There is a blistering irony in the suggestion that exiled Formula 1 team boss Flavio Briatore is busy writing the rules for a new series called GP1. Briatore writing rules? That is like handing over the keys to the bank to Bonnie and Clyde.

Let us not forget that this Briatore person was busted from the sport for his role in the race fixing events in Singapore back in 2008. Initially he was banned for life but because the FIA (a previous regime) was sloppy in its judicial processes and that overstepped the mark and the Italian was able to win a settlement after applying lots of lawyers to the problem and dressing up as an injured party. It was decided that he would not be allowed into F1 for five years. Team personnel must also now apply for a licence to take part in the sport and there is really no good reason why he should be granted one.

Thankfully, it is fairly clear that the idea of a GP1 Series is simply a lever in negotiations over a new Concorde Agreement with the FIA. GP1 is not a very good lever because unless the FIA is behind it, it will never get the “World Championship” tag and this is what the teams and car manufacturers are after. The FIA has the right to designate such status and everyone else has to make do with nomenclature such as World Cup and World Series, which is not the same thing at all – and everyone knows that.

A switch away from Formula 1 is also a waste of 62 years of heritage. Rumours may say that Ferrari is keen on the idea and if that is the case, then the Italian team should be given no sympathy at all. It uses its importance and heritage in F1 to extricate extra money from the sport and thus it would be wise to support the sport, rather than selling out to another enterprise. That would add to the impression that Ferrari would do anything for money.

When all is said and done the sport gets what it deserves and if it deserves GP1 then it will get it.

GP2, the previous championship which was promoted by Briatore and is now owned by the Formula One group is a major league rip-off. Teams cannot use parts unless they are supplied by he series, and these are supplied at a huge premium to normal prices. The cars are expensive and not very well-engineered. It is basically a pretty shoddy money-generator, which owes its limited success to the fact that, running alongside F1, it gives the drivers exposure, which rival championships cannot not provide. The running time is limited.

The quality of the drivers drops off very quickly after the top two or three teams with most of the field being there because they have money and the less well-heeled going to the Renault World Series or Formula 2.

Having said that the entire structure of the junior formulae is not perfect. There is far too much clutter and, in any case, very few drivers are getting into F1 without large sums of money behind them and those that are are being signed up when they are teenagers. The FIA is looking at a completely restructuring of single-seater racing in order to make it more accessible. Gerhard Berger heads a commission doing that job.

GP2 was sold on the basis that it would be cheaper than the existing Formula 3000. That did not last long. It has been a “nice little earner” for the boys for many years.

The sport has been exploited mercilessly for more than a generation now and the time is right for a change. It would be foolish for the sport to dive head-first into another such arrangement.

Sorry that things have been a bit quiet this week. This is because real life intervened and I had to spend my time doing things that normal people do, such as seeing family, moving and tomorrow I will be on the road to Monaco, as it is a lot better these days to rent an apartment for a week rather than to stay in a hotel for five days. So I will be on the Cote d’Azur from Saturday (Life is tough, I know).

There really us not much happening at the moment. Monisha Kaltenborn has been given a third of the Sauber team by a grateful Peter Sauber), which is a move that will nail her into the team for years to come. A smart move in my opinion. Beyond that there is not much serious stuff, although the news that Lola has gone into administration is sad. Hopefully it will emerge healthier.

There have been interesting times of late in the Krasnodar region of Russia, where the city of Sochi is located. The regional governor Alexander Tkachev is not elected but rather appointed by the Russian government. Tkachev was elected to the office as long ago as 2000, and was then re-elected in 2004, but since 2007 he has been reappointed first by President Vladimir Putin in 2007 and a few weeks ago by President Dmitry Medvedev. The regional administration resigned and a major reorganisation is now taking place. Among those who are no longer in power is Mikhail Yakovlevich Kapirulin, the director general of OAO Omega company, which is responsible for construction projects for the Winter Olympics in 2014, and for the Russian GP that is due to follow the Games. Kapirulin was the man who signed the contract for a race with Bernie Ecclestone back in 2010. A new government is now being appointed and as soon as that has happened the focus will return to getting everything ready on time for the Games and for the Grand Prix that will follow.

