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Sebastian Vettel's front wing had a double vane on the outer end plate, while Mark Webber's was a single vane. That's all, not an earth shattering difference. Christian Horner argues it offered nothing more than a characteristics change, others say it was worth a tenth. Either way, it wasn't a huge step forward, but the team has allowed this little bit of carbon fibre to become a smoking gun.

McLaren couldn't resist sticking the knife in. "We try very hard to give the drivers the same equipment at the same time. That's important," said Martin Whitmarsh. "I think the cohesiveness of the team is such that you don't need to set up those sorts of tensions. You can't really do that. And if you're in a very strong position then I think you have to make sure you hold it together."

It wasn't Seb's fault his wing came detached in practice, but to physically unscrew the other updated wing from Mark's car and give it to his rival was, in my opinion, unfair to the Australian and totally de-motivating to his side of the garage. More than that, it was stupid because it's reopened the scab from Turkey, compounding the perception that Helmut Marko and Dietrich Mateschitz only want to see Vettel win. The trouble is, if Seb wins thanks to boardroom backing, that won't play well with the fans. It is sensationally bad PR for the team and for the brand.

The pair are so close on points and performance you couldn't put a Rizla paper between them. So why favour one over the other?

Horner says he didn't consult Marko, just Adrian Newey, as to who should have got the new wing. "I can't cut it in two," said Christian after the race. No, but if it only offers a characteristic change, and having seen how seething Mark was when told of your decision Christian, you might have considered not using it at all.

Rubens Barrichello and David Coulthard were both cast as number twos, but rarely did either show the kind of brilliance Mark has shown three times this year.  Still, they didn't like it but they kept their grievances in-house. Not Mark, and I admire that. By saying on the radio in response to Horner's congratulatory message "Not bad for a number two" he has taken his case public.

Some have said it was a petulant comment he may regret. Personally I'm all for drivers speaking their mind, and it should be no surprise Mark did so. He doesn't take any shit.

I greatly admire what Christian has done with RBR, but I believe he mishandled the immediate aftermath of Turkey and he made a naïve error on Saturday, thinking it wouldn't blow up into a big deal.

Personally, I love a good underdog story. That's why it was so great to see Jenson rebound from the verge of redundancy last year to claim the title. Should Webber take the championship in the wake these controversies, the podium champagne will taste all the sweeter.

"You judge a person's character by how they come back from adversity," said Mark yesterday. Quite how Red Bull's PR machine will bounce back from the adversity of a Webber win, it will be interesting to see.

I flew to Istanbul from Los Angeles, where I've been working on a film project. I had to take three different planes to get here and made my final connection in Zurich. There, I bumped into Speed Week's editor Matthias Brunner. I had taken a couple of sleeping pills on the Washington DC - Zurich leg and was very very drowsy, so when Mattias said "Have you heard about the grand prix in Austin? Is it true?" I thought I was hearing things...

After all being quiet on the US front for a number of years, rumours of an imminent return fired up in Australia. Bernie wants to go back to the US, they said, and he wants the race to be in New York.

A race in Jersey City was announced and then canned within 24hrs. That was three weeks ago. The concept sounded pretty good - it would have brought a bit of glamour to the much-derided Garden State and the circuit would have had Manhattan's skyline in the background, which would add a bit of glamour to F1 too.

But no, the mayor responded to a bit of environmental pressure and canned it. So then Bernie was said to be looking at the Catskills. Somewhere called the Monticello Motor Club, based at a little track 70km from NYC. Doesn't sound ideal, but it does sound pretty.

And then on Tuesday night, completely out of left field, Austin has thrown its hat in the ring along with official confirmation from Bernie and the blessing of Texas governor Rick Perry.

First up, I used to live in Austin and I can tell you the F1 circus is going to love the city. It's brilliant for bars, live music and Mexican food. Culturally it's a melting pot. It's the one blue dot on the red map, as rednecks are outnumbered by hippies, latinos, students and the tech crowd - largely from the coasts - who come to work for Dell and AMD, who have big manufacturing plants and offices there.

I was there because I was doing F1 sponsorship for AMD at the time, and I did daydream about what it would be like if F1 were to race there. Very few people that I ran into in Texas knew anything about the sport.

