It was Vettel’s sixth pole of the season, the 12th of his career.

Red Bull Team principal Christian Horner hailed the team’s 11th pole in 12 races as “our most dominant qualifying of the year” and it’s easy to see why; the margin back to Fernando Alonso in third place was 1.2 seconds, with 7/10ths of that coming in the middle sector alone. This is all about downforce and balance and the Red Bull is more or less perfect, something you cannot often say about a racing car.

Vettel needs a good start tomorrow, after some difficult getaways recently. Budapest has the third longest run down to Turn 1 of all the circuits on the calendar, so there will be some concerns for him and it represents probably the only chance for his competitors.

Alonso, who outqualified Felipe Massa by 4/10ths of a second, said that “the start, the first corner, the first lap will be 60% of the race” given how difficult it is to overtake. But he promised to try to “make life more difficult for the Red Bulls” than he has been able to do so far this weekend.

Russia’s Vitaly Petrov did an outstanding job in the Renault to outqualify Robert Kubica for the first time this season. But Lewis Hamilton defied predictions that he would be behind the Renaults, hoisting his car to fifth place.

“Red Bull is impossible to beat,” said Hamilton. “I pulled every inch out of the car and I’m happy with the job I did. ”

Team principal Martin Whitmarsh has been making references this weekend to his car being “the fastest of the fixed wing cars”, but Horner has invited him to formally protest the Red Bull if he felt he wanted to make his point

In the first part of qualifying Kamui Kobayashi was eliminated along with the new teams, after losing time behind one of the Hispania cars. He aborted the lap and on his way into the pits missed a compulsory weight check. He was punished with a five place grid drop.

But it was noticeable that Virgin was able to carry through on its promise from practice, where the team was ahead of Lotus.

In qualifying Timo Glock was 1/10th ahead of of Heikki Kovalainen. Virgin brought a significant upgrade in Silverstone and two smaller ones since then, including a rear wing update this weekend.

In Q2 there were some big names eliminated and some outstanding performances from others. Rosberg did a fantastic job to get the Mercedes up to 5th, while team mate Michael Schumacher was down in 14th place. It was a very graphic illustration of the problems he is having on his comeback. But Rosberg’s performance argues against the car being the problem.

Renault’s Vitaly Petrov was fourth in Q2, ahead of Robert Kubica, while Nico Hulkenberg made the top ten, outqualifying his team mate Rubens Barrichello. Jenson Button missed the cut in 11th place, unable to find the grip. Sauber’s Pedro de la Rosa again pulled out a strong lap to get into the top ten.

” I couldn’t find a balance on the car,” said Button. “I was happy with the car this morning, but this afternoon I couldn’t find the grip. Not a great session, but I’m on the clean side and I have a new set of tyres, so hopefully I can fight from there.”

Q3 was a relatively straight forward affair; as in Germany, Vettel had the edge and Webber couldn’t get it together to challenge him, In the first runs in Q3, Vettel was four tenths ahead of Webber, with Alonso 1.2 seconds adrift.

Webber’s second lap was 3/10ths slower than his first lap and although Vettel didn’t improve either, both of his Q3 laps were easily good enough to take pole position.

“It was a very good day for us, ” said Vettel. “Mark and myself were pushing hard to finish 1st and 2nd. I said to the mechanics ‘This is your moment, you built this wonderful car,’ because it really is a pleasure to drive. Traditionally this is a difficult circuit the cars are nervous, but the track suits our car.”

Renault’s drivers did only one run in Q3, Kubica made a mistake on his first lap and didn’t recover, allowing Petrov through to outqualify him.

Although Vettel cannot take the championship lead tomorrow, he can take a big bite out of Hamilton’s lead. If Vettel wins and Hamilton finishes best of the rest behind the Red Bulls and Ferraris, then the lead will be down to single figures, with Red Bull clearly well ahead on performance of McLaren as the summer shut down starts.

With eight races to go, what it will take now is for one of the Red Bull drivers to put a run together if they are to win the championship. After coming through the dramas of Istanbul and Silverstone, Vettel now looks the most likely to do this and a win tomorrow could prove to be the start of a championship charge. But if Webber gets him off the start line again, as he did in Silverstone….