It should be remembered that Vladimir Putin, the then Prime Minister of Russia, was at the signing ceremony in 2010 and is clearly behind the project. He has recently been re-elected as Russia’s President, so it is safe to say that the changes in management in Krasnodar are designed to speed things up, rather than slow them down.

More than ever before Formula 1 racing would benefit from a budget cap. Those who argue against such an idea are simply protecting vested interests, or at least they think they are, as they probably have more to gain from saving money, rather than trying to win cash.

The current situation, in which the Formula One group takes more than half the money out of the sport, makes it is illogical to spend to win, rather than saving to create profit. There has never been a doubt that those that spend more money can gain an advantage in F1, if they know what they are doing. There has also never been a doubt that engineers will spend all the money that they are given – and always ask for more.

But that does not make for good businesses… Just as purist attitudes do not make for better races in the modern era.

What does make sense is cost-control, to stop money being spent on things that are utterly useless, and budget caps to restrict the cash that is eaten up by F1 at a time when sponsorship money is not easy to find. There are still some team owners who race because they love it; others are on massive ego-trips. More and more are looking for value in the business.

There is no doubting that F1 would be far healthier if the teams were all profit centres and any changes of ownership were because of potential profit, rather than the previous owners running out of cash. This would create brilliant win-win situations with big companies who could use the sport to promote their products, and at the same time make a profit from the racing. That would mean that every F1 “franchise” would have more value than it does today. There are only 12 of them and there are plenty of big companies that might decide to get involved in F1 if the sport created profit, gave them what amounted to free publicity and created technology that was actually useful.

The idea of a budget cap is not new. Ford’s motorsport boss Richard Parry-Jones suggested in 2004 that a system of budget-capping was the way to go.

“It’s unrealistic,” said Jean Todt, then at Ferrari.

“Impossible to police,” said McLaren’s Ron Dennis. “I just totally and utterly disagree with it. It’s an absolutely unpoliceable proposal.”

“It’s competition to get the best deals and we fight each other fairly, in the commercial world, like all companies do,” said Frank Williams.

Tony Purnell, the boss of Jaguar Racing, disagreed.

“I like the idea because it makes the cleverest, most efficient company win, rather than just money muscle.” he said.”It would make it a very interesting business and technical exercise to try and do the best job on a fixed budget. It would certainly revolutionise the sport. I don’t see it to be as difficult to police as people imagine.”

Whatever the arguments, the idea died a death. FIA President Max Mosley tried to revive it a few years ago, but he ran into other troubles before the plan could be introduced.

In recent days the F1 teams have managed to reach an agreement on cost control with 80 percent of the teams saying they are in favour. That was necessary before June 30, after which unanimous agreement is needed for changes to next year’s rules. No document has yet been signed by the team’s agreed and that was minuted at the last meeting of the Sporting Working Group.

We hear that a proposal for a budget cap is coming which would restrict budgets to something like $175 million in 2013, $150 million in 2014 and $120 million in 2015. This would not include drivers, marketing or administration costs and would be independent of cost control ideas relating to powertrains. The latter would need separate agreements, but this would be a self-policing system as it would involve car companies not just messing about in racing, but rather using their core competences. There are two things to be gained from such a system: the first is that multinational car companies dare not be caught cheating on such things; and secondly they could use their success for advertising, showing that they won races when everyone had the same resources. It is worth reflecting that the car industry used to be deeply opposed to crash-testing, but today uses it to sell vehicles. F1 could be the same.

There are still people who argue that it cannot be policed, but they do not understand the concept of forensic accounting. An FIA-enforced cost cap, administered by a global accounting firm, would encourage more teams and manufacturers to enter the sport.

Ultimately it might be better for the teams to work together to control the commercial rights of the sport. They are incapable of doing that, so the next best thing is to create more value for everyone.

It is probably a very sensible thing that Mercedes-Benz is keeping quiet about Concorde Agreement negotiations. That is the best way to get a solution that suits the German manufacturer.

Several of the teams have agreed basic terms for a new Concorde Agreement. Not all of them are happy with what has been agreed, but you get what you can get based on your importance to the sport. The Formula One group does not think that Mercedes is that important. The Germans disagree. This is the crux of the problem.