In principle, I'm in favour of it as a venue, though I still think Las Vegas, New York City, Long Beach or South Beach would be better suited. Austin won't have the halo effect the other venues could have offered, but there should be a decent A-list presence. Austin is home to a growing film industry. Robert Rodriguez has a fantastic studio in the nothern part of town, and a number of movie stars have homes there.

But there's a lot of cynicism as to whether this is going to happen. Is Tavo Hellmund, the 39 year-old former racer with 14 NASCAR starts to his name, going to be another Simon Gillett?

Where's the money coming from? Not from the taxpayer, that's for sure. Hellmund's company, Full Throttle Productions, has yet to purchase land on which this permanent circuit will be built. Apparently they are looking at three sites. There's a lot of undeveloped land near the airport, to the east of the city, which would be suitable.

Announcing the race before the land has been bought is likely to increase the land costs.

2012 is not far away. Is this going to happen? I wouldn't put money on it, no. I hope I'm wrong as everyone wants the USGP back on the calendar. Another let-down Stateside - first Indianapolis 2005, then USF1 - is going to make it all the harder to revive and win over the audience over there.

Anyway, back to my trip to LA. The highlights were:

When three police cars showed up and threatened to arrest my friend Jules for weeing in an alley.

Drinks at the Formosa Cafe. The place is famous firstly for its celebrity clientele (Bogart, Gable and Sinatra were all regulars) and secondly for how bad the Chinese food is.

Flying to Catalina Island for a buffalo burger, and then flying straight back. The trip is known as 'the $200 burger'. And yes, that is me flying.

Those who work in advertising are masters of persuasion. They subtly weave their images and slogans into our daily lives knowing that we will register so much unconsciously... and then we'll walk into a shop and feel a sense of familiarity with a product we didn't know we wanted and, perhaps, had never heard of before. It's brilliantly calculated, and we all fall for it.

The phrase subliminal advertising was coined in 1957 by the US market researcher James Vicary, who said he could get moviegoers to "drink Coca-Cola" and "eat popcorn" by flashing those messages onscreen for such a short time that viewers were unaware.

His claims led to fears that governments and cults would use the technique to their advantage and it was banned in many countries, including the UK.

But despite efforts to curb it, subliminal advertising remains big business because it's so effective.

This week Ferrari and sponsor Philip Morris have been accused by leading British doctors of running a subliminal cigarette advertising campaign in Formula One. Cigarette advertising is, of course, especially controversial given the negative effects of smoking.

F1 has long sidestepped attempts to invoke a worldwide ban on cigarette advertising. Ever since the Gold Leaf brand appeared on the Lotus cars at the 1968 Monaco Grand Prix, the sport has been heavily dependent on fag cash.

As anti-smoking legislation began to tighten in many parts of the world, F1 became an even more important opportunity for cigarette brand promotion. The sport negotiated some exemptions. However, since 2002 there has been a blanket ban for a tobacco company to sponsor a sporting event in the EU.

In 2000, Williams became the first major team to run without tobacco sponsorship. As the culture around smoking changed, many companies - in this case BMW - refused to be associated with it. Soon, all the teams separated from their tobacco backers... except Ferrari.

Ferrari receive a reported 75 million Euros a year from tobacco giant Philip Morris, though a team spokesman claims the figure is lower. The team remains officially registered as Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro and where the Marlboro stickers used to be, there are rectangle-shaped red white and black 'bar codes'.

The colours and layering are very reminiscent of Marlboro's logo. It looks like a Marlboro logo blurred by speed.

Don Elgie, chief executive of Creston, which owns the advertising agency DLKW, says he thinks that the bar code constitutes subliminal advertising.

John Britton, a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and director of its tobacco advisory group, said: "The bar code looks like the bottom half of a packet of Marlboro cigarettes. I was stunned when I saw it. This is pushing at the limits. If you look at how the bar code has evolved over the last four years, it looks like creeping branding."
Gerard Hastings, director of the Centre for Tobacco Control Research, said: "I think this is advertising. Why a bar code? What is their explanation?"

Ferrari argue these allegations have no scientific basis, and have yet to be published in academic journals. They say PM doesn't own the bar code copyright. They say PM's investment is in return for factory visits and the like.

