Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Yesterday Nico Rosberg was concerned about the lack of pace with the Mercedes, and today Michael tops the timesheets at Jerez, go figure. It seems he had no less fuel than Massa when he did his quick time, so did they find something in the car or is Michael back? Two of the new boys had big offs and bent their toys. Perez and Maldonado both hit something hard, so Maldonado in particular is having a baptism of fire. Alguersuari took note of Helmut Marko's comments that Torro Rosso was not a boarding school, whatever that means, and he is more than ready to replace one or both of the current drivers. Strangely it is not Ricciardo he is favoring but Vergne, but most of what Helmut does is strange. No one answered my question about two Australian drivers by the way.

Button had his go in the new McLaren, but they are still basically doing systems checks, albeit fast ones. Lewis declared he found the car better, which you would hope he would say after all the time and effort gone into it. Lotus had another troubled day, but at the moment the field is covered by just over two seconds, so better than last year. Way too early to judge anything though. Heidfeld gets to drive tomorrow, and Boullier says if he is quick he will sign him. He needs to do something, Petrov is not setting the world alight at the moment. The news on Kubica continues to be encouraging, with Robert vowing to be back before the end of the season, but you would have to wonder why, unless his replacement is not doing well.

Ron Walker, the Australian GP boss is softening everyone up for Melbourne losing the race. Bernie is apparently upset by the remarks of the Mayor. A man not easily upset by personal comments I would have thought. Now Ron did throw in a more telling line that Bernie is concerned that for the first time in 40 years someone is questioning the value of his product. The King's new clothes comes to mind.

Over in Abu Dhabi Ferrari protege Jules Bianchi beat Grosjean off the line in the Asia GP2 race, and kept him there for a maiden GP2 win. He beat a class field, so despite being the winter series this is for real. That other series, Superleague, the one with the soccer team cars, says that it is the best alternative to F1 because it has so many ex F1 stars. Narain Karthikeyan, Sebastien Bourdais, Antonio Pizzonia and Robert Doornbos? Not exactly a stellar cast, and all cast offs. Yes they can drive much better than I, but that is not the point. Let's see someone come through this series to F1, not from it.