Having said that, there is little doubt that it would suit some of the other teams if the deal under discussion blew up and things had to start again. The details of the next Concorde Agreement, which is due to run from the start of next year until the end of 2020, are not in the public domain, if indeed they have been decided already. What is clear, from a statement made by the Formula One group, is that some of the teams have agreed “in principle” deals. In order to get this to happen there was no small amount of wheeling and dealing and some pretty advanced arm-twisting. The primary aim was to break up the unity of the Formula One Team Association (FOTA). Although Ferrari was central to establishing FOTA and the other teams tried to trust the Italian team, it proved – as has happened before – that there will always be a point at which it puts its interests ahead of those of the sport as a whole. Once the Formula One group offered Ferrari enough, it dropped FOTA like a hot potato. Ferrari on its own is not powerful enough and so the Formula One group needed other FOTA scalps. Red Bull was reportedly offered a very substantial financial incentive to break away from FOTA, while the Bahraini shareholders at McLaren were encouraged to get that team to agree not to fight and Frank Williams was encouraged to listen to his old mate Bernie Ecclestone, rather than to Williams F1 chairman Adam Parr. The remaining teams – with one exception – are utterly irrelevant and must take whatever deal they are offered. Once FOTA was blown up, they had no other bargaining power.

The fly in the ointment was Mercedes-Benz which is big enough not to be pushed around and annoyed enough not to agree to a deal that it does consider suitable. There is an argument that additional payments to Ferrari can be justified under the competiton laws of Europe because the Italian team has such a important heritage in F1. That is worthy of discussion, but a similar arrangement with Red Bull Racing is more difficult to justify.

If one looks at the numbers it is fairly clear that the best that Red Bull can claim as an active team owner is that it has a team that dates back to 1995 when Sir Jackie Stewart set up a new organisation called Stewart Grand Prix. The firm that bears that UK company number went on to become Jaguar Racing in 2000 and, after the Ford Motor Company had messed things up royally, it landed in the hands of Red Bull at the end of 2004. Thus the best Red Bull can claim in heritage in the sport is 17 years. In that time the team has won two Drivers’ and two Constructors’ World Championships, in 2010 and 2011. One can add that the legal entity has won 29 victories (Red Bull’s 28, plus Stewart GP’s one-off win).

When it comes to historical status, Mercedes is hard to beat in overall motor racing terms. The company first appeared in motor racing in 1901. It competed in and won the Gordon Bennett Cup, the competition that preceded Grand Prix racing, which in turn preceded the Formula 1 World Championship. It won the Grand Prix de l’Automobile Club de France – the biggest event in Grand Prix racing – as early as 1908 and finished 1-2-3 in 1914. It was one of the dominant teams in the 1930s, winning 14 races in five years and was utterly dominant when it joined the Formula 1 World Championship for the first time in 1954 and 1955, winning nine victories.

The current Mercedes F1 team began life only in 2010, but that entity can trace its roots all the way back to January 1964 when Ken Tyrrell established the Tyrrell Racing Organisation. This became British American Racing in 1998, Honda GP in 2006, Brawn GP in 2009 and Mercedes GP at the end of the same year. If one looks at the numbers, the firm that bears the company number has won six World Championships in total (three Drivers’ titles with Tyrrell and one with Brawn GP, plus the 1971 and 2009 Constructors’ titles). In terms of race wins it has accumulated 43 victories (Tyrrell’s 33, plus Button’s Honda win in Hungary in 2006, Brawn’s eight and the recent Nico Rosberg win in China).

Based on these numbers one can understand that Mercedes feels that it should get a better historical deal than Red Bull Racing and that any deal that does not take this into account is unfair.

But is an unfair contract something which is illegal? The lawyers can argue that one, but it is really not the key point. What is perhaps more important is what Mercedes may or may not have done about it. If, for example, the car company was to write to the Formula One group, indicating that it believed the deal on offer was anti-competitive, under the terms of the European legislation, there would be a problem created with the Formula One IPO in Singapore. The rules of transparency in IPOs generally require those who embark on a flotation to give details of risk factors involved. So if there is a document that states that there could be trouble, it must be made public when the Formula One group starts trying to flog shares to investors. This does not mean that the IPO cannot go ahead, but investors are generally very conservative people and the concept of impending litigation from one of the world’s largest car companies is not something that they will want to see. The only way that this can be avoided is if a deal is done with Mercedes and they are satisfied with the offer, but if that happens there may be other teams that are not satisfied with being offered less. So a deal with Mercedes needs really to be done after all the other horse trading is over. The problem is that the Formula One group is in a wild hurry to go to the markets in July and there is not much time to quibble for weeks on end. This may explain the presence of Mercedes boss Dr Dieter Zetsche in Barcelona.

