Vitaly Petrov not setting targets for himself ahead of F1 season with Caterham

Vitaly Petrov sees no point in setting targets for himself and Caterham this year - and instead thinks the most important thing right now is simply in getting to understand the team better.

"At the moment I don't want to talk about high levels, or what team we will pass – what is more important in this moment is to understand what we want," he said.

"I want to improve with this team, go step-by-step in front – not to win but to close the gap in front of the team. And what we need is to work for 24 hours [each day].

"I know this year they will have bigger factory, have more people, have some technology – and [manufacture] carbon fibre themselves – so the team is moving in the right direction little-by-little.

"So we don't need to hurry up to take the first points until the end of the year. We need to continue to work the same, like we started here and they started before – but perhaps a little push more now."

Petrov's biggest problem on his first day in the Caterham was getting his tall frame comfortable in the cockpit – with the Russian only having done his seat-fitting last Friday.

"It was a normal first day when you want to understand the car, what brakes you use, and how they work," he said. "It was a positive day – and what is important is that they understand what I like and I what I want to have on my car in the future, so they can keep that in mind.

"Tomorrow is another day and we will start to work with the set-up. The steering position was right, but there was only a short time to make the seat, and they did maximum they could do [in that time].

"I am comfortable mostly, but my left hand side and legs are not comfortable - so today I continue to work with the seat and tomorrow I hope it will be easier to drive."

Valtteri Bottas reckons he can give Williams what it wants on race weekends after his first run in new Formula 1 car

Sergio Perez urges Sauber to keep developing promising C31

Sergio Perez says Sauber has good reason to optimistic for the opening races of 2012 after labelling the new C31 as a good starting point to work from this season.

The Mexican, who impressed on his debut at Melbourne nearly a year ago by finishing seventh on the road, was second fastest overall after two days of testing at Barcelona and ended Wednesday just 0.040s slower than the best time - set by Force India's Nico Hulkenberg.

"I think we are optimistic of course," said Perez afterwards. "It's a good starting point for us, but we must develop our car from now to Melbourne – we have to find performance because most of the other teams will too.

"It is really important to push the maximum to try to get the performance before Melbourne which will make the difference now. I believe that we are now in a good position, but everything could change when we get to Melbourne."

Perez said the team plans to bring more developments to the final test at the end of next week and added that he believed there was more time to come from the car through set-up work.

The Ferrari Academy driver also revealed that he felt in a far better shape approaching his second season than he had in his rookie year.

"Physically I am a lot fitter than last year as a starting point, so I have done a very good training during the winter," he said. "Mentally with my engineers the communication is a lot better too, so I am very well prepared for this season and I am looking forward.

"[Circuit knowledge] will help a lot. It's not just knowing the circuits, but being used to the complete race weekends. I already have the information from last year now; what happened in that race weekend, how conditions are change, what we have to change – so I can guide the team a lot more than I could last year. In that side it's how experience counts."

Lewis Hamilton optimistic McLaren will fight at the front in Australia

Lewis Hamilton is optimistic McLaren has the pace to fight at the front in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix when the season kicks off next month.

The McLaren driver admitted the feeling this year was completely different to the 2011 pre-season, when the team struggled with its car.

"Last year I think I struggled to do 30 laps. I think we struggled to do 10 laps without the exhaust failing," Hamilton said at the end of the day.

"So to do a whole day and to do 120 laps, I can't remember last time I did that many laps. Definitely we feel in a much more comfortable place and confident that we can be at the front fighting with the guys at the top."

The Briton suggested, however, that Red Bull may still have the edge after him and Sebastian Vettel completed a race simulation at the same time during today's session.

"I was just focusing on my job. I think we were out at similar times during the runs," Hamilton said of his race simulation.

"I was always on used tyres and I think he started with new tyres in the second couple of stints, but generally he looked very, very competitive, perhaps a little bit faster than us.

"But again, we don't know what fuels loads they are on and it's much too early to say. But when he was behind me his car looked like it was handling quite well."

Hamilton said he had been surprised by how strong his car was on the high-speed corners of the Barcelona circuit, and is hopeful future upgrades will make it even better.