HUNGARIAN GRAND PRIX QUALIFYING, Hungaroring

1. Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1:20.417 1:19.573 1:18.773
2. Webber Red Bull-Renault 1:21.132 1:19.531 1:19.184
3. Alonso Ferrari 1:21.278 1:20.237 1:19.987
4. Massa Ferrari 1:21.299 1:20.857 1:20.331
5. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:21.455 1:20.877 1:20.499
6. Rosberg Mercedes 1:21.212 1:20.811 1:21.082
7. Petrov Renault 1:21.558 1:20.797 1:21.229
8. Kubica Renault 1:21.159 1:20.867 1:21.328
9. de la Rosa Sauber-Ferrari 1:21.891 1:21.273 1:21.411
10. Hulkenberg Williams-Cosworth 1:21.598 1:21.275 1:21.710
11. Button McLaren-Mercedes 1:21.422 1:21.292
12. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1:21.478 1:21.331
13. Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1:22.080 1:21.517
14. Schumacher Mercedes 1:21.840 1:21.630
15. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:21.982 1:21.897
16. Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 1:21.789 1:21.927
17. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:21.978 1:21.998
18. Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1:22.222
19. Glock Virgin-Cosworth 1:24.050
20. Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth 1:24.120
21. Trulli Lotus-Cosworth 1:24.199
22. di Grassi Virgin-Cosworth 1:25.118
23. Senna HRT-Cosworth 1:26.391
24. Yamamoto HRT-Cosworth 1:26.453

Sebastian Vettel topped the times in both sessions, with a 1m 20.0 lap in the afternoon, but it was the margin of his fastest time over the next car which caught the attention. Fernando Alonso was half a second slower than Vettel in the afternoon, with Felipe Massa another three tenths behind.

Photo: Mark Thompson, Getty

Alonso said that he is suffering from understeer and is hopeful that if he can dial it out he can compete with the Red Bulls, but it’s quite a mountain to climb. Alonso has always been very strong on the Hungaroring and he will need to dig deep to make the difference in qualifying and the race.

Renault looked the third fastest car today, ahead of the McLaren, both in headline lap times and in long run times. Vitaly Petrov was fifth fastest and able to lap steadily in the mid 1m 25s showing strong race pace and when he is up there it means that the car must be quick, as Kubica sometimes outperforms the car to gain high positions, for example in Monaco this year.

McLaren were 0.6s behind in Germany in both qualifying and the race, but this weekend it looks more like a second at the moment. The team is still working to optimise its exhaust blown diffuser, in which it is a month behind Ferrari and over six months behind Red Bull, both of whom are producing a lot of downforce and balancing it front and rear successfully.

The sheer brilliance of the work Red Bull and Ferrari have done is shown by a comment from Lewis Hamilton after practice,

“The car is the best I’ve ever had it around this track, and that’s still not good enough,” Hamilton said. “It feels great around the corners, and then you start to push more to try and close the gap to these guys, and then the car starts to be really on the ragged edge. But I think it’s just downforce.”

HUNGARIAN GRAND PRIX, Free Practice 2
1. Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1:20.087 33
2. Alonso Ferrari 1:20.584 + 0.497 34
3. Webber Red Bull-Renault 1:20.597 + 0.510 36
4. Massa Ferrari 1:20.986 + 0.899 33
5. Petrov Renault 1:21.195 + 1.108 33
6. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:21.308 + 1.221 30
7. Kubica Renault 1:21.375 + 1.288 37
8. Hulkenberg Williams-Cosworth 1:21.623 + 1.536 41
9. Button McLaren-Mercedes 1:21.730 + 1.643 33
10. Schumacher Mercedes 1:21.773 + 1.686 31
11. de la Rosa Sauber-Ferrari 1:21.809 + 1.722 38
12. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1:21.844 + 1.757 36
13. Rosberg Mercedes 1:22.039 + 1.952 28
14. Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1:22.212 + 2.125 37
15. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:22.469 + 2.382 43
16. Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1:22.507 + 2.420 22
17. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:22.602 + 2.515 38
18. Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 1:23.138 + 3.051 36
19. Trulli Lotus-Cosworth 1:24.553 + 4.466 37
20. Glock Virgin-Cosworth 1:25.376 + 5.289 35
21. di Grassi Virgin-Cosworth 1:25.669 + 5.582 32
22. Senna HRT-Cosworth 1:26.745 + 6.658 33
23. Yamamoto HRT-Cosworth 1:26.798 + 6.711 32
24. Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth 1:27.705 + 7.618 5

