Bob Barnard Track Engineering

It's a sad day when your team boss tells you that you should not be trying to overtake on the first lap and not race your team mate. That's what Martin Whitmarsh is telling Lewis Hamilton after Turkey. "We want Lewis to attack but sometimes it does not pay off," Whitmarsh said. "If you look at Lewis's race pace it was OK later in the race but the tyres are so delicate and if you scrap with others including your own team-mate you will damage your tyres. In a race that critical you can't do that." So what is he supposed to do, just run around waiting for others tires to go off, or go back to waiting till the pit stops as we had in the refuelling days? I did not see that Button's supposed tire conservation mode worked as he finished behind his team mate even though he made one stop less. F1 is about racing, and it's a sad day when that is no longer the case, unless you are Red Bull.

A lot is being made of the amount of "overtaking" now due to the tires and DRS, and KERS. Those of us who now think this has reached a ridiculous situation where it is not overtaking but "passing," and yes there is a difference, are being told to shut up and enjoy it. I for one subscribe to the Max Mosley school, and I can enjoy one overtaking manoeuvre a year if it is Hakkinen on Schumacher at Spa. We do not have to worry about team orders any more, overtaking your team mate is easy.

Not only are we to have a small turbo engine in 2013, we are now to have a spec chassis it seems with drag and downforce targets set. The option to go back to ground effects has been dropped by the teams as unworkable when trying to meet these targets, I presume meaning there would be less drag and more downforce than allowed. I know Ferrari say we should get away from too much reliance on aero, but spec racing?

Much continues to be made of Turn Eight in Turkey, and a great corner it is, but how much better if it were not to have the "four apexes?" They are pinch points that turn it into a one line race track, especially when the marbles build up. Yes it is quick and we do not see much overtaking on such quick corners, but if the track actually paralleled the race line there would be room for someone with some large attachments to try. On Sunday I think I saw one time where a driver started to put his nose under the car in front, and then had to back off. Think of the Spoon Curve at Suzuka, or the Parabolica at Monza.

The Judge in the Lotus case must be having a hard time coming up with a decision. It was originally late March and it is now suggested that it will be later this month.

In a similar fashion the Bahrain on again/off again decision is being allowed to fester. There is a good reason things have "settled down," and it is not because the problems have gone away. As we saw in Northern Ireland you can suppress opposition, but it does not go away, especially when it is the majority being suppressed.

I think I have read every possible argument why News Corp cannot buy F1, and what they are attempting to do by saying they want to. We have the FIA saying they have to agree, the EC won't allow it says Bernie and a bunch of scribes, and now even Max Mosley is against it. Well that seals it if Max won't allow it because Rupert had the guts to show Max's little hobby in his rag. I may be wrong, but when so many people are saying something cannot be done, then it seems likely it will. "Me thinks they protesteth too much." If Murdoch does not want to buy F1 he must be having a good laugh at all these people beating themselves into a lather.

Three series enjoying Friday practice with interesting results. In Turkey the weather spoiled the morning, especially for Vettel who stuck it into the wall in a big way and could not take part in the afternoon session. Neither McLarens bothered in the morning, they must expect a dry race, or perhaps they are expecting a wet one and wanted to save their wet tires as Pirelli are concerned that not enough sets of wets have been provided for a complete wet weekend. Button finally topped the times with the McLarens and Mercedes swapping fast times, yes even Michael. Webber apparently did not try for a fast time so the Red Bulls were for once missing in action. Alonso is down in 11th, with both Massa and Petrov faster than their team leaders. Lotus were split either side of the Sauber of Kobayashi, while the corner Virgin turned must have been a wrong turn as they had trouble beating the HRT's.

Meanwhile at Spa it was dry, fancy that, and the Audis continued to set the pace, and the closest petrol car still nearly 5 secs off their fast time. Some big accidents seen here so far, with Peugeot doing an overnight rebuild and the RML car being withdrawn. In the GT class Porsche managed to get one car amongst the Ferraris, but your money must be on the new 458 in this class. Still in 1000km around here anything can happen, even rain!

The Superbikes are at Monza and Checa is in an uncustomary mid field position. Leon Haslam leads the way on the BMW from Mad Max Biaggi. Let's see what Saturday brings for all these series.

Elsewhere the Authorities have frozen Mr. Gribkowsky's money so it looks like he is going to trial. Should make interesting theater. Bernie is going to have fights on two fronts it seems. There are now reports that News Corp is also going to be at the Stuttgart meeting. It appears that this meeting surprised the other teams and is making them "nervous." And we thought politics was dead in F1.

Colin Chapman would have been proud. Sir Stirling Moss said that the front uprights were always on the margin, so both Lotus Renaults failing in the same way in first practice in Malaysia is totally consistent with the real Lotus legend.

Webber has bounced back from his slower than expected form in Oz, leading both sessions, but with the McLarens hot on his heels. Who knows who had what fuel load though, and I hope the Ferraris were working on set up because they are a long way off the time so far. There are some big gaps to the bulk of the field who are all two-three seconds off. The other Lotus continues to disappoint, and the sight of the HRT leaving the pits trailing a plume of oil smoke sums up their day. They are seven seconds off the pace so far, right on the bubble of not qualifying again.