The precipitous nature of the flotation does beg another question:

Why?

What is so important about doing a deal in July when it would be wiser to get the Concorde Agreement all sorted out first? There cannot be some unexpected event coming, as the risk factors known to the company should also be known to investors. Would it not be more logical to wait until the summer holidays are over and the financial markets are firing on all cylinders again?

Journalists in Formula 1 (both the real ones and those who like to imagine such status) love to think that racing drivers are “under pressure” when things do not go right. When you actually talk to drivers you find, more often than not, that they are pretty unfazed by pressure. They either do not read the media, or are resilient enough not to take it to heart. They only feel under pressure when the teams tell them to do a better job. Pressure as a concept is pretty over-rated, as the person who puts the most pressure on the average F1 driver is the driver himself. He knows what he needs to achieve and works to do that. If he is honest with himself – and most are – then he will know if he is doing a good job or not.

Some do get completely lost and you hear that when they start to blame outside forces, such as the team, other drivers or the tyres. The smart driver says that a team lives as a team and each part of that team accepts the mistakes of the other parties without making a fuss about it. That is how true teamwork should be. The ability to assess oneself honestly is vital in the job of being an F1 driver and a team boss (as in any employment where performance is important). A smart driver will always say “I screwed up” when he makes a mistake. That way he is respected much more by the team, and by sensible observers, than would be the case if he tried to shift the blame elsewhere.

I would say, for example, that Michael Schumacher needs to have a good look at himself and ask difficult questions, rather than saying that the tyres are not good and that Bruno Senna was to blame for the accident between them in Barcelona.

You will see stories kicking around of there being pressure on Bruno Senna and Felipe Massa at the moment. It is true that both are in difficult situations but does that mean that they feel under pressure?

It is not easy to define the term “pay-driver” because sponsorship is often linked to drivers whether they are good or not. The key point is whether sponsorship was what got them the drive. And in the case of Pastor Maldonado and Bruno Senna, there is no question that the money played an important role in the decision-making, simply because the team needed the cash. If money had not been an issue in recent years I think Williams today would have Nico Hulkenberg and Valtteri Bottas in the two cars.

Now that Maldonado has delivered a victory of great maturity and control, there are questions that being asked: Is Pastor better than we all thought he was? Is he getting the same out of the car as would an Alonso or a Hamilton? Or is the car so good that it is flattering his talent? I do not know the answer to that. Senna, on the other hand, has not done enough yet to show that he is a match for Maldonado. That creates the impression that Senna is not as good as his team-mate and he must work to show that this is not the case. In Barcelona, Bruno messed up his chances in qualifying. He knows it. In the race he was doing a decent job until Michael Schumacher ran into the back of him. That was beyond his control. What he needs to do now is to keep his head down, deliver better results and if he is good enough he will end up beating Maldonado. One can believe in luck if one wants to, but the cynic in me says that it is better to have a lucky driver than an unlucky one.

Bruno has done 31 races to Pastor’s 24 although his material has not always been top notch. Bruno knows all this and wants to do better. In part his success or failure will be based on his strength of character and his hunger. Racing drivers are complex animals but the winners are almost always the hungry men who can battle through hard times and never give up. But does that mean that Bruno Senna feels under pressure? If he has done his best and his best is not good enough then he knows where he stands. Getting nervous and feeling under pressure will not help him, and he knows that too. So, to a large extent, pressure is a media concept.

Over at Ferrari Bruno’s fellow countryman Felipe Massa is feeling the same kind of thing. He does not seem able to get himself hooked up with the Pirelli tyres and he has taken a battering in the last three years from Fernando Alonso. Felipe must ask himself the same questions as every driver asks: is my team-mate a better driver than I am? How can I react to the situation and improve my performance?