PM are known to own space on the Ferrari which is then sold to other commercial partners, but to pay more than a few million in return for factory visits, driver appearances, naming rights and merchandise seems a stretch.

Also, how come PM don't own the bar code copyright when they're running the same logo on their MotoGP Ducatis. That makes no sense.



PM claim their relationship with Ferrari doesn't violate the UK 2002 Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act, which prohibits tobacco advertising and sponsorship.

The Ferrari-PM deal is up for renewal next year. If it continues, big questions will be asked of Formula One.

It is hard for Ferrari to argue with any credibility that the bar code doesn't symbolize a Marlboro logo. John Britton has written to the Director General of the BBC about the ethics of broadcasting bar-coded Ferraris. These days F1 runs off TV, not cigarettes, and if the broadcasters are put under pressure, then Ferrari will be put under pressure.

Given a growing lack of tolerance to smoking culture, does remaining a tobacco advertising vehicle bring F1 in to disrepute? One could definitely argue that.

It makes you wonder why, unless they're getting a kickback, Bernie Ecclestone and the FIA haven't laid down the law.

Autosport have run a story interviewing an anonymous USF1 insider, who claims the outfit is in "turmoil" and only Chad Hurley can save them.

"We feel Hurley and Parris Mullins [adviser to Hurley] have our best interest [at heart] and also feel Hurley has no intention of abandoning us even though the media has said he's gone to Campos."

The source says it was clear they were behind schedule in early December.

"Figure [that] we're all pretty experienced in various aspects of car design and build, and we all know what it takes from a time-line standpoint. So when it became apparent the drawing office wasn't releasing drawings at the rate we expected, it started to become clear we could be in trouble.

"All engineering decisions were having to be funneled through [Ken] Anderson before anything could be signed off. And that's where the hold up was.

"Tooling for the tub was completed in early December, but then it sat for nearly a month before the laminate schedules for the outer skin were approved.

"Now Anderson himself wasn't designing the laminate schedule, but he was in the wings... as early as last October the production manager was collared about the lack of resources, but the managers were put off by saying: 'Well, Ken has a plan'.

"The irony of all this is that there has been precious little in the way of formal planning and documentation. No production schedules, simply very little in the way of planning."
He added: "Our January 15 pay cheque was late. It was paid by the 20th or so, but it certainly caused commotion and people started asking questions.

"That's when all the company's issues came to a head, and the conclusion was... yes, we had been lied to about the long-term budget, and indeed the company had a cash flow issue. But as mentioned, that really was a secondary issue.

"Think of it this way, ignoring the fact that we were lied to about the budget, if you don't have a car or can't show serious progress in that direction, potential sponsors aren't going to have a tendency to give you money.

"At the moment there are still 60 people working in Charlotte, but 10 have already left."

It appears team co-founder and sporting director Peter Windsor, whose main task in recent months has been seeking sponsorship, only came to realize a month ago how dire the situation was.

"I do know that Windsor was told of our progress on a number of occasions off the record in informal settings, but it took a very contentious shop meeting in late January/early February for him to twig [that] indeed we had an issue.

"In a meeting between the employees, Windsor and Anderson, Windsor put the question up to the employees: 'Who here doesn't think we'll make Bahrain?' I think Windsor might have meant it somewhat rhetorically, but he was answered nonetheless, and 100 per cent of the staff raised their hands. He was visibly shocked."

When contacted by Autosport about the claims from the senior staff member, team principal Anderson declined to respond to the specifics - but did suggest the comments painted a biased picture of the situation at the team.

"The story that the employee tells is certainly twisted and one-sided," said Anderson. "There are also contradictions. Everybody that signed up here knew exactly what they were getting into, i.e. to have two cars on the track in Bahrain.

"Given the late start due to the FIA/FOTA situation of 2009, I asked everybody to keep the car simple, strong and reliable. The comment that the chassis moulds sat for a month while waiting for a lay-up schedule is exactly the sort of thing that hurt us. Way too complex and time consuming. I did question why it was so complex if it was not necessary.

"I don't want to retaliate point by point as they are entitled to their opinion."
Windsor himself said he would continue to work hard to help keep US F1 alive.