The two widely different tyres behaved far better than expected, leaving few tactical options to the teams, while Ferrari were more competitive than many had expected and were the centre of attention. They took a one-two finish, but not in the same order in which they ran for most of the race.

Ferrari: Mechanism to prove who's faster (Darren Heath)

But what was the mechanism by which this crucial decision was taken?

If it had been agreed before the race that Alonso was the driver Ferrari wished to take maximum points from the race, then there would have been an arrangement in place to switch the cars around if Massa found himself ahead. It doesn’t appear to be the case here and anyway I doubt whether Massa would have agreed to that.

However he would have agreed to a system for establishing who is the faster driver. It seems that there was an agreement in place about the size of lead and a mechanism for showing who is faster, as a basis for Ferrari to make a decision. This may be a legacy of incidents earlier in the season, such as Australia, where Alonso was held up by Massa and the team took no action.

Judging from the messages to Massa from his engineer Rob Smedley, it seems that the notion of a three second lead was important, Smedley pointed out to Massa that he had three seconds in hand over his team mate at one point and described that as important.

But Alonso soon ate into that lead, getting it down to below a second, which was his way of proving that he was faster. Faced with Massa’s inability to match the pace and having lost the three second lead, the team had the evidence it needed to tell Massa that Alonso was faster than him, which was clearly the agreed etiquette.

I’ve been researching this a bit over the last few days and this kind of arrangement is quite common within teams. There has to be some way for teams to assess which driver is faster on the day and if the driver who is following can prove that he can close up a gap then it shows that he is faster.

This tipped the balance in Alonso’s favour in Germany.

We saw it last year in Germany when Jenson Button was behind Rubens Barrichello and Ross Brawn radioed the Brazilian to say that they were losing time to Rosberg and that if Barrichello couldn’t keep the pace up then he “should let Jenson have a go”.

So it was last weekend; with a threat from Vettel in third place and mindful of the championship situation, Ferrari formed its decision.

On a wider theme, the much discussed three step gap between the super soft and hard tyres didn’t create the tactical variations many had hoped for. Both tyres were just too good and a repeat of the chaos of the Montreal race was never on the cards from the early practice sessions onwards.

Hockenheim is a track which improves quickly once some rubber goes down and despite the rain over the weekend, it rubbered in and this meant that the supersoft lasted well in the opening stages of the race.

This caught out Mark Webber, who pitted on lap 15 and lost a place to Jenson Button, who pitted on lap 24. Webber had done a run on Friday on supersoft, where he had quite a lot of graining and this might have spooked him a bit into deciding not to run too long on that tyre in the race, even though he knew he was racing Button, who was likely to run longer.

Conversely it was another example of Button’s smooth driving style giving him the ability to make a set of option tyres last longer than his opposition. He did the same in Silverstone where he gained two places by staying out longer. Here he jumped Webber and picked up a vital position.

Button was helped in this by the new tyre pace on the hard, which wasn’t great. Although the track temperature of 25 degrees meant that the hard tyre didn’t struggle to warm up, neither did the new tyres give an injection of pace, so a well managed set of used supersofts was still faster than a new set of hards. The situation was tailor made for Button.

The experiment of the three step gap revealed that the four tyres in the Bridgestone range are too close together to make much of a difference. What made Montreal so enthralling was that both tyres were suffering from high degradation.

Photo: Darren Heath

Engineers estimate from this photo that the deflection on the Red Bull wing is 24mm, which is pretty impressive. The tests the FIA carry out in scrutineering allow a maximum of 10mm deflection at the endplates when a force of 500 Newtons is applied, which is around 50kg of downforce.

