This Season Just Gets Worse

...well I did say it would be a return to normal service, yes?  Although perhaps not exactly as predicted.  While the "other" Mercedes-powered teams were again not really present, you can't argue with the Red Bull return to form.  And add some promising developments from Lotus, and the stage seems to be set for a catastrophic result for Ferrari should the "other" Mercedes teams get their collective acts together.  Ferrari is no longer even competing for "best of the rest", they are competing for the bottom half points.  And that, frankly, is a terrible development.

I'm not sure how to take the "news" that Adrian Newey is being linked with Ferrari.  While everything he has touched has turned to gold -- more or less -- one has to wonder if he is out of tricks.  Still, a team with Ferrari's resources could cock-up everything and still occasionally score points, so I don't see how having Newey in the fold could do any worse than what is happening this year.

Two weeks to the interlude in Monaco, a week of pageantry and terribly boring racing.

(Update: Joe Saward has better reasoning as to why the Newey-to-Ferrari story is probably rubbish.)

Alonso Reigns In Spain

Have to do it -- have to celebrate the win in Spain.  The F138 was the car to have yesterday, as Massa's result showed.  Not sure why everyone else got it wrong, the Mercedes especially vanishing after the start.

I'm also not sure I agree with Red Bull's claim that F1 isn't racing any more.  F1 has never been about flat-out, maximum attack for the entire distance.  You are always managing some kind of resource, be it tires, fuel, brakes, or even driver energy.

Complaining about the rules is just proving your car doesn't fit the actual competition.

Monaco

The Times Online wants to know if the Monaco race needs to be changed. They claim that its biggest flaws are the track, the fact that things are settled in qualifying and not in the race, and the fact that the glitz surrounding the race seems to take precedence over the actual racing.

Personally? I think Formula One has more problems than the fact that Monaco turns in a boring race.

The fact of the matter is, we've had three dry races this year (all of which had very nice weather, yuk yuk yuk). The problem is that the cars can't pass each other without there either being some kind of driver error or the passing car being hugely overpowering to the car being passed.

Both Spain and Monaco this year were very boring and processional, with the interest and position changes coming about due to car failures or collisions.

Once we can turn up at Monaco with cars that can pass each other on a "real" race track, only at that point is it time to talk about if Monaco itself should be changed.

Engine Changes For Spain

Despite insisting from the start of the season that there was nothing wrong with them, Ferrari has been granted permission to make changes to their engine due to reliability issues.

Ferrari replaced both engines prior to the race in Australia, and Alonso experienced an engine failure in Malaysia. Alonso is down to six engines for the rest of the season.

The linked Autosport article speculates that the issue lies in the area of the pneumatic valves used, which were thought to be leaking during use. If the valves don't open and close at the correct speed, it can lead to serious engine problems. James Allen's sources apparently claim that the issue has to do with how some of the moving parts in the lower-engine parts were fabricated.

It is unknown if the already used (but unbroken) engines can have this fix retroactively applied to them.