Bob Barnard Track Engineering

So, did Sir Frank get up this morning and decide that Adam was below Parr, just when the team looks like regaining some form? Patrick Head has left the team to go run the flywheel hybrid system development, and Sir Frank was supposedly stepping aside with Adam the heir apparent. Now he has gone, with all the usual bumf about "pursuing other interests" and "spending more time with the family." We all know what that all means, and it's effective immediately, don't bother to collect your things we will send them on. 

What surprised me was the lack of comment from F1 observers, just reprinting the press releases. No surmising what happened? One scenario is of course Adam and Frank just fell out, but over what, the family silver? I have a much more devious thought, Adam got a better offer, but what could be better than running an F1 team? Running the sport. David Cameron was brought in, apparently by CVC, to run Allsport after Patrick McNally retired, and was being seen as the logical successor to Bernie. But not to be, he left a few weeks ago. Is it just my suspicious mind that just when Bernie wants to float F1, and the lack of succession is seen as a problem by some, that the only man to have overseen a public flotation in F1 is now on the market?

I did turn on the Indycar race yesterday afternoon out of professional interest, and I have to agree with Allan McNish's comment that the 2012 cars look like overgrown karts. Never mind the ugly noses in F1, these are ugly. Why leave the front wheels unprotected if you are worried about interlocking wheels? Let's shroud them as well, and then we will be back to the streamlined Mercedes F1 car of the 50's.

Just when you thought the British courts had settled the Force India/Caterham IP rights case, think again. The judge did dismiss most of the case, but notably found that some small parts of the first Caterham, then Team Lotus, did originate from the wind tunnel Force India used. So now Force India is saying to the FIA, the guys that fined McLaren $100m for possibly infringing Ferrari's IP rights, that Caterham should suffer a similar fate. This is all getting nasty. Hopefully this time the FIA will tell Mallya to get over it, but VJ is pretty desperate these days.

If my French is correct, very doubtful, Concorde means agreement, peace and all that. Bernie announced yesterday to the world that he has Concorde with "most" of the F1 Teams for beyond 2012, i.e. after the current peace agreement runs out. Of course it is not a peace agreement, it is a way to divide up the spoils of the rape and pillage of promoters. Bernie names Ferrari and Red Bull as expected, and McLaren, which was not. Joe Saward suggests McLaren are just trying to outlast Bernie, which some of us may not get to see on Bernie's current form.

So, now Bernie has most of what he needs to float all or part of F1. Again Joe Saward suggests that the lack of a clear successor to Bernie would put off investors, but I think greed wins every time over common sense.

Meanwhile, out on track in the real world, McLaren are beating Red Bull and Ferrari, and everyone else as they did in Melbourne. An interesting few sessions with different teams being fast at different times, so hard to tell who was doing what. In the end McLaren are fastest, but looked very nervous at the back end under braking with Lewis losing it in Q1. Mercedes look fast, with the car suiting Michael a bit more than Nico it seems. Lotus have speed and it will be interesting to see what Kimi can do from his five grid place penalty, could be fun. You can't help thinking Jenson will have the measure of Lewis over a race distance, but let's see, if Lewis can win the start he might just drive away. There again Michael might just drive the pair of them into the pit wall. 

There have to be some disappointed teams. Caterham looked like they made the jump to the mid-field, but now we are racing they are stuck back with Marussia and HRT, with Petrov giving Kovalainen a hard time, and Force India seems to have lost some of the "force." Williams with Maldanado continue to surprise, but Senna is doing an imitation of his Brazillian mate Massa. Ferrari are probably the most disappointed. Massa managed to get his new for Malaysia chassis within 0.3 seconds of Alonso at the end, but for most of the time he was up to a second off the pace. He cannot be long for this seat. 

Sauber are a bit of a mystery. At one point they are among the fastest, and then off the pace. Low fuel runs?

Let us hope for a dry race as I think it will be a good one. Vettel said that using the hard tire to set fast time was not a strategy for the race, and he may be right, there is not much between the compounds and some cars were quicker on the supposedly slower tire, but as he can presumably run longer than those around him on the grid he just may have made the winning move.

Elsewhere Stoner continues to be fastest in MotoGP testing, but we also have a CRT machine getting in amongst the prototypes, so maybe they will not be a complete waste of time.

Indycar kicks off in St Pete if anybody cares.

Ferrari are to give Massa a new chassis for this weekend's Malaysian F1 GP to see if it is him that is the problem, or the car. There are no shortage of opinions on who should take his place at Ferrari, so I guess most of us have made up our minds already. Perez, Trulli and Sutil are three named this morning, and there has to be others like Bianchi who could step in. Given the form of Vergne and Ricciardo in their first race for Toro Rosso it could be a good idea to give a young turk a go. Alonso is not going to be around for ever. 

Martin Whitmarsh says he his happy Lewis was so annoyed after the Melbourne race, and so he should be. I think I told you the story of my mistake on congratulating Wayne Rainey on a good second place at Assen, and receiving an ear full of abuse. Champions never, ever, want to lose.

The stories continue to come out about floating F1, and Singapore seems to be the favored stock exchange. Bernie has looked at Britain and the US before, but it seems they want a bit too much information about your business for Bernie's taste. Ferrari and Red Bull are not denying they are doing a special deal, and one commentator suggested that Bernie's recent opinion about letting new teams use old cars from the top teams could be targeting filling the grid if teams like McLaren don't want to play anymore. It was also suggested that some teams, like McLaren, have other revenue streams, so sitting out for a few years from F1 would not be the end of the world. 