McLaren for comparison (Darren Heath)

So what is the advantage of having this flexing characteristic? Well running the end plates closer to the ground gives extra downforce and this is particularly useful in high speed corners to balance out the extra downforce you get from the blown diffuser when the throttle is on and exhaust gases are passing through the diffuser. With this device the Red Bull car has well balanced downforce front to rear and so is a stable car through high speed corners.

Ferrari for comparison (Darren Heath)

It seems to help more when the car is on the edge in qualifying than when it is loaded up with 160kg of fuel for the race and this is one of the reasons why Red Bull has enjoyed the speed advantage on Saturdays. However Ferrari has a similar thing going on with its front wing and this along with the optimisation of the blown diffuser they first introduced three races ago, is the reason why Ferrari are right on Red Bull’s pace. The cars are now performing in quite a similar way.

The wing has passed all the deflection tests and has been declared legal by the FIA scrutineers, but there were grumblings from other teams and even suggestions that the car might be protested after the race, but this did not happen.

McLaren wing for comparison (Darren Heath)

So it looks like the legal “flexi wing” is the latest innovation from this highly creative team, which others will set out to copy.

For more on Darren Heath’s work go to Darren\'s Website

Another angle (Darren Heath)

Mercedes wing for comparison (Darren Heath)

This is nonsense. Yes, it is a serious situation because they violated a rule which says that team orders are banned. And we should be in no doubt, despite the denials of Alonso that team orders were invoked here. But you have to look at the wider picture and acknowledge that it is a question of degree and that some common sense needs to be applied when sorting this matter out.

No-one was left in any doubt about what was happening by the tone and language of the message to Felipe Massa, nor by his subsequent yielding of the lead to Alonso. It is clear that Ferrari have a case to answer in terms of breaking a rule. They have been fined $100,000 by the stewards in Hockenheim, but further sanctions may follow from the WMSC.

People will of course point to the irony of FIA president Jean Todt presiding over this, given that it was his team order to Rubens Barrichello in 2002 which led to the introduction of the rule. But Todt has separated his position from the disciplinary procedure of the FIA, part of his distinction from the previous regime of Max Mosley. So he will not be sitting in judgement on this one. But that doesn’t mean he can’t be a force for change once the case has been heard. Because change is needed here.

The outcry back in 2002 was against the cynicism of the decision to give the win to Schumacher when he had been outclassed by Barrichello all weekend. It was very early in the season and Schumacher was already well clear in the points in an unbeatable car.

This situation is different on many counts. leaving aside the rule specifically banning team orders for a second, the championship is well advanced and it is closely fought. Ferrari feel aggrieved that they are at least 30 points worse off with Alonso than they should have been, largely due to some stewards decisions which have gone against them, rightly or wrongly. Massa too has lost points, but hasn’t been on the kind of form Alonso’s been on, so the Spaniard is clearly the one to go for the title, if Ferrari can only get him in the game.

He was faster than Massa all weekend and qualified in front of him, but then lost the start to the Brazilian and then couldn’t get ahead of him in the pit stops. If Ferrari had wanted to do a subtle switch, a slightly delayed pit stop for Massa would have done the trick. A second or two is all that it would have needed.

A big part of the problem here is the way it was handled, with Rob Smedley being given the task of giving his driver the bad news. It should have been Stefano Domenicali, the team boss, or Chris Dyer, the senior engineer. Smedley’s close relationship with Massa meant that he would inevitably struggle to deliver the message impartially and when he felt obliged afterwards to apologise – “Good lad, keep it going, sorry” – it sealed the conviction in our minds that this was a team order.

Eddie Irvine, who has been on the receiving end of a few “move over” orders in his time, said last night that he felt Smedley and Massa had overblown it to make a point and in doing so had let the team down. It has certainly landed them in hot water.

But the wider question is, should F1 have this rule banning team orders, should teams be able to act in the interests of the championship and are moves like this acceptable in some situations?

Think back to 2007, when Massa moved over in Brazil to let Raikkonen win the championship or the following year when the roles were reversed – did anyone object then? No, so that means that fans can understand there are occasions when teams do need some mechanism for shuffling the order, it’s just a question of the circumstances.

