Formula 1 bursts back into life next week with a spate of car launches and the first test at Jerez getting underway. And AUTOSPORT will be there to bring you unrivalled coverage of all the events as they happen.

We plan to provide bigger and better coverage of the pre-season build-up than ever before. And AUTOSPORT is delighted to announce that its hugely popular live coverage of testing will return once again – completely free of charge.

As well as that, AUTOSPORT will be the first place you can see the video unveiling of Kimi Raikkonen’s new Lotus F1 car on Sunday afternoon at 4pm GMT (5pm CET), so be sure not to miss it.

Beyond the launches and full live commentary from the test, AUTOSPORT will bring you all the news, photographs, technical analysis and exclusive interviews from events at Jerez and Barcelona the second they happen with our team of staff on the ground at the track.

Furthermore, for our PLUS readers, there will be exclusive in-depth analysis from some of F1′s best writers to deliver you the behind-the-scenes insight that you cannot get anywhere else.

AUTOSPORT’s Editor-in-Chief Andrew van de Burgt said: “The start of a new F1 season is always an exciting period, and with the wraps coming off six new cars this will be a must-see test for all true F1 fans. We are especially pleased that Lotus has allowed us to showcase its new car on our website, while having four of our star writers in situ in Jerez will mean we are able to report on the breaking stories as they happen.”

Jules Bianchi is likely to keep racing alongside his Formula 1 reserve driver commitments with Force India this year.

The Frenchman has competed in the F1 supporting GP2 series for the past two seasons, finishing third in 2010 and ’11.

He has landed a deal to drive on Friday mornings on at least nine grand prix weekends, but the Ferrari protege is also closing on a chance to keep racing somewhere in 2012 to stay sharp.

“We are working on it,” said Bianchi. “We are not sure yet, but I will try to have another programme as well [as F1].”

Bianchi’s manager Nicolas Todt told AUTOSPORT that a race deal elsewhere would complement his F1 responsibilities well.

“I think it’s important for Jules to keep driving, keep racing,” Todt said. “At least nine [grand prix] Fridays is good, but it’s not huge mileage. With Ferrari and Force India we are looking at different possibilities.

“The main thing is I am very pleased that Jules has signed as third driver at Force India, because we have seen in the past it is the best team for giving a chance to young drivers.

“They know how to work with young drivers, and it is the best opportunity he could have apart from a race drive in Formula 1.”

Bianchi and Todt would not be drawn on where the 22-year-old could end up racing, but a return to GP2 is unlikely given the proximity of its sessions to F1 running on GP weekends.

Giedo van der Garde will be the Caterham Formula 1 team’s reserve driver for the 2012 season.

The 26-year-old Dutchman has raced in GP2 since winning the 2008 Formula Renault 3.5 title, and was fifth in the ’11 GP2 standings. Van der Garde has previous F1 testing experience with Spyker/Force India, Super Aguri and Renault.

Caterham will give van der Garde mileage in pre-season testing and in a number of Friday practice sessions alongside his reserve duties.

“The team is fresh, with some fantastic people here,” said van der Garde. “Tony Fernandes is extremely ambitious and he has brought in a lot of very good people in to help grow this team for future success. I’m looking forward to learning and moving forward with the team, in and out of the car.

“It’s great for Holland that we again have a Dutch driver who is connected to Formula 1. Being the only Dutch driver now is very good for the sport in Holland, as the interest was perhaps on the decline since the [Jos] Verstappen years, however I hope to generate the same excitement for my country and really bring Formula 1 to them.”

Team boss Fernandes added that the squad had been following van der Garde’s career for some time.

“He is a very exciting prospect that we have been monitoring since the early days of our team, and we are all looking forward to seeing how he can help us develop throughout the season as we take our next steps towards the established midfield teams ahead,” said Fernandes.

“His performances in GP2, particularly in 2011, mark Giedo out as one of motorsport’s brightest prospects, and securing him as reserve driver is a real coup for our team.”

Dylan Duval (aka D-Twice) is a quick learner.  Introduced to sim racing a little over a year ago, the Halifax, Nova Scotia resident rocketed from rookie to Class A (oval) license in no-time and quickly established himself in the front ranks of the NASCAR iRacing.com Class C Series by finishing runner-up to Josh Laughton in 2011 Season 2 thanks to a record of 31 wins in 88 starts.    A fan of the Chevy Silverado. Duval is also a regular front runner in the GSRacing.net Truck Series and has a finish in the top three of the 2011-12 championship in sight.

Duval has other series in his sights as well, having placed 22nd overall in the 2011 Season 4 NASCAR iRacing.com Class B Series and finished-up 2011 Season 4 with a trio of wins in NASCAR iRacing.com Class A at Kentucky Speedway in his Juan Pablo Montoya-inspired Chevy Impala.

Q:    How long have you been sim racing?
A:    I have been sim racing since December 2010 (13 Months)

Q:    What attracted you to iRacing?
A:    The things that attracted me to iRacing were the realism. I also heard a lot of good things about it from friends.

Q:    What are your favorite iRacing cars/tracks?
A:    My favorite iRacing car is the Chevrolet Silverado; second to that would be the Class A Impala. My favorite tracks are Pocono, Martinsville and Phoenix.

Q:    What do you like most about iRacing?
A:    The thing I like most about iRacing is that you can at anytime join a good pickup race. Also there’s very good organized racing. I also really enjoy the competition level.

Duval is a front-runner whenever and wherever the Silverados race.

Q:    What would you change about iRacing?
A:    If I could change one thing about iRacing I would add smoke to the new tire model. Also, I would love to see iRacing put more road courses on the NASCAR schedules.

Q:    How many hours a week do you spend on iRacing?
A:    It’s hard to say, 10-15? It all depends on how much practice is needed for races I plan to run.

Q:    Do you do any “real world’ racing?  If so, do you use iRacing to practice or prepare for your real world races? If so, how?
A:    No, I don’t do any real world racing. I would absolutely love to but I just can’t afford it.

Q:    Tell us about the paint schemes on your helmet/car(s)
A:    All of my paint schemes are painted by my sponsor Thomas D Smith (www.TDSMotorsports.net).   My Class A scheme is based off of a Juan Pablo Montoya paint scheme because he is my favorite real world driver.

Q:     What other sim racing activities (Forza, Gran Turismo, etc.) do you do?
A:    I currently don’t do any other type of sim-racing. Before I got iRacing I raced on EA Sports’ NASCAR ’09 game.

Two people I admire are Juan Pablo Montoya and Eminem.

Q:    What are your favorite video games?
A:    Definitely any Grand Theft Auto title, especially San Andreas for PC. I also enjoy the Call of Duty franchise.

Q:     What is your most memorable iRacing moment?
A:    I believe that my most memorable moment on iRacing was finishing second to Josh Laughton in the Truck Series Class C overall points. (2011 Season 2)

Q:    What is the iRacing moment you’d love to forget?
A:    The iRacing moment I would love to forget actually just happened recently. I was in position to finally win my first GSRacing.net Truck Series race, and I messed-up a late restart and gave away my shot at the win. I finished fifth.

Q:    What car/track would you like to see iRacing add to the service?
A:    I would love to see iRacing add a NASCAR Canadian Tire Series, and also I would like to see Montreal (Circuit Gilles Villenueve).

Q:    What person, living or dead, do you most admire? Why?
A:    Two people I admire are Juan Pablo Montoya and Eminem.  Juan Pablo I admire due to the fact that he can be competitive and win races in any type of car he was been in. Also Eminem because he has come through so much controversy to become what he is right now.

Along with Eminem, Duval's favorite "rap" artist is JPM.

Q:    What’s your favorite real world racing series?
A:    My favorite real world racing series is the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.

Q:    Name the title of the most recent book you read.
A:    I genuinely don’t like reading.  The last book I read was The Crucible for a school book report.

Q:    Name of your favorite movie/TV show?
A:    My favorite movie is 2 Fast 2 Furious, my favorite TV show is Two and a Half Men.

Q:    How many of your close friends are iRacing members?
A:    None, with me being from Canada there is not as much interest in sim-racing where I am from.

Q:    Has competing with iRacers all around the world influenced your opinions/outlook on life/world events? How?
A:    Not really.

World Rally Championship Commission president Jarmo Mahonen has told individual event organisers they will have to finalise their own television deals, AUTOSPORT has learned, a situation labeled totally impractical by one senior team chief.

The letter states that after being unable to conclude the agreement with Eurosport, there is no alternative to locally-sourced footage.

“Despite very lengthy negotiations with Eurosport,” the letter, a copy of which was seen by AUTOSPORT, states, “we sincerely regret to have to inform you that, unfortunately, it has not been possible to conclude an agreement even when trying to give them the possibility to act as a provider of services, providing television coverage of the WRC.

“Therefore, the FIA will not be able to put in place a global promoter, or even global television coverage at this time. As a result, each WRC organiser will unfortunately have to negotiate the television broadcasting of his event.”

While the television will be sorted on a local level, the letter confirms the commitment to sourcing a new global promoter.

The letter continued: “The FIA will also maintain the link between the organisers and the partners of the WRC, while setting place a plan of action to determine the best way of ensuring the promotion of the championship as soon as this can be secured.”

Ford’s director of motorsport Gerard Quinn said: “[Events souring their own television agreements] would be totally impractical. As a long-term solution that would not give the manufacturers, the participants, the organisers or the fans or anybody in the sport what we want.”

Another team insider added: “This sends us back to the dark ages. How can the FIA ever think this is going to work?”

Can you say -- or see -- .2s? That was Hazard's MOV over Alfalla at PIR.

Brian Schoenburg started the JoeTheShow 120 from the pole position with a time of 27.442 seconds while Alfalla led the most laps of the event as he paced the field for 49 of the 120 circuits. Eight leaders swapped the lead eight times while the caution flew a total of 11 times. Alfalla advanced his 28th starting position by 26 positions to take the Hard Charger Award, while Schoenburg was the top driver running a Tim’s Corner Motorsports logo on his truck as a part of the Tim’s Corner Challenge. Chad Coleman leads the standings in that six race miniseries over Richard Beasley with just one race to go. The JoeTheShow 120 took one hour, 22 minutes to complete.

Schoenburg (26) started from pole but slipped to tenth at the finish.

With just one race to go in the GSRacing.net Truck Series itself, Hazard leads the point chase by 12 points over Danny Hansen following the latter’s seventh place finish at Phoenix. Brandon Kettelle falls to third, 14 points behind Hazard while Dylan Duval (Halifax, NS) sits 25 points behind the point lead heading into the season finale at Atlanta. Kettelle and Duval finished 11th and 18th respectively in the JoeTheShow 120.

Click here for complete results

The final event for the fourth GSRacing.net Truck Series season takes the field to the Atlanta Motor Speedway for the Massingill Expert Services 200. This race has been a classic in the past and with a championship on the line and a new titlist to be crowned, the race comes with great importance within the sim racing community. Practice opens at 8pm Eastern on Thursday, February 10th with the live broadcast of the season finale going live with qualifying at 9pm Eastern on WebRacingNetwork.com.

About the GSRacing.net Truck Series:

The GSRacing.net Truck Series is one of iRacing’s premier independently hosted series. The Truck Series is in its third full season and is frequented by the top drivers in the sim community, including those from the NASCAR iRacing Series World Championship. Races throughout the 2011 season are conducted on Thursday nights with select races with live flag-to-flag coverage on ETV  and WebRacingNetwork.com.

Negotiations between the FIA and Eurosport for the promotion of the World Rally Championship have broken down and international television coverage of next week’s Rally Sweden appears unlikely.

The FIA issued a statement this evening confirming it has withdrawn from negotiations and will begin discussions with other interested parties.

The statement said: “The FIA regrets to announce it has not proven possible to find an international promoter as well as a global broadcaster for the 2012 World Rally Championship season at this stage in time.

“The Federation has been involved in lengthy and detailed discussions with interested parties but a series of issues proved impossible to reconcile, and it finally had to take the decision to withdraw from these negotiations.”

The statement confirms that the timing and tracking systems – provided by British firm Stage 1 Technology – will be in place and funded by the FIA in Sweden.

“In addition to the usual sporting and technical services it provides for these events,” the statement continued, “the FIA will finance the timing/tracking of each event so that the championship can take place in the best conditions.

“Teams, manufacturers and the other stakeholders have all been informed of this situation.

“The FIA will now open discussions with all the other parties which have expressed interest in the promotion of the WRC in order to guarantee the future development and growth of the FIA World Rally Championship.”

Ford director of European motorsport Gerard Quinn said: “I’m disappointed to read the press release from the FIA, but we will continue to work with the FIA for the benefit of the championship.

“The news that discussions will be opened with interested parties is positive and we look forward, as stakeholders, to taking part in those discussions soon.”

There has been speculation that the FIA could leave the promotion and television filming and distribution to individual event organisers if it is unable to secure a global promoter. Quinn admitted such an outcome would be in nobody’s favour.

“That would be totally impractical,” he said. “As a long-term solution that would not give the manufacturers, the participants, the organisers or the fans or anybody in the sport what we want. This is a global sport which needs a global promoter.”

A resolution to the ongoing situation between the BMW Group and Prodrive is expected early next week, when the Banbury firm is reportedly going to be told that its contract to build Mini John Cooper Works WRCs is terminated.

As reported by AUTOSPORT on Thursday, the BMW Group’s decision is believed to have been taken to split from Prodrive. That decision is expected to be communicated to the company responsible for the development and build of the Mini either on Friday or early next week.

AUTOSPORT’s sources have reported that a meeting of Prodrive staff has been convened for Monday morning.

When contacted by AUTOSPORT on Friday afternoon, a spokesperson from the BMW Group said: “We have no comment to make”.

Despite collecting three podiums from seven World Rally Championship starts, the dispute between Prodrive and the BMW Group over financing the programme appears beyond reconciliation.

Martin Tomczyk has been placed with BMW’s new RMG squad for his DTM title defence this year.

The German manufacturer announced on Friday which teams its six drivers will race for in the coming season, with RMG, which was only formed last summer, joining established touring car squads Schnitzer and RBM in running a pair of M3s.

Tomczyk, who joined BMW from Audi during the winter, will be partnered at RMG by American Joey Hand, while BMW’s other big-name signing, Bruno Spengler, will drive for Schnitzer with Dirk Werner.

Andy Priaulx’s M3 will be run by RBM, the team for which he won his three world and one European titles. Augsto Farfus, also an RBM driver in the WTCC, will be his team-mate.

“In allocating our six DTM drivers to the three teams we have completed another stage of our planning for the 2012 season,” said BMW motorsport director Jens Marquardt.

“The test programme so far has primarily focused on evaluating control parts, performing basic set-up work on our BMW M3 DTM, and familiarising ourselves with the DTM processes, which are new to us all. However, we now enter the crucial phase ahead of the start of the season in which the focus switches to performance.

“In order for us to be able to push ourselves to the limit and exploit the full potential of the car, it is essential that the co-operation between the driver, his race engineer, and the entire team is perfect. To find the ideal driver/team combinations, every one of our six drivers has driven for each of the teams.

“After many discussions with all those involved, we are confident we have found the optimal line-ups, which will allow us to get the best out of the individual strengths of the drivers and teams. The drivers and teams can now continue to grow together and prepare for the season, which begins in just three months.”

Formula 1′s first pre-season test will kick off with 11 teams at Jerez on Tuesday, with only Marussia not running.

The Spanish circuit has issued a running order for the opening of the winter tests, with nine news cars set to run for the first time.

Mercedes GP is running last year’s car but using its three days of running to evaluate tyres, while HRT is only running Pedro de la Rosa in its 2011 challenger on the first two days.

The full running order is:

Team           Tuesday              Wednesday    Thursday    Friday

Sauber         Kobayashi            Perez        Perez       Kobayashi

Ferrari        Massa                Massa        Alonso      Alonso

Force India    di Resta             di Resta     Hulkenberg  Hulkenberg

Catherham      TBA                  TBA          TBA         TBA

McLaren        Button               Button       Hamilton    Hamilton

Mercedes       Rosberg/Schumacher   Schumacher   Rosberg     -

Red Bull       Webber               Webber       Vettel      Vettel

Lotus          Raikkonen            Raikkonen    Grosjean    Grosjean

Toro Rosso     Ricciardo            Ricciardo    Vergne      Vergne

Williams       Maldonado            Maldonado    Senna       Senna

HRT            de la Rosa           de la Rosa   –           -

Sauber technical director James Key is to leave the Swiss team to take up a role with one of its rivals.

In a statement issued by the Hinwil-based outfit on Friday, Sauber said that the design and development of its 2012 car would now be led by the heads of department for its aerodynamic, design, performance and operations divisions.

Key said: “I’ve enjoyed the past two years working at the Sauber F1 Team. It has been a very intense and interesting time, in which we had to manage the transition from a much larger team to a smaller one, and everybody handled that very well.

“I think the team is now well set for the future and I wish it the very best. I have been offered a new role back in the UK, which I decided to accept.”

The identity of the team Key is heading to has not been released, but Key previously worked at the Force India outfit prior to joining Sauber at the start of 2010 as replacement for Willy Rampf.

Team boss Peter Sauber added: “A qualified team shares the overall technical responsibility. This structure has proved to work well at other racing outfits. Over a period of almost two years, James has accomplished a lot for our team.

“Especially in the difficult transition period from a manufacturer team into a private enterprise, he contributed significantly to ensure the team regained stability. We would like to thank him for his efforts and wish him all the best for his future.”

British broadcaster Sky Sports will show live coverage of all GP2 and GP3 races on its new-for-2012 F1 HD channel.

Starting with the GP2 opener at Sepang on March 24-25, Sky will show both the feature and sprint races live featuring FOM’s world-feed commentary.

The channel will also show coverage, analysis and discussion of the races in its weekly magazine show, presented by Georgie Thompson and Ted Kravitz.

The GP3 season will also be broadcast live from its opening round at Barcelona on May 12-13.

Sky F1′s executive producer Martin Turner said: “We are delighted to be showing GP2 and GP3 live on Sky Sports F1 HD.

“There are six former GP2 champions in Formula 1 this season, including Lewis Hamilton and last year’s winner Romain Grosjean. The series promises nail-biting and fascinating racing and we’ll track gifted drivers through the ranks as they aim for Formula 1.”

Conducted and provided by HRT’s press office.

Q. It has finally been revealed that you will occupy the last seat available as an official driver, how are you facing this new challenge in Formula 1?

Narain Karthikeyan: It all really started after the Indian GP, where we had a good performance which led to the belief that I am still competitive to drive in Formula 1. It is no secret how difficult it is to stay in F1 at this time, but I ensured that I was physically and mentally ready for any opportunity that arose. So I can’t wait to get back in the car and return to action once again.

