A group of politicians from the British House of Parliament, especially the House of Lords, has written an open letter to the Times newspaper today calling for the FIA to cancel the forthcoming Bahrain Grand Prix, scheduled for April 22nd. Last year’s race had to be cancelled due to political uprisings in the country and attempts by the FIA and F1 commercial boss Bernie Ecclestone to reinstate the race later in the season were thwarted by the teams refusing to go. The FIA’s rules state that if an event is called off within three months of taking place it cannot More…

The FIA World Motor Sport council today decided unanimously to reinstate the Bahrain Grand Prix, after postponing it earlier this year due to civil unrest. It is a very big decision and one that will cause a mixed reaction. It will surely resonate well beyond the boundaries of motor sport or of sport in general. Bernie Ecclestone has argued that money is not the reason the race is back on and has argued that F1 does not want to get involved in politics, but inevitably this is a case of “in not choosing we choose”. It was very important to More…

Another story to break today is the growing energy behind trying to run the postponed Bahrain Grand Prix on October 30, with India moving to the last race of the season on December 4. It’s fair to say that the teams feel uneasy about this for several reasons. First the moral question, with the obvious difficulties of walking into a highly political situation and endorsing an event which is a creation of the ruling regime. Some are more troubled by this than others. There is a security issue for the teams and drivers, but they would be likely to be More…

Like many people working in F1 I have a rather uneasy feeling about the opening Grand Prix at Bahrain, having witnessed the scenes in Tunisia and Egypt in recent weeks and hearing what some are saying about making the race a target for protest. It’s not the event itself that we need to worry about, as that will be extremely well protected, it’s the comings and goings of the people who work in the sport, which is more tricky to protect. And of course, the drivers. Remember the coverage Jenson Button got when he and his entourage were held up More…

Today was a real vindication of the decision taken last summer by Ferrari boss Stefano Domenicali to stop development of the 2009 car and throw everything at the 2010 model. The Ferrari was the best car overall this weekend in various conditions. It was quick on the single lap, quick on the soft tyre at the start of the race when the car was heavy and quick on the medium tyre in the second part of the race as the fuel load lightened. The Red Bull may have been quicker in the soft tyre parts of that, but when the More…

Fernando Alonso won the first Grand Prix of the season at Bahrain today, leading a Ferrari one two ahead of Felipe Massa with Lewis Hamilton third for McLaren. Pole sitter Sebastian Vettel led for most of the race, but ended up fourth after an exhaust problem on his Red Bull. After the race Alonso said that the races this year are likely to be dull because the result will always be decided by qualifying and the first lap. And as the front runners are always likely to choose the soft tyre for qualifying and then make an early stop to More…

It’s been a busy day at Bahrain, albeit totally lacking in tension. The drivers and teams all seem very calm ahead of the new season. The new teams are understandably a little more edgy, but generally I am amazed how calm everyone is. That doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been a lot going on. Alain Prost is to act as a steward this weekend, alongside three of the more traditional steward types, in order to add credibility to penalties handed out to drivers. Also the World Motor Sport Council has today been discussing the 107% rule and decided to look More…

I always like to look at the fastest race laps, it tells you a lot about the relative pace of the cars and as this is the first ‘normal’ race on a ‘normal’ track it is quite instructive. The fastest car in qualifying and race was the Toyota. They should have won their first victory today, but they made the wrong tyre choice at the first stop and it left both drivers vulnerable. McLaren will be hugely encouraged by their performance here. From being over 2 seconds off the pace of Brawn when I first saw this car on the More…

Jenson Button and the Brawn team took their third win in four races this afternoon at the Bahrain Grand Prix, ahead of Sebastian Vettel, but the result could have gone either way. The two cars were very evenly matched. What made the difference was that Button was able to run in clear air and Vettel wasn’t. The key moment of the race was the end of the first lap, where Button was able to pass Lewis Hamilton under braking into turn one. This allowed him to run in clear air ahead of Hamilton, while Vettel was held up by the More…

The fuel weights the cars will carry at the start of the race are now public. Based on these the top performer in qualifying is Jarno Trulli, who decimated his team mate (half a second!) and was 2/10ths faster than Sebastian Vettel. The Brawn again shows that it is a better race car than a qualifying car, while Lewis Hamilton’s performance – on the same fuel as Button and only a tenth slower – shows that the McLaren is developing very quickly and will be racing the front runners when we get into the European season. I think they will More…

Today’s qualifying session again showed that the Brawn cars do not have it all their own way when it comes to single lap pace in qualifying, but their performance in practice, where they seem to have focussed on long runs, indicates that they certainly have the speed to go for the race win tomorrow. But they face a number of complications which may take the race away from them. Their lack of speed hurt them today and meant that they could not afford to carry much more fuel than their opposition for fear of falling down the grid behind Alonso’s More…

It should be a very close qualifying session this afternoon, with a few different names up the front compared to recent races. McLaren look more competitive here than at any stage this season and while this will not be enough of a step for them to challenge for the win on Sunday, I fancy that one of the cars could be in the top five or six. Judging from free practice, McLaren has a car capable of getting into the top ten shootout and from there we could see them and/or others doing what Fernando Alonso did in China and More…