Given this, much of the hype in the media today is just that. It’s not race fixing and it’s not even in the same league as the Renault fix in Singapore with Nelson Piquet (which was ironically also to benefit Alonso).

There is a case to answer before the WMSC, but I would like to see the FIA take this opportunity to review the team orders rule and I would like to see FOTA stand behind Ferrari and come up with some proposals as to how this rule can best be adapted to work in the best interests of teams and of fans in modern F1.

It’s all very well for Christian Horner to say that he lets his drivers race, but come Brazil or Abu Dhabi when, for example, Hamilton is leading the championship and Vettel has a chance of beating him, if only his team mate, who’s well behind on points lets him through, are you telling me that he won’t make the switch? Of course he will and Webber will know before the start of the race what the score is.

People would expect it and understand it. The problem comes when it’s considered too early in the season. Perhaps the rule should be that there can be no team orders until the final third of the championship? That would be a simple solution.

But to reinforce the rule that team orders are banned full stop, would be a terrible mistake. It would create yet another artificiality, which would be more damaging to the sport in the long run.

Please send in your suggestions for how the FIA should handle the hearing and what changes if any should be brought in to the team orders rule. As always I will forward any that I feel have some merit on to the teams and to the FIA.

Unlike Red Bull and McLaren, Ferrari has been obliged to copy both of the key technical innovations of the 2010 season; the F Duct rear wing and the blown diffuser. McLaren invented the former and Red Bull the latter so both have had half the work to do compared to Ferrari in overall incorporation of new tech.

Ferrari worked first on the F Duct and got bogged down with it, then the blown diffuser was introduced later. The signs were clear in Montreal that Ferrari had taken a step forward and then in Valencia they introduced the blown diffuser. In Silverstone the step in performance was confirmed with Alonso being barely a tenth off the Red Bulls through practice and the early part of qualifying, but at Hockenheim it all came together and Fernando Alonso qualified on the front row, with Massa just behind. In the race, Ferrari had better race pace than Red Bull, indicating that they are contenders for the second half of the season.

Ferrari updates get them in the game
Hockenheim was the third outing of the blown diffuser introduced in Valencia and detailed changes to the exhausts and floor optimised the solution together with a refinement of the F-duct system. Ferrari have modified the side channels of their diffuser. This one now sports a wider and diagonal opening compared to the standard perpendicular one seen in Valencia when the solution was introduced the first time.

Ferrari also had a step on the front wing, which improved the overall downforce and stablity of the car, leading both drivers to talk of greatly improved grip and driveability. Another big step from Ferrari is due at the Belgian Grand Prix at the end of August, where heavily revised back end aerodynamics will be brought out.

Mercedes rear wing
Mercedes, for its home race brought an array of small developments, the main one being to the rear wing main profile, now featuring two big slits in its central section, to increase the efficiency of this element producing a slightly increased downforce load. The main feature is a double large opening, placed in the middle section of the main profile, mimicking the effect of an additional flap. This solution helps in terms of increasing the downforce load generated by the wing. Mercedes do not have the full active F Duct system operated by the drivers, as used by its rivals, they have a more passive system. It was useful in Germany, although the car is still short of the pace of its rivals and will be even more useful in Hungary.

McLaren blown diffuser
McLaren ran the blown diffuser all weekend in Germany, although their deficit to Ferrari and Red Bull in qualifying and at the end of the race indicates that there is still work to be done to optimise it. In Silverstone they removed it after Friday practice because it was overheating components in the rear suspension and the on-off nature of the exhaust gas pressure, combined with the bumps in the Silverstone track was causing instability.

In Germany they introduced modifications to reduce the overheating problems and now the exhaust pipes are in a more external position , sporting a diagonal cut instead of the perpendicular one adopted previously. This is still a work in progress and McLaren now need to add the next step in performance to stay with the Red Bulls and Ferraris.

Although the message was coded it was unmistakeably a team order, which are banned in F1. The team will also know that Massa’s motivation will have been torpedoed by this moment.

