F1 2011

Barhain saltato

Red Bull design chief Adrian Newey turned down an attempt by Ferrari to persuade him to join the Italian team.

Ferrari approached the 52-year-old, regarded as the best design engineer in Formula 1, last year.

But they did not get as far as offering him a job because Newey made it clear he was not interested in leaving Red Bull to move to Italy.

Newey, 52, is understood to have since extended his contract with Red Bull for at least another three years.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said: "It's understandable why any team in F1 would be interested in Adrian but he is very much enjoying life at Red Bull and I'm sure he'll be here for years to come."

Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali said in an interview with Italy's Gazzetta dello Sport on Thursday: "Of course, Adrian is one of the best, if not the best, in F1.


Ferrari and Alonso spend much of last year chasing Red Bull

"We joke a lot about the possibility [of him joining Ferrari] but I have the impression he is happy in England and that he will stay at Red Bull."

BBC Sport understands that Ferrari phoned Newey twice in 2010 with a view to exploring whether he was interested in a move to Maranello.

But the conversations, while amiable, did not even get as far as discussing how much Ferrari might be prepared to pay Newey as salary.

It is not unusual for F1 teams to approach drivers or members of another team with a view to sounding them out about their future and staff regularly move from team to team.

Ferrari last year employed two key members of rival top teams - McLaren chief engineer Pat Fry, who is now Ferrari's deputy technical director and chief of race track engineering, and Red Bull's head of strategy Neil Martin, who now heads up a new department at Ferrari called operations research.

Newey joined Red Bull in 2006, when they were running in the midfield, on a salary reputed to be $10m, which is more than most F1 drivers earn.

Since then, the team have structured their engineering department around him and the result has been the quickest car in F1 for the last two seasons.

Red Bull fell short of the title in 2009 but last year won both the drivers' and constructors' titles after an intense year-long battle with Ferrari and McLaren.

Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel became world champion after overhauling Ferrari's Fernando Alonso at the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi.

The German won the race and took the title by four points after a strategic error by Ferrari left the Spaniard stranded down the field. Alonso eventually finished the race seventh.

It made Newey the first man in history to have led the design on title-winning cars for three different teams.

Newey's break into F1 came with the Lleyton House team in the late-1980s and after impressing rivals with his cars there he joined Williams in 1990.

The team went on to dominate much of the 1990s, winning four constructors' and three drivers' titles while Newey was still with the team, and another double in 1997 after he left Williams in December 1996 with much of the design of the car finished.

After spending six months on 'gardening leave', Newey's arrival at McLaren, in August 1997, transformed the team into a major force after years of struggling to regain its winning form of the 1980s and early 1990s.

The team won two consecutive drivers' titles with Mika Hakkinen in 1998-99 and the constructors' in 1998.

But although they came close in 2003 and 2005, they did not win another until Newey left to join Red Bull.

Newey is renowned in F1 for his ability to understand exactly what is needed to make a racing car fast, and is said to have an intuitive feel for the critical airflow around a car.

Ferrari, who dominated F1 in the first half of the 'noughties', have been racing cars designed by Newey for more than 20 years and appear to have come to the conclusion that it might be easier to win with him than against him.

For the foreseeable future at least, though, they will have to be resigned to him being their competition.

In an interview with F1 Racing magazine earlier this year, Newey said: "I'm very happy at Red Bull. It's flattering if people rate the work I do but that's not why I get out of bed in the morning. I do it because I enjoy the design challenge of F1.

"I've had offers from Ferrari in the past and I've considered them seriously. But F1 is a people sport, not a marque sport.

"Working for Ferrari just for the sake of working for Ferrari isn't something that I'm interested in."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/9431539.stm

finalmente si parte
orari del cazzo ma vabè


First free practice results - 2011 Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix

Pos Pilota Team Tempo Giri
1. Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m26.831s + 20
2. Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m27.158s + 0.327 19
3. Alonso Ferrari 1m27.749s + 0.918 20
4. Rosberg Mercedes 1m28.152s + 1.321 16
5. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1m28.430s + 1.599 24
6. Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m28.440s + 1.609 29
7. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1m28.483s + 1.652 26
8. Schumacher Mercedes 1m28.690s + 1.859 14
9. Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1m28.725s + 1.894 13
10. Petrov Renault 1m28.765s + 1.93 15
11. Massa Ferrari 1m28.842s + 2.011 20
12. Heidfeld Renault 1m28.928s + 2.097 14
13. Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1m29.314s + 2.483 19
14. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m29.328s + 2.497 21
15. Maldonado Williams-Cosworth 1m29.403s + 2.572 24
16. Ricciardo Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m29.468s + 2.637 23
17. Perez Sauber-Ferrari 1m29.643s + 2.812 18
18. Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1m31.002s + 4.171 20
19. Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth 1m32.428s + 5.597 13
20. d'Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth 1m35.282s + 8.451 17
21. Glock Virgin-Cosworth 1m35.289s + 8.458 15
22. Chandhok Lotus-Cosworth 1:30.695 + 4.894 1
23. Liuzzi HRT-Cosworth no time
24. Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth no time


Second free practice results - 2011 Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix

Pos Pilota Team Tempo Giri
1. Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m25.854s 32
2. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1m25.986s + 0.132 31
3. Alonso Ferrari 1m26.001s + 0.147 28
4. Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m26.014s + 0.160 35
5. Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m26.283s + 0.429 33
6. Schumacher Mercedes 1m26.590s + 0.736 31
7. Massa Ferrari 1m26.789s + 0.935 34
8. Perez Sauber-Ferrari 1m27.101s + 1.247 39
9. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1m27.280s + 1.426 34
10. Rosberg Mercedes 1m27.448s + 1.594 23
11. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m27.525s + 1.671 31
12. Petrov Renault 1m27.528s + 1.674 29
13. Heidfeld Renault 1m27.536s + 1.682 22
14. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m27.697s + 1.843 30
15. Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1m28.095s + 2.241 35
16. di Resta Force India-Mercedes 1m28.376s + 2.522 33
17. Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1m28.583s + 2.729 31
18. Maldonado Williams-Cosworth 1m29.386s + 3.532 29
19. Kovalainen Lotus-Renault 1m30.829s + 4.975 22
20. Trulli Lotus-Renault 1m30.912s + 5.058 23
21. D'Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth 1m32.106s + 6.252 36
22. Glock Virgin-Cosworth 1m32.135s + 6.281 30
23. Liuzzi HRT-Cosworth No time 1

sky la dà?

mi sembra di no

stanotte a che ora sono le qualifiche?

Sebastian

Orari?

alle 8 mi pare

Alle 8 dell'ora legale?