"I have given this project - and will continue to give - all the love and passion I have ever had for our sport," he said. "Some obstacles I won't be able to overcome but I'm not giving up."

We've seen a few posts on Ferrari's official website which seem, shall we say, unedited. I can guess who's writing them... They're bloshy, inelegant an unguarded. Which is quite refreshing in this uber-corporate paddock.

The attempts at poetic language do leave me reaching for the rat poison though.

Something tells me the FIA will be none too pleased with this latest post, which goes under the headline 'The Horse Whisperer - For whom the bell tolls'.

The commentator has a dig at the disarray of some of the new teams, which is firmly blamed on Max Mosley's decision to push the manufacturers out and welcome new constructors.

And Stefan GP doesn't escape the bile, lest we forget Mike Coughlan - he of Pronto Print fame - is now working for the Serbians.

"Firstly, they launched themselves into a quixotic legal battle with the FIA, then they picked the bones of Toyota on its death bed," writes 'The Horse Whisperer'. "Having got some people on board, around whom there was still a whiff of past scandals, they are now hovering around waiting to replace whoever is first to drop out of the game."

It goes on: "This is the legacy of the holy war waged by the former FIA president. The cause in question was to allow smaller teams to get into Formula 1. This is the outcome: two teams will limp into the start of the championship, a third it being pushed into the ring by an invisible hand - you can be sure it's not the hand of Adam Smith - and, as for the fourth, well, you would do better to call on Missing Persons to locate it. In the meantime, we have lost two constructors along the way, in the shape of BMW and Toyota, while at Renault, there's not much left other than the name. Was it all worth it?"

Adam Smith was, by the way, a Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneer of political economics. Talk about obscure.


Read the full rant here.

While many of my colleagues are in Valencia for the first test, I'm at home in Paris. I've written a new book, the details of which I should probably keep slightly schtum on until it's unveiled - i.e given away - in Bahrain. It's been fun and I think the book will be a popular one, but I've been so busy writing, liaising with the designer, subbing, proofing and getting it signed off from the sponsor (yes, I'm a corporate whore) that I haven't managed to update my blog in a week. Apologies, I haven't actually slept in 60 hours. Print deadline, see.

Also, after a mammoth researching and writing sesh, my flat takes on the appearance of Withnail & I's and I cannot face anything. Always happens. I haven't done the washing up in three weeks.

I might not be in Valencia, but due to the amount my colleagues there have been Twittering I don't think I've missed anything. Thanks to the likes of @sarahholtf1, @byronf1, @NobleF1, @eddstrawF1, and @jamesallenonF1 for keeping me in the loop. Perhaps I should have F1 on the end of my name too.

But there's another reason I tend to avoid tests, unless there's a specific interview I'm going to get. It's because a) team personnel are really busy. I mean on a race weekend, it's difficult to talk to drivers and others because there are set schedules and 'it's grand prix weekend dahling' and that. But at tests, the only break they get in a 12 hour day is to stuff their faces. And then they physically cannot talk (I once got a frothing earful when I attempted to ask Alan Permane - aka Witness X, aka Bat - a question at the dining table. Calm down dear).

And b) because testing doesn't really mean much to journalists. Photographers yes, because they can get the first pics of Michael in the Mercedes and Jenson in the McLaren. But really, unless you know the fuel levels and set-up, it's hard to compare the times. It's all just guessing.



Fernando Alonso's first run in the Ferrari resulted in 40,000 Spaniards turning up to cheer him on. He was fastest, but is that a true indication of the car's abilities? Was it just PR? We don't know, that's the problem.

Most teams will be practicing with heavy loads. There's no refueling this year, and that will be a challenge when it comes to managing the tyres. The handling characteristics on light versus heavy loads will be very different too.

To find out who is genuinely fast, you have to talk to the drivers and technical chiefs, in the rare moment their not busy or inserting a vol-au-vont into their gob.

And then you have to hope their telling the truth. Teams have been known to pretend all is rosy, when all is not, in the hope that it comes right and they don't need to manage sponsor expectations (or they're still hunting sponsors - see Sauber). Or they say they're satisfied, when they mean the car is half a second quicker than anything else, but they don't want to be accused of running an illegal diffuser before Bahrain.