Alonso: Has priority at Ferrari (Darren Heath)

The 1-2 finish for Ferrari is the first since the opening race in Bahrain. The car has been on the pace since Montreal, but wasn’t able to get the results in Valencia or Silverstone, where Alonso should have been on the podium but for falling foul of the stewards. The Ferraris lapped everybody up to Kubica in 7th place.

It makes for an interesting championship situation, with the two Red Bull drivers now tied on points and now 21 points behind Hamilton, with Alonso back in the title race.

At the start, Vettel was so concerned about Alonso coming down the inside that he forgot about Felipe Massa down the outside. The Brazilian flew into the lead and Alonso tucked in behind in second place. Vettel was forced to accept third place, while Webber was passed by Hamilton for fourth place. Further back Schumacher made a great start from 11th to 8th and the two Toro Rosso cars hi5t each other Buemi losing his rear wing.

Ferrari were delighted with a 1-2 at this stage, but the wrong car was in the lead in many ways, with Massa well behind Alonso in the drivers’ championship.

The super soft tyres held up pretty well and Vettel was the first of the front runners to pit on lap 14, as the lap times were coming down impressively. Alonso and Webber pitted a lap later, with Webber rejoining in traffic and losing ground.

Massa pitted on lap 16 and rejoined ahead of Alonso, but as we have seen all season he was not as happy on the hard tyre as on the soft and he locked up consistently, but Alonso did not attack for a while.

We had another great fight between Schumacher and Kubica after the Pole’s pit stop, but he held his nerve and fought off the great champion.

Alonso soon closed up and was in a position to attack on lap 23, but Massa resisted. Alonso cam on the radio to say “This is ridiculous,” clearly feeling as he did at Indianapolis in 2007 when he followed Hamilton in the McLarens.

Button pitted late, lap 24 and he got out ahead of Mark Webber. Nico Rosberg also used the tactic of stopping a lap later and he jumped his team mate Michael Schumacher for 8th.

Massa started pulling away from Alonso and Vettel, the gap was out to 3.5 seconds by lap 28. Alonso clawed it back slowly, and by lap 35 it was down to 2 seconds, down to 1 second on lap 40. Meanwhile McLaren told Lewis Hamilton to go on a fuel saving mode in fourth place and Mark Webber was instructed to nurse the car to the finish and not challneg Button for 5th place.

On lap 50 a very reluctant sounding Rob Smedley came on the radio to tell Massa, “Fernando is faster than you,” which is code for “Let Alonso through.” He later came on and said “Sorry” to Massa, showing how hard it had been to deliver that message.

Massa obeyed and the Spaniard duly swept past to take the win. But after the race it was announced that the FIA World Motor Sport Council is to be called in to decide whether Ferrari should face further sanctions for the team orders controversy at the German Grand Prix, after the team was fined $100,000 for flouting the team orders rule. It should be remembered that the rule was brought in because of a Ferrari team order in 2002 which was very unpopular with fans.

German Grand Prix, Hockenheim, 67 Laps
1. Alonso Ferrari 1h28:38.866
2. Massa Ferrari + 4.196
3. Vettel Red Bull-Renault + 5.121
4. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes + 26.896
5. Button McLaren-Mercedes + 29.482
6. Webber Red Bull-Renault + 43.606
7. Kubica Renault + 1 lap
8. Rosberg Mercedes + 1 lap
9. Schumacher Mercedes + 1 lap
10. Petrov Renault + 1 lap
11. Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari + 1 lap
12. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth + 1 lap
13. Hulkenberg Williams-Cosworth + 1 lap
14. De la Rosa Sauber-Ferrari + 1 lap
15. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari + 1 lap
16. Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes + 2 laps
17. Sutil Force India-Mercedes + 2 laps
18. Glock Virgin-Cosworth + 3 laps
19. Senna HRT-Cosworth + 4 laps

Normally this is something teams do when they have serious cash flow problems and aren’t sure if they can make it to the end of the season. No-one suspects that this is the case with Renault, but team principal Eric Boullier has confirmed in the last 24 hours that the request was made because of a cash flow issue. He says he wants to accelerate development of the 2011 car and doesn’t have the resources at present to do so, with payments from sponsors due after the August break.