Q. The uncertainty you’ve faced in the period spanning from the end of last season until the moment you’ve been confirmed can’t have been easy to handle. What have you done to keep yourself occupied?

NK: Well, there were more ups and downs than I can remember, positive and negative days – sometimes I just gave up but it was quickly followed by yet another glimmer of hope. It was exhausting mentally, but like the adage goes, all’s well that ends well.

There was plenty to keep me occupied during the winter though, like I said earlier I trained as hard as I would have if my drive was confirmed last season; fitness is critical in F1 and racing in general. Then there were lots of discussions, which meant a lot of travelling – flights, hotel stays and those sorts of things. So I didn’t have a whole lot of time to sit and mull over things, to be honest.

Q. This will be your third season in Formula 1, what targets have you set yourself?

NK: As far as results go, it largely depends on the development of the car, although I must say that things are looking promising. Otherwise, I have no doubts in my ability, I am extremely confident as last year and after the first few races, I drove better than ever. So I’ll be pushing hard no doubt about that. A lot of things change this year even though it is the same team, and I am sure it’ll be for the better. The new management is wholly focused on all-round improvement and from what I have seen – they will do so.

Q. Practically the whole structure is new with respect to 2011, what sensations have the new directors given you?

NK: The team has some very capable and experienced people on-board now, like the new Team Principal Luis Perez-Sala and my teammate Pedro de la Rosa. So things are definitely changing for the better ever since the new owners have taken over. Saul (Ruiz de Marco, HRT F1 CEO) has a very good approach to what F1 should be, by applying his entrepreneurship experience to the team and I’m sure that it will lead to better things. Everyone knows it is impossible to change things in F1 overnight but we have certainly taken strides in the right direction.

Q. How would you define yourself as a driver?

NK: One thing’s for sure – I never give up. I’m here, against all odds and expectations, which wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. I have worked incredibly hard, I believe in my ability and know that I am as quick as anyone else out there.

Q. What do you know about and what would you highlight about your teammate Pedro de la Rosa?

NK: My first ever test was with Jaguar in 2001 and I remember Pedro was the team driver at the time. Even though I don’t know him very well, I know that he’s very experienced and from what I’ve seen, has a pleasant personality. We should be getting on well – it is not about trying to beat each other but working harmoniously to help the team progress as a whole. Healthy competition will collectively allow us to get the maximum out of the car and fast-forward the development process.

He has a vast amount of developmental experience with a front-running team – so it’ll count a lot for the team in terms of approaching things and making the most out of our resources.

Q. What do you think you can contribute to the team this year?

NK: I am going to push as hard as possible, both inside and outside the cockpit and do whatever it takes to help the team progress in its rejuvenated form. Continuity is important in Formula 1 so I’m sure we’ll hit the ground running this year starting with some actual pre-season testing unlike last season where I first drove the new car on the opening race weekend in Australia. So there is all the incentive for me to ensure that I carry the team forward by delivering results and ensuring that nothing is left on the table as far as performance is concerned.

Q. Coming from a country with not much motorsport tradition, what led you to pursue the dream of making it to Formula 1?

NK: Ever since I started my racing career, I had just one goal in mind – Formula 1. It was definitely an unconventional dream to have, considering we had very little by the way of motorsport in India. Understandably, at the time I failed to realise what an uphill task it was. A more concrete picture emerged when I started racing in Europe, and it was during that time I came to terms with the harsh realities in earnest. We didn’t know the right steps to get to F1, but several setbacks made my resolve only stronger and my perseverance ultimately paid off when I made my debut in 2005.

Q. Last year you made history by becoming the first Indian driver ever to race at the Indian GP. What dreams do you have left to fulfill?

NK: For me, Formula 1 is a continued dream, it is always ultra-competitive and competing at the pinnacle of the sport is what I love. So I am very happy to have the opportunity to continue living my dream and I have every intention to make the best out of it.

AUTOSPORT competition winners Nick Howers and Wendy Linsley met Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton at the McLaren team’s 2012 launch event on Wednesday.

The pair had won the chance to attend the unveiling of the McLaren-Mercedes MP4-27 at the team’s Woking technical centre in a competition run at AUTOSPORT International in association with Hilton Hhonors. F1 team launches are traditionally closed to the public.

In addition to see the wraps come off McLaren’s 2012 title challenger, the competition winners also had a bonus chance to meet both Button and Hamilton in person.

Pietro Fantin and Jazeman Jaafar have completed Carlin’s line-up for this year’s British Formula 3 Championship.

The pair join Carlos Sainz Jr, Harry Tincknell and Jack Harvey in the team’s five-car line-up and are both aiming to give the Volkswagen-powered squad its eighth drivers’ title.

Fantin (pictured), who finished eighth in last year’s championship with Hitech, said: “I’ve really enjoyed winter testing with Carlin so far. I’m sure the team will do a good job developing the new F3 car with the great staff and resources they have and with four great team mates, I know we will generate a lot of useful information on the new chassis.

“I’m extremely glad now to drive for the best team in the pit lane and I don’t have any other goals for the season other than winning the championship, and I’m sure that with Carlin I can achieve that.

“I will have four excellent team mates and drivers from other teams who will also be chasing the title but I know by working hard myself and with my engineer I will be able to fight for victories from the start.”

Unlike Brazilian teenager Fantin, Malaysian driver Jaafar did not win a race last year, although he did finish two places higher in the championship. He was, however, part of Carlin’s line-up, and believes that he will benefit hugely from the continuity his new deal provides.

“Having the continuity of staying with Carlin is vital to me. It means that we can hit the ground running with the new model of car which we’re all racing this season and as I know all the mechanics. I’ve built a good rapport with my engineer and we’ll be straight into the development work from the first test of the year.

“I’m chasing the elusive first win in British F3 and I’m totally determined to achieve this in the coming season, as well as to improve further to finish in the top three. Of course, winning the championship outright is the goal and I have the motivation and experience to do this, as well as the team around me.”

Force India will be one of the big beneficiaries of the decision to ban exhaust-blown diffusers in Formula 1, reckons the team’s technical chief Andrew Green.

Although the Silverstone-based outfit finished sixth in last year’s constructors’ championship, Green felt it did not get properly on top of the exhaust-blowing technology so will lose far less from the ban than many rivals.

“We were a little bit late to the party and I don’t think we extracted its full potential by a long way,” said Green.

“I think there are teams out there that extracted way more than we did and hopefully that will hurt them more than it’s going to hurt us. We spent the winter trying to salvage back all that downforce that it cost us and we’re getting closer.”

He believes that the rule change will make F1 more competitive overall.

“My feeling is that it should close the field up,” Green said. “I think you need to look at Silverstone, where the regs changed for a fraction of a second, and the grid did appear to close up.”

While Green believes the blown diffuser ban will be key to Force India’s form this year, he also has high hopes for the new aerodynamic direction that has been taken with the VJM05.

“The biggest change for us is the aerodynamic philosophy on the car, starting on the front and the new front wing, which sets up all the basic structures down the car, that’s a big step for us,” Green said.

“It took us quite a long time getting ourselves out of the old philosophy. We did some testing last year trying to move away from it and then we used that knowledge over the winter to come up with the new concept at the front.

“It’s a big departure from where we have been before, and the [wind]tunnel numbers are really, really encouraging so we’re quite looking forward to getting on the track and seeing if it does produce what it should do.”

Dyson Racing has joined forces with Status Grand Prix for its first assault on the Le Mans 24 Hours this year.

The British Status team, a race winner in both years of the GP3 Series, will provide technical, logistical and commercial support to Dyson when it brings its pair of new Lola-Mazda B12/60s to Europe.

Dyson team boss Chris Dyson, who will race one of the Lolas, said: “We are very excited to join forces with Status GP, a mutual friend of Lola and a group that has proven to be out of the top drawer in recent years.”

Status founder Mark Gallagher said: “Our goal is to help ensure that this legendary team enjoys a highly successful event with minimum disruption to the defence of its American Le Mans Series titles.”

Status has also gained a place on the reserve list for the LMP2 Lola coupe it is aiming to field in the European Le Mans Series.

The team, which was founded to run Ireland’s A1GP assault in 2006, will have its first overt involvement in sportscar racing this season.

It has previously provided behind-the-scenes support of the Team Modena Aston Martin squad in 2007 and Level 5 Motorsports last season.

Force India’s deputy team principal Bob Fernley says the squad has completed its rebuilding phase and is now ready to try and chase Formula 1′s top outfits.

The Silverstone-based team is commencing its fifth season in its Force India guise, and is aiming to improve on last year’s sixth-place finish in the constructors’ championship – when it came within four points of beating Renault to fifth.

Force India launched its new VJM05 at Silverstone today, with a clear aim of breaking into the top five in the championship this season.

“I think the team now has got to a position where the reconstruction plan has really come to the fruition of its objectives,” said Fernley.

“We have to look for where we can go to compete with the top four or five. That’s another programme and that’s what we’re discussing.”

Fernley admitted that last year’s strong performance had raised expectations.

“I don’t think Vijay will accept anything less than fifth [in the constructors' championship],” he said.

“I was pleased we didn’t finish fifth [in 2011] in some ways because then [the target] would’ve been fourth…

“It’s going to be tough. All the teams out there are capable of fifth, and I think the battle for fifth place is going to be as exciting as the battle at the top. All the teams have got talented people who are just as focused as we are and it’s not going to be an easy ride by any means.”

P1 Motorsport will retain its Formula Renault 3.5 driver line-up of Walter Grubmuller and Daniil Move for a second season in the championship.

Grubmuller will embark on his third year with the British squad. The 23-year-old Austrian endured a tough 2011 season, in which he was ruled him out of three rounds through injuries sustained in an accident at the Nurburgring.

“I expect the competition to be tough as always, but we will certainly be aiming for the podium, said Grubmuller.

“I’m very happy to remain with P1 Motorsport for a third consecutive season – we worked extremely hard last year on improving our results and it will be good to continue with that development.”

Move is the most experienced driver to be confirmed in this year’s field, having participated in the championship every year since 2007. Last year the Russian was an occasional race leader and scored two podiums on his way to tenth in the drivers’ standings.

“I have developed as a driver a lot over the past few seasons – when I first arrived in World Series by Renault I had relatively little experience compared with other drivers, who had competed for years in karts and other junior series,” said Move.

“The FR3.5 championship is very competitive, but we’ve made significant steps forward and with P1 in 2012, and I’m definitely aiming for a top three championship position.”

Both drivers are searching for their first victory in the category, but P1 is aiming to reap the rewards of a stable driver pairing.

“It’s always beneficial to have continuity from one year to the next,” said the team’s chief engineer Mike Henderson.

“The team has been working hard over the winter in preparation for 2012, and we’re confident of being a competitive force in this year’s title chase.”

The 21-year-old Briton will run a parallel sportscar programme in the European Le Mans Series with Nissan.

Brundle competed in the FIA Formula 2 championship in 2009 and 2011, scoring three podiums and one pole position on his way to seventh in the standings last year.

“I was keen to move onto the F1 stage this year and I would like to thank the Carlin team for offering me a fantastic opportunity to do that,” said Brundle.

“GP3 also fits well with my commitments to Nissan in the European Le Mans Series allowing me to continue my development in single-seater racing.

“The work we have done so far has already given me an understanding of why the Carlin team are so successful and I feel very confident for the season ahead.”

Surrey-based Carlin officially opened its £2 million bespoke factory in Farnham yesterday.

Force India’s young driver policy has given it one of the most promising driver line-ups on the grid, according to deputy team principal Bob Fernley.

The Silverstone-based team has given regular track time on grand prix weekends to its reserve drivers for the past two years, with both Paul di Resta and Nico Hulkenberg converting those opportunities into race drives for the following season.

Ferrari Academy driver Jules Bianchi is the latest driver to land the reserve role at the team, and Fernley explained at the launch of the team’s VJM05 F1 car that driver development is important to Vijay Mallya’s outfit.

“No, I don’t think we are taking a gamble,” Fernley said in relation to Force India’s young line-up. “Driver succession is important to us.

“I think outside of, or maybe including, the top four, we’ve got one of the most exciting driver line-ups, so I’m not worried at all.

“The system Force India operate with bringing them through one year [as reserve drivers] makes the difference with them being able to be competitive from day one. It’s a very clearly thought out process.”

Hulkenberg, who returns to racing after spending a year on Friday duties with Force India, believes that the role given to him by the team last year has helped him be ready for his return.

“A year on the sidelines wasn’t easy for me but I had a great year with Force India,” said the former GP2 champion, who raced for Williams in 2010. “They gave me lots of chances to prove my talent on Friday mornings.

“I kept sharp that way and now I’m back. I think I still improved and learned, but in different ways. I picked up some things that might help me in races.”

Bianchi, who has joined the team after two years racing in GP2, hopes to be able to follow in di Resta and Hulkenberg’s footsteps and prove that he is worthy of further chances in Formula 1.

“For the moment we have a minimum of nine Friday mornings, so it’s going to be really important,” said the Frenchman. “The track time in Formula 1 is really useful for a young driver like me.

“I will just try to do my best, try to show the team I deserve more. I am reserve driver, I will stay in this position and try to help them as much as I can.”

Ferrari has confessed to taking more risks with this year’s car than previous cars, after unveiling a fairly aggressive F2012 at Maranello on Friday.

Although the most commented-on feature is its stepped nose, the most radical feature is that it is the first car in Formula 1 since Minardi in 2001 to feature front pull-rod suspension.

Furthermore, the team has worked hard on its packaging at the sidepods and the rear of the car and try and make the aerodynamic gains it thinks it needs to get ahead of Red Bull Racing.

Technical director Pat Fry confirmed that Ferrari had deliberately decided on an aggressive approach for this year’s car – and had not been afraid of pushing the boundaries.

“A lot of people have said a lot of things, and it is a bit of a step away from where we have been,” he told the official Ferrari website. “Certainly we have taken a few more risks on the basic car layout and things like that, but all in all everyone has done a good job.

“But we need to knuckle down and start pushing for the upgrades for the first race and through the year.”

Ferrari is planning a major development package to be introduced for the final test at Barcelona in March, as well as further improvements for the first race in Australia.

The F2012 has very little carry over from last year’s car, and there are some big philosophical changes in the design approach.

Chief designer Nikolas Tombazis said the team had built on lessons of last year, as well as coming up with new ideas.

“The front wing is evolution of the wing that we introduced in the last races of last season,” he explained. “We introduced it there to have some initial lessons about this topic. We understood quite a lot and had further developments, and there will be further developments for the third test and before the first race of the season.

“The nose has an ungainly shape on the top, and that is the result of the regulation that requires us to have the nose quite low but the dynamic desire to have the lower part of chassis as high as possible. Even though it is not aesthetically pleasing, we believe it is the most efficient aerodynamic solution for that area of the car.

“One of the innovations of the car is the front suspension. For mainly aerodynamic reasons, we have selected a pull rod solution. It took us quite a lot of work from the structural and design offices and vehicle dynamics department to regain all the mechanical characteristics we wanted the suspension to have.

“I believe we have achieved that, but we also think we have found an aerodynamic advantage from this solution.”

Ferrari has also worked on a different sidepod philosophy to improve the aerodynamic benefits of the turning vanes. The rear of the car is also tighter, and the gearbox package made narrower.

The team has also abandoned its push-rod rear suspension configuration in favour of the pull-rod concept favoured by a number of rival outfits.

Kumho has replaced Michelin as the official tyre supplier for Auto GP.

The Korean rubber manufacturer will supply teams with two different compounds, with use of both the ‘prime’ and ‘option’ tyres mandatory during a dry race weekend.

Unlike in Formula 1, however, there will be no stipulations on when the different compounds are used during each event.

Auto GP’s Enzo Coloni said: “Right from the start of our talks with Kumho, it was clear that their approach was a very positive one, aimed at giving us the best possible experience in terms of technical support.

“Not only did they accept with enthusiasm our proposal for the two different tyre specs, but they also expressed a will to bring on a constant development job working with us and the teams, something unique in the one-make series scenario.

“The first step of this process will be the creation of a special supersoft tyre for the Marrakech round, a street track where we expect a very low grip level.

“For our drivers being involved in such a development plan will mean getting a know-how that they can’t get anywhere else, a vital experience for their future.”

Josef Kral will complete the Barwa Addax team line-up for the 2012 GP2 season, the Spanish squad announced on Friday.

Kral finished in 15th position in last year’s championship with the Arden team, scoring 15 points including two podiums.

The 21-year-old Czech driver will partner Johnny Cecotto during the 2012 season.

“I am very happy that I got a chance to race in one of the most successful teams in GP2 ever,” he said. “It motivates me to work even harder and be on top in the end of the year!

“I am pleased that Barwa Addax Team believe in my capability and I am looking forward to this season! I would also like to use this opportunity to thank all the people who have helped me to make this happen.”

Kral had tested with the team in November last year.

Team boss Alejandro Agag added: “Josef Kral is the ideal companion for team-mate Johnny Cecotto because, despite the fact that both are young, they have had important experience of the GP2 series after having competed at this level over two full seasons, which is absolutely essential if you are going to have any aspirations to compete for the driver’s championship.

“This healthy competitiveness between both our drivers will also help us to be in the list of candidates for the team title once more and guarantee joy for the fans in the coming season.

“We will provide both drivers with all the resources and experience they need to fight for the most important objectives and at the same time give these young drivers the chance to demonstrate the world that they are top class drivers.”

Ford driver Petter Solberg will be hoping to make his home advantage count on next week’s Rally Sweden – which passes the border into Norway and goes right past his front door.

Solberg, who returned to the official Ford team this season, is delighted with the decision from the Rally Sweden organisers to spend one of the three days competing in neighbouring Norway.

The 37-year-old has a family home and hotel alongside Friday morning’s Mitandersfors stage – a test which starts in Sweden and finishes in Norway.

“The farmhouse overlooks the special stage,” said Solberg. “I can stand at the door and see the road -at least I know the road well.

“I think there will be many people and TV crews there so the atmosphere should be great. The conditions are looking good for a fast, proper winter event. It’s fun to drive in such conditions and as the rally goes into Norway this year, it makes it even more special for me.”

Solberg finished third on his first event in a Firesta RS WRC, last month’s Monte Carlo Rally, but he is desperate to drive the car competitively on a loose surface for the first time next week.

“This will be my first loose surface rally in a Fiesta RS WRC,” he said. “I have only had two days of testing in which to get used to it on snow and ice, but I’m not worried.

“Asphalt was the surface on which I expected difficulties in settling into the car, but I felt comfortable immediately at Rallye Monte-Carlo. Ford has a superb recent record in this rally and Jari-Matti and I want to extend that.”

Ford has won the last five Rally Swedens – and Solberg won the event for Subaru in 2005.