"It's actually been quite a surprise that the car has been behaving really well high-speed corners," he said. "I think the baseline of our car is better than last year's and the characteristics of the car is that it's better in high speed.

"We have made some changes to enable that compared to the last test, but it's been performing better in Turn 3 and in Turn 9 than I expected. At some stage we will have some upgrades and it will be even better through the high-speed corners."

The British driver will return to action at the start of the month for the final test before the first race, and he conceded he could not wait to go racing.

"I love the last test. That's usually when the car is at its best and when you get a really good feel of where the car will be when we get to the first race.

"The last one is always exciting because you know the next time you get in the car it will be the first race in Australia, and that's a fantastic feeling. I can't believe we are so close."

Alonso concedes Ferrari not the quickest car, but says it's too early to judge

Fernando Alonso has conceded that Ferrari may not be heading into the new season with the quickest car - but he still thinks it is too early to judge where the F2012 stands in the pecking order right now.

Alonso is not being too downbeat about the situation though - and thinks it more important that Ferrari keeps trying to get a better understanding of where it can improve the F2012.

"It is true that we keep getting information about the car, information that sometimes we should already have in our pocket, but the car seems quite complex to understand and we need to keep understanding better what is the behaviour," said Alonso, who has now completed his two days of running for Ferrari at Barcelona.

"I remember last year in the first tests we did a race distance on the final day and we were 1.5 seconds behind Red Bull in Australia. So a race distance is always welcome, but I prefer to have a performing car and to find reliability, than to have a strong car that is slow."

When asked by AUTOSPORT if he felt there was potential in the car for it to be fighting for victory in Australia, Alonso said: "We [will] see. I think it is too early to say.

"Definitely our targets are very ambitious. It is normal for Ferrari; you always try to win straight away the first race of the championship if you want to be a contender, so that was the target over the winter.

"At the moment we don't know exactly where we are. I think maybe we are not the fastest but definitely we are not the slowest – so we need to wait and see, especially in the final test. With hotter temperatures in Australia etc we will see how the cars work and in Q3 there is the time to see where you in Melbourne.

"Red Bull seems competitive. That is not a surprise, as they have continuity in the last two or three years with that car, so it is difficult to get it wrong completely.

"They will be always there, so McLaren/Ferrari they need to invent something and be a bit more creative to beat Red Bull, and that is what both teams did. McLaren and Ferrari, they chose different solutions, different philosophies maybe and maybe more complex, but the result we will see in Melbourne and more importantly in November."

Alonso also played down trackside observations that the new Ferrari did not appear as well-balanced on the Barcelona turns as other cars – although admitted it was lacking in the way it exited from corners.

"From the driver point of view, it always feels loose the car, you always want more and more grip. I don't know [about] the others, but when you drive the car you think the others are having the same problem.

"If you say the others don't have the same problems then that will be a problem, but it is difficult in a test to understand what the others are doing and watching the others it is always difficult.

"Sometimes we put a very old set of tyres on and do constant speeds, and in the corners you are extremely slow. At the same time another car is running with new tyres and a short run of fuel and they fly in the corners. So from the outside it is difficult to see. But it is one area we need to improve: [the] exit of corners is one area where we are struggling, yes."

Tom Blomqvist joins McLaren's Driver Development Programme

British driver Tom Blomqvist has joined McLaren's Driver Development Programme, the British squad said on Wednesday.

McLaren's programme also includes Dutch karting racer Nyck De Vries and British F3 runner-up Kevin Magnussen.

"I'm thrilled to get this opportunity with McLaren," said Blomqvist. "The competition gets fiercer every time you step up a category, and having this level of support will really improve my strength and confidence."

The British driver finished in sixth place in the German F3 series last year after scoring one win and four podiums.

"Tom is rightly considered to be a very bright prospect in single-seater racing, as demonstrated by his presence in the shortlist of finalists for the 2011 McLaren AUTOSPORT BRDC Award, the ultimate accolade for young drivers and a programme which McLaren has had the pleasure of supporting for more than two decades," said team boss Martin Whitmarsh.

"Tom is also now a member of the McLaren Young Driver Programme. On-track results are the ultimate measurements of a driver's merit, and in this regard Tom is already delivering on his potential.

