Bob Barnard Track Engineering

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.

The winter wait is over as F1 cars and MotoGP bikes hit the track today for their first test sessions. New cars and drivers, and some old faces for both, so it is going to be hard to make anything of this first test. Alonso and Vettel both near the top of the timesheet, with Hulkenburg in the Force India putting in some surprising times to be right there with them.  Just showing Williams they should not have let him go? The Lotus Renault and Williams have followed Red Bull with the pull rod rear suspension, but the biggest surprise so far is the lack of exhaust outlets on the Renault. They obviously have them, they just do not come out of the top or the sides, so must be underneath. This is the team that promised to be "at the brave end of brave," and it seems they are trying something here. At the end of last season, when we had the diffusers, most teams were feeding the exhaust gas out through them to increase downforce, so we can only presume they are doing something with this gas flow to generate downforce under the car. I read an article a few years ago that said an F1 engine is just a huge air pump, so the volume of gas coming out of the exhaust must be massive. In fact at 18,000 rpm that is 2.4 liters by 18,000, or if my math is correct, 43,200 liters per minute. Imagine if your local gas pump ran at that speed?

At the other end of the timesheet Rosberg is slowest, then Barrichello, with the HRT quicker, go figure.

Over in Sepang Casey Stoner is fastest on day one 0.4 seconds faster than Lorenzo. Did not take Casey long to adjust to the Honda. Now Valentino is down in 12th trying to find a position on the Ducati that is comfortable. Someone suggested he is still sand bagging, but team mate Hayden is behind him, and what use is it to sand bag? Can you really set up the bike if you are running around off the pace? And I would have thought that the "head games" would dictate that you would want to put your stamp of authority on from the beginning? Maybe someone out there can enlighten me? Good to see the Suzuki somewhere on the pace unlike last year, and Ben Spies going OK, but then so is Colin Edwards on the second team Yamaha.

In other news, Bernie is not talking about bribes on the advice of his lawyers, and Mark Webber says he is up for another crack at the title and I'm sure he is given how close he was last year. What Bernie is talking about is new races, "If we have some new races, some others will fall out — we don’t need Australia, for instance." Nice one Bernie.

How great to see a Williams on pole again! I must confess to a soft spot for Sir Frank's Team, as I think most people have. Mine started when Alan Jones won the championship and then to see how Sir Frank has battled his own personal problems and the struggle to stay competitive is an example to us all. Let us not forget it was Hulkenburg and not Barrichello that did it, well done Nico, and what a great way to repay Sir Frank's comments about your ability of just last week. Maybe it was the confidence boost he needed. Interesting qualifying session with nothing between the Red Bulls again, and if Nico had a wet set up then he will probably go backwards fast in the race. Interesting to read his comments of Friday that they would be lucky to make it into Q3.

Hard to see Lewis doing anything other than trying to stay in touch and Alonso, who knows, but both of these guys need the Red Bulls to break again. Mark looked in a determined mood, and it looks more and more like my predictions over the last few months may come true and Mark will leave at the end of the season. Horner's "Mark needs to focus on the job" sounds like a "shut the **** up" to me. Let us hope tomorrow is dry and we can see a straight fight.

On the engine front there are more opinions from Cosworth and Renault that the proposed 2013 engine regs need to be very tightly framed to prevent a runaway spending war, or leave the V8's alone. All is not settled.

HRT has a new partner to help with the money as was suspected, so let's hope for a better season next year. The talk of using the Toyota chassis does not gel with me as the rules change again next year. I think the discussion with Toyota is probably more about using their engineering consultancy they have set up at the old F1 base. I can be wrong though, after all I did not pick Hulkenburg for pole.

Stoner took pole in Valencia so we should be in for a good race tomorrow with Lorenzo, who despite being a Spaniard, says he does not like Valencia. Spain is a bit like Australia, not so much a country as a collection of States. Nice to see Checa managed not to be slowest, just. But he is getting closer to the top lap times.

