece, the longest stage is 25 kilometres, so I am feeling confident for that.”

Latvala admitted if the test had been earlier, he would not have made it.

“The recovery schedule has been tight,” he said. “If we had needed to test last week, there would not have been the chance to test, but four weeks is just enough time [since the accident].”

Chevrolet has had its appeal against IndyCar’s ruling in the turbocharged controversy denied.

Last month the series had allowed Honda – which uses a single turbocharger unlike rival Chevrolet’s twin layout – to modify its compressor cover in the interests of parity. Chevrolet objected to the decision, and after IndyCar rejected its protest, opted to appeal the decision. That has now been dismissed by Justice Theodore R Boehm, who was appointed to hear the case.

An IndyCar statement said: “Retired Indiana Supreme Court Justice Theodore R Boehm denied an appeal filed on April 30 and upheld IndyCar’s decision to approve use of a 0.71 A/R compressor cover for the single turbocharger.

“Justice Boehm conducted the appeal hearing on May 9 in Indianapolis. Pursuant to Rule 13.11, the appeal decision is final and binding.”

Practice for the IndyCar Series’ Indianapolis 500 showpiece begins next week.