"As a winner of the Formula Renault Championship, he's following in the footsteps of Lewis Hamilton, who passed this career milestone just three years before graduating to Formula 1 with Vodafone McLaren Mercedes. We're therefore watching Tom's progress with great interest."

Nico Hulkenberg puts Force India on top on day two of F1 testing at Barcelona

Nico Hulkenberg's morning efforts were enough to ensure Force India topped the second day of pre-season testing.

Fernando Alonso in the F2012 was one of the rare movers, as a late 1m23.180s - set in the final 30 minutes - moved Ferrari up to fourth, ahead of Daniel Ricciardo in the Toro Rosso.

The Australian was not able to register a lap until the final minutes of the afternoon, when he banged in two mid-1m25s.

Valtteri Bottas and Charles Pic were the only other drivers to ostensibly improve – the Finn registering a 1m25.738s and the Frenchman a 1m27.343s. Neither improved in the order however, staying eighth and tenth respectively.

There was still plenty to be learned though, not least from the fact that Red Bull and McLaren were both able to complete almost full race simulations runs - a useful indicator that they are fairly comfortable with their 2012 challengers.

Red Bull's performance was in stark contrast to the morning, where it managed just 31 laps, the least of any team. In the afternoon it completed a 67-lap run broken only by pitstops, with Vettel switching between tyre compounds throughout.

His run coincided with Hamilton's, with the pair at one point the only two on track and separated by less than a second – Vettel eventually working his way past after spending several laps tucked up behind the MP4-27.

Hamilton ended the day with 121 laps completed, one of five drivers – Vettel, Nico Hulkenberg, Bottas and Pic the other four – to break into triple figures.

It was Hulkenberg who ended the day on top however courtesy of a late lap in the morning session, set on Pirelli's super soft compounds.

Sergio Perez, who finished just four hundredths of a second down the road, and Ricciardo also set their best times on the red-painted rubber.

Vettel's afternoon runs married with strong pace in the morning, with the German setting the pace until Hulkenberg and Perez's late runs.

He ended the day third fastest, ahead of Alonso, Ricciardo and Hamilton.

Nico Rosberg was the last driver to get within two seconds of Hulkenberg as he got to grips with Mercedes W03 for the first time in public.

Bottas, Petrov and Pic rounded out the day's order, with Lotus deciding to abandon the test after discovering chassis problems on the opening day.

Today's times:

Pos  Driver         Team            Time                Laps
 1.  Hulkenberg     Force India     1m22.608s           112
 2.  Perez          Sauber          1m22.648s  +0.040   85
 3.  Vettel         Red Bull        1m22.891s  +0.283   104
 4.  Alonso         Ferrari         1m23.180s  +0.572   87
 5.  Ricciardo      Toro Rosso      1m23.639s  +1.031   48
 6.  Hamilton       McLaren         1m23.806s  +1.198   121
 7.  Rosberg        Mercedes        1m24.555s  +1.947   82
 8.  Bottas         Williams        1m25.738s  +3.130   117
 9.  Petrov         Caterham        1m26.605s  +3.997   69
10.  Pic            Marussia        1m27.343s  +4.735   108

Force India's Robert Fernley says Formula 1 costs still too high

Formula 1 must do much more to bring down costs in the future, says Force India's deputy team principal Robert Fernley, if the sport is to remain sustainable.

"From a personal point of view, I think the cost base of F1 is still wrong," Fernley told AUTOSPORT. "You need to bring it down.

"I believe very strongly that when you cannot make profit based on your television income and your sponsorship income, then there is something wrong with the sport, and I still believe that is the case today. Our costs are too high."

F1 teams currently share between them 50 percent of the commercial rights income - and are seeking to increase that to up to 70 percent under the new Concorde Agreement.

Should they be even that successful, which is unlikely, Fernley does not think it will ease the financial burden that many teams on the grid are facing at the moment.

"Even if you increased the income from the CRH it would still leave a deficit, and you would still need support," he said.

"I would say today the average team is spending between 80 and 100 million dollars as a small team – and the FOM income will nowhere near cover that. So you have to have the commercial income top up and then make a profit."

Last year, AUTOSPORT estimated that world champions Red Bull Racing earned $93.1 million from commercial rights income for its title success – which is almost less than it spent in capturing both titles.

