Bob Barnard Track Engineering

The Malaysian F1 Lottery has been run and won by Alonso in the Ferrari. Hats off to him and the team for that result, but as one commentator said, they rolled the dice and it came up double six. Not my preferred way of deciding a motor race, and yes I know strategy plays its part, but this is a contest between men and machines, not weather forecasters. Team mate Massa, for how much longer is the question, had another dreadful race and finished 97 seconds behind Alonso, despite his new car. Young Ferrari driver and a nominee to replace Massa, Sergio Perez, drove the race of his life to finish second in the Ferrari powered Sauber. Who knows what he might have done if it were not for the suspicious radio message that "we need this place" when running second. In my view this was a message from their engine supplier running in front of him.

It is interesting that in all the speculation about who could replace Masssa now no one has mentioned two out of work young ex-Ferrari powered drivers, Buemi and Alguersuari. I know they lost their drives for not performing as potential champions, but as a number two to gain Manufacturer points one of these could step straight in. The next question is, if Perez goes to Ferrari, where does the Telmex sponsor money go?

An odd race really. The two supposed "rain masters," Button and Schumacher, both failed to produce the goods, with Michael being the victim of a bad start and Grosjean finding him before his solo accident put him out. Roman is looking fast but fragile, while Kimi is doing a great job. As the "Iceman" said, it will be nice to have a normal weekend so they can see where they really are at. Kimi said he had only done an installation lap on the intermediate or wet Pirelli tires so not too shabby. Rosberg faded badly again and Mercedes need to work out what is going on, it would be a better show with them competitive in the race.

Word on the street is that Mercedes is not at all happy with the way the spoils are being divided in the next Concorde Agreement and are holding out to the point of taking Bernie and the boys to the European Court for non-competitive practices. That would mess with the float methinks.

Williams had another good race, but unusually Maldanado's Renault engine let go right at the end. Don't see that often. Red Bull have lost the plot a little, which makes a change for us fans. Vettel made a mistake again, perhaps he is vulnerable to pressure, while Mark drove his now usual steady race to fourth. McLaren once again cost Lewis the race with two botched pit stops, but he took it well, and could do nothing about the two guys in front. Were McLaren set up for a dry race and the others compromised? The Sauber is soft on tires anyway, so the rain worked for them, and the Ferrari chassis also seemed happier in the wet, at least with Alonso at the wheel.

So back to Malaysia. Why do we have to run this event at the time of year, or the time of day when you know it is going to rain. Not just rain, that's OK, it is the track flooding monsoon that is the problem. Getting up at 4 am to watch is bad enough, but having to sit through a red flag is punishing. Add to that my Fromsportcom.com connection was not behaving and were forced to listen some of the time to the inane Speed commentary. I swear they get worse.

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.

Now many of us "unlearn" most what we are taught in school or college, just stop using a computer program and see how fast you forget what to do. Not so with F1 engineers. Remember the F-Duct, banned, or so it seemed. No, only the way it was operated was banned with drivers using knees or hands to turn it on. So those clever chaps at Mercedes have worked out how to make it happen with no movable parts and nothing to do with the driver. It is somehow connected to the DRS system, although whether that is literally how it works or is it airflow induced I have yet to see defined. Anyway, they have it, stalling the rear wing and reducing drag, and Charlie Whiting has given it the thumbs up, so watch all the rest of the teams scramble to follow. Of course there is still that odd opening in the nose of the Mercedes, and the even larger one in the Red Bull "to cool the drivers feet." Oh yeh, designed by Newey? Don't think so.

Not long now until we get some answers. The Australian politician who called Bernie's daughter a "bogan," look it up, got an answer from Bernie. It seems that after seeing her on TV in all her indulgence and offering the opinion that if that's where their $50m is going that they spend on the race they had better things to do with it.  That's OK with Bernie, just don't renew the contract, he has plenty more mugs to pay like Argentina who are saying they will have a race in 2013. Someone has to miss out for that to happen, so one race in Spain for sure.

HRT say they are on the way up. From what I saw they are, up on stands trying to get the second car built in time for practice. They have already postponed scrutineering the car.

