BLOOMINGTON, Minn. — The next team found guilty of using confidential information illegally obtained from another team will be thrown out of the championship. That was the threat handed down by FIA president Max Mosley in an interview with F-1’s official Web site F1.com.
“You can never stop what someone has got in his head, but we can stop the transfer of information in written or electronic form,” he said. “You cannot do it without leaving traces, and we will find those traces.
“Next time, whoever it was, I don’t think they would stay in the championship. In the case of McLaren, everybody said ‘oh, a hundred million dollars,’ but the alternative would have been to exclude them — and that would have been more expensive!”

• The third qualifying session on Grand Prix weekends will be shortened from 20 to 10 minutes to eliminate the eco unfriendly sounding “fuel burning” laps.

• Force India will unveil its new car in Mumbai, India, Feb. 7. The car’s first track test will be in Barcelona Feb. 25.

• Ferrari and McLaren Mercedes set the pace at the Valencia test last week. Felipe Massa went quickest on day one, Heikki Kovalainen on day two and Kimi Raikkonen on day three.
The new Williams was impressive, beating all but McLaren and Ferrari. BMW Sauber, meanwhile, was not all that quick, and the drivers said the car’s balance needs to be improved.
Fernando Alonso slotted the new Renault into sixth place on the two days he tested with the rest of the teams, all of which were there except Super Aguri.

• Some 35,000 fans turned out to watch local hero Fernando Alonso in action at Valencia. “It was nice to see the support of the fans here today,” he said, “and that is always a big motivation.”

• Disgraced Ferrari man Nigel Stepney says he was not to blame for the spy scandal that slammed the McLaren team last year.
“I don’t feel responsible in any way at all for what happened at McLaren,” Stepney said in an interview with SKY TV in England. “My ideas were to make contact with somebody but not to benefit. It was to talk about and see what I could do somewhere else.”
Stepney had 780 pages of confidential Ferrari data in his possession that eventually found their way into the hands of McLaren’s Mike Coughlan.
“Someone used information more than I thought,” Stepney said. “It should never have been used to that extreme.”

• Fired by Ferrari, Nigel Stepney has been hired as the Director of Race Technologies at Gigawave, a position that will cover all areas of the company’s involvement in motor sports, including the continual development of its on-board camera systems that are used in major race series worldwide.

• Lewis Hamilton says he will have no excuses if he is not successful this season.
“Last year the only excuse was that I was a rookie and that it was all new,” he said. “But this year I’ll continue to learn so, sure, there will always be mistakes but I don’t feel there is any room for error.”

• Kimi Raikkonen plans to finish out his F-1 career at Ferrari.
“I do not see any reason to leave here,” he told the Spanish newspaper Marca. “I still have two years left of my contract, but in any case I believe that whatever happens, this will be my last team.”

• Jacques Villeneuve, Sr., brother of Gilles and uncle of Jacques, has been released from hospital where he underwent surgery for breaking his pelvis and a spinal injury after crashing in a snowmobile race in Wisconsin.

• Team Williams celebrates its 30th anniversary in F-1 this year. The car will feature a different livery at each of the six pre-season tests to commemorate landmarks in the team history. At the FW30’s track debut at Valenica last week the car carried thank you messages to its fans, sponsors and team members.
The names of  everyone of the current 519 employees were on the car as well as the 85 major sponsors who have backed the team since 1978.

• The license plate registration “F-1” in England sold for a record 375,000 pounds ($742,611) plus tax to a private businessman. The registration number dates back to 1904, the first year cars in Britain had to have license plates.

• Fernando Alonso is settling in well after his return to Renault.
“I feel very much at ease with the team and every day I feel more and more comfortable with the car,” he said.

• Dietrich Mateschitz has denied the latest round of rumors that Scuderia Toro Rosso is for sale.

• Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya will undergo a number of safety updates to the track’s runoff and barrier areas.