Takuma Sato will lead Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s return to full-time racing in the IndyCar Series this year, the team has announced.

The ex-Formula 1 racer has switched from KV Racing, where he has spent the past two seasons since joining the series at the start of 2010.

“I’m very proud, motivated and excited to be chosen by Bobby [Rahal, team boss] to join his big project,” said Sato, who has two pole positions and a best finish of fourth in his IndyCar career.

“This team I feel has got huge potential. It has got a great history and record of winning so my motivation is ever so high and I am extremely thrilled to start the new season. With a new car for everybody, I am confident that we’ll be up to speed very quickly.”

The new season marks the return to full-time action for Rahal’s team, which has not entered a car for a full IndyCar season since running Ryan Hunter-Reay in 2008. It confirmed that it plans to run a second car alongside Sato’s, and hopes to have that running during pre-season testing.

Speaking of the deal with Sato, three-time Indycar champion Rahal added: “While we were determined to have an experienced driver for this season, we also needed someone that knew how to get to the front and Takuma has shown he can do that.

“We expect to have a great opportunity to win races this year. He has made great strides through the last two seasons and I have no doubt that we can produce a strong effort with him leading the team.”

Ferrari chief designer Nikolas Tombazis has defended the look of the new Ferrari amid widespread comments that its stepped nose makes the F2012 ‘ugly’.

The new regulations for 2012 that force the front section of the nose to be low down – while teams desire the chassis section to be higher up – has led to a number of outfits featuring dramatic step changes along that area of the car.

Ferrari’s solution on the F2012 is the most extreme seen so far, but Tombazis does not agree with comments that the new car does not look good.

“There have been some rumours saying that this car is ugly and I have to confess that I am not objective on that, as I don’t share that opinion,” said Tombazis in a video interview broadcast on Ferrari’s website.

“For me I have got used to the bump on the nose. I think the rest of the car has been the fruit of a lot of detail work.

“Ultimately, as far as I am concerned, an ugly car is one that doesn’t win and a beautiful car is one that does win. So, for now, I want to believe it is a beautiful car and we will have to review that after the first few races.”

Tombazis has promised that the Ferrari is also likely to feature a lot of upgrades before the opening race in Melbourne, with a particular focus being made in pre-season testing of defining its exhaust configuration.

“This car is still destined to change quite a lot before the first race,” he said. “We have been working in the wind tunnel and the design office on aerodynamic upgrades of the car – but we also have some very important experiments we want to carry out in the first tests so we can finalise the first race configuration.”

Paul di Resta believes it is key for Force India to carry its late-season momentum from 2011 into the start of the upcoming season.

The Scot was speaking at the launch of the team’s VJM05 at Silverstone on Friday.

Force India recovered from a slow start last year to be one of the on-form teams by the end of the campaign, and di Resta believes that it can take another step in the competitive order providing it starts well this year.

“The big thing we’re going for is a stronger start than last year, because the momentum at the end of the year was incredible,” he said. “I think the guys should be very proud of what they’ve achieved.

“We’re still on a buzz from that and it would be great to start where we left off. We were very close to coming fifth as a constructor last year and we met our ambition of coming sixth.

“We want to do better, that’s the main focus. We’ll just keep pushing on.”

The former DTM champion added that he knows he will be under more pressure in his second season as he is more experienced and has a new team-mate in Nico Hulkenberg and a new reserve driver in Ferrari Academy driver Jules Bianchi.

“I think there’s always pressure in any sport but yeah there’s a little more as I’m not a rookie anymore,” he said. “There is that nature there to try and beat your team-mate, but we’re there to represent Force India and you need to look at the whole team.

“[The threat of a reserve driver] always concerns you, because how stable is Formula 1 at the moment? You need to focus on your own driving. But one thing you can say about what Force India have done – it’s a great way to get involved in Formula 1.”

Starworks Motorsport will enter the World Endurance Championship this year with an LMP2 class HPD ARX-03b.

British driver Ryan Dalziel, who anchored the squad to second place at last weekend’s Daytona 24 Hours, will share the car with Venezuelan driver Enzo Potolicchio and one other driver, who has yet to be announced.

Brian Colangelo will run the WEC programme, answering to team director Simon Morley, while Steve Challis will lead the engineering side of the team.

Team owner Peter Baron said: “It seemed like such a far-fetched dream even to contemplate doing the WEC for 2012. I watched the international prototypes racing when I was growing up and this was too good an opportunity to miss.

“Pushing ourselves, we looked at our assets and our potential, and we thought we are just a few key hires away from having the right people in place. The most important thing is that we have everything in position not just to compete, but to challenge.

“We are not there to just participate, we are there to compete for a championship. Our team has a tremendous wealth of experience running high tech cars, and we are up to the challenge.”

Starworks will make its WEC debut at the Sebring 12 Hours, for which it will run out of its Florida headquarters. The rest of the programme will be run from a new base in Cardiff.

Citroen driver Mikko Hirvonen says the French firm’s DS3 WRC is strong enough to end his former team Ford’s stronghold on next week’s Rally Sweden.

Hirvonen has won the last two Karlstad-based events in a Ford and you have to go back to Petter Solberg’s Subaru success in 2005 for the last time it wasn’t one of the British-built World Rally Cars on the top step of the podium.

Having switched his allegiance to Citroen over the closed season however, Hirvonen says he is ready to ruin the record he helped build.

After two days testing the Citroen DS3 WRC, Hirvonen says the car is ready to win in the snow for the first time.

He said: “It was very enjoyable to drive in conditions that I really love. Unlike Monte Carlo, where the grip changes all the time, ice provides a very consistent level of grip.

“In the first few kilometres, my feeling with the car was mixed. We worked with the engineers and ended up finding the right balance for the extreme conditions that are typical in Sweden and Norway. I was very pleased with the result at the end of the session. I think we’re ready.

“The first thing would say is that I think we have a car that can win. But even though we have done well as this rally in the last four years, it is still going to be a difficult challenge.

“We have worked hard in testing but the Citroën DS3 WRC is still new to me. I can’t predict what my level of confidence will be on the stages but yes, I think I have chance of winning.

“After winning the last two editions of Rally Sweden, obviously my goal is to win again. I think that it will be a more closely-fought race than at Monte Carlo, simply because we will all have the same tyres from start to finish. Personally, it is a new challenge, which is very motivating for me.”

Ahead of Rally Sweden, Hirvonen will tackle tomorrow’s Rally Finnskog in Norway as final preparation for the second round of the WRC.

“Rally Sweden is an important event for Jarmo [Lehtinen, co-driver] and me,” said Hirvonen. “We wanted to maximise our chances of getting the best possible result on one of our preferred surfaces.

“We have done a lot of work in testing, but there is always a difference between a test run that you complete ten times or more and then the actual stages, in race conditions.

“Rally Finnskog will give us the chance to confirm our feeling with the car in conditions similar to those we’ll have at Rally Sweden.”

Dmitry Suranovich will move into GP3 in 2012 after Manor confirmed him as its first driver for the forthcoming championship.

The 16-year-old Russian tested for the squad at Valencia and Jerez at the end of 2011.

2012 will not only represent Suranovich’s first year in the championship, but also his first full season in single seaters. After several seasons in karting he contested four Formula Abarth events in 2011, while he took his first single seater podium in this year’s New Zealnd-based Toyota Racing Series.

“I’m really happy to have secured a drive for Marussia Manor Racing, a winning team which is strongly linked to Formula One,” Suranovich said.

“It’s going to be an exciting season and I can’t wait to get started. It’s going to be a challenge, but I am ready for it.

“At the winter tests last year I already felt comfortable in the car and working with the team. Now we can continue to work hard together in order to achieve the best result possible in my first season in GP3.”

Team principal Pete Sliwinski said 2011 testing had convinced the team of Suranovich’s potential.

“At the tests in Spain at the end of the year he already understood the category quickly and demonstrated his potential,” Sliwinski explained. “We are confident that he will do a good job this year.”

Narain Karthikeyan has admitted that his strong performance in the Indian Grand Prix was key to him remaining in Formula 1 with HRT this year.

The 35-year-old started eight races for the Spanish outfit last year, the last of those on home soil after missing over three months of the season, and was announced as a 2012 driver earlier today.

After qualifying 22 thousandths of a second off team-mate Daniel Ricciardo, he finished 17th in the race. He believes that this performance underlined his speed and enabled him to build a sponsorship package to help land the seat for 2012.

“I wasn’t driving the car regularly but got up to speed very quickly,” Karthikeyan told AUTOSPORT. “That’s when I knew that I should try and stay if there was a possibility.

“Things came together although obviously there was a lot of competition for the seat. Four or five drivers with budgets were trying to get the seat, but the team believes that I am fast.”

Karthikeyan added that he is confident that HRT has a bright Formula 1 future under the new management that took over last year.

The long-term long-term plan that the Thesan Capital-owned outfit, now headed by team principal Luis Perez Sala, has put together played a part in his decision to join a team that has struggled for results since coming into F1 at the start of 2010.

“The team changes were good changes,” said Karthikeyan. “The new management has a strong structure and financial backing for the project.

“There are a lot of positives. A good example is Pedro [de la Rosa, team-mate]. He could have had an easy life and stayed as a McLaren test driver, but he has come here because he knows that the team has a big future.

“I have a similar outlook to Pedro. Everything is in place and we should be in a good position.

“Things don’t change overnight and we will have to wait and see how the new car is, but it will be a decent package.”

The team’s new car, which unlike last year’s F111 will be built around a new monocoque, is scheduled to make its debut in the second pre-season test, which takes place at Barcelona on February 21-24.

To read AUTOSPORT’s interview with Karthikeyan, click here.

Force India technical director Andrew Green expects most teams to join Force India, Ferrari and Caterham in opting for the ‘platypus’ nose design.

The new Force India VJM05, which was unveiled at Silverstone this morning, featured the distinctive shelf where the nose joins the higher front section of the monocoque. Despite the McLaren MP4-27, launched on Wednesday, not featuring the drop nose thanks to a lower chassis front, Green thinks most will follow the design concept that his team has chosen.

“We think most will follow our philosophy,” Green told Sky Sports News. “It [the lower chassis] is an aero philosophy that McLaren apply to the front of their car, last year they were the only team to apply that.

“There’s a regualation change on the nose height and we went with the drop nose. For us, it’s not big deal, it’s purely asethetics.”

Green has set the team the target of challenging for fifth place in the constructors’ championship.

This would build on the team’s recent improvement, which has seen it finish ninth, seventh and sixth over the past three campaigns.

“It’s a big ask for a small team like ourselves but I’ve got a lot of confidence in the team around me,” said Green. “We learned a lot last year and made big strides in our understanding of car performance and aerodynamics.

“We are taking that another step this year, you can see that in the detail on the car and see the new aero philosophies coming through on it. This is another chapter for Force India.”

Green confirmed that Force India will experiment with different exhaust solutions during pre-season testing following the ban on exhaust blown diffusers. and that he expects other teams to adopt a similar test strategy.

The DeltaWing sportscar project has confirmed Marino Franchitti as its first driver for its attack on this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours.

Le Mans organising body the ACO revealed the full entry list for the race on Thursday, with Franchitti named as the first driver for the radical machine.

“I am so excited about getting the opportunity to drive the car,” said the Scot, who retains his relationship with Highcroft Racing from the past two years. “I am really looking forward to finding out how it is going to feel and how it will work as a package.

“I have nothing to compare this against. Like the car itself, I will be going in with a clean sheet of paper and will start exploring the limits.”

The 33-year-old added he was excited by the prospect of racing an innovative machine.

“It is not something that has been done before and it kind of feels like when the first rear-engined F1 car hit the track,” he said. “Or the first car with a wing, of the first ground effect car.

“In recent times, we really haven’t seen major advances like this. The DeltaWing will be so new and unique and I am really honoured to be given this opportunity.

“Technological steps have been quite small and now it is very exciting to be a part of something this huge.”

DeltaWing revealed earlier this week that its car is set for a first full-scale windtunnel test at the Windshear facility early this month, with a track test set to follow “soon after”.

Fernando Alonso is sure Ferrari will be strong during the 2012 season as the Maranello squad unveiled its 2012 car on Friday.

Alonso won just one race in the 2011 season in a disappointing year for the Italian team, which is aiming to return to championship-winning ways this year.

Two-time champion Alonso is upbeat about his prospects for the season ahead after the launch of the F2012 car.

“It looks very different from what we have seen in the last two years,” said Alonso about the car, which features a radical platypus-style nose similar to that used by Caterham.

“My third season at Ferrari and I am going to start with the same strength and determination. I want to do great.

“Of course it will be quite competitive for the whole season, but we want to see red cars on the podium. We start next week in Jerez and we keep working together. I am sure we will do well this year.”

He added: “I believe in the skills we have here in Ferrari. We have two months to get ready before the first competition. We have to fight for the title and try and get as many points as possible. We really want to be right at the top of the ranking.

“We have to be as consistent and resolute as possible and I am sure, really, really sure we will be able to get great targets and great responsibility for driving for Ferrari.”

Team-mate Felipe Massa is also optimistic Ferrari will be strong from the start of the season with the new car, which he labelled as “really aggressive”.

“Let me tell you that it looks really, really aggressive,” said Massa. “This was part of my dreams. I know there was quite a lot of brainstorming when it comes to the new car. We always wanted to develop new models so I am impressed with the new car.

“We start in a few days and I am sure the championship will be stunning and very competitive.”

The Brazilian, which is facing a crucial year in order to secure his future in the team, said he was feeling very positive ahead of the start of the season.

“It is going to be an important year for me and whole team, 2012, this is going to be the victory year,” he said. “We want to fight to get the championship back. I want to be believe in my skills and our car and this is the right thing to do.

“We want to see Ferrari winning as often as possible. Here I feel a strength, I’m focused on winning. There’s plenty of positive things in my head and I want to start in the right way and get to the end of the championship in a better way.”

Force India has unveiled its new car for the 2012 season, dubbed the VJM05, at Silverstone.

It is the team’s earliest car launch since Force India was created in 2008 when Vijay Mallya bought the Spyker team. In recent years Force India has not had its new machine ready for the first test.

The Mercedes-engined car features a nose design similar to that of the 2012 Caterham, and heavily revised sidepods in line with the new exhaust rules. Force India has also dropped its ‘blade’ style rollhoop design.

It is hoped that the new car will allow Force India to challenge for the top five in the constructors’ championship after finishing a best-ever sixth last year. The team has replaced Adrian Sutil with Nico Hulkenberg, while Paul di Resta stays on in the sister car.

“I think every individual in this team has put a lot of effort into his car,” di Resta told Sky Sports News. “The momentum we had at the end of last year, hopefully we’ve manged to carry that over but I must say it is a fine piece of art. Hopefully when it gets to track it’ll be able to show what it’s capable of.”

AUTOSPORT technical correspondent Gary Anderson said the Force India looked extremely promising at first sight.

“I’m impressed and, including what I’ve seen of the Ferrari, this looks like the best overall package yet,” Anderson told AUTOSPORT. “The car looks very good in all areas. The exhausts are a bit non-commital, but that can change easily.”

Honda will enter the World Touring Car Championship later this year with a works programme based around its Civic model.

The Japanese manufacturer plans to take in “a string of events” later in the season before committing to a full, two-car campaign in 2013. The programme will be run by Italian team JAS Motorsport.

Honda CEO Takanobu Ito said: “We took the decision to enter in the WTCC with the European Civic. We will develop a totally new engine for this project and we are all excited about starting this new challenge.”

Although Honda would not confirm which event the car would make its race debut at, it does plan to take part in its home event at Suzuka and at the Macau season finale.

Honda’s announcement means that four manufacturers look likely to run factory WTCC programmes in 2013, with champion outfit Chevrolet likely to remain in the series, Lada set to expand to a full season and SEAT also eyeing a return to the Championship.

A Honda last ran competitively in the WTCC in 2008, N.Technology taking James Thompson to a race victory. Honda also dominated last year’s British Touring Car Championship, Matt Neal taking the drivers’ title and the Team Dynamics=run squad winning the teams’ and constructors/manufacturers’ crowns.

Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo is confident his team has all it needs to win the world championship once again.

After unveiling its aggressive-looking F2012 at Maranello on Friday, di Montezemolo said in a video message that he was full of confidence that the efforts put in by his staff would be rewarded.

“We want to win, and we want to have right conditions like we had in the past,” said di Montezemolo. “We have all the ingredients for a perfect recipe.

“Stefano [Domenicali, team principal] has been working so hard to get the car ready and get the team ready to improve organisation in the company. These changes are important and give us the possibility to have a highly competitive team.”

Ferrari undertook a technical reshuffle last year, with Pat Fry stepping up to the role of technical director following the departure of Aldo Costa.

The outfit vowed to be more extreme with its car than it had been in the past, and di Montezemolo was hopeful that any disputes over teams pushing the boundaries of the regulations would not overshadow the campaign.

“Everything has been improved, and I am sure we will be rewarded,” he said. “Our fans and supporters want to see us back to great glory. I am sure in the forthcoming season the regulations will have to be trusted in a transparent way, and we trust the FIA to view these regulations with the right spirit.”

Ferrari has also received good news on the commercial front too with an extension of its sponsorship deal with banking giants Santander until the end of 2017.

Eight-time World Rally Champion Sebastien Loeb has praised Mikko Hirvonen’s input into Citroen’s pre-Rally Sweden testing, with the Frenchman feeling a new confidence aboard his DS3 WRC.

While Loeb has won two winter rallies in his career, he admits that Finn Hirvonen’s experience of the snow and ice conditions on next week’s have helped him prepare for the second round of the World Rally Championship.

Both Citroen drivers tested in Sweden this week and Hirvonen will continue testing on Rally Finnskog in Norway on Saturday.

Loeb said: “Mikko has joined the team with his own experience and he has helped improve the set-up of the DS3 WRC on ice. I tried his set-up and I immediately felt confident. We have made a lot of progress compared with 2011.”

Loeb won Rally Norway in 2009 and Rally Sweden in 2004. He added that the conditions have usually been his downfall in the years he hasn’t been able to challenge.

“It’s perhaps not a surface on which I excel, but I love competing here. It’s actually one of the season’s most enjoyable rallies,” said Loeb. “If you look at my record here in previous rallies, it has often been the conditions that have made things more difficult for me.

“When I went off the road in 2008, it wasn’t really a winter rally as the above-zero temperatures had turned the ice into mud. Last year, I finished sixth but lost any hope of winning after clearing the road of freshly-fallen snow on the first day and then picking up a puncture… When the stages have roads covered with a good layer of sheer ice, I think I’m just as fast as my rivals.”

Rally Sweden starts on Thursday February 9 and finishes back in Karlstad on Sunday February 12.

