Bob Barnard Track Engineering

So finally the sun came out in Melbourne, in time for the 5 pm start and to shine in driver's eyes. Vettel made sure there were no problems this year and as predicted by the qualifying times waltzed away with it. Pirelli Boss said it was a "thrilling race," but I found it just like last year. The tires did not "mix things up," even when Webber took the softs and was behind Alonso on the hard compound he could not get by despite the predictions that passing would be easy in these situations. The DRS, or movable wing, system, did not generate much passing either, there still needs to be a large performance gap before it works, and no, Bob Varsha, the car in front cannot use it. Bob got no better in the off season and clearly had not done his homework on the rules.

Great race by Petrov, following on from his Abu Dhabi performance. Where would Kubica have been in that car? Heidfeld was a big disappointment, and Barrichello drove like a novice. Button finally found the "killer instinct" to get by Massa near the end after failing badly at the start of the race. Who knows what is going on with Massa, and Alonso made the best of what he had. Webber apparently had a problem with his chassis which explained his lack of speed. Sad that Perez's good finish was taken away by the Saubers being disqualified due to a problem with the design of the rear wing. How do you get that wrong?

Hamilton drove an excellent race, especially with his floor dragging on the ground for half of it, but who knows, maybe that helped? Surprising really that the FIA took no action on that, but McLaren have done well to recover from the bad start during testing. Neither Mercedes finished due to being hit by other cars, but neither did they show that they would worry the front runners.

So, the answer to the KERS puzzle on the Red Bull, they did not have it on the car in any form. They decided they did not need it and could save the weight and reliability problems. What does that tell us about KERS as a green technology? The extra weight is not worth the performance, and at what cost. Now logically it makes sense to use the waste energy from cars, but this does not show the way. Perhaps if the teams were allowed to use it all the time, and not just in limited bursts? Of course Red Bull were in a situation where they had a large performance advantage anyway so could afford the luxury of racing without it.

As expected the race was run from six or more seconds a lap slower than qualifying, even when the fuel load went down. Lotus said they were happier with their race pace, beating the Virgins, and of course HRT did not start. Now, not to be nice to this joke of a team, but judging them on the 107% rule from qualifying is not really fair, as they would probably be doing the same lap times in the race as they achieved in qualifying, so actually not much slower than the race pace of the top teams, relatively.

The rookies did a good job, Di Resta leading his much more experienced team mate for most of the race, and Perez obviously putting in a stellar performance with only one stop, how did he manage that? Maldanado did nothing special, but not much wrong either. So on to Malaysia and perhaps mother nature's sprinkler system will spice things up.

At Donnington it was the Melandri and Checa show. Mad Max Biaggi will be even madder after being disqualified from race two, and the BMWs again failed to produce the goods.

So Mother Russia is taking a bigger role in Virgin. Ian Phillips comes in as COO and brings many years of experience with him, but the new Technical Director is Nikolay Fomenko, President of MaRussia, who has no experience, despite the claim that "MaRussia's wealth of knowledge and experience provide us with a solid foundation with which to enter the second season." Wealth of knowledge and experience? They were only formed in 2007 and most of us had never heard of them until they bought into Virgin. I've heard some spin, but this is a good one. Maybe I am missing something here, did Nikolay work in F1 before starting MaRussia?

So Melbourne GP has the Government's full support? As has been said before, that is sometimes the last sound anyone hears before being fired. I have questioned before the benefit to sponsors of being in Australia, and The Mayor of Melbourne might just have given Bernie the opening he wants. Bernie has also come out and said that having two races in Spain is a problem, so which one is going? Meanwhile the Indian GP is having further management changes as the head of the company promoting it has stepped down over corruption allegations. Don't you just love going to these new and exciting places?

The Renault exhaust is directed to come out in front of the sidepods to increase the airflow under the car to the single diffuser as I suggested, and apparently McLaren has a similar arrangement, with Mercedes considering it. This must take some plumbing to get it there. Does not seem to be doing Renault that much good in testing, but it is very early days. Force India are still sitting around the top of the timesheets with Di Resta and Hulkenburg third and fourth.