Red Bull, Force India and the new teams are not in Valencia. Ferrari look to be fast and reliable. McLaren are up there too. Mercedes have achieved quick times, but Schumacher has said he doesn't expect to be winning from the start and Ross Brawn has suggested the car isn't quite quick enough.

Renault hasn't set the world alight, but their new livery is much talked-about. I had managed to sneak a peek at some photos (and was sworn to secrecy), so I knew what was coming. It's already being called 'the yellow teapot' just as the Renault Turbo was in 1978. Yellow and black is back. It's in your face, and it's retro - with Mercedes and Lotus joining, it's like F1 has time traveled. Perhaps USF1 will enter a DeLorean.



As a nice retro nod, have you noticed that the red numbers on the Mercs, with a black outline and white circle, are just like they had in the 50s? Nice touch.



The McLaren is eye-catching, with that enormous engine cover linking the air-box to the rear-wing. I expect other teams may copy this.



The cars this year are longer, by 15-20cm, to accommodate bigger fuel tanks. And fuel companies have developed lower density fuel, so the cars can make a full race distance on a single tank.

Virgin unveiled their car yesterday. It was meant to be a 'virtual launch' online, but there was a technical hitch. Let's hope they'll be more reliable on track. A lot of commentators have praised the looks. My colleague Will Buxton and I agree it's a bit IRL, but hopefully it doesn't only turn left. It's all been designed on computer, using CFD rather than a wind tunnel. This saves a huge amount of money, and if the car is quick it'll cut F1 costs significantly. Will it be, though? Nick Wirth is very confident in his abilities, but when it comes to F1, well, his Simtek team hardly set the world alight.

We won't know until Bahrain whether he has a pair of trousers to go with his mouth.



On the drivers side, Renault confirmed Vitaly Petrov, which I think is a good move. He seems fast enough for F1, and Russian involvement is healthy for the sport.

A lot of noise has been made about the money he brings somewhere in the region of 10 million Euros. However, my colleagues at Metro Russia have told me that, though Vladimir Putin made calls on Petrov's behalf to engage Russian finance, Vitaly's father re-mortaged his real estate business to meet Renault's demands.

An Eastern European line-up, along with Robert Kubica, won't do Renault's car sales any harm in this developing region. This is smart.

Nick Heidfeld was left out on the musical chairs front and has joined Mercedes as reserve driver. It was the only option left to him, really. I think it is mad that Nick wasn't given a race drive. He may not be an Alonso, but he's still one of the top eight or nine drivers in F1, he outscored Kubica at BMW, he has been the most consistent finisher in the last couple of seasons and he has the record for the most second places without a win: eight.

He's a great development driver, and Mercedes are lucky to have him. But if I were a new team, and I wanted a driver who wasn't too expensive, was quick, experienced, and knew the tech side, he would be my first choice. Jose Maria Lopez... Are you kidding me??

Campos aren't going to any of the tests, so their place on the grid is looking a bit of a joke. The new Stefan Grand Prix set-up have come to an agreement to use Toyota's chassis and some staff, and I understand they're proposing to go to Bahrain without an official entry. I'm not sure how this is going to work out, but if it is - and I can't see that it will - they're going to have to do some pretty serious brown-nosing with the FIA.

The next new team launch will the Lotus, on February 12 in London. I'll be there.

The FIA has issued a communique. Here's the meat from it:

It came as a great surprise to hear that Flavio Briatore has won his legal action against the FIA, through the French courts. His ban is lifted, as is the one for Pat Symonds. Briatore gets 15,000 Euros damages (he was asking for 2m) and Symonds gets 5,000. The FIA now has 15 days in which to advertise the ruling in a French newspaper of Flav and Pat's choosing, and inform the F1 teams.

Eric Boullier has been confirmed as Renault's new team principal this afternoon. Has the date been chosen to coincide with the Briatore verdict from the French courts?

Renault make no secret that they are trying to find a buyer asap for their F1 team. But they insist that whoever takes it over retains Viry as the engine supplier and the team remains branded Renault - at least for 2010. They seem to want a fazed buyout, with completion in 2011.