Ferrari expects its 2012 Formula 1 car to be winning races from the start of the new season, the team revealed at the launch of its F2012 racer on Friday.

Team boss Stefano Domenicali said that he believes the changes made behind the scenes at Maranello should yield instant results, following a tough 2011 season for Ferrari.

“I am sure our car will be winning right from the beginning,” he said. “We have learned many lessons from the past, and taken some difficult decisions. But I am sure all our efforts will be represented with this car.”

The new Ferrari has some extreme elements to its appearance, including a very aggressive step in the nose of the car due to rule changes for this year restricting the height of the nose. Domenicali made reference to the new car having “many novelties” but added that it was not a complete overhaul compared to last year’s machine.

“From a technical point of view, we have many novelties in terms of mechanics and also the shape of the car,” he said.

“[But] we wanted some continuity here, and hopefully we will reach the right performance. We have only 12 days to work on the car and achieve reliability, and also test the new tyres that have been given to us by Pirelli.”

Domenicali also paid tribute to his driver line-up of Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa, while Ferrari also revealed that its major sponsorship deal with Santander has extended until the end of 2017.

“I am sure our team will deliver a great effort,” he said. For Fernando I don’t have to add anything about his skill. In a difficult time last year he extended his relationship with us for many years, so this shows his responsibility.

“Felipe has been here 10 seasons in F1, always with a Ferrari [engine], always with us. A great, great talent and I am sure this year after a difficult season he will show his great value for himself and the whole team.”

Ferrari unveiled the 2012 car on Friday morning that it hopes will return it to world championship-winning glory.

After being forced to cancel its launch ceremony because of heavy snow at Maranello, the team published the first images of its car on its official website instead.

Having promised a more radical approach with its car that it has had in recent seasons, the new Ferrari is the result of a big effort at the factory under the guidance of new technical director Pat Fry.

The snow that forced the cancellation of the launch also means that plans for a shakedown of the car at Fiorano have also had to be abandoned.

It is not clear if the team will be able to complete any mileage prior to the first official test with the car at Jerez in Spain next week.

Narain Karthikeyan will fill the final racing seat of the 2012 season after he was confirmed at HRT on Friday morning.

The Indian will partner Spaniard Pedro de la Rosa at the team, which will enter its third Formula 1 season this year.

Karthikeyan started the 2011 season as a racing driver for the team, but was dropped after the European Grand Prix, the eighth round of the championship, in favour of Australian rookie Daniel Ricciardo.

The 35-year-old from Chennai returned to racing for his home grand prix late in the season after four outings as a Friday driver.

Together with 40-year-old de la Rosa he will form the oldest line-up on the grid this year.

“It has taken a lot of hard work to make this happen but I am absolutely elated to feature on the 2012 grid with HRT F1 team,” said the Indian. “I was pleased with our strong performance at the Indian Grand Prix, in front of my passionate home fans and I look forward to building on this result in 2012.

“I have been training hard since the end of 2011, ensuring I was ready for the rigours of F1 if an opportunity arose. I am delighted to have signed with HRT F1 Team. With the new management, Pedro, and the team, there is definite potential for progress.

“We need to understand that F1 is new to India, we hosted our first race only last year which was a resounding success. To build on that momentum, an Indian driver will certainly keep the interest engaged throughout the season. I am proud to secure an opportunity to forge a stronger connection between India and Formula 1 once again.”

Team boss Luiz Perez-Sala added: “I am pleased to count with Narain for this season, as he will contribute continuity and stability. He is a quick, intuitive and secure driver who met his expectations despite a lack of continuity last year. Of the eight Grands Prix he contested in 2011, he only failed to finish on one occasion and had a great performance in the last race he took part in.

“I’m sure that the fact that he will continue to work and drive on a regular basis will help him take a step forward this season. And if he advances, so does the team. This is a year in which you could say that the team starts from scratch and everyone’s input will be fundamental.”

Audi heads the entry for this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours with a four-car assault that will include two hybrid versions of its R18 coupe.

The German manufacturer has opted to split its entry between its new diesel-electric hybrid, which has been testing since last autumn, and a conventional turbodiesel version of the R18.

Audi Sport boss Wolfgang Ullrich said: “The first test results [of the hybrid] are very encouraging and we are intrigued to see just how this technology performs on the race track at Le Mans.

“We still, however, see the potential with conventional drive, just as our colleagues do in the production department. This why we are absolutely delighted that the Automobile Club de l’Ouest and FIA selection committee has accepted our entries and that we can join the grid with four cars.”

One driver has been nominated against each of the four Joest-run cars at this stage, as per Le Mans rules.

DTM driver Oliver Jarvis is listed against one of the conventional R18s, which puts him on course for his first Le Mans 24 Hours with the factory Joest team. The Briton previously raced at Le Mans in a customer Kolles Audi in 2010.

Andre Lotterer, Allan McNish and Timo Bernhard are the nominated drivers in the other three cars.

The new R18 Hybrid, which is understood to use a flywheel energy-storage system rather than batteries, will make its debut in the Spa round of the FIA World Endurance Championship in May.

Audi will run two cars in the full WEC and three in the season-opening Sebring 12 Hours next month and at Spa.

Toyota has two of its new TS030 HYBRIDS on the entry list. Super GT driver Hiroaki Ishiura is listed against the second entry, making him the first confirmed driver in this car.

The US Dyson Racing, winners of last year’s American Le Mans Series, is on course to race at the 24 Hours for the first time in its history. It has taken up both of its guaranteed slots and will field its pair of new LMP1 Lola-Mazda B12/60 coupes.

Marino Franchitti has been nominated to drive the Highcroft-run Delta Wing, which was awarded the 56th entry for a car using experimental technologies last year.

The Kodewa Lotus LMP2 team has only one entry for Le Mans. Its second Lola coupe is on the reserve list.

The US Starworks Grand-Am team, which finished in last weekend’s Daytona 24 Hours, is expanding into the Le Mans prototype ranks for the first time in P2. It will run a new Honda Performance Development HPD ARX-03b at Le Mans and in the full FIA World Endurance Championship.

Venezuelan Enzo Potolicchio is the nominated driver at this stage, but Starworks regular Ryan Dalziel is known to be part of the programme. The Signatech Nissan team has expanded to two entries, as expected. Jordan Tresson, who is moving up to LMP2 this year, and team regular Franck Mailleux are its two nominated drivers at this stage.

The Boutsen and TDS teams, frontrunners in last year’s Le Mans Series in Europe, have gained entries for Le Mans for the first time with their ORECA-Nissan 03s despite not entering the WEC.

The publication of the entry list finally confirms Aston Martin Racing’s switch to the GTE division after the end of the AMR-One prototype programme It will field two Vantage GT2s at Le Mans and in the WEC.

Five cars are on the reserve list, including the second Lotus LMP2 and another P2 Lola from Status GP.

The full entry list can be found here.

The BMW Group is expected to terminate its contract with Prodrive tomorrow, ending the Banbury firm’s involvement in the Mini World Rally Team – and casting doubt over the future of the programme.

AUTOSPORT’s sources have confirmed the decision to end the Anglo-German alliance.

AUTOSPORT has been unable to get confirmation from BMW in Munich, but sources within the firm have confirmed the end is imminent for what has been a short and unhappy partnership.

“There was a chance this might have happened last year,” said the source, “but in the end it was decided to wait until after Monte Carlo. The decision has now been taken at board level and will be communicated in due course.”

Prodrive’s Richard Taylor denied the partnership would be ended when AUTOSPORT contacted him yesterday.

Taylor said: “That’s news to me. There’s no question of that that, no question at all. The team is on its way to Sweden for the pre-event test as we speak. Mini remains committed to the programme and to supporting customers.

“We all want to see the Mini John Cooper Works WRC out there on the stages and that’s what we will see with Prodrive running the cars on Rally Sweden next week.”

The team is on its way to Sweden, but AUTOSPORT’s sources state this will not stop tomorrow’s announcement.

Almost since the team was launched in April last year, there has been unease between BMW and Prodrive concerning the financing of the programme, to the extent that Mini WRT had to shelve plans to run two official drivers this season – leaving Kris Meeke on the bench.

There is speculation that BMW is ready to hand the project over to an Italian preparation firm or quit the whole programme altogether.

Euronova Racing has announced its return to Auto GP this season.

The team, founded by former International F3000 champion Vincenzo Sospiri, competed in Auto GP’s maiden season in 2010, winning the inaugural race at Brno with Luca Filippi at the wheel.

In addition to Filippi, Euronova has previously nurtured Formula 1 drivers Vitaly Petrov and Jerome D’Ambrosio.

“I’m very pleased to return to the Auto GP World Series,” said Sospiri. “It’s a championship that has already produced drivers who have progressed to Formula 1. The format of the race weekend, including pitstops, provides an excellent training for drivers whose next move could very well be Formula 1.

“I’m very excited about the championship this year and am close to finalising my driver line-up, which I am sure will be competitive.”

Euronova Racing is the fourth ‘new’ team to enter the 2012 Auto GP championship, a situation that has delighted series organiser Enzo Coloni.

“I’m really happy to have Euronova back in Auto GP,” said Coloni. “They were a winning team in the series in 2010, and I wasn’t surprised by that because I know Vincenzo Sospiri and his skills from a very long time. Having them in the championship is good news, something that will further improve the quality of our grid.

“Besides that, I’m happy to see that the teams are really excited by our project. After MLR71, Zele Racing and Virtuosi UK, Euronova is the fourth new-entry for 2012, it clearly means that our hard work is appreciated.”

Last year, Euronova Racing claimed the Formula Abarth title.

Toyota has registered for the FIA World Endurance Championship in the wake of Peugeot’s pull-out from the series last month.

The Japanese manufacturer has entered the championship rather than contesting individual races on an invitational basis as was originally planned.

This means it will be considered a full-time entrant, which gives WEC promoter, the Automobile Club de l’Ouest, the two manufacturers it requires in LMP1 under the terms of its agreement with the FIA.

A statement from Toyota read: “It was originally planned to enter only selected races, which would have fallen short of the number required to be considered a full-time entrant. Due to the unexpected changes faced by the WEC [Peugeot's withdrawal], that plan has been revised.”

It is unclear if the move will result in a significant expansion Toyota’s 2012 campaign with its TS030 HYBRID. It has so far announced only a one-car entry at Spa and two cars for the Le Mans 24 Hours in June.

Team president Yoshiaki Kinoshita added: “The circumstances for the championship changed suddenly in the last weeks and Toyota Racing considers it important to work together with the FIA and ACO to establish a successful future for endurance racing.

“We have done everything we can to show our support and we look forward to an exciting season.”

A spokesman for Toyota Motorsport GmbH, which is masterminding the programme, told AUTOSPORT magazine this week: “There is a clear limitation on what we can do budget-wise and resource-wise.”

The NASCAR iRacing.com Class A Series wrapped-up at Kentucky Speedway. More than 1500 sim racers took at least one green flag in the 2011 Season 4 NiCAS.

iRacing.com offers ten divisions of competition, allowing drivers of all levels of talent and experience to race within their skill set. As you become a more accomplished driver, you will be placed in a more difficult division. The “King of the Hill” this season goes to the California Kid, Kile Gottula. Gottula seemingly had this championship wrapped-up from the start, as he took control of the Division One standings early and never looked back. Gottula put together solid numbers across the board, earning six wins and 19 top fives in his 27 starts. A hard-charging Robert Hall made a late push to defend his title, but came up 102 points shy of the lead. Steve Ritter held-on for a podium finish, with Rick Foutz and former NASCAR iRacing.com Pro Series (NiPS) driver Nicholas Morse coming-on strong to round-out the top five Division One finishers.

Although not in the highest division, drivers in Division Two did not disappoint and showed they will be tough to beat next season. Chris J Miller put-up outstanding numbers with seven wins and 19 top fives in his thirty starts to earn the outright Division Two Championship. To put a perspective on what kind of season Miller put together, his 1412 points would have put him fourth in the Division One standings. Ronnie Pitts kept it close throughout the season despite not earning a win in his 34 races. Rounding-out the podium in Division Two is Ohio’s John Schweickart.

Ed Goobic of Connecticut claimed the Division Three championship in a points battle that came down to the wire. Goobic edged-out Billy Price by a mere 35 points to earn himself the crown. Stefan A Schmidt locked-up the Division Four Championship over a hard-charging Brodie Kostecki, while Brian Schoffstall won Division Five in dominating fashion. 70 points was Uwe Kuerten’s margin of victory over Jeffery Morrisette in Division Six. While other divisions featured close battles, Division Seven had nothing of the sort. Kevin Suckow absolutely poured it on his competition this season, as he continues to move-up the rankings. It was much the same story for Division Eight where Dan Hass nearly doubled the points total over second place. Brazil’s Blau Martins won Division Nine, while Frank Hudson rounds-out our list of Class A champions.

There were great numbers for NiCAS this season, as a total of 1553 drivers took part in at least one week of competition. Terry Garska of Division Three earned the most starts of the season, with 228 over the 12 week span — exactly 100 more than his nearest challenger, Al Rodriguez. Finnish driver Jukka Savolainen wracked-up the most wins, the former NiPS competitor earned 17 trips to victory lane. Steve Ritter had impressive numbers as well with 15 wins, while Patrick Baldwin won 14 of his 22 races.

With 2011 Season 4 now in the books, it will be one week off for drivers to relax and stretch-out before getting back to the grind for the beginning of 2012 Season 1. The start of the season will mark the start of the race to make it into the 2012 NiPS, held at the end of the year. The top 12 Division One NiCAS competitors who hold a Class A license will be promoted to the Pro license at season’s end, ensuring their slot in the next NiPS season. It all kicks-off next week as the Impalas hit Chicagoland Speedway for a week of thrills in the Windy City.

Speedworks Motorsport has released an artist’s impression of the Toyota Avensis Adam Morgan will race in his rookie British Touring Car Championship campaign this year.

Morgan, 23, is graduating to the BTCC as his prize for winning last year’s Ginetta Supercup.

He will drive the car for the first time at Thruxton next month, but sampled rival squad Dynojet’s similar NGTC machine last year.

“It took a bit of getting used to, but I got to grips with it quite well and upped my pace,” said Morgan.

“I have no illusions that it is going to be difficult for me in the BTCC – I am very inexperienced compared with the other drivers out there – but I want to give it everything.

“This is a huge chance and I still don’t think it has quite sunk in that I have won the biggest prize in British motorsport. I am over the moon to be here; it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity that has been handed to me.”

Dani Pedrosa has described Honda’s new RCV 213V as “the most physically demanding” MotoGP bike he has ridden.

The 26-year-old Spaniard made the assessment after winding up third quickest on the final day of testing at Sepang, leaving him behind his world champion team-mate Casey Stoner and Yamaha’s Jorge Loreno.

Pedrosa has won races on both 990 and 800cc machinery in MotoGP since his debut in grand prix racing’s premier class in 2006, but the Spaniard believes that doing so on the new for 2012 1000cc bike will be even more difficult.

“This bike is physically more demanding [than the 800], you feel the power in the acceleration, the speed under hard braking and also the extra weight, and three days of testing here in Malaysia is very tiring,” Pedrosa said.

“This morning when I woke up I was pretty sore and stiff, but once I got running, it was a little better. I will keep working hard physically to prepare for the second test.”

Like most other bikes, Pedrosa’s machine suffered from excessive chatter during the test, leading to analyses of electronic and suspension set-ups being undertaken at Sepang.

Although the problem has not been cured on the Honda, Pedrosa said that he could feel significant progress had been made during the three days.

“It’s been worth it to do a general test of the engine, chassis and tyres and overall it is the biggest test we have done on this bike and we have good data to analyse and can start to build up points we need for the second test,” he added.

“The biggest point to improve is on braking, and we are also working on the electronics to improve the management of the power and the grip level. The chatter is still there, I know it’s something very difficult to fix, but I’m sure Honda is working hard on it. In general, it’s been a positive test for us and we will come back here in three weeks with new ideas.”

James Thompson will return to the World Touring Car Championship with Lada this year, this week’s AUTOSPORT magazine can reveal.

The former British Touring Car Champion and European Touring Car Cup winner has agreed a multi-year deal with the Russian manufacturer and will race the Granta model at both the Hungaroring and Estoril rounds this summer.

“I’m really pleased to have this deal,” Thomson, who previously raced for Lada in the 2009 WTCC, told AUTOSPORT. “There’s a totally new structure, with Lada Racing having been created, and this gives me a lot of confidence that this can go somewhere.”

Thompson is due to give the Granta its maiden test at Magny-Cours in April.

For more on this story, read this week’s AUTOSPORT digital magazine.

Dome is to return to the Le Mans 24 Hours in conjunction with the Pescarolo team.

The Japanese constructor is producing a heavily-updated version of its Judd-powered S102 coupe that raced at Le Mans in 2008 for an assault on this year’s race and the Spa FIA World Endurance Championship race in May.

Pescarolo Team will run the LMP1 car, to be called the S102.5, alongside one of its eponymous prototypes at the 24 Hours in June.

Dome founder Minoru Hayashi said: “It is not our duty or obligation to compete in the Le Mans 24 Hours; there is no necessity for us to go to France. We don’t have plenty of spare money either.

“All the above are absolutely correct but are not enough to stop us going crazy about her [Le Mans]. I have decided to fund the whole 2012 programme with Dome’s own money.”

Deals for the S101.2 to run with a Judd 3.4-litre V8, in place of its original V10, and Michelin tyres are already in place. Hiroshi Fushida is returning to Dome to manage the programme.

Former Peugeot driver Nicolas Minassian has agreed terms to race the car in its two appearances this year. Sebastien Bourdais is also close to a deal, while the team will also have a Japanese driver.

Minassian said: “This is very exciting for me; it is a new challenge. Dome always makes fast cars that are optimised for Le Mans and with Pescarolo running it, we have the perfect combination of experience and know-how.”

Dome first raced at the 24 Hours in 1979. It built Toyota’s first Le Mans contender for the 1985 season and then returned in 2000 with the S101 customer car entered by the Racing for Holland and Den Bla Avis teams run by former Le Mans winners Jan Lammers and John Nielsen respectively.

Rubens Barrichello extended his maiden IndyCar test with KV Racing into a third day at Sebring on Wednesday.

The 39-year-old Formula 1 veteran was scheduled to finish his running on Tuesday. But he stayed on to run on Wednesday morning, before handing over to KV’s lead driver Tony Kanaan for the afternoon session.

“It was a really good morning,” said Barrichello, who managed another 57 laps to take his total running to 334 miles over the three days. “I was able to do a lot of laps in Tony’s car and very happy to be in the #11, it’s been my favourite number all my life.”

