Bob Barnard Track Engineering

D'Ambrosio does, or he will till he drives it. So another shoe has dropped and we are left with HRT and Force India, barring surprises. It seems D'Ambrosio, odd name for a Belgian, has won the ride on merit and not his wallet, and no Russian driver in sight.

So "Lotus Racing" has rebranded itself as "Team Lotus." All semantics to us plebs. I'd be just as supportive if they called it Air Asia. I know the brand is valuable, but not when we know it isn't really Lotus and it is being devalued all the time with the current squabble.

It seems that we are going even further back to the future with "tea tray" front wings from 2013, i.e. flat and short, not the convoluted things we see hanging out in the breeze waiting to be knocked off these days. This is something from the early eighties to go with the eighties turbo. Patrick Head and Rory Byrne were tasked with coming up with the regs for 2013, which will see even smaller rear wings and more downforce from under the car. Hang on, isn't that called "ground effects" and didn't we ban that as too dangerous? The worst part of this whole story, which I had to check the date on to see it was not April 1st, was the quote from Patrick.

"(In 2013) We are only going to have roughly 65 per cent of the amount of fuel and a (limited) fuel (flow) rate - that was a given," Head, engineering boss and co-owner at Williams, confirmed.

"We were just told ’That’s what it will be, you’ve got to come up with a car spec that is not going to be more than five seconds a lap slower than a current F1 car’.

So slower than a current GP2 car? What are we doing here? As Montezemolo said the other day "This is Formula One which should be the spearhead of technological development."

Murphy The Bear has a new posting which gets even more gloomy for ALMS and LMP1 cars every time. Why don't we just run the series for GT3 cars and enjoy it without having to worry about those other cars coming past and pushing them off the track? Murphy has a worst projection of two cars and a unlikely max of five. Why bother for other than the Sebring and Petit races?

If you think that the row between the Australian GP and the ASN, CAMS, is over, then watch this space. Last straw comes to mind for some people down under.

Slow news day, I guess we will have to get used to this as we go into the winter break, but who knows, there may be more gossip then.

Portugal qualifying washed out. Phillip Island is not looking so bad now. It must rain a lot in Portugal, although I always thought of it as a dry country like Spain. I remember Senna's great win there in '85 when it was a washout.  So Lorenzo on pole by half a second and Hayden, Rossi and Stoner all close. I bet Pramac are glad they drafted Checa in to improve their performance, he is last and over 5 seconds off the pace. Who thinks that was a good move? There are only two races left with this one, what was the risk of giving some young guy a chance?

V8Supercars will not be returning to Bahrain next year with scheduling around other events as the reason, but I suspect since no one turned up to watch it may not be worth what the V8's were asking. Now Abu Dhabi is a stand alone race which cannot be a cheap exercise, so you wonder how long that will last, but I guess they have to put something on at this billion dollar mausoleum.

Peugeot ran a test hack at Monza to prepare for next year's Le Mans. Not sure I like the sharks fin, I know it is there for safety reasons, but it does not look right on what was surely one of the most beautiful sportscars ever built.

The driver silly season goes on, with Hulkenburg getting a big rap from Sir Frank Williams, just when he was about to get the axe for Maldanado. D'Ambrosio is rumored to be close to signing for Virgin, so who's out?