Ecclestone will advance money as long as the other teams agree unanimously and that did not happen in this case as the support wasn’t there.

Renault F1 owner Gerard Lopez

I’ve had several meetings and interviews with him since last December. His plan for Renault F1 team is not to seek to make money out of the team itself, he plans for all the money that comes in to be invested into the team and into development. But he plans to use the team as a business platform to expand his business outside of racing, working with companies who are attracted to sponsoring the team.

Lopez owns 75% of the team, with Renault corporate owning the remaining 25%. The team has an innovative business model, whereby instead of selling stickers on the car, Lopez engages companies in joint ventures, either with one of his many companies in the software, tech, solar or renewable energies sectors or with Renault itself. There are deals like this with HP computers and Lada.

Genii has recently done a Renault F1 sponsorship deal with Trina Solar, a Chinese manufacturer of solar panels, whereby they are now building hardware for six solar projects with one of Genii’s solar power companies. Lopez is also giving them an entree into the US and European markets. And through activation of their branding on the F1 car, they are able to increase brand awareness globally.

“If you go to the CMO of a major corporate and ask for £10 million for sponsorship you will have a hard time, “ says Lopez. “But if you present a 360 degree package, where he gets to increase his business via a joint venture, gets access to the Renault group of companies, he can make the sponsorship fee back as well and then double it in value through the ROI in media value from the branding on the car.”

With a billionaire owner and clearly a very active development programme going on at the Enstone factory judging by the amounts of new parts they bring to the car at each race, it seems odd that the team should be seeking an advance on its FOM money.

But there is more to this than meets the eye and it comes at a time when relations between the teams are at an interesting point. FOTA has achieved some things in the sport and was tested last summer when it stood up to then FIA president Max Mosley and refused to accept his proposed budget cap. The stand-off took F1 to the brink and FOTA even announced a breakaway series during the 2009 British Grand Prix.

They did so without having every team under the umbrella; Williams and Force India withdrew from the Association shortly before the stand-off.

Today FOTA contains all the teams, including the new teams and they have even more conflicting needs and priorities than they had then. What is important to Hispania, for example, is quite different from Ferrari or McLaren. It is tough for established teams like Williams, McLaren and Ferrari to have to accommodate ideas on shaping the future from teams who have done only ten races and may not even be around in 2011.

Indeed I’ve had several conversations with team principals lately about the Resource Restriction Agreement, which came into force instead of the Budget Cap. Devised between the teams at the low point of the credit crunch, it calls for a serious reduction in manpower and spending by the teams by the end of 2011.

Now that the economic picture, while still threatening, is at least more positive, some of the leading teams are making noises about reviewing the RRA with a view to being allowed to raise the minimum staff numbers and therefore raising budgets again.

Teams at the other end of the scale are not so keen on this idea. There are also disagreements within FOTA on KERS and testing, but so far the union holds together because all are aware that there is a major negotiation coming up with FOM and the FIA about F1 from 2013 onwards, in which the teams will be looking to raise their share of commercial revenues from 50% to more like 75% or 80%, which will be very hard for CVC, the commercial rights holders, to deal with and service the debt the business has with the banks. The teams will only have a chance to achieve a result like that if they stay together.

So Bernie Ecclestone, who keeps saying that FOTA has no place in F1, will welcome opportunities to pick off some of the teams and the more financially vulnerable members of FOTA will be relatively easy targets.

The racing has been great this year, largely unspoiled by politics. But sadly I think we are heading into another difficult period for the sport. Mosley liked F1 to do its dirty laundry in public. Let’s hope that with Jean Todt in the FIA president’s office, there will be a different approach to getting things done.

It will just be a short analysis segment from me, but the producers are looking for some fans to take part in the discussion and give their points of view and ask Eddie anything they want about the race.

If you want to take part please let me know in the comments section at the end of this post and we will pick two or three people at random. We’ll email in the morning to get a phone number and then pass that on to the producers who will call when the show is on.

If you miss out, don’t worry, we will be doing this again, probably at the Hungarian GP.