The Brazilian explained that he decided to stay on at Sebring, having cancelled an appointment in his home country, to make up for a lack of track time on Tuesday.

“The small amount of laps I did yesterday was compensated today and I want to thank the team again for letting me return,” he added.

“I think my feedback will be very beneficial to Tony and the whole team and I’m satisfied with what we have achieved. I leave Sebring with a good taste in my mouth.”

Alex Premat has made a shock switch to V8 Supercars with Garry Rogers Motorsport.

The 29-year-old Frenchman will drive the Holden Commodore raced by Lee Holdsworth last year, after signing a full-time deal to compete in the Australian-based series.

Premat has a wealth of experience in high-powered tin-tops, having been a podium finisher during his four-year stint in the DTM with Audi, and has also raced sportscars regularly over the past few seasons – winning the 2008 Le Mans Series for the manufacturer.

Prior to that he helped France to the 2005/06 A1GP crown, won races in GP2 and also claimed victory at the Masters of Formula 3 and the Macau Grand Prix.

Team boss Rogers said that Premat’s signing was big news for the whole championship.

“I think the category needs to be flattered,” Rogers told BigPond Sport.

“The fact that there’s interest from drivers around the world shows that. I think the category has really got the recognition. In a way, I’m flattered. He could have got a drive somewhere else overseas but I think he’s recognised we’ve had solid results as a team and it’s well run and managed.

“I might be proven to be wrong about him, but I don’t think I’m wrong.”

Premat will travel to Australia next week, where he will be officially unveiled alongside his Commodore.

The i1 Supercar Series, which was due to have pitted former grand prix drivers Jacques Villeneuve, Giancarlo Fisichella and Vitantonio Liuzzi against each other in Radical sportscars, has been postponed until next year.

The five-round championship was originally due to start on January 21 at Buddh, but as this clashed with election dates in India, the series was rescheduled to start instead on February 12 at Losail.

Now, series organiser Machdar Motorsports has decided that the first race will instead take place in 2013 in a bid to drum up interest among fans in Asia first.

Machdar CEO Darshan M said: “It is unfortunate that we have had to postpone the i1 Supercar Series to next year, but in the long term we feel this will benefit not only the series but motorsports in the country as well.

“The change in race calendar due to polling in Uttar Pradesh was already affecting the availability of the international circuits as well participation of the key drivers in the series. This, along with the team owners’ request for more time, made this decision unavoidable.

“We have taken this hard decision of postponing the series with the consent of all stakeholders involved in the series. They have extended their full support towards this decision as they realise that this has been taken with the league’s long-term interests at heart.”

Liuzzi, who had signed up as one of the championship’s drivers, agreed with the decision.

“The i1 Supercar Series is a great opportunity for India to make an important step in the motor sport industry,” the Italian said.

“If the promoters took this important decision, I am sure that it has been done as an investment in the long term for the ultimate success of the series. This is why they have my support and availability for the new calendar.”

Alvaro Parente will head the driver line-up for the Hexis McLaren squad in the GT1 World Championship this year.

The 27-year-old Portuguese, who is contracted to McLaren, was one of four drivers named by Hexis, which will be the constructor’s lone representative in the series.

Parente, a former British Formula 3 and Formula Renault 3.5 champion, will be joined in the driver line-up by World GT1 race winners Stef Dusseldorp and Frederic Makowiecki and up and coming Frenchman Gregoire Demoustier.

“Last year, we did a lot of work with McLaren GT’s staff to make the MP4-12C GT3 competitive, well balanced and easy to drive. The team doesn’t know the car yet but with my experience I can help them to set it up,” Parente said.

“I’ve already worked with a French team and it’s a great memory as I took the Formula Renault 3.5 Championship! Hexis has won many races and titles so we’ve got every reason to be optimistic.”

Hexis – the 2011 GT1 world champion team – confirmed late last year that it was switching from Aston Martin to McLaren machinery as the series swaps from GT1 to GT3 technical regulations.

Although the driver pairings for the two cars have not been announced, Hexis said that there would be “an identical 50/50 share-out between drivers with well-established reputations and promising young chargers”.

Lewis Hamilton is eager to sort out his future with McLaren early in the 2012 campaign so that speculation about his plans does not overshadow what he hopes is a world championship winning campaign.

The Briton is out of contract at the end of this year and, while it is likely he will remain at McLaren, there have been frequent rumours about a potential switch to Red Bull Racing ever since he held a secret meeting with Christian Horner at last year’s Canadian Grand Prix.

But although nothing has yet been sorted, Hamilton has indicated that he will sit down with his McLaren bosses after the first few races to decide on an action plan for the future.

“At the moment the focus is on the preparation we have coming up for the season,” he was quoted as saying by the Press Association. “Probably after the first couple of races it’s something we will probably want to get out of the way.

“We can then focus on the rest of the year without the team being concerned and without it being something hanging around, so then you guys (the media) won’t have to ask questions about it.

“So I’ll try to get that out of the way at some stage, probably in the earlier part of the year rather than later.”

Hamilton returned to the public spotlight at the 2012 McLaren launch in Woking on Wednesday following a difficult end to last season – dogged with on-track frustrations and difficulties in his personal life.

But having had a winter to sort his mind out, Hamilton reckoned he was going to be much stronger this year than he was throughout the campaign.

“I want to win every race. I think I can,” he said. “I think I’ve the ability to. If the car is where we hope there’s no reason why we can’t do that.

“The only thing that ever gets in your way is your own mind and your own insecurities or obstacles that you put in your way. The most important thing is to put those things aside and to overcome them, and I think I have.

“So I feel right. Standing right in front of you I feel stronger than I was a few months ago particularly, but even more so than I was last year at the start of the year.”

Ferrari has cancelled the launch ceremony of its 2012 Formula 1 car because of the poor weather conditions in Maranello.

As reported yesterday, the harsh wintry conditions had left all of the Maranello area covered in snow.

As it continued snowing today, the Italian squad has decided to cancel its launch event and will now broadcast its car’s unveiling on its website instead.

“It is still snowing heavily here in Maranello. Therefore, the launch ceremony of the new F1 car has been cancelled,” Ferrari said in its official Twitter account.

“Pictures, interviews and technical analysis of the new car will be available tomorrow on www.ferrarif1.com.”

Ferrari is likely to be forced to cancel a planned shakedown of its new car at Fiorano later this week because of snow at Maranello.

The Italian team had intended to run its new car for filming purposes straight after its official launch on Friday morning.

However, wintry conditions have left the outfit’s Fiorano circuit covered in snow – which is unlikely to melt over the new few days.

A statement on Ferrari’s official website, which confirmed the launch was still going ahead as planned, said: “It now looks as though there is little chance of carrying out the planned promotional filming featuring action shots of the car at the Fiorano track.

“Even if the snow was to stop, it’s hard to imagine that the escape roads could be cleared of their blanket of snow which is gradually building up.”

Former Swedish and European Touring Car Cup champion Richard Goransson will make his World Rally Car debut on next week’s Rally Sweden.

The 33-year-old BMW race driver was at Prodrive’s Banbury base yesterday to see the John Cooper Works WRC he will use on his home round of the World Rally Championship for the first time. Goransson will test the car for the first time in Sweden tomorrow and Friday.

Next week’s event will be his second attempt at Rally Sweden, having finished 17th overall in a Group N Mitsubishi last season. Goransson was back in the Mitsubishi last weekend, contesting Rally Elverum – a snow event in Norway. Unfortunately he ditched his car in a snow bank with two stages remaining.

Goransson said: “I was happy with the performance [in Norway], but we will get better. [Rally Sweden] is going to be the biggest challenge in my career and I would lie if I didn’t say that I am nervous.”

Prodrive’s Richard Taylor said Goransson’s level of preparation had impressed everybody.

“He’s certainly going about the event the right way,” said Taylor. “His professionalism has been second to none and you’d have to say having seen the way he drove last year – and given his day job – he’s not going to be hanging about. This is, however, a one-off outing with Richard, but it’s going to be a great event for him and his supporters.”

Those supporters in Sweden will be treated to the opportunity to watch Goransson’s event unfold live on the internet. His Mini will carry onboard cameras which will be beaming the footage straight to his website for the duration of the WRC’s second round.

Prodrive chief Richard Taylor has laughed off suggestions that the alliance between the Banbury firm and Mini will be terminated.

There had been reports in the media that BMW Motorsport wanted to end its contract with Prodrive following an acrimonious period which had left both sides bickering over the funding for the factory John Cooper Works WRCs.

It had been suggested that BMW and Prodrive would part company on Friday, with the potential for the Munich firm to take the World Rally Championship programme in-house.

Taylor said: “That’s news to me. There’s no question of that that, no question at all. The team is on its way to Sweden for the pre-event test as we speak. Mini remains committed to the programme and to supporting customers. We all want to see the Mini John Cooper Works WRC out there on the stages and that’s what we will see ‘ with Prodrive running the cars on Rally Sweden next week.”

Taylor also pointed to the strength of the team’s start to the year, with Dani Sordo collecting a third podium from seven starts on last month’s Monte Carlo Rally opener.

“The start we had in Monte Carlo was fantastic,” he said, “and we look forward to continuing that level of performance next week and into the season beyond.”

Sordo and his team-mate for the Karlstad-based event, former Junior World Rally Champion Patrik Sandell, will test in Sweden later this week.

Chevrolet and RML will not contest the 2012 British Touring Car Championship, opting instead to focus their efforts on retaining their WTCC crowns.

The manufacturer, whose BTCC and WTCC teams are run by RML, finished runner-up to Honda in last year’s BTCC teams’ championship, while Jason Plato ended the year third in the drivers’ standings, having taken eight wins and 12 podiums over the season.

The Briton had previously helped carry Chevrolet to a title double in the 2011 BTCC season.

Chevrolet’s withdrawal comes just a week after Plato announced he had landed a three-year deal to spearhead MG’s return to the British series.

Chevrolet UK managing director Mark Terry paid tribute to the partnership with RML, saying: “I would like to wish RML the very best for 2012, and thank our many fans for their support over the last two years.”

RML meanwhile will continue to run Yvan Muller, Rob Huff and Alain Menu in the WTCC, where it has taken the drivers’ and constructors’ crowns for the past two seaons.

RML managing director George Lendrum said the group remained committed to the BTCC, despite the fact it will not compete in 2012.

“We understand Chevrolet’s decision to concentrate its motorsport programme on the WTCC in 2012,” Lendrum explained.

“Despite the fact that we won’t be involved in 2012, RML remain long term supporters of the BTCC and hope to be back in the future.”

McLaren says its new MP4-27 is a ‘complete rework’ of last year’s car – despite its outward appearance pointing to it being an evolution of its 2011 contender.

After the covers came off the new car at McLaren’s Woking factory on Wednesday, the main focus points of the MP4-27 were a nose step that was less extreme than some had expected, and the positioning of the exhausts.

Tim Goss, McLaren’s director of engineering, said that although outwardly the car was an evolution of the MP4-26, it was in fact totally different under the skin.

“We have set ourselves tough and ambitious targets, and we aim to deliver those by the first race and have a championship-winning car,” explained Goss. “This car is a complete rework from nose to tail, and there is very little that is carried over. A bit of the fuel system is the same, but almost everything else on the car has changed.

“There were a few features we have pushed quite hard from the beginning of the project. I am proud of the whole team and the efforts so far, and from now we go to the next phase of the project which is really wringing the performance out of it. We have a good track record of that – we have big plans, upgrades for the front wing, rear wing, floor and bodywork are already planned.”

Technical director Paddy Lowe said that the nature of modern regulations makes it difficult for teams to deliver innovation – but that did not stop his outfit believing it had made a good performance step with the car.

“The regulations are trimming us into narrower and narrower boxes,” he said. “We don’t see big radical changes from one year to the next year.

“This car looks very similar but underneath a great deal of changes have taken place. Every part has been assessed for weight and performance. If you add all that up, you get a car that is quicker. Teams are tasked to find that 1% to 2% performance improvement – but nevertheless there are obvious innovations.

“We have done a lot of work around the back end, and there is a lot more tidy packaging there, and we have had to do a lot of work on exhausts. That has given the aerodynamicists a great challenge, not only to find the downforce but also in creating the right balance. You need downforce but also you have to be able to use it in the right area.”

McLaren has moved away from the U-shaped sidepods that it ran last year, because the downwash advantage created by that design is no longer relevant now that blown diffusers have been banned.

Lowe also explained that the outfit never bothered investigating the reactive ride height system being pursued by Lotus and Ferrari and which was outlawed recently by the FIA.

“That was in a family of designs that we have considered often in the past, but in our assessment we would not consider that to be legal,” he said. “So we did not get involved in what was being done.

“Our view was that it was not something we would pursue, so it was pleasing to see that avenue shut down according to our interpretation.”

Nicky Hayden could only manage 16 laps of running on the second day of MotoGP winter testing at Sepang today before pain from his injured shoulder forced the Ducati rider to pull out.

The American broke his left scapula and fractured two ribs when he fell while training shortly after Christmas. Although he managed 33 laps on the opening day of testing yesterday, today proved harder still.

“I was okay when I first went out this morning, and on my second lap I managed to make a pretty decent step from yesterday,” said Hayden. “After that I lost strength in the shoulder and wasn’t really able to ride fast or consistently enough to test much.

“I’m okay under braking because I can lock my shoulder out, but when the bike shakes I don’t have enough strength to hold on. I didn’t want to crash and cause bigger problems, so I just decided to chill out. It’s a bit of a bummer, but that’s how it goes sometimes.”

Despite being unable to complete much mileage, Hayden said he had seen enough to share team-mate Valentino Rossi’s optimism about the 2012 Ducati.

“They’ve done a great job with the new bike, and you can see just from looking at it that it’s really slick,” he said. “I just wish I could ride it closer to the edge and really see what it does and how it reacts to changes.”

Hayden doubts he will be able to do much running on the final day of the test tomorrow.

“Maybe I’ll do a few more exits tomorrow, but that’s about it,” he said.

Sam Michael believes McLaren’s strength in depth is one of the keys to having been so successful in Formula 1 over the years.

Michael, a former technical director at Williams, left the British squad at the end of last year to join McLaren as sporting director.

He says he is already feeling at home with McLaren, and admits working with the team has been made easier because of its synergy.

“I am really proud to be working for McLaren even though I haven’t been here long,” Michael said during the launch of the MP4-27.

“It is a big family. There are a lot of people here taking good care of relationships, and it makes a big difference in a high pressure environment. More than I expected and it helps you perform.

“One of the drivers used a buzzword, that the synergy of this place is strength in depth. It is bigger strength of this company.

“This strength in depth is not something you buy of shop-floor. It’s not like a seven-post rig you can go buy, install and catch up. It is instilled over years, it is ingrained in the company. It is rewarding working around it.”

Michael said McLaren is already a well-oiled machine and conceded he hasn’t been able to influence the new car much since his arrival.

“I work with the senior management group, my main focus in that group is trackside, sorting out the race team. It’s already a very refined machine. It’s all about trying to create a new benchmark, work car quality, operational reliability…

“It is early days. I came in at the end of last year and a lot of the car – 90 per cent of it – was already designed. There is different aspects to the way we go racing and had quite a lot of involvement.”

McLaren has no plans to develop its own Formula 1 engine or switch from Mercedes-Benz powerplants, according to team principal Martin Whitmarsh.

The British team’s engine supply has been the subject of speculation since the latter part of the 2011 campaign, with rumours suggesting that McLaren could reunite with Honda or even build its own motor to promote its growing road car business.

But Whitmarsh, speaking at the launch of the new MP4-27 F1 car, ruled out a change of supplier, or going down the route of Ferrari and taking engine development in-house.

“Formula 1 is a very, very powerful environment to promote an automotive brand and get brand definition,” said Whitmarsh. “But we have no plans – short term, medium term or longer term – to manufacture our own engines.

“We have great respect for what Ferrari have achieved, but we will do things our own way. People will speculate because of our road car programme but it makes no sense for us.

“We have had a great partner for 18 years with Mercedes-Benz, they make probably the best engine in F1.

“The motivation to change is very limited. We enjoy that partnership and intend to continue for a number of years.”

McLaren believes it has not taken a cautious approach to its new MP4-27 over the winter, despite the problems caused by the radical elements it tried in pre-season testing last year.

Team principal Martin Whitmarsh said at the launch of the new car that McLaren is not expecting a repeat of last year’s poor pre-season. But he was keen to point out that the team had not opted for a careful approach to its development over the winter.

“This year we have not been cautious but we have found some good performance,” Whitmarsh said.

“We have set ourselves some tough targets that if we reach we think we can fight for the championship. We haven’t reached those targets yet, but with some work we will do.

“We had, by anyone’s standards, let alone McLaren’s standards, an abysmal testing period last year. I would be happier not to fight those issues, and we have put a lot of work into this car and we are not expecting a repeat of last winter.

“I don’t believe we have been inherently conservative. Inevitably there are creative brains seeking to find a Eureka moment that will bring seconds of performance, but sadly in F1 those moments are limited.”

Whitmarsh also admitted that, like most teams, McLaren still has a lot to add to the car between its launch spec and the version that will hit the track in Australia for the season opener.

“All teams will develop the cars so the car unveiled as they pull the cloth back is not the car being used in Q1 in Australia,” he said. “There will be great evolution in some teams.

“We have set targets that are tough. It is not just about testing or the first race, you have to improve the car through every single race if you want to win the championship. Providing we have a good car at the start of the season then we should do well.”

Rubens Barrichello has hinted that he could enter the Indianapolis 500, despite having vowed in the past to never race on ovals.

The most experienced driver in the history of Formula 1 was speaking after his second day of testing with IndyCar outfit KV Racing at Sebring on Tuesday. Prior to that test, Barrichello had always been adamant about refraining from oval racing.

But, speaking to the official IndyCar website, he suggested that those previous comments were made because he never expected to have to consider racing Stateside.

“I never thought I could come over to this side because I thought I would race 25 years in Formula 1 and couldn’t come this way,” said Barrichello, who made his grand prix debut in 1993.

“I did say that. It came out of my mouth. It is not a big issue. I could run on the road tracks; I could run [the] Indy [500].

“There are so many options available, and I’m thankful for the choices at age 39 and still going fast in a car. That’s all I could pray for when I was a kid.”

Barrichello added that he was in no hurry to make a decision about racing in IndyCar this year, although KV has made it clear that an offer is on the table for him.

“We’re going to go back to Brazil, the kids are going to go back to school, and I’m sure we’ll be talking about it,” he said. “I’m not putting pressure on it; I have to think it through.

“I’m just a kid enjoying myself. I woke up a few times before the alarm [on Tuesday] and wondered if I was on time because I was excited to get behind the wheel.”