Well the racing season kicked off with a marathon. F1 practice in the middle of the night Friday and Saturday, Sebring all day Saturday, and the F1 race at 2 am Sunday. Thank goodness Sunday was quiet.

Thankfully it was all worth watching. The F1 race threw up a few surprises after qualifying. McLaren looked like they would run away with it, 0.7 seconds a lap quicker than the Red Bulls who recovered from some poor practice sessions, as we knew they would. Jensen basically did, jumping Lewis at the start, and apparently both cars fueled light in anticipation of cruising to the win. Not sure what went on with Lewis unless he was conserving fuel. I can understand him not catching Jensen, but he seemed to be able to manage the gap to Vettel until the safety car deal. I know good athletes make their own luck, but Vettel sure seems to get more than his fair share. Still, I expected Lewis to go back past as the McLaren was faster in top speed anyway, and with DRS you would expect him to blow past. Not to be, struggled to stay in front of Webber and not at all happy with third.

A lot of drivers would have been, Grosjean for one, and Maldanado after a very strong drive in the Williams which looked good. Not sure what happened to Senna who could not produce the same performance. Ferrari, well Alonso, recovered from a disastrous qualifying to show that the Ferrari still seems to have trouble getting heat into the tires. I expected Montezemolo to have fired them all overnight Saturday. Let's see what Malaysia brings. Massa had another shocker, how long are they going to put up with him, and who is there to replace him? 

Great to see Kimi fighting back after mistakes in qualifying, but presumably they don't have blue flags in rallying or NASCAR. Force India were disappointing after last year and what seemed to be a good test season. HRT. What can you say? Please just go away. Marussia at least qualified, but that's the best you can say, and Caterham must be disappointed after also looking like they made a big step in pre-season. Ricciardo and Vergne acquitted themselves well and well fought Daniel after a fraught start. 

Sauber are about where they were last year, which is not so bad, and it would have been interesting if Michael's Mercedes had not broken so early. Strange how Rosberg was off the pace. The F-Duct is still creating some controversy, but on this showing is not doing a a lot for the Mercedes.

A good entertaining race though, even if Button was not really challenged, and he already seems to be the teams focus for the Championship judging by Whitmarsh's comments. On to Malaysia, and watch out if McLaren put enough fuel in the cars this time.

Much angst in the paddock apparently over the reported special deals done with Ferrari and Red Bull. My assumption that Bernie is planning to float F1 seems to be at the center of this as to float he has to secure the major assets. Why this does not include McLaren and Mercedes I don't know, unless Ron is too much of a straight shooter to agree to a deal that shuts out the rest of the teams. We all know Ferrari have done this before, and Red Bull is all about money. Mutterings of the other teams taking their bat and ball home if this is true.

Sebring produced an interesting race, even with the Audis obviously going to win and duly did. GT's put on their predictable great show, with the Ferraris being fast and fragile, and the local BMWs still capable of producing the goods. The LMP1 HPDs kept the Audis honest though, a good showing for brand new cars. The Dyson Lola was never in the hunt and the ALMS season will have to be all about the GTs on this showing, Muscle Milk will have it all their own way. Still early days. Way too many cars out there this year, we could have done without the LMPC and GTC cars to get in everyone's way. The early story was the FIA/ACO were not going to allow non-WEC cars at Sebring, and that is the word for next year. I can't see Don and the boys being happy with that. It would be nice to see some money spent on the track before then.

Who would have thought! It rained in Melbourne, spoiling the fun and stopping us from seeing who is really fast. Mercedes looked good in both sessions, with the morning drying out enough to see some respectable times and Button fastest. It was really a story of who was out last to set a time as the track improved. Star of the day was Kobayashi who had a massive spin coming out of the last corner and managed to keep it off the walls, although Ricciardo managed the same thing at the Turn 11-12 complex with a bit more room available. Daniel did a lot of laps and put in some good times.

A lot of the big guns like Hamilton chose to do very few laps, and Vettel said he did not like his car today and was well down the order. The fact that Glock in the Marrussia was mid-field this afternoon tells you what was going on. Poor Pedro de la Rosa did one sighting lap all day in his HRT, while Karthikeyan did a few more, but the best that can be said is that the paint job looks better. Inside the 107%? I would think not, and I don't think they expect to race.

The Lotus boys did few laps, Kimi not liking his power steering, but throwing in a couple of decent laps at the end. Not sure what is going on at Ferrari.

Anyway, McLaren looked pretty confident that they have a good car and did not need to run much, and don't count out Red Bull. Mercedes said they were not running their new F-Duct, but there are photos of it. It is a hole in the rear wing end plate that is uncovered when the top element opens during the DRS deployment, allowing air into the rear wing mainplane which is then dispersed to stall the wing further. Ross says it is not a big gain on the DRS alone, but every little bit is gold in today's restricted rule book.

There is chatter about big news on the commercial side of F1, with a major announcement due soon. Joe Saward thinks it is that Ferrari and Red Bull have stolen a jump on their mates and done a deal with Bernie. This leaves the rest picking up the crumbs, divide and conquer. Pit Pass was hinting at something far more radical and comprehensive, a game changer for the future. Is Bernie going to try floating F1 again?

Over at Sebring the night practice saw a crash fest with the session extended due to so many red flags. Let's hope the race does not go this way. The Audis, despite being involved with two of the cars, still top the time sheets, with the Muscle Milk HPD and the Brabham driven JRM sister car next, but a few seconds off the pace of Kristensen. The Dyson Lola is surprisingly well down the order. In GTE Joey Hand snuck his ALMS BMW in front of the Bruni 458 Ferrari, and the two Corvettes, but you could throw a blanket over them on time. Should be fun. Qualifying today at 3:15 pm EDT.