Over in Sebring the Audis are having it all their own way, with the Muscle Milk HRD LMP1 car and the Dyson Lola next. In GTE the 458 Ferrari is quickest, but expect the usual close race here, the one to really watch.

Well no cows on track yet, but watch out for those curbs, they jump out and destroy your supension! Well it did to Massa. Very strange why he is the only one the way they have all been grass cutting and curb hopping. I would have thought they would have done something with that second corner of the chicane, concrete it overnight at least. Still, what's a bit more dust.

Unlike most Tilke tracks this one seems to lack any distinctive architectural features, it could be anywhere. Except for the air polution and dust that is. Not a great advert for travelling to India. "Delhi belly" has of course struck with McLaren flying in new troops to replace those effected. Ferrari are in trouble with the tobacco police here in India. With all that air polution I would not have thought smoking was a big issue.

The Massa front wing is drawing some attention, as it should, and Mercedes suddenly found a few seconds a lap overnight, so what were they up to? Still did not help Michael get in to Q3. Toro Rosso did well though. Qualifying was not the usual exciting session, with three cars choosing not to set a time and Vettel clearly quicker. I like Button on the radio telling the crew he has no grip, and he is running around fourth. There are a lot of drivers who would like to have similar levels of no grip. I guess it is down to expectations. How does someone like Ricciardo drive around at the back in the HRT without being mentally destroyed?

Rumors abound that Kimi has signed for Williams. If he is watching this he must know something we don't about next year's car. Still it will be great to have him back and I don't care if he mumbles, it's his driving I want to see.

Finally we have the riot at the cancelled concert by Metallica. Let's hope the race is not red flagged! Still there were a lot more people at the scheduled concert than the track yesterday.

The most fun so far has been reading of the adventures of journalists and commentators. Apparently Bernie has been not allowing a view of the track from the media center for several of the recent tracks, but here the TV commentary boxes have no windows either. So, you only see what Bernie wants you to see on TV?

The first impression is of the smog, and then the dust. There are acres of asphalt run off except where it is most needed at the first chicane. Just about every driver has short cut the second corner across new dry turf amidst clouds of dust and grass on the track. Well we have dogs on the track and cows in the paddock, so a real paddock eh? I guess we have to ask what if a cow wants to go on the track, can anyone stop it in a country where it is sacred?

Some good elevation changes and several nice corners, but it is like the Curate's egg, "good in parts." The pit-in looks like Valencia, China and several other Tilke tracks, and is marginal, but pit-out is as bad as Korea. We've already seen a near miss as it dumps cars out onto the apex of Turn One. Why pit exit could not have been run around the inside of One and exit onto the outside of Two is hard to understand. And then there is the crooked pit building and pit lane, and the lawn. Go figure.

If ever we needed evidence of flexible front wings we got it with Massa. It was odd as only the Ferrari seemed to find bumps to make the wing bounce up and down and drag on the track. Did not slow Massa down though.

We saw a few incidents, D'Ambrosio the biggest of them in a very strange lose, and that wall is too close anyway. The marshals need some training though, and at one point a photographer casually got over the wall to get a closer shot of a Williams stuck in the gravel. He was one of the guys I referred to yesterday who feel immortal, like the marshal who stood on the side of the car facing the oncoming cars.

I watched on Fromsport on a Spanish Channel as the BBC one would not go full screen for some reason. The surprising thing was the commentators spent most of the practice talking about MotoGP and WSBK! I know it was not scintillating viewing, but is there nothing else to talk about?

They could talk about the Gribkowsky trial which started this week, with Bernie due to testify mid November. Nothing startling yet.

Mercedes were strangely way off the pace, Michael almost last and Rosberg not much quicker. Down among the new boys at 5-6 seconds off the pace. Now it was said they were working on race set up, but I cannot believe they would not do one quick run on low fuel. Working on next year's parts? Which is reported to include a front wing F-Duct. Thought that stuff was banned, and not sure why you would want to stall the front wing anyway. A way to run more air under the car to replace that lost by the exhaust? 

Not sure today told us much other than the usual suspects will dispute qualifying and the race. Not much running on the hard tire today.

Long time Renault Team Manager John Wickham has quit, not even travelling to India. Sinking ship?