Danica Patrick’s participation in the Daytona 500 has been guaranteed after her Stewart Haas team formed an alliance with Tommy Baldwin Racing.

Under NASCAR Sprint Cup rules, the top 35 in the previous season’s owners’ points standings are assured of qualifying spots for the opening five rounds of the season. As Baldwin’s #36 entry finished 33rd with driver Dave Blaney last year, its status is being transferred to Patrick’s #10, which will be fielded in a partnership between Stewart Haas and Baldwin in her 10 Cup appearances. David Reutimann will drive the #10 for the balance of the season.

Stewart Haas’ vice president of competition Matt Borland said Baldwin’s team was a good match for Patrick’s needs as she makes the switch from parallel IndyCar and NASCAR campaigns to a full-time stock car career.

“Tommy Baldwin Racing has proven to be a very strong organisation and it’s a good fit with Stewart-Haas Racing,” said Borland.

“It’s a Chevrolet team led by a racer who knows every inch of a racecar. That kind of technical expertise, along with a company mindset that is similar to ours, provides the ideal environment for Danica to learn and succeed.”

Patrick will also contest the full NASCAR Nationwide Series with JR Motorsports.

Jenson Button is hoping the new McLaren MP4-27 will hit the ground running and allow the team to enjoy a stronger build-up to the season than in 2011.

The Woking team launched its 2012 car on Wednesday hoping it will allow it to stop Red Bull Racing’s run of titles after a dominant 2011 campaign for the team and Sebastian Vettel.

McLaren endured a troubled pre-season last year, with several problems hindering its preparations ahead of the first race.

Button, who won three races on his way to second place in the championship, admitted he never expected to win with last year’s car after he first tested it.

Now the Briton is confident the same will not happen with the new car.

“I personally didn’t feel we were going to win races last year after the first test,” he said during the launch of the MP4-27.

“Normally you get a good feeling from the first test and build on that feeling for the first race. It is tricky, especially when you have new regulations.

“It’s difficult to know where you stand. I’m hoping we are in a good position when we wheel the car out in Jerez.

“The most important thing is to get miles done in testing, so we have time to fine-tune car so you arrive at the first race and you are not worried about anything. We are all positive now and hopefully that will continue in testing.”

Button, however, is aware that beating Red Bull will not be easy, as he is not expecting the team to build a slow car after the success of the past two seasons.

“Red Bull will be strong,” said Button. “You don’t suddenly build a bad car after wining the championship for two years. We hope they do – but I would be surprised if they do.

“We don’t know where we stand, so the important thing is stay focused on what we do, look at the next few weeks and see where we stand then.”

Lewis Hamilton says a complete break from Formula 1 over the winter has left him refreshed and ready to put his troubled 2011 campaign behind him.

Speaking at the launch of the McLaren MP4-27 in Woking today, Hamilton said team boss Martin Whitmarsh had allowed him to take a longer than usual break post-season and he used it to rethink his approach ready for what he hopes will be a stronger 2012.

“I was over in the cold mountains in Colorado, spending time with family and friends,” said Hamilton, who was beaten by a team-mate in the championship standings for the first time in his F1 career last season as Jenson Button took second in the championship compared to Hamilton’s fifth place.

“I did lots of training, I didn’t miss much, and I was not missing the car too much.

“It was nice to be away from it for a while, just to get the energy back, refresh. Starting anew and getting back into training was fantastic.

“Last year I was training too much and this year I balanced it a bit better. Spending time with family and friends is how you get your energy. I was grateful for Martin for allowing me to have such a good break.”

Although Button’s improved form in 2011 was partly put down to the car becoming more suited to him in his second year at McLaren, Hamilton is confident the MP4-27 can work well with both drivers’ styles.

“We work closely as a team, me and Jenson,” he said. “You sometimes have drivers who demand different things. Jenson and I have similar set-ups so we demand the same thing.

“I don’t feel it will benefit him more than me – and I think he feels the same. We generally agree with what we need to do.”

The Briton said he was particularly impressed by the “refined” appearance of the MP4-27.

“I think it is fantastic,” said Hamilton. “Seeing the hard work going into building this car is inspiring.

“It is the most refined looking car we have had for some time so we are looking forward to getting back in it.”

McLaren launched its 2012 challenger on Wednesday as the Woking team took the wraps off the MP4-27 with which it is aiming to return to championship-winning ways.

The Mercedes-powered team finished in second place in the standings last year, scoring six victories with Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button.

McLaren was unable to present a championship challenge, however, as rival Red Bull Racing was the dominant force throughout the season.

With the MP4-27, the team is aiming to put an end to Red Bull’s run after having secured all the titles for the past two years.

“I’m very excited,” said Button, runner-up in last year’s championships, during the launch. “This is the moment we see how hard we have all been working. It’s a very exciting day.

“These guys have been flat out since we finished racing in 2011 on improving the car as much as they could in the simulator and I’m looking forward to getting out in it at Jerez.

“I am sure everyone is apprehensive when you start testing and I cannot wait to jump in the car.”

Hamilton added: “I think it is fantastic. It’s great to be here after a great winter. Seeing hard work going into building this car is inspiring. It is most refined-looking car we have had for some time so we are looking forward to getting back in it.”

While the new car resembles the 2011 machine, the team said the MP4-27 chassis has been substantially revised, with all major systems updated or redesigned for the new season.

The most evident differences are a tightly waisted rear bodywork and a revised cooling system. The U-shaped sidepods used last year have also been redesigned to adapt to the FIA’s new exhaust regulations.

Casey Stoner shrugged off his Tuesday back problem to set the fastest time of the second day of MotoGP winter testing at Sepang.

The reigning world champion had been forced to skip day one when he hurt his back while warming up before going out for the first time. Although with a total mileage of 29 laps, he completed rather less running than his rivals today, Stoner still showed his and Honda’s pace with a 2m00.895s lap.

That deposed morning pacesetter Ben Spies (Yamaha) by 0.157 seconds – although the American was briefly credited with a time 2.7s faster than anyone else due to a glitch near the end of the day.

Tuesday’s fastest rider Jorge Lorenzo completed the top three on the second works Yamaha today, ahead of Stoner’s Honda team-mate Dani Pedrosa and Cal Crutchlow – who again showed very strong pace on the Tech 3 Yamaha.

Quickest Ducati was the Pramac example of Hector Barbera in sixth, with works rider Valentino Rossi slightly off his Tuesday pace in seventh position, 0.9s down on Stoner.

Alvaro Bautista (Gresini Honda), Andrea Dovizioso (Tech 3 Yamaha) and Nicky Hayden (Ducati) completed the top 10).

There was some encouragement for the CRT runners as Forward’s Colin Edwards used a higher-spec Suter-BMW to get the gap to the front down to 4.7s, although the Avintia-branded, BQR-run, FTR-Kawasakis continued to struggle for speed and reliability at the tail of the field.

Pos  Rider               Team/Bike             Time       Gap       Laps

 1.  Casey Stoner        Honda                 2m00.895s             29

 2.  Ben Spies           Yamaha                2m01.052s   + 0.157s  37

 3.  Jorge Lorenzo       Yamaha                2m01.068s   + 0.173s  40

 4.  Dani Pedrosa        Honda                 2m01.508s   + 0.613s  35

 5.  Cal Crutchlow       Tech 3 Yamaha         2m01.565s   + 0.670s  42

 6.  Hector Barbera      Pramac Ducati         2m01.788s   + 0.893s  50

 7.  Valentino Rossi     Ducati                2m01.886s   + 0.991s  44

 8.  Alvaro Bautista     Gresini Honda         2m01.933s   + 1.038s  46

 9.  Andrea Dovizioso    Tech 3 Yamaha         2m02.160s   + 1.265s  42

10.  Nicky Hayden        Ducati                2m02.354s   + 1.459s  41

11.  Stefan Bradl        LCR Honda             2m02.414s   + 1.519s  41

12.  Karel Abraham       Cardion Ducati        2m02.598s   + 1.703s  66

13.  Katsuyuki Nakasuga  Yamaha                2m02.941s   + 2.046s  40

14.  Franco Battaini     Ducati                2m04.311s   + 3.416s  38

15.  Colin Edwards       Forward Suter-BMW     2m05.603s   + 4.708s  37

16.  Ivan Silva          Avintia FTR-Kawasaki  2m10.297s   + 9.402s  16

17.  Jordi Torres        Avintia FTR-Kawasaki  2m11.893s  + 10.998s   2

18.  Robertino Pietri    Avintia FTR-Kawasaki  2m12.546s  + 11.651s   5

Former Formula 1 driver Nick Heidfeld will join the Rebellion Racing team to compete in the FIA World Endurance Championship and the Le Mans 24 Hours.

The Swiss team said Heidfeld will race at the Sebring 12 Hours, the Spa 6 Hours and the legendary Le Mans race in one of its Lola-Toyota LMP1 cars.

He will share the car with Neel Jani and Nicolas Prost.

Heidfeld joins Rebellion after being left without a Formula 1 drive when he was replaced by Bruno Senna at the Renault team last year.

The German had competed in Le Mans in 1999.

“I am really looking forward to this new challenge and I am especially excited that the first race in Sebring, being a new circuit for me, is only a few weeks away,” said Heidfeld.

“Since I did Le Mans in 1999 I always knew that I wanted to come back to endurance racing.

“I am very happy to join Rebellion Racing and hope I can help building up on their already impressive achievements which include winning the Team and Manufacturer championship in the Le Mans Series and finishing just behind the Peugeot and Audi works teams in the Intercontinental Le Mans cup.”

Team boss Bart Hayden added: “We had a number of options for high profile drivers joining our Team for the longer distance race events such as Sebring and Le Mans. Nick Heidfeld was available and was looking for a new challenge.

“Nick will be a valuable addition to the team, he is quick, highly-experienced, enthusiastic and very happy to be part of Rebellion Racing. We are pleased to welcome Nick to the team and are looking forward to the start of the season next month at the Sebring 12 Hours, opening round of the new FIA World Endurance Championship.”

Alex Zanardi says he is keen to contest next year’s Daytona 24 Hours.

The idea of the Italian competing in the round-the-clock race was first mooted in 2006, with Zanardi proposing the idea to leading Grand-Am team boss Chip Ganassi, with whom Zanardi won two Champ Car crowns in 1997 and ’98.

Zanardi said the Daytona plan was resurrected when he attended the team’s 22nd birthday celebrations in Minneapolis.

“I really want to go motor racing again, I miss clutching the steering wheel of a racing car,” Zanardi told Autosprint.

“I’ve just returned from Minneapolis where Target, sponsors of the Ganassi team with whom I raced in CART, invited me to the celebrations for the team’s 22nd birthday.

“It was great, because I found myself, among others, with [Jimmy] Vasser, [Juan Pablo] Montoya, [Dario] Franchitti and [Scott] Dixon: all together we’ve given the Target Ganassi team nine titles in CART and IndyCar, plus Dixon’s, Montoya’s and Franchitti’s victories in the Indy 500 and the Daytona 24 Hours.

“While talking about the latter, the idea of doing it all together popped up again: five champions from the outfit reunited in the same team.

“At the moment it’s just an idea we all like, but nothing is programmed yet. But the conditions would be there next year and I’m certain that BMW and Target would be ready to support such an operation, because it would be a nice story to tell: five champions in the same team, the friendship that has always tied us, my return to racing in the United States, the interest for the technical solutions that allow me to drive a racing car and for the driver switching operations.”

Zanardi said a Daytona entry was now more plausible for him than it had been when first proposed in 2007, and that his recent visit to the US showed interest would be high, with team boss Ganassi already expressing his enthusiasm.

“Everyone had his own commitments, there weren’t the right conditions,” Zanardi said of his 2007 plans. “Plus, as far as I was concerned, back then the Ganassi team was using Lexus engines, while I was in the WTCC with BMW, with whom I’m still linked. However, for the last two years, team Ganassi has also switched to BMW engines.”

Asked whether he had spoken to Ganassi, Zanardi replied: “Yes we have. While on the celebrations stage he replied ‘let’s do it’. But I repeat, it’s just an idea at the moment. Let’s talk about it again after the Paralympics.”

Lotus has boosted its management structure with the appointment of Thomas Mayer as its new chief operating officer.

Mayer will take the position previously held by Patrick Louis, who steps up to the role of chief executive officer.

Both men will work alongside team principal Eric Boullier, who has been in that role since the start of 2010.

Gerard Lopez, who is chairman of the Lotus team, said: “Our fight to return to the front of the grid is a continual process, and we are leaving no stone unturned.

“The contributions that Patrick Louis and Eric Boullier have made so far have been invaluable, and we are now able to better focus their efforts through the addition of Thomas Mayer as chief operating officer.

“Thomas comes to us with over 15 years’ professional experience. He has an in-depth knowledge of running large operations incorporating production, logistics and organisational structuring.

“Our efforts are concerted behind our objective to be a contender once more for the 2015-16 championships, to continue the proud heritage of the 1994-95 and 2005-6 world championship titles achieved by Enstone.”

Valentino Rossi believes Ducati has taken a big step forward with its 2012 bike after an encouraging first day of testing at Sepang.

Following Ducati’s tough 2011 season, team boss Vito Guareschi had said that he would be satisfied just to get the GP12 within a second of the pace in the Malaysian tests this week, but Rossi was 0.7 seconds off pacesetter Jorge Lorenzo’s Yamaha on day one – and felt significant improvements had been made to the bike.

“I’m happy because first impressions are important, and already in the first few laps, I could tell that I like the bike,” said Rossi.

“Ducati did a good job in a just a short time. The bike is beautiful, but more importantly, it’s nice to ride.

“The riding position has improved a lot, and it’s better on braking and corner entry. I can brake like I want to and take the lines that I like, and I feel comfortable in general.

“I was able to ride well and not make mistakes, and there’s a reason for that. It means that the bike can be ridden. It’s more agile in change of direction, and it wheelies much less.”

Rossi warned that there was still plenty of ground to make up before Ducati could really be confident it was back on the pace.

“We’re seven tenths back today, and of course there’s still a lot of work to do before we can win,” he said. “We have to improve in some areas: acceleration, electronics, power delivery and set-up.

“I’d say we’ll be able to make a more accurate assessment at the end of the test, because let’s remember, the bike is just 40 days old. To leave here a second back from the top would be okay because anyway, we know that there’s still much more to be done.

“But one of the best things from today is that the bike reacts well to changes. That enabled us to drop one or two tenths every outing, which means further progress should be possible.”

Rossi’s team-mate Nicky Hayden was 10th quickest and also felt Ducati had made a step forward, but was hampered by the shoulder injury he sustained in training over the winter.

“Obviously, I wish my physical condition were better,” said the American. “On one hand I’m happy just to be here and not miss another test after missing the one in Valencia, but I wasn’t able to do a lot of laps, and definitely no long stints.

“We know how important shoulders are on these bikes, and I didn’t have the strength I would like. The bone itself was okay, but I had a lot of pain in the joint, although there was no problem with the ribs and very few problems with the wrist.”

The Season 4 2011 Grand Prix Series would see 289 drivers start a race during the 12-week long season. After finishing second to Andre Boettcher in Season 3, Jake Stergios (New England) was back again to compete for the top step of the podium.

Silverstone hosted the final round of the iRacing.com Grand Prix Series.

The season finale would be held at the well-known Silverstone Circuit.   The 5.901 km (3.667 mi) track is the host for the British Grand Prix, first staged in 1948 and which has been held on the circuit every year since 1987. Stergios held a firm grip on the championship lead during the season by consistently finishing in the top positions.  Sunday’s Strength of Field races would be no different, as he once again topped the week with double-pole and a double-win ahead of Teemu Iivonen (Finland) and Sebastian Keijmel (Benelux), increasing his overall points-lead to Jacob Nielsen (Scandinavia) who was absent this evening.

The sight of Stergios disappearing in to the horizon was a common one during the season.

Stergios was crowned champion with a comfortable 227 points-gap (15 starts, 10 wins, 15 top fives, 1680 points) ahead of Nielsen (10 starts, 4 wins, 10 top fives, 1453 points) and Iivonen (18 starts, 1 win, 8 top fives, 1375 points). Rounding out the top 5 were Xavier Busoms (Iberia) with 1336 points (23 starts, 4 wins, 11 top 5) and Sebastian Keijmel (Benelux) with 1332 points (13 starts, 2 wins, 10 top 5).

Williams has announced that it will unveil its 2012 Formula 1 car – the FW34 – shortly before the start of pre-season testing at Jerez on 7 February.

The team will not hold a formal launch event, instead taking the wraps off the car in a pitlane photocall just before the winter running commences.

The FW34 is an important turning point for the team, which has slipped down the field in recent years.

It is the first car produced with a large involvement from Williams’s revamped technical line-up, and marks the reunion of the Williams-Renault chassis/engine combination. Williams won multiple titles with Renault during their previous association between 1989 and ’97, and continued to run Renault-derived Supertec engines for a further two years.

Williams has retained Pastor Maldonado as one of its drivers for 2012, with Bruno Senna replacing Rubens Barrichello in the sister car.

The FIA has confirmed the World Rally Championship Academy Cup will go ahead as planned this season – with M-Sport offering a full 2013 WRC season as a prize to the winner.

There had been concerns for the WRC’s support series following the loss of promoter North One Sport earlier this month, but the governing body has confirmed a six-round Academy will begin on the Rally of Portugal in March.

Once again, M-Sport will supply arrive and drive Ford Fiesta R2s for the competitors and the 2012 winner will be offered the choice of five WRC rounds in a Fiesta S2000 or the complete series in a Fiesta R2 car.

FIA WRC manager Michele Mouton said: “The 2011 WRC Academy Cup was a great success and provided incredibly close competition through to the final stage. We are very pleased to have reached an agreement with M-Sport, ensuring once again that this arrive and drive formula continues at a set and affordable price for young competitors wishing to enter our sport. We have great confidence in Malcolm Wilson and his team to deliver yet another exciting series that is at the heart of nurturing future talent.”

The Academy will be contested over the Portugal, Greece, Finland, Germany, France and Spain WRC rounds, with drivers counting their best five scores towards the Cup

Irishman Craig Breen won the inaugural WRC Academy last season and is contesting this year’s SWRC in a Fiesta S2000, helped by the 500,000 euro funding package he won from M-Sport.

Adrian Sutil says he will take time to reflect and consider his next career move after receiving a suspended sentence for assaulting Lotus team co-owner Eric Lux.

Sutil was given an 18-month suspended sentence and a 200,000 euro fine – which will be given to charity – for injuring Lux in an incident in a Shanghai nightclub following last year’s Chinese Grand Prix.

The 29-year-old German does not currently have a Formula 1 seat for 2012, having been replaced at Force India by Nico Hulkenberg and seen Bruno Senna taking the last major vacancy at Williams.