Tire feel and wear is apparently totally different to Australia. At one point in the first session Button went out and immediately radioed in to ask if there was something wrong at the back of the car as he had no rear grip! Pirelli believe that anyone starting on the softs will only get eight laps out of them, and between the potential rain and the tires Button is expecting "mayhem." Well they wanted to make the races more interesting, or as Michael said, "a lottery." Not sure that is what I tune in to watch.

Following on from yesterday's piece on fuel consumption going up with the exhaust driven diffuser, it seems the Red Bulls are very marginal on fuel. We saw Mark pull into pit out as soon as he crossed the finish line in Australia, and it is now apparent he did not think he had the fuel to do the warm down lap. The Red Bulls also only did one lap prior to the start, so they are cutting it fine. They are running the KERS system at the moment, but it sounded to me like it was not working for Vettel in first practice. Whatever was wrong he was not running well and finished well down the order. It is reported that they will make a decision to run it or not, but by their own admission they need it here. A chink in the armor? The others can only hope as McLaren think Red Bull are still keeping half a second up their sleeve.

We have Indycar and Grand-Am at Barber Motorsport Park this weekend. Another Chip Ganassi benefit?

There is a saying, "there are lies, damn lies, and statistics!" One of my favorites is "my heads in the oven and my feet are in the fridge, but on average I feel pretty good." If you look at the F1 race fast laps you see that Massa set the fastest lap in the race followed by Alonso. If you did not see the race you would perhaps assume they won, but Massa had a dreadful time and Domenicalli is "dissatisfied and disappointed" at their performance and is heading back to Italy to look for more downforce. Just shows that being fast over one lap does not win races.

Everyone, including Pirelli, are trying to work out how Perez did the race on one stop. Is his driving style that different, smoother than Button's? Perhaps it was the illegal rear wing. It was not as if he was stooging around at the back, his fastest race lap was quicker than Petrov and Hamilton.

The FIA, aka Charlie Whiting, admitted that the DRS system did not really add anything to overtaking, but blamed the short straight and fast corner onto the straight. Now the last corner is the second of a left/right combination that I would not have thought that fast, especially if you compare the situation at Monza. The logic is that in a fast corner the car following cannot get close enough to effect a pass at the end of the straight, but where do we see passing at Monza? At the end of the straight which follows the parabolica, a scary fast corner. Malaysia will tell us, the corner leading on to the main straight is very slow and the straight longer, but then again it might rain.

Dario Franchitti won an accident marred Indycar race at St Petersberg, despite being last in practice the other day. Perhaps being at the back is a good place to be at an Indycar start. I have asked before and will do so again, why take your show to a place that does not show it off to its full potential? Perhaps Indycar fans just want the crashes? After all Paul Tracy still has a drive.

Montoya failed to convert his pole speed into a race win yet again, another example of one lap speed not getting the job done, which I guess we see in NASCAR most of the time. I saw the last few laps while at an Aussie mates place for a barbie, no not a doll, and was probably the best piece of the race to watch.

David Brabham had a difficult first FIA GT Championship baptism, but showed good pace in practice in the Nissan. Personally I can't see a future for this series, especially when you look at the quality of racing in GT2.

Had a call from King Kenny last evening, very nice chat about old times and the current state of racing. I'm not really surprised, but he is still more in demand for appearances than the young guys, and he says he gets paid more now just to show up than he used to to race. Ah, the good old days. He says he is selling the ranch because he cannot stand still being quicker at his age than all the young guys who come there to train!

You know my thoughts on the failure of the spectator driven tracks as a business model, well New Jersey just filed for bankruptcy, how long has that taken? Good luck with Mid-Ohio boys. Silverstone reported a profit of 2m pounds on a turnover of around 50m. Richard Phillips the MD said “I think we are probably the only privately-funded grand prix circuit that does make a profit in the world but the UK is quite peculiar because there is a huge motorsport following, there's a lot of industry here." Well it is an achievement to make a profit of any sort, but given the level of investment in the facility, which is continuing with the new pit building which is costing around 28m pounds, that is not much of a return. Good job it is run by a club. Hard to see how the numbers stack up though. They run the British F1 GP and Bernie's fee has to be half that turnover.

HRT showed up in Barcelona with this year's car, well almost. Parts are stuck in customs apparently and it will not run today. Isn't the car made in Spain? Day four of testing is again all over the place. McLaren had an engine let go so Button has not done much running, but what he did was slow, only faster than the Virgin which has improved to being 6 seconds off the pace. Mercedes are showing their legs with Schumacher topping the charts, fastest of the four days thus far, and Rosberg carrying on where he left off in third place.  Ferrari still up there, but Red Bull stooging around today. One thing seems certain, race averages are going to be way off the qualifying times.

Daytona bike week is on but who really cares any more other than some die hards? How do you kill what was a real world class event at one time?