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The new Ferrari team principal Marco Mattiacci thought the F1 job was a joke.

The Italian attends his first Grand Prix as a team principal in China this week-end.

"I live in New York and I received a call at 5.58 on Friday morning. The chairman, Luc di Montezemolo, was on the phone and he told me, 'this is my idea'," explains Marco Mattiacci in Autosport.

"I told him that April Fool's had been about 15 days earlier. But then, after the second or third minute of discussions, I understood that it was serious. And I understood that as there was already a ticket ready to go from New York to Milan after three hours. I arrived Saturday morning in Maranello at the Fiorano track," adds the Ferrari team principal.

Before travelling to Shanghai, Marco Mattiacci only spent two days with Stefano Domenicali to get up to speed with the position.

"Stefano is a great person. He is a friend of mine. On Saturday we spent a few hours, and Monday we spent the entire day together. Stefano is a person who I have the utmost respect as a human being and secondly as a professional, so it was natural to discuss the roles," reveals the Italian.

Marco Mattiacci with Kimi Raikkonen in Shanghai. (Photo: WRi2)

A lot of people underlined that Mattiacci was wearing sunglasses in Shanghai, while the weather was gloomy during the two sessions.

"If you do in less than four days almost 40 hours of flights, and you don't sleep in the last four days, then probably you need sunglasses," Marco Mattiacci commented.

From GMM

Pastor Maldonado has hit out at the new 'penalty points' system that could see him having to serve a race ban later in 2014.

After just the opening three grands prix of the season, the Venezuelan already has three 'demerit points' against his F1 super license.

Jules Bianchi, meanwhile, has four.

"I'm not sure if anyone will reach the full 12 but after three races, having four, then he should reach it very soon," Adrian Sutil said in China.

The most serious incident involving Lotus' Maldonado this year was in Bahrain, where contact with Esteban Gutierrez caused the Mexican to roll over.

But he also made a fundamental - and bizarre - mistake in Shanghai practice, when he took his eyes off the track and simply drove off it in a corner.

Pastor Maldonado, Lotus E22-Renault, in Bahrain. (Photo: WRi2)

"I think it's a good system. It puts some conscience on ourselves to not do wrong moves and to respect each other and to race in a fair way," Esteban Gutierrez, referring to penalty points, said in Shanghai.

Pastor Maldonado, however, insists the Bahrain crash was simply "a normal race contact", and so he is critical of the new penalty system.

"We need to avoid the incident but at the same time (with penalty points) you cannot race," he told reporters on Thursday.

"We are racers and we are always risking. If you are competing, you need to take chances. So maybe they need to be slightly more flexible. That's my opinion."

Gutierrez is quoted by Brazil's Totalrace as suggesting the biggest problem with Maldonado is that he does not seem to be learning from his mistakes.

"It is pointless to discuss the television images, because they are clear," he said. "That's the problem: it seems that Pastor is not recognising his mistakes, he sees things only from his side and I don't think that's right."

Maldonado, however, insisted the Bahrain rollover made the "light knock" appear more dramatic due to the new mandatory low noses on the cars this year.

"With the new noses, when we touched, the car took off. So for the spectator it was quite shocking," he is quoted by Brazil's Globo.

"I think the punishment was related to the magnitude of what we saw, not the contact itself," Pastor Maldonado added.

From GMM

Honda's F1 boss on Friday said the Japanese marque will not supply any customer teams when it returns to the sport next year.

Speaking in Shanghai ahead of the Chinese grand prix, Yasuhisa Arai confirmed that Honda - having pulled out of F1 at the end of 2008 - was enticed back to the grid for 2015 mainly due to the new 'green' regulations.

"The new regulation encourages each power unit supplier to pursue the ultimate combustion efficiency and high pressure direct injections, and many, many new technologies," he said.

Arai said that technology can then be applied on the mass production side for road cars: "That's the reason why (Honda is returning)," he told reporters.

So far, Honda has only said it will be McLaren's works supplier in 2015.

McLaren MP4-29-Mercedes. (Photo: WRi2)

But Mercedes equips its own works team as well as three customers, Ferrari has the same model and two customers, while four F1 teams are powered by Renault.

"For year 2015, McLaren is our only customer," said Arai. "I don't think about the future, because we want to concentrate on next season."

He hinted, however, that it would make financial sense to begin selling the turbo V6 units to customer teams at a later date.

"Of course we want to have good results next season," said Arai, "(as if to say) 'Please choose our power unit for next season'.

"If teams want to use our engine or power unit, we can deliver after year 2016, but right now there are no plans," he added.

Arai said Honda's European F1 headquarters, at Milton Keynes in the UK, will be ready by June.

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