Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Unusually for Melbourne the weather has been the same for the last three days, cool and grey, if not downright cold for late summer. It did not slow Vettel down though and we must hope he cannot repeat this in the race or it will be him and daylight. Lewis vows to take the race to him, but he needs to find something extra to do that, but who knows what role the tires are going to have on race day. McLaren really performed a minor miracle to put themselves second and fourth, splitting the Red Bulls, with poor old Mark Webber wondering how his team mate can be that much quicker.

Lots of drivers reported KERS problems during practice, and the strangest thing is the report that Vettel did not use it, despite being under last years pole time. So much for slowing the cars down, but I guess they have the DRS, or movable wing, to use everywhere during qualifying. Rumor has it that Red Bull have a very small and light KERS system that is charged in the garage and only used during the start launch. Are they that confident that as long as they are not jumped at the start they are so fast they can stay in front? If the rumor is true obviously they are, but you have to ask why carry any extra weight and added cost and complication for just the start?

Heidfeld in the Renault is one of those that said his missing Q2 was down to no KERS and being balked by traffic, but given the testing form that is really surprising, especially as his young team mate is sixth just behind Alonso in the Ferrari who looked to be driving the wheels of it to even be there. Massa had an awful qualifying and you have to wonder is this the end? His head has obviously been messed with by Alonso and the team and despite all Rob Smedley's encouragement he has just lost it, spinning on his last run as he exited the pits, even Chandook made it to Turn Three.

Thank goodness the HRT cars have been excluded under the 107% rule. I don't care how hard the mechanics worked to get two cars out there, they are slower than GP2 cars and do not deserve to be there. At ten or eleven seconds a lap slower than Vettel they would be lapped every eight laps, and the closing speed is frightening. Colin Kolles says that they will be "even better" in Malaysia. Hard to see how they could be much worse. Can you imagine the cost of transporting the cars and team around the world, and for what?

Virgin and Lotus just snuck in but are six seconds off Vettel's pace which for Lotus must be a huge disappointment. As my Wife said, perhaps they need to concentrate on the car and not court cases over names. The midfield will be tight with a second covering eighth to seventeenth. Perez disappointed in Q2 as he has been quick all weekend, but Kobayashi put his Sauber in ninth with a display of uncontrolled aggression that had you wondering if he could keep it off the wall.

In all an interesting session, and Mercedes are expecting a better showing in the race with Michael missing out on Q3 and out qualified by Rosberg yet again.

Elsewhere Checa took WSBK pole again from Leon Haslam. It's time the BMW had some reward for their investment so this may be their best chance with Leon on home soil and Checa not having the best record at Donnington.

Well done Montoya for taking pole at Fontana, let's see if he can convert that into a speedway win. Congratulations to the Marc VDS squad for winning the first race of the FIA GT1 championship in the Ford GT. Always had a soft spot for that car from the GT40 days. Will Power is leading practice at St Petersburg Indycar race, but ask me if I care. Champion Franchitti is last, but you cannot imagine he is going to stay there.

There is a great saying in Australia to describe a stupid situation, "All we need is a tent and elephants and we would have a circus." This is what F1 has been called, and is well on the way to being a real one. More "F1 Figures" have come out in favor of sprinklers. Let's think about this. The reason rain effected races are interesting is usually the unpredictability of it, look at Spa. Now if it becomes "predictable" that Bernie is going to turn the taps on sometime in the race do you not think the geniuses in F1 teams will work out how to make it all "predictable" again?

Good old Luca di Montezemolo has sounded off again about the current F1 rules. Steering wheels like "martians." You have to love him. He gets my vote for being the next Ringmaster of the circus, but he probably has his eyes on a bigger tent.

Not to be outdone Indycar has some ideas of its own to spice up the show. Guest drivers for the last race did not even rate a comment from me, but I have seen what happens when you start distorting races with offers of large amounts of prize money and it is usually a demolition derby. You had better hope the Championship is not being decided at that race with a bunch of ring-ins out there having their own race and "devil take the hindmost." Now we are to split the Texas race into two races for double the fun. We all know people watch the start and the finish, so now they have to tune in twice. But just for real fun let's just pick grid spots out of a hat. Why waste time on qualifying at any races? It would be greener, especially if you used recycled paper.

Very good news on Sir Jackie, we need his common sense around for a while yet.

Well it is better than Indy Retirement League. Actually it works well, most people know what an Indycar is in the US, not sure anyone knew what a "Champ Car" was. Indycar has woken up from it's winter slumber with a raft of rule changes which will just make it harder for us to understand what is going on, but of course it is for the fans. Engines are the news as in F1, with efficiency being the watchword. The move from V8's to V6's makes sense as most road cars here are running V6's, but to reduce the capacity from 2.4 to 2.2 liter hardly seems worthwhile. Who makes a 2.2 liter? And did 0.2 liters really make it lighter and more efficient? We are still running E85 even though the case for ethanol being "green" has long since been discredited, but I guess if they get sponsorship from Iowa's corn farmers it makes sense. Oh, and we opened an office in LA, just so we can be closer to the media industry. Just what we need is more Hollywood in our racing. If you have a great product they will come to you, it's about the racing stupid.

Christian Horner is assuring us that Red Bull did not break the Resource Agreement, but FOTA are checking anyway. Domenicali said "that he was sure that all the signatories to the agreement would have respected it, although there are always questions of interpretation to be taken into account." I bet there are. That's the problem. Not that I agree with this BS anyway. No one questions Bernie's resources or how much is spent on the tracks and their viability, so why bother with the teams? If a team has broken the Resource rule it seems the recourse is to take that out of future spending, ouch! But is it only a gentleman's agreement or does it have teeth? That always presumes there are gentlemen involved. Domenicali also commented on how quiet the politics were at the moment, but with the new Concorde Agreement yet to be signed there is the dreaded (or welcomed) breakaway series apparently still hanging around , which is there to get a better deal presumably. Domenicali also questioned whether the movable rear wing is going to be better or not, and as I have said, are the fans going to know who is doing what and why.

It turns out that Kimi is going rallying with his own team, Ice 1 Racing, with a Citroen DS3 and his own sponsors. He has run his own team before in F3, so he is no stranger to doing it.

The Nextgen Auto web site has an article with more on our friendly banker Gribkowsky. "It has emerged that the German magazine Stern in its latest edition on Thursday will link the payments to Gribkowsky with a company called Petara — a word made up from the names of Ecclestone’s daughters Petra and Tamara. It is claimed that Gribkowsky’s company GG Consulting was registered on 22 February 2006, a day after he was made a director of Petara." Now is that a stretch linking Petara to Bernie's daughters names? Watch this space.

Norbert Haug has no sympathy for Red Bull complaining about their Renault engine being down on power and wanting "equalization." F1 is not about equalization he says. Here here.