In Zuhai the Peugeots start at the front. The really interesting thing at Zuhai was the announcement of the Intercontinental Cup calendar for 2011. No Petit, just a "race outside Europe TBA" in October? Sebring is listed. In the GT class the big story is the Porsche Hybrid qualifying second, although it does not actually qualify for points.

There is action across the globe this weekend with F1 in Brazil and the first practice saw the usual suspects at the top of the time sheet, except for Ferrari. Is this just the normal Friday laid back approach? Massa apparently fought his set up all morning, when you would think he would be on top of this place from the get go, and Alonso stopped at the end of the session with engine problems. Ferrari said they were going to change it anyway before the second session. Really, that's a lot of work between practice sessions. Are they so short on miles they could not run one session on that next engine? Both cars are way off the pace, but we have seen this before.

Mark Webber used some choice Aussie language when asked about the team and Vettel. He said it was ******** obvious that the team emotionally supported Vettel, and Horner immediately emotionally hit back that both drivers had had equal treatment, not quite what Mark said. Can Mark really stay at Red Bull next season?

Responding to Bernie's "cripples" quote, Virgin Team Principle John Booth asked if Bernie said it " to embarrass Sir Richard Branson, one of the country's leading entrepreneurs?" I would have thought Sir Richard had embarrassed himself.

In Zuhai for the final round of the Intercontinental Cup the weather is bad, rain and fog, or is it smog? Oddly the second Peugeot is three seconds slower than its pace setting sister car, that's a lot on a short circuit like this. The two Audis split them, so we could be in for an interesting race, particularly as the weather is not supposed to get any better. It is the monsoon season, nice scheduling.

In sunny Spain Lorenzo leads the way after second practice just ahead of Casey Stoner. Colin Edwards is doing well so far, and Ben Spies is sixth despite his ankle problem. Rossi is not doing so well, sandbagging or just cruising to finish his time with Yamaha? Just perhaps Yamaha would rather the guy wins who is staying next year?

In Korea, for those of you that did not follow up that story, it seems $50m is unaccounted for during the development, and the Government would like KAVO to tell them where it went. It also seems that the "mobile" stands, I presume the temporary seats, do not meet code for the F3 race. Funny code that. The seats were OK for an F1 race, but not for an F3 race?

To all my English fans "Happy Guy Fawkes Day." Where is he when you need him?

Why is Max Mosely getting air time lately? First there were the rumors of a coup at the FIA to bring Max back. Pretty poor security if you really are planning a coup? Then there's Bernie on his eightieth birthday singing Max's praises and saying it would be good to have him back and how he is sure the teams would not mind. Really? Now here is Max saying that "He (Todt) must be given a chance to get on and run it in his own particular way." Well why shouldn't he, he was elected after all. It sort of smacks of "give him enough rope," or Todt only has a certain amount of time to do something before we take over again. Why should Max even comment? All very strange. I would have thought after the prostitute business he would want to keep his head down in the bunker.

It seems the rain does not only fall on the plain in Spain, it rains on its way there in Portugal. Usual suspects top first practice, which was actually the second as the first was canceled. Nicky Hayden ahead of Stoner, let's see if he can keep that up after his good run at PI. Lorenzo seems to want to show his rightful ownership of the title, so let's look forward to a good race.

Rumors of a Bulgarian F1 race in 2012 have resurfaced. The head of the country's motorsport body, Bogdan Nikolov says that the contract could be signed next month, and that the circuit would host both F1 and MotoGP"s. Now a Bogdan from Bulgaria was entered for one of my MotoGP's, I remember as we were trying to find a flag and anthem should he make the podium, but he was a no-show. Is this the same guy, or is Bogdan a Bulgarian "Joe" or some other common name? There are rumors that Rome may not be such a done deal, only a letter of intent which is good to the end of the year. Still, how is Bernie going to squeeze all these races in. He says that Europe is finished economically and that is why he is looking east, but I never knew Bulgaria had an economy, and isn't Russia in Europe? And Italy last time I looked and we possibly have two races there. We have two in Spain, so it cannot be all bad.