Over in Malaysia Danny Pedrosa laid down a lap two thirds of a second quicker than team mate, make that rival, Casey Stoner. Ben Spies was third fast amongst a gaggle of Hondas. Nicky Hayden and Rossi were 11th and 13th respectively, but not respectably, not even being the quickest Ducati's. It would seem that test times in the world of MotoGP are more representative of what to expect for the season than F1, or am I wrong?

Down in Sebring Audi have been testing both the R18 and the old R15, but no details seem to have emerged. Anyone out there get a whiff of times or other goings on?

On a serious note our thoughts go out to my Australian mates who are suffering through Cyclone Yasi, and my American ones who are experiencing blizzards and freezing rain. It froze overnight here in Phoenix and will be colder tonight, but nothing to compare with these problems.

After saying that this years car would be an upgrade on the 2010 chassis HRT, or more correctly Colin Kolles, is saying that it will now be a totally new car designed under the direction of Geoff Willis. Furthermore it will run at Bahrain test. But he also says "At the moment, there are approximately 40 designers finalizing the first spec." And it is going to run in Bahrain? HRT are still to name which young driver has a big enough bag of money to come and drive the "new" car.

Force India have however confirmed the worst kept secret that Sutil and  Di Resta will race their cars with Hulkenburg as the third driver. So, now let's see what Luizzi does. Now contracts are made to be broken, here in the US it is the quick and the dead for employment contracts, so I'm sure there is a get out clause, it just depends how much it is going to cost Mallya. As Joe Saward points out the bigger cost is to Mallya's credibility. I know F1 is called the "Piranha Club," but VJ has quickly become a senior member.

So Cape Town is lining up a bid for an F1 race. Do they not get the Australian news over there? What is it that makes usually sane business people think that they can make an F1 race work financially when the example is out there for all to see that you cannot, except it seems Silverstone. But then they have all those mad poms, and yes I was one once.

For all it is two days away from the start of the Rolex weekend and less than a week to F1 testing, there is little news to stir the blood, so see you tomorrow.

Bit sad when the big news of the day is Alonso telling the paparazzi where to get off disturbing his holiday. I think most of us would have done the same.

Niki Lauda has jumped on the bandwagon about the sound of the 2013 four cylinder turbo engines, he wants them to be "Lauda." Sorry, couldn't resist that. He hopes that they will emit more than a "faint hum." Did he read my blog of a few weeks ago do you think? I excused Mark Hughes as he would have written his piece around the same time.

There is a petition to save the Nurburgring that has 1000 signatures basically the first day, so be sure to log in and sign it. http://renn.tv/url/petition

Force India appear to have finalized their drivers for this year with Sutil remaining, Paul Di Resta joining, and Hulkenburg the Friday driver. Not too shabby.

Arthur Pic is to drive in FR3.5 this year while his older brother Charles drives in GP2, so now you have a choice and can take your Pic. Seriously though, France has been lacking a top driver lately and now they have Vergne and two other Pics, apologies again, don't know what has come over me today. Must be the lack of serious news.

So Paul Di Resta survived the Shanghai track to win the DTM for 2010, well done. Pity the race had to start behind the safety car for three laps and then have yellow flags at the first three corners to try and make it safe at the start. DTM needs to have a serious look why it is racing at such venues when there are perfectly good permanent tracks to go to, even in Shanghai.

The GP2 musical chairs ended today with the results being mixed up again. Alexander Rossi ran 4th in the last session after an 8th place in the morning. Surprising to see Karun Chandook so low down in the timesheet, and Joylon Palmer struggled to repeat his form of yesterday. This is the end of the testing until next February, by when I guess we will know who has taken their checkbook where.

Bernie said  that the muggers went over the top, he would have given them the money, watch and the jewelry without the agro. One of my friends was bad enough to suggest that the muggers were a promoter trying to get some of his money back.