But the exciting thing was that Alonso and Ferrari had been the pace setter throughout qualifying, building on the improvement they showed in Silverstone. But on the final run, Vettel found two tenths of a second to edge out the Spaniard.

It is a huge weekend for Vettel, who needs to get a win to inject energy back into his championship campaign and get back in front of team mate Mark Webber. Vettel is seven points behind Webber and 24 – a win – behind Hamilton.

Webber wasn’t on Vettel’s level this weekend so far and qualified fourth, after making a mistake in Turn 1 on his final run. It is the first time since Bahrain that he has not started on the front row of the grid.

He qualified behind the Ferrari of Felipe Massa. That Massa was half a second slower than Alonso and yet still qualified third says a lot about the performance of Alonso, but also about how far off the pace the McLarens and Mercedes were. Button outqualified Hamilton for the first time since China. But he was six tenths slower than Vettel and Alonso in the final sector alone!

“Seven tenths behind is a little bit disappointing, ” said Button. “It was a good lap and I’m only a tenth off third. We’ve made a step forward, but not enough in qualifying, it seems.”

The morning practice had been wet, but it was fairly dry by the time qualifying started. Session one was cut short by a red flag for a large accident by Tonio Liuzzi. Coming out of the final corner, Liuzzi got up on the artificial grass, where some water was lying and the car snapped out of control, smashing into the pit wall.

Alonso set the fastest time in the first session, half a second faster than his team mate Massa, who was third behind Vettel.

Liuzzi was eliminated along with the new teams, although it was notable that Jarno Trulli’s Lotus was within a second of Jaime Alguersuari’s Toro Rosso. Also making a step was the Hispania of Bruno Senna who was only 2/10ths slower than Timo Glock in the Virgin. Di Grassi had a gearbox problem and did not take part in qualifying.

In Q2, Alonso again had the edge, but no-one was feeling very confident and all the front runners used up a set of new soft tyres for the final run in the session.

Michael Schumacher was edged out in the final seconds by the young German Nico Hulkenberg, who is managed by Schumacher’s former manager Willi Weber. Also missing out was Kobayashi, who had been very competitive in the Q1 session. Schumacher was only a few hundredths of a second slower than his team mate Nico Rosberg, but it was enough to eliminate him in front of his adoring public.

It was noticeable that Button was consistently three tenths of a second slower than Hamilton, but he was losing four tenths in final sector of the lap alone.

Having been beaten by Alonso in the first two parts of the session, Red Bull were under pressure to do what they have managed to do in the final runs of qualifying all year, which is to step up a gear, especially on the soft tyres. Vettel found the two tenths, but Ferrari’s pace has injected some real adrenalin into the second half of the championship. Now Alonso just needs to stay under the stewards’ radar tomorrow…

German Grand Prix, Hockenheim, Qualifying
1. Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1:15.152 1:14.249 1:13.791
2. Alonso Ferrari 1:14.808 1:14.081 1:13.793
3. Massa Ferrari 1:15.216 1:14.478 1:14.290
4. Webber Red Bull-Renault 1:15.334 1:14.340 1:14.347
5. Button McLaren-Mercedes 1:15.823 1:14.716 1:14.427
6. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:15.505 1:14.488 1:14.566
7. Kubica Renault 1:15.736 1:14.835 1:15.079
8. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1:16.398 1:14.698 1:15.109
09. Rosberg Mercedes 1:16.178 1:15.018 1:15.179
10. Hulkenberg Williams-Cosworth 1:16.387 1:14.943 1:15.339
11. Schumacher Mercedes 1:16.084 1:15.026
12. Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1:15.951 1:15.084
13. Petrov Renault 1:16.521 1:15.307
14. Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1:16.220 1:15.467
15. de la Rosa Sauber-Ferrari 1:16.450 1:15.550
16. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:16.664 1:15.588
17. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:16.029 1:15.974
18. Trulli Lotus-Cosworth 1:17.583
19. Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth 1:18.300
20. Glock Virgin-Cosworth 1:18.343
21. Senna HRT-Cosworth 1:18.592
22. Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 1:18.952
23. Yamamoto HRT-Cosworth 1:19.844
24. di Grassi Virgin-Cosworth No Time (Gearbox)