Fernley said he hoped discussions about a new Concorde Agreement would start in the next few weeks, and that the process would be smoother than last time – when teams briefly agreed to a breakaway series for 2010.

"If we can collectively sit down with [F1 owners] CVC and Bernie [Ecclestone], that is always going to be win/win," he said. "It should be a programme that benefits all."

Campos Racing confirms 2012 line-up for Auto GP World Series

Campos Racing has signed Max Snegirev and Giuseppe Cipriani to race in the 2012 Auto GP World Series.

Russian Snegirev and Italian Cipriani will join Argentinean Facu Regalia, who had already been announced earlier this year.

Snegirev, 24, tested for the team at Estoril this week and moves to Auto GP from Formula 2.

Cipriani, 46, will be racing in the series for the second year, having competed with Durango in 2011.

"Lookingat the drivers chosen by Adrian Campos I'm really pleased to see such a varied line-up, both in terms of experience and provenance," said series boss Enzo Coloni.

"When we opted for an intercontinental calendar we wanted to further improve the international trait of our World Series, and having Argentina, Russia and Italy represented in just one team is something we are really happy with."

Nico Hulkenberg sets the pace in second morning of F1 testing at Barcelona

Nico Hulkenberg put Force India on top of the timesheets on the second morning of pre-season testing at Barcelona, setting the fastest time of the week so far at the Catalan circuit.

Hulkenberg had been near the front for the majority of the session, but he moved well clear in the final 30 minutes when he switched to Pirelli's super soft compound and clocked a 1m22.608s.

Sauber's Sergio Perez - who had likewise run at the sharp end of the field and then elected to try the super softs - got to within four hundredths of Hulkenberg's best, but couldn't do enough to displace him.

For much of the morning it had been Hulkenberg's compatriot and reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel who had set the pace, with the Red Bull RB8 proving especially strong in the final two sectors.

At one stage Vettel was more than 1.3s clear of the field as he repeatedly lowered his benchmark, eventually dropping down to a 1m23.056s - more than two tenths faster than he managed yesterday.

Hulkenberg and Perez both closed on his benchmark as the lunchtime interlude approached, before usurping him when they switched to the red-marked Pirelli compound.

Vettel did manage a late rally, getting to within three tenths of Hulkenberg in the final five minutes while using the soft compound. He completed the fewest laps of any driver however, managing just 31 – less than half Hulkenberg's total.

Fourth was claimed by Daniel Ricciardo, who also set his best time – a 1m23.639s – on super softs.

The Australian's late lap demoted Fernando Alonso to fifth, the Spaniard just one thousandth of a second down the road. Alonso had been the pace-setter with a string of mid 1m24s in the opening hour, before Vettel and then Hulkenberg took charge at the top.

Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg were the last two drivers to get within two seconds of Hulkenberg – Hamilton finishing 1.4s down and Rosberg a further half a second down the road.

Hamilton set his fastest time early on in the morning, after which he completed only four flying laps.

Rosberg meanwhile completed several long runs in his first public day in the Mercedes W03, including an 18-lap run with an average of 1m27.208s at the session's close.

Valtteri Bottas, who will participate in 15 Friday practices for Williams this year, put the FW34 eighth ahead of Vitaly Petrov's Caterham and Charles Pic in the 2011-spec Marussia.

Petrov's first day in the Caterham included work on his seating position and cockpit set-up, but he still managed 36 laps with a best of 1m26.605s.

Morning times:

Pos  Driver         Team            Time               Laps
 1.  Hulkenberg     Force India     1m22.608s           63
 2.  Perez          Sauber          1m22.648s  +0.040   51
 3.  Vettel         Red Bull        1m22.891s  +0.283   31
 4.  Ricciardo      Toro Rosso      1m23.639s  +1.031   45
 5.  Alonso         Ferrari         1m23.640s  +1.032   52
 6.  Hamilton       McLaren         1m24.040s  +1.432   45
 7.  Rosberg        Mercedes        1m24.555s  +1.947   75
 8.  Bottas         Williams        1m25.858s  +3.250   69
 9.  Petrov         Caterham        1m26.605s  +3.997   36
10.  Pic            Marussia        1m28.092s  +5.484   47

All timing unofficial