I have been wondering for some time whether the two drivers are evenly matched in the Ferrari simulator, where the issue of tyres is virtual… According to the team analysis of Felipe’s performance, he matches Alonso in lots of different respects, but loses out because of his inability to interact successfully with the tyres. Massa is a confident guy and very resilient, but one must also ask whether perhaps Fernando’s dominance has influenced him. Every driver at some point in his career has to face up to the knowledge that there is someone faster than he is, even the greats face that (usually when their careers move into a downward glide, as age catches up with them). It is how they deal with that knowledge that is important. Some react positively and improve themselves and take up the challenge; some accept the reality and live with it and make the most of being “a good number two”, some cannot handle it and their confidence is undermined and their careers fall apart as a result.

I would argue that journalists should spend more time concentrating on whether a driver has confidence in himself and the strength of character to deal with adversity, rather than whether he feels under pressure.

The Williams team had an extraordinary weekend in Barcelona, the team winning its first victory in eight years, thanks to the efforts of Venezuela’s Pastor Maldonado – much to the delight of the many Williams F1 fans in the paddock. There was further drama on Sunday evening when there was a flash fire in the team’s pit garage when Sir Frank Williams was talking to the team and photographs were being taken. It is not clear how this happened but the result was that one team member suffered serious burns, while a number of others from several different teams suffered from smoke inhalation as they fought the fire.

The fire spoiled the celebrations for the team that had gone for eight years without success and came soon after Frank Williams’s 70th birthday, which was celebrated by the team on Saturday evening. Maldonado’s victory was a well-judged and hard-fought one, against the very best, and his status in F1 circles went up accordingly, elevating him from being seen as a quick but erratic pay-driver, to being seen as a serious player with race-winning potential.

The victory was vindication for the structure put in place in recent years by the team’s former CEO Adam Parr, who left the organisation a few weeks ago after failing to agree with the team owners on how the Concorde Agreement negotiations should be handled. Parr took much criticism for hiring the engineers and drivers chosen, but the win proved that his choices were sound. It was vindication too for technical director Mike Coughlan, who returned to the sport last year after three years away following the 2007 spying scandal in which he was implicated. Coughlan has kept an incredibly low profile this season, but it is clear that his involvement has been of key importance in the Williams turnaround.

GrandPrix+, the original and fastest F1 e-magazine, is now out. It would have been published an hour ago if the Circuit de Catalunya had a sensible Internet system. Sadly, despite ripping off visiting journalists for Web access for the weekend, the service was so poor that it was impossible to upload the magazine and we had to return to our hotel to get a system that actually works. It seems fairly illogical to provide such a service and to annoy visiting media as the supposed purpose of a Grand Prix is to promote the region.

However, the good news is that the magazine is now ready for downloading.

We look at the amazing events during the Spanish GP in Barcelona. We look back at Gilles Villeneuve, who died 30 years ago, and remember Carroll Shelby. We ask why do people watch F1; interview rising American star Alexander Rossi; examine whether Michael Schumacher is right about the Pirelli tyres; and discuss driving etiquette in F1 in 2012.

In addition to that we have the usual great photographs and regular columns and features – and some groan-worthy headlines.

For more information about how to subscribe to GP+, go to www.grandprixplus.com

Lewis Hamilton and Pastor Maldonado will share the first row of the grid in Spain on Sunday, while the local fans got wild as Fernando Alonso put his Ferrari third on the grid. The Lotuses were fourth and fifth on the grid with Romain Grosjean and Kimi Raikkonen showing that black is nearly back, while Sergio Perez, Nico Rosberg, Sebastian Vettel, Michael Schumacher and Kamui Kobayashi rounded off the top 10.

Hamilton ended the session stopping out on the grid.

It is a fascinating grid for the first Grand Prix of 2012 in Europe… Sunday is going to be worth watching.

Pastor Maldonado led the way in the Q2 session in Barcelona, beating Lewis Hamilton, Romain Grosjean, Sergio Perez, Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso, Nico Rosberg, Sebastian Vettel, Kamui Kobayashi and Michael Schumacher.

There was a surprise to see Jenson Button and Mark Webber being knocked out, along with the two Force Indias, the two Toro Rossos and Felipe Massa’s Ferrari.

At the end of the session Kobayashi stopped beside the track so will not take part in Q3.