“Maybe I will take some time out now,” Sutil was quoted as saying by Reuters as he left the court in Munich. “Maybe I will do something completely different, think about things in peace.”

Sutil had argued in court that he had tried to settle the row afterwards, and hoped that this had now been achieved.

“At least I shook Mr Lux’s hand,” said Sutil. “That’s a good thing.”

Lotus has confirmed that it will back Colin Kolles’ team’s World Endurance Championship LMP2 programme, as revealed by last week’s AUTOSPORT magazine.

The Kolles-run Kodewa squad will campaign two Lola B12/80s under the Lotus title, with Lotus-badged V8s from Engine Developments, which is also building the sportscar-maker’s IndyCar engine.

Lotus’s motorsport director Claudio Berro said the partnership was an ideal way for the group to take a step up the endurance racing ladder after returning to the GT class with the Evora last year.

“This is a very exciting step for us,” said Berro.

“We made no secret of our intention to tackle LMP2 this year but it had to be done in the right way and we’re very happy with the set-up with our partners.

“More than anything else, we’re looking forward to our return to Le Mans in this capacity after our success with the Evora last year.

“The engine development is going well but there’s a lot to do over the coming weeks to ensure that the car is prepared for the intensive testing that we must undertake to ensure we’re ready to compete.”

Jorge Lorenzo was delighted to commence his 2012 MotoGP campaign with the fastest time on the opening day of pre-season testing at Sepang – particularly as it marked the first time he had been on track since suffering a severe hand injury at Philip Island last October.

The Yamaha number one was quickest by 0.3 seconds over Honda’s Dani Pedrosa in Malaysia today, while Pedrosa’s reigning champion team-mate Casey Stoner was sidelined with back pain after injuring himself as he warmed up to go out.

Lorenzo needed reconstructive surgery on a finger after his crash in Australia, and had sat out the last three grands prix of 2011 plus post-season testing, so to be quickest on his comeback today was particularly satisfying.

“I’m very happy with today. For the first ride on the bike in some time, it’s been very positive,” he said.

“Yamaha has worked very hard over the winter for this M1. I can see very easily where I have to adapt my riding style for the bike and I can see a lot of potential.

“We have many areas where we can improve so I’m looking forward to beginning again tomorrow.”

The Spaniard said there had been no ill effects from his injury either.

“I’m also very happy that my finger is fine and doesn’t affect my riding at all,” said Lorenzo.

The World Touring Car Championship has amended its 2012 calendar, dropping Argentina’s provisional round, scheduled for July 8, and replacing it with an event in Europe on April 29.

Lengthier than anticipated negotiations with a regional government are understood to have contributed to the decision.

A WTCC spokesman told AUTOSPORT that the series remains willing to visit Argentina in 2013.

Half of the events on the 12-round 2012 WTCC calendar will now be held in Europe.

Casey Stoner is optimistic that having to sit out the first day of Sepang testing with back pain will not prove too costly.

The reigning MotoGP champion missed all of today’s session in Malaysia – the opening day of 2012 pre-season preparations – having pulled back muscles while warming up.

“I was stretching this morning for a good twenty minutes preparing to go out on track for the first time and then all of a sudden my back just locked up on me, I couldn’t move or do anything,” said Stoner.

“I had to call someone to come and help me move into a position that was less painful!

“Then I had some physio on it straight away trying to get it better for this afternoon but it wasn’t feeling good.”

Stoner said while there was a chance he could have got on the bike for the afternoon, he preferred to make certain that he was fit for Wednesday.

“I had some more physio after lunch but it still wasn’t easing up,” he said.

“I felt I could have gone out on the bike in the afternoon but we all agreed it would probably make it worse for tomorrow.

“We have two more days testing here in Sepang, we know the track well and we are getting to know the bike, we just need some time to test the new parts we have here to give feedback to HRC.”

He is confident he can make up for lost time once he is able to start testing.

“I think tomorrow the track conditions will be better and as long as my back improves overnight we should get back on schedule with our testing programme tomorrow,” said Stoner.

Scuderia Toro Rosso will unveil its new 2012 car on February 6, the evening before its first test at Jerez in Spain next week.

The STR7 is set to run for the first time on February 7, but the team has announced that it will pull the covers off the car in the Jerez pitlane on the day before.

Daniel Ricciardo is set to give the new car its debut test outing, with the team also confirming on Monday that oil giant CEPSA will continue its sponsorship deal into this season.

Adrian Sutil has been given an 18-month suspended sentence after being found guilty of bodily harm against Lotus team co-owner Eric Lux.

On the second day of proceedings in Munich, Sutil was convicted of causing neck injuries to Lux with a champagne glass following a fight in a nightclub after last year’s Chinese Grand Prix.

In addition to the suspended sentence, Sutil was fined 200,000 euros, which will be given to charity.

Sutil said he never intended to hurt Lux and told the court on Monday that he had done everything possible to try and bring the matter to a close. However, Lux made it clear that he had never received the face-to-face apology that he had been after.

The conviction will be a blow to Sutil’s hopes of returning to Formula 1 in the future, with the German having lost his drive at Force India to Nico Hulkenberg for this season.

McLaren is bracing itself for a battle over the legality of its new MP4-27, AUTOSPORT can reveal.

According to McLaren Applied Technologies managing director Geoff McGrath, the new car, which is launched tomorrow, will feature obvious design innovations which could potentially attract protests from rivals.

These are the result of the team’s aim to be less conservative in the interpretation of the Formula 1 regulations than it has been in previous years.

“There are technical innovations on the car which will be immediately obvious when you see them,” said McGrath, who added that McLaren is “getting ready for a fight” over its new machine.

McGrath admitted that McLaren has paid the price for being overly cautious in previous seasons. The team has finished behind Red Bull in the constructors’ championship in the past three years and must start the season strongly if it is to end that run.

“We’ve started way behind in the last couple of years — that’s the really disappointing thing,” he said. “But when we’re behind, you can see that historically we always catch up faster than anyone else.

“Until we go to the first test in Jerez [which starts on February 7], the engineers won’t know for sure if they got it right.”

It is understood that McLaren is focusing on single-lap speed with the MP4-27, which it hopes will allow it to take more pole positions and control races from the front.

McGrath added that beating qualifying master Sebastian Vettel will be crucial if McLaren is to be successful in 2012, particularly as its analysis indicated that the raw pace of last year’s MP4-26 was superior towards the end of the season despite Red Bull and Vettel’s run of poles.

“He must be a brilliant driver, because by the end of last season we definitely had the best car and he was still whupping us,” McGrath said.

“We’re trying to figure out exactly what he’s doing that’s so good. How does he pull out that fast qualifying lap every time? We think it’s driver skill. There’s no trickery on the cars, he just gets more out of it than we do.”

Jorge Lorenzo marked his return to the track after last year’s injury with the fastest time in the first pre-season MotoGP test at Sepang, while reigning champion Casey Stoner sat out the session with back pain.

Stoner aggravated an old back injury while warming up before going out this morning. After receiving physio, he decided to wait until tomorrow before taking to the track, with Honda test rider Kousuke Akiyoshi doing a handful of laps on his bike instead.

At the front, Yamaha rider Lorenzo set the pace with a lap of 2m01.657s, 0.2 seconds slower than last year’s pole time at the Malaysian Grand Prix venue, and 0.346s ahead of second-placed Dani Pedrosa’s Honda. 2010 champion Lorenzo was making his first appearance for Yamaha since his ’11 campaign was ended prematurely by a serious hand injury sustained at Philip Island.

Yamaha had three bikes in the top four, with Tech 3 rider Cal Crutchlow impressing in third place and Ben Spies putting the second factory bike fourth. Crutchlow’s new team-mate Andrea Dovizioso was sixth as he got back up to speed after breaking his collarbone in a recent motocross accident.

Valentino Rossi took an encouraging fifth on the best of the Ducatis, 1.1s off the pace, and 0.8s quicker than team-mate Nicky Hayden – another man recovering from a winter injury.

A handful of the new CRT bikes were present, but a long way off the pace, with Forward Racing’s Colin Edwards 6.6s down on Lorenzo on his Suter-BMW, although he did lose mileage to electrical problems. The Avintia FTR-Kawasakis of Jordi Torres and Ivan Silva were several seconds slower still.

Fellow CRT squads Aspar and Speed Master had already begun testing in a private session at Valencia on Monday, where Aspar’s Randy de Puniet was quickest on 1m35.3s – 3.5s slower than the 2011 MotoGP pole time.

Rubens Barrichello is considering racing in the IndyCar Series following his maiden test run with KV Racing on Monday.

The Formula 1 veteran completed 94 laps of the Sebring short course on the first day of a test, and he said that he now has to seriously consider if he wants to be on the grid for the IndyCar season opener in St Petersburg on March 25.

“If you go purely from joy, it wouldn’t be a problem,” said the 39-year-old. “I have still so much passion for the speed and I’m quite young in my mind and I believe I’m getting better.

“Right now, I’m truly happy and I like what I saw. I just need to see what comes up. I need to talk to my family, I need to talk to Jimmy [Vasser, team boss].”

KV’s lead driver Tony Kanaan, who arranged the test for his friend, claimed that it only took the ex-F1 racer “20 laps to run the same laptimes as me!”

Barichello added: “I had a really good and productive day with all the set-up options we tried. It’s a different machine to what I’m used to, but it had a good feeling.

“I feel like a kid. You could call me a rookie, even though I have 33 years on this job. In the morning I was getting used to the car and not doing anything silly because obviously you don’t want to put it in the wall.”

Former CART champion Vasser said that the KV team enjoyed working with the Brazilian, and hinted that a deal to pair him with Kanaan was a possibility.

“We are all pleased with this test,” said Vasser. “This was Rubens’ first time in an IndyCar and I think he enjoyed himself. Certainly, we had a lot of fun working with him.

“Most importantly, if he is going to have this kind of effect on Tony we are going to have to figure out a way to keep him around.”

Kalle Ruokola certainly qualifies on both counts.  He bested Yoeri Gijsen and Rami Kaukola to capture the Time Trial (TT) honors in the Corvette Class of the iRacing Prototype and GT Challenge (Fixed), and collected no fewer than four runner-up finishes in everything from Classic Lotus Grand Prix TT (behind Mark Mullineaux and ahead of David Buhlinger), Radical Racing Challenge Time Trials (behind Simon Hulbert and ahead of Maurice Dietzel) and in both divisions of the inRacingNews Challenge Racing – Pontiac Solstice (behind Michael Booth and ahead of Chris Hughson) and SpecRacer Ford (behind Gabriel Tobar and ahead of Mogar DG Filho.  And in his spare time, Ruokola came home fourth in the Radical Racing Challenge Racing competition behind Hulbert, Frank Winter and Xavier Busoms.

The site of Hulbert disappearing up the road was common in the Radical Racing Challenge.

Laurent Beteille was arguably the most successful iRacer of 2011 Season 4, given that he captured first place in the Mazda MX-5 class of the iRacing Grand Touring Cup in both racing (ahead of Joel Guez and Henning Cordes) and TT (from Guez and Julien Apruzzese).  He showed he could be just as successful in Mazdas sans fenders by repeating that feat in Star Mazda, claiming both the racing crown from Fredrik Tackman and Diego Comuni) and the time trials title (from Evgeniy Dontsov and Tino Buchheim).

Paulo Valente nearly matched Beteille’s success rate, taking top honors in the Mustang class of the Grand-Am Sports Car Series in racing (ahead of Brian Strodtbeck and Oscar Sahlin) and time trials (from Matthew Davis and Simon Black), and also claiming the Mustang Challenge time trial title (from Janne Parkkima and Black) while finishing fourth in racing behind champion Jason Lisner, Petteri Kotovaara and Dave Gelink.
Speaking of Black, his busy campaign also netted him first place in the V8 Supercar Series time trials ahead of James Blewitt and Trevor Forster, as well as runner-up to Scott McDonough in the Grand-Am Sports Car Series’ Riley Daytona Prototype time trials, with Isto Tiihonen taking third spot.

McDonough was one of a number of sim racers to sweep a category as, in addition to topping the time trials competitors in Grand Am Sports Car Series’ Riley Daytona Prototype he also came home a winner in the racing competition ahead of Yann Laprevotte and Hulbert.  Salvatore Lombardo was equally dominant in Silver Crown competition, taking the racing title from Vinnie Sansone and Giovanni Mungin, and besting John Paquin and Steven Hunter for time trial honors. Similarly, Alan Binder was a double Sprint Car champion, taking the racing title from Sansone and Petteri Kotovaara and time trial honors ahead of Tom Downey and Michael Lampela.

Racing or time trials, Binder was unbeatable in sprint cars.

Keeping to the short track “open wheel” domination theme, Rusty Greer doubled-up in SK Modifieds by claiming the racing title from Dylan Sharman and Richard Smith5, and winning the time trials competition from Mike Daniel and Brett Osborn.  Add some fenders to the mix and you’ll find Kevin Burris taking a double of his own in the NASCAR iRacing.com Late Model Tour.  In racing it was Burris over Trenton Moriarity and Trey Jarrell, while Late Model time trials saw him outpoint Kevin J Myers and Gary Dangelo.

Not to be outdone, Nicholas Sladeczek swept the VW Jetta TDi honors in Grand Touring Cup, claiming the time trials title from Mitchell Cornett and Luis Antonio Piccolo, even as he bested Alexandru Raileanu and Laprevotte in racing.  And, as noted, in addition to the Radical Racing Challenge racing championship, Hulbert also copped the Radical time trials title.

Coming-up just short in their bids for series doubles were Blake Townend, Thomas D Smith and Mullineaux.  Townend captured the IndyCar Series (Road/Fixed setup) time trials ahead of Raja El-Asmar and Niccolò Cedrati, but finished between winner Ken Leach and third-placed Marko Viitanen in racing.  Smith captured the NASCAR iRacing.com Class C Series time trial title from Justin Collver and Derrick Stone, but had to be content with third place on the racing side behind Alex Warren and Brandon Buchberger . . .  although he did win a second title in the form of the NASCAR iRacing.com Class B Series time trial championship ahead of Chad Pingel and Chris Templin.

Mullineaux backed-up his Classic Lotus Grand Prix time trials title by finishing runner-up in racing to Gernot Fritsche, with Henri Salminen taking the final step on the podium.  Similarly, Cristian Lorente piloted his HPD ARX01C to the top of the class Prototype and GT Challenge fixed setup time trials but had to settle for third in racing behind a victorious Darren Marsh and Roderic Kreunen.

Shaun Stroud won the IndyCar Series (Oval-open setup) racing from Niles Anders and Monica Clara Brand, and placed second to Tim Doyle in IndyCar Series (Oval – fixed setup) racing with Tomas A Klopp third.  Similarly, Daniel Ryan took top honors in SpecRacer Ford time trial competition of the inRacingNews Challenge (ahead of Scott Hanley and Nikolay Andreev) and placed third in the IndyCar Series (Road-open setup) time trials behind Istvan Balogh and El-Asmar.  Likewise, James Trimble captured the Street Stock Series’ time trial competition (from Ralf Janiak and Ron Thomas, and finished in third spot in the NASCAR iRacing.com Class B Series (fixed setup) time trials behind Richard Webster and Justin Kirby.

Down won the fierce V8 Supercars racing competition.

Paquin was another to enjoy much success across different disciplines as, in addition to his runner-up finish in Silver Crown racing he came out ahead of Mike Larsen and Joao Pinho in the IndyCar Series (Oval-open setup) time trials and also took home the IndyCar Series (Oval-fixed setup) time trials crown from Jason Hurst and Pinho.  And rounding-out the IndyCar honorees is Ryan Field, who captured the IndyCar Series (Road-open setup) racing competition from Nico Brandt and Troy Schulz.

Sticking with the open wheel side, Artur Mlodzinski came away with top honors in the Skip Barber Race Series, leading Nicklas Lindqvist and Steve Bates to the top step of the racing podium even as Ben Taylor was besting Frank Bloem and Uwe Kriebel in Barber time trials.  At the other end of the open wheel performance spectrum, Jake Stergios triumphed over Jacob Nielsen and Teemu Iivonen in the iRacing.com Grand Prix Series (racing), while Vladimir Tsaplin was king of the Williams-Toyota FW31 time trials, besting Juan Rodriguez and Brett Webber.

Elsewhere in the road racing competition, David Benedict came out ahead of Thomas van Bussel and Mihael Vucinic in the inRacingNews Challenge Pontiac Solstice time trials while Madison Down edged Mitchell McLeod and Rens Broekman for top honors in the V8 Supercar Series (racing).

Hagner was twice the bridesmaid in Corvette competition in Season 4.

A very busy mixed class sports prototype scene saw Teemu Vuolle best Joni Hagner and Broekman to capture the Corvette class in the Prototype and GT Challenge racing, while the time trial crown went to Florian Denard from Gijsen and Rami Kaukola.  In the fixed setup version of that series, it was Fernando Bento besting Hagner and David S Peterson in racing.

The Ford GT racing titles went to Andreas Wottawa from Niek Versteege and Joni Bäckman (open setup racing), Jeff Antley from Shuji Aratani and Rodriguez (open setup time trials), Vincent Staal from Bäckman and Thomas Arends (fixed setup racing) and Justin Bright from Dennis Griffen and Rodriguez (fixed setup time trials).

And the newest addition to iRacing’s burgeoning stable of race cars saw David Williams best Robert Bieber and Tapani Linnaluoto in the HPD ARX01C (open setup racing) with Alfio Crispi piloting his HPS ARX01C to the open setup time trials championship ahead of Nicolas Bihan and TK Yasagac.

Paquette emerge as the new Street Stock king in Season 4.

In the remaining oval series, it was Maxim Paquette capturing the Street Stock racing title from Greg Hooks and Trey Jerrell.  The NASCAR iRacing.com Tour Modified Series saw Brandon Salvatore take the racing title ahead of Herbert Engelhart and Taylor Meyn even as the time trial crown went to Curt Hunter ahead of Nathan McGee and Brett Osborn.

NASCAR iRacing.com Class C (time trials) went to Simon Crochart over Jeremy Allen2 and Mike Morrow while the Class C racing title was captured by Kevin King over Josh Berry and Jeremy R Allen.  Moving-up – alphabetically speaking  — NASCAR iRacing.com Class B saw Jason Karlavige take the open setup racing championship ahead of Brandon Schmidt and Matt Whitten, while Byron Daley bettered Ben Sexton and Phil Juhring in fixed setup time trials action.

Finally, the NASCAR Class A (racing) title went to Kile Gottula who edged Robert Hall and Steve Ritter in the points race, as Mike Skinner topped Stefan A Schmidt and Ronny Kuritz in time trials.

Your 2011 Season 4 NASCAR iRacing.com Tour Modified Series champion: Brandon Salvatore.

Salvatore sealed the deal at Thompson International Speedway by topping 77 other sim racers who took the green flag on the Connecticut high banks. Salvatore went to victory lane during Thursday’s 3834 Strength of Field (SoF) race in his final start of the season, leading every one of the race’s 125 laps. Former series champion Herb Engelhart was second, followed by Kevin Walker, Ray Farlow and Samuel Dick. One caution slowed the race for four laps. The top three in this race gained top five spots in the weekly standings thanks to their performances in this race with Salvatore (233) coming home as the weekly winner at Thompson, Engelhart (209) placing third and Walker (186) fourth.

Mitch Miller put up two wins in three starts over Round 12 to put himself in fifth place for the week after the points from his top two starts were factored into his total. Miller’s biggest win also came on Thursday when he topped Taylor Meyn, Jerold John, Brett Osborn and Walker in a 3913 SoF race, the top split race of the week. The race featured three yellow flags and two lead changes between Miller, John and Osborn with Osborn, the pole sitter, leading the most laps (58). Miller started fourth in the event and led the final 28 laps to the checkers. Miller’s total would plummet to 185 points after his second top start was factored-in while Meyn pocketed 214 points from this race to slot him second in the standings for the week.

“Props to Brandon for winning the championship.” — Herb Engelhart

Salvatore was the overall pole sitter for the week with a time of 18.357 seconds. Curt Hunter, Osborn, Marc Pilon and Dick completed the top five in qualifying. Hunter not only took top honors in Week 12 for the Time Trial competition over Osborn, Pilon, Larry Pyrtle and Trent Hullum, he claimed the overall Time Trial crown, falling just two points short of a perfect 800 point season. Hunter finished 13 points up on Nathan McGee. Osborn, Farlow and Pyrtle completed the top five of 283 drivers who made a Time Trial run in a Tour Modified in 2011 Season Four.

Salvatore will go down as the champion by 80 points over Engelhart, 1714 to 1634. Salvatore made 17 starts in 2011 Season Four with seven wins, 14 top fives, 11 poles, 1574 laps completed and 888 laps led. Meyn finished third overall for the season with 1428 points, followed by Derrick Cormier2 (1280) and Walker (1252). In the close Division Two racing title, Jamie Collier bested Farlow by 19 points for the crown. David Markham took home Division Three, Neil Brimble topped Division Four, Joe Gauthier captured Division Five, Joshua Spann won Division Six, Kevin Sockow nailed down Division Seven, David Ross was the man to beat in Division Eight, Division Nine went to Jeffrey Haddock while Jeffrey Petit was the champion in Division Ten. Each division is skill matched at the beginning of the season.

Salvatore leads the field to the green at Thompson.

“Props to Brandon for winning the championship,” said Engelhart, who led the championship for the first nine weeks of the season. “A few missed opportunities between Milwaukee, USA and New Hampshire and Brandon was right there.” Engelhart plans on scaling back in 2012 Season One to help develop some of the drivers on his team, Wide Open Racing.

Next up for the NiTMS is the first online racing season of 2012. Who will come out on top? Can Salvatore take his third consecutive title? Be here to find out.

Until next time, keep the hammer down and we’ll see you at the track!

Ryan Dalziel said it was “hard to take” finishing in second position at the Daytona 24 Hours after being on course to win for so much of the race.

The 29-year-old Briton, who was bidding to add to his victory at the 2010 event, put his Starworks Riley-Ford on pole position and led large parts of the race with help from his co-drivers Allan McNish, Lucas Luhr, Enzo Potolicchio and Alex Popow.

But a major trip through the dirt for Luhr dropped the car off the lead lap during the second half of the event and left the team relying on clever strategy around the caution periods to get back into a threatening position.

Dalziel finished just 5s behind the winning Michael Shank Riley crew, halving the gap to AJ Allmendinger during the final hour of the race. He said that only as time passed could he look back positively on the result.

“It is disappointing,” he said. “I would be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed. We were the car to beat and it was nice to lead so many laps, but leading so many laps sometimes makes it feel worse when you don’t take the chequered flag.

“I have never been in such a dominant position before and not won the race. We were the dominant car and that is the hardest thing to take. We had the car to beat, but sometimes things do not go your way.

“We qualified on pole, had the fastest lap but we didn’t win.”

Despite his disappointment, Dalziel admitted that second place had still been a great result for Peter Baron’s Starworks organisation, which only received its new Riley chassis six days before the start of the Daytona weekend.

“On the plus side, it was an amazing race and the perfect way to mark the 50th running for Daytona,” he added. “Starworks did an awesome job. Peter put together an amazing crew and we had an incredible car. We will now focus on the rest of the year.

“Second place is great. We will probably appreciate it a bit more after a little time.”

Justin Wilson made a glorious comeback from injury with a share of victory in the Daytona 24 Hours, and in the process ended a four-month slide down the Castrol EDGE Rankings.

The Briton had not raced since suffering a compression fracture of his fifth vertebrae when he ran wide and over off-field bumps during an IndyCar practice session at Mid-Ohio last August.

His injury resulted in a four month lay-off, half of which he spent wearing a back brace and being banned from exercise.

Having taken a season-best fifth-place finish at Edmonton in the previous race, Wilson had lain 82nd in the Rankings before his injury, but suffered a fall due to his subsequent inactivity – slipping as low as 169th.

The fall was arrested at Daytona however, as Wilson marked his comeback with a share of victory in the #60 MSR-Riley Ford – rising nine spots to 160th as a result.

His team-mates AJ Allmendinger, Ozz Negri and John Pew also rose on the back of their triumph.

Allmendinger, the best-ranked of the quartet, rose three spots to 40th, while Pew and Negri both gained 52 places to sit a joint 284th.

There were even greater gains in the second-place Starworks Riley-Ford, which had qualified on pole in the hands of Ryan Dalziel, who won the race in 2010.

Lucas Luhr, the 2011 FIA GT1 champion and highest ranked of the team’s quintet of drivers, rose eight spots to move into 55th position, an all-time high in the Rankings.

Allan McNish gained 33 places and now sits 143rd, while fellow Scot Dalziel rose 146 places to move to 185th.

Enzo Popow and Alex Potolicchio meanwhile both made triple figure gains – Popow jumping a massive 101 spots to 357th, and Potolicchio 110 places to move into 372nd.

Moving in the opposite direction were last year’s victors Joey Hand, Scott Pruett, Graham Rahal and Memo Rojas, who all suffered falls down the Rankings.

The quartet, returning in the Ganassi-run BMW, lost ground in the final hours with gearbox issues. They eventually finished sixth, four laps down on the lead.

Hand suffered the largest fall, slipping 21 places to 219th. In comparison both Pruett and Rojas (tied in 127th position) fell 11 spots, while Rahal slipped eight spots to 59th.

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

Members of the Red Sox Racing League honored former league member Gary W. Clark during week three of the 2012 RSR multi-class racing schedule.  League administrators dedicated the event, the “Gary W Clark Memorial 30 at Silverstone GP” in Clark’s honor after learning he had died in Knoxville, Tennessee on January 7th.  Clark was only 53 years old at the time of his death. Competitors who knew him from past RSR seasons recalled Clark as an upbeat person who was a consummate gentleman on the track.  “Clark was a classy guy who made sim racing fun”, said RSR members Jeff Thomas and Les Turner.

The race was held at the Silverstone Grand Prix track in Towcester, Northamptonshire in the United Kingdom.  RSR drivers are very familiar with the track, having used it many times during previous seasons.  Even so, the 17 corner, 3.194 mile layout was as challenging to them in 2012 as it has been in years past.

Despite the track’s tough reputation, twelve HPD drivers and eleven Corvette drivers had only 64 incident points in 401 laps of racing, in only their third multi-class event.  Most of the incidents involved off-track activity or self-spins, and did not involve multi-car accidents.
 
Les Turner returned to his winning ways with a terrific showing at Silverstone.  His night began well, as the Canadian pilot dominated practice and qualifying, then stormed through the field in one of the most lopsided victories in recent memory.  His qualifying lap time of 1:32.807 was the only sub-1:33 lap of the session.  Andrew Gantman qualified in 2nd place in the HPD class with a lap time of 1:33.445. 

Chad Peterson, Jim Albertson, Terry Daul, Wilbur Gildersleeve Jr, Andrew Feldman, Gary Jorgensen, William Kabela, Divina Galica, Bill Pawluckie, and Kevin Kyle completed the starting grid for the Class A event.

Dustin McGrew won his third pole in a row in the Class B event with a lap time of 1:44.521.  Tommy Rhyne was next with a time of 1:45.233.  The remaining grid positions were occupied by; Reed Rundell, Dean Moll, Scott Husted, Jeff Thomas, John Koscielniak, James Prostell Jr, Larry Krupp, Ed Sutcliff, and Eric Porterfield.

Turner held the lead position as the field took the green flag.  He never looked back while leading every lap on his way to a 17 second margin of victory.  “I put the hammer down at the green flag”, said Turner.  “I really wanted to win this race for Gary.”

Peterson and Gantman swapped positions early in the race and it looked like Peterson had enough speed to keep Turner in his sights.  An unfortunate spin exiting Turn Five on Lap Seven ended Peterson’s hopes.  It also allowed Turner to put a lot of distance on his nearest competitor.

Peterson’s mistake dropped him all the way to 11th place, but the veteran driver put the incident behind him and climbed back into the top-10 before the race was over.

Daul saw his chances of a podium finish vanish with a spin in Turn Fourteen on Lap Two.  Jorgensen also had trouble early when he spun in Turn Seventeen on Lap Six.  Jorgensen was eventually able to make up all of the ground he’d lost, but it took all of his concentration to get it done.

McGrew continued his complete dominance of the Class B events.  Dustin led all but one lap of the race without collecting a single incident.  The drivers giving chase were not as lucky.  Unfortunately for them, McGrew took advantage of the tiniest mistakes on their part to pad his lead throughout the race.

Rundell and Moll both got past Rhyne in the early going.  Rundell managed to lead a lap when McGrew pitted, but his pit crew failed him a lap later and the veteran RSR driver exited the pits behind McGrew and Moll.

Possibly because of the concentration required in the rest of the track, the first corner turned out to be the most problematic for drivers during the event.  Porterfield, Gantman, and Peterson all succumbed to a false sense of security exiting the corner.

Turns Fourteen and Seventeen were nearly as dangerous, but wide runoffs at both locations meant drivers could survive the mistakes and escape without damage.

When the dust settled, seven drivers (Turner, Feldman, Kabela, Pawluckie, McGrew, Rhyne, and Thomas) managed to complete the race without incident.

Class A results:

Turner, Gantman, and Albertson took the podium positions.  Feldman (4th), Gildersleeve (5th), Jorgensen (6th), Peterson (7th), Daul (8th), Kabela (9th), Pawluckie (10th), Galica (11th), and Kyle (12th), completed the scoring.

Les Turner took the lead in the HPD championship battle for the first time this season with his win at Silverstone.  He leads Gantman by two points and Albertson by seven.
 
Class B results:

McGrew, Moll, and Rundell took the podium positions.  Rhyne (4th), Koscielniak (5th), Thomas (6th), Krupp (7th), Husted (8th), Sutcliff (9th), Prostell (10th), and Porterfield (11th), completed the scoring.

Dustin McGrew added to his lead in the C6R championship with his second victory in three races.  He has an eight point lead over Moll, and a nine point lead over Rhyne.

RSR drivers travel to Australia next week for the “Marsupial 30 at Phillip Island” on February 2nd, 2012.

Race Results:
https://ileaguerace.com/champ/show_event_result/Red-Sox-Racing-League/1090

League Standings:
https://ileaguerace.com/champ/show_champ/Red-Sox-Racing-League/227

League Video Site:
http://www.youtube.com/user/draftin11

Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup champion Robin Frijns will graduate to Formula Renault 3.5 with Fortec Motorsport.

The Dutchman earned a 500,000 Euro scholarship for his 2011 championship success. Frijns tested with Fortec’s outgoing FR3.5 car at Motorland Aragon during the final test of 2011.

The 2010 Formula BMW Europe champion previously sampled ISR FR3.5 machinery at Barcelona.

Frijns will partner British Formula 3 graduate Carlos Huertas to form an all-rookie line-up.

Fortec has already taken delivery of one new car, chassis number two, which has been assigned to Colombian Huertas.

Fortec team manager Jamie Dye said: “We’re running two rookies again as we did in 2011. We can offer a lot to new drivers to help them challenge the second year drivers, some of whom are also running with teams the size of Carlin.

“This year Carlin are going to have two rookies as well, so it is going to be more of an even playing field, but we’ve still got our eye on a few other experienced people out there.

“We know can beat them, and we will beat them, we just need to get that extra gear up, that’s all. We need to try and do our best developing this new car so we really start at the front and then continue from there.”

Fortec scored race wins last year with Alexander Rossi, the American finishing as top rookie and third overall in the standings.

McLaren has dismissed speculation that it is considering a tie-up with Craig Pollock’s PURE engine company in the future.

The Woking-based team has been the subject of rumours for months that it could opt to change engine partners when Formula 1 switches to V6-turbo power-units from 2014.

Although the team said last November that it was fully focused on ensuring future success with Mercedes-Benz, amid rumours linking it with Honda at the time, that has not stopped a number of reports in recent days suggesting that Pure is now being considered.

Pollock, who was best known as Jacques Villeneuve’s manager, has set up a new engine company to provide customer engines from the start of 2014 and is currently on the look-out for teams to join up with.

McLaren has made it clear, however, that there were no negotiations with Pure – and suggested that the option was not going to be pursued.

“McLaren has had absolutely no contact with PURE for many months,” said a McLaren spokesman. “Moreover, the contact we did have with PURE, many months ago, was of an entirely informal nature, and was merely a courtesy gesture.”

Last November, McLaren’s managing director Jonathan Neale had to dismiss reports that the outfit was trying to lure Honda back into F1.

“That is all wide of the mark,” said Neale about the Honda speculation. “We are very happy with and enjoying our partnership with Mercedes-Benz. We are not quite sure where that story came from in truth.

“But I can stop the rumour and say that we are entirely focused on our Mercedes-Benz relationship. It is a long one spanning many wins and championships and long may it continue.”

McLaren’s current engine deal is understood to run until the end of 2015.

Rubens Barrichello got his first taste of an Indycar at Sebring on Monday as the Brazilian began his two-day test programme with KV Racing.

The F1 veteran, whose last hope of racing in Formula 1 this year was dashed when Williams opted to sign Bruno Senna instead, took up the invite to try out an Indycar after conversations with close friend Tony Kanaan.

Barrichello has no commitments beyond this week’s outing, but told a Brazilian newspaper over the weekend that a switch to the category could be a possibility.

“I’ve always wanted to test an Indycar. I love speed so it’s natural to want to try this,” Barrichello was quoted as saying by O Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper. “As I have no contract with anyone there’s nothing to stop me from testing it.

“I’m going into this test with my mind wide open. If I leave with the passion I have always had as a driver then why not? I love racing.”

The Sebring test, which is held on the 1.7-mile short course configuration, will feature a number of IndyCar teams as they continue getting to grips with the new Dallara DW12 chassis.

Wilson, Negri, Pew and Allmendinger celebrate their victory in the Golden Anniversary edition of the Rolex 24 at Daytona.

Congratulations to iRacers AJ Allmendinger, John Pew and Justin Wilson who, together with Mike Shank Racing co-driver Oswaldo Negri, captured the 2012 Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona in their Ford-Riley.  Allmendinger took the lead for the final time on Lap 692 and led the final 69 laps of the 50th running of the race to take the win 5.198s ahead of the second place finisher – also a Ford-Riley – piloted by Ryan Dalziel, Lucas Lohr, Allan McNish, Alex Popow and Miguel Potolicchio.   A third Ford-Riley, driven by Jorge Goncalvez, Michael McDowell, Felipe Nasr and Gustavo Yacaman finished on the lead lap in third place to give veteran team owner Shank two cars on the victory podium.

Photo: Dave Moulthrop

AJ Allmendinger believes that he produced the best drive of his life to anchor Michael Shank Racing to victory at the Daytona 24 Hours.

The NASCAR regular, who shared his Riley-Ford with Justin Wilson, Oswaldo Negri Jr and John Pew at the 50th anniversary running of the Florida enduro, was in contention for the win throughout the race.

Allmendinger drove the final three hours of the race under constant pressure from Ryan Dalziel’s pole-sitting Starworks Riley-Ford as the gap between the pair fluctuated between three and 11 seconds due to a combination of traffic and caution periods.

Afterwards he also praised the ingenuity of team boss Shank – for whom he has driven at the past seven Daytona 24-Hour races – for changing the race strategy to ensure he drove the final stint.

“Mike [team boss Shank] changed the driver line-up, said I was going to be in the car last, and gave me seven, eight hours to rest while Ozz and Justin had to do all the work in the middle of the night into the morning.

“I knew that every lap I had to just drive my butt off, every single lap. And I honestly feel like – I never try to give myself a ton of credit, but I feel like that’s some of the best three hours of driving I’ve ever done in my life, just every lap.

“Whether it was being aggressive, whether it was trying to dodge GT traffic, I felt like that might be some of the best three hours of driving I’ve ever had in my life.”

His co-driver Oswaldo Negri Jr was seen visibly shaking while sat in the Shank pit area during the final few hours of the race. He said that the passing laps put a massive mental strain on his shoulders.

“Watching and waiting at the end were the hardest two and a half hours of my life,” the Brazilian, who will drive the car with Pew in the remainder of the Grand-Am season, said.

“It was awesome when I was in the car, but once I got out, I couldn’t take it – I don’t know how my wife can do it. It was just fine running a triple stint with [Allan] McNish breathing down my neck.

“But then watch AJ do it was so hard – I don’t have the heart to do that.”

British Touring Car racer Lea Wood is aiming for regular points finishes after acquiring the ex-Andrew Jordan Vauxhall Vectra for this season.

Wood drove Team Wood Racing’s Honda Integra in selected races last year. The ageing and ballasted car struggled in the dry, but Wood was able to finish seventh in the wet first race at Oulton Park.

He will now campaign the Vectra taken to sixth in the standings by Jordan, who also won the second Donington Park race in the turbocharged Eurotech-run machine.

“Moving up to that car will hopefully mean we’ll be a bit more competitive,” said Wood. “We’re aiming for regular top 10s.”

Wood will run an upgraded version of the Swindon-built NGTC engine.

“There’s am update for it, so the engine should be strong,” he added.

The squad hopes to start testing the car in the next couple of weeks.

Eurotech confirmed at the end of last season it will run new NGTC-specification Honda Civics in 2012.