The British Formula One Grand Prix qualifying was superb with my old team Williams taking seventh place on the start grid by Argentine driver Pastor Maldonado.

He finished 14th during an action-packed Grand Prix with a few errors made by the more experienced drivers like Michael Schumacher who was involved in another shunt, to the well trained pit crew of McLaren who failed to secure the right front wheel of Jenson Button’s car after a pit stop. His race was over at that moment.

At the top of the grid was Australian Mark Webber who, in the end, finished third with some controversy over team orders to ‘maintain the gap’ to his team mate so they didn’t collide one lap to the end of the race.

And at the bottom of the pack was Australian F1 debutant Daniel Ricciardo of Western Australia, driving his first ever Formula One Grand Prix. He finished 19th out of 24 cars in the HRTF1 and gained valuable experience for his F1 future.

Ferrari played their cards close to their chest and won the Grand Prix with Fernando Alonso with his team mate, Felipe Massa, battling it out with McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton for fifth on the last corner before the chequered flag.

There will be ongoing media coverage of the team orders from Red Bull to Webber with 1,6oo Facebook fans vetting their feelings online as the drivers walked up to the podium for their trophies. Some colourful words were written, majority not happy with the Red Bull management – fewer in defence of the outcome.

Nurburgring is next on 24 July, a place you should visit to drive a lap or two of the old circuit, 22.5kms of it, known as the Green Hell. From Wikipedia: “The original Nurburgring was meant to be a showcase for German automotive engineering and racing talent, and was built with both purposes in mind. Construction of the track, designed by the Eichler Architekturburo from Ravensburg (led by Architect Gustav Eichler), began in September 1925. A Nurburgring circuit map photo taken at German Grand Prix 1964; the legend advises “No driving in the Eifel (mountains) without a lap on the Nurburgring”.

Enjoy your week, try not to miss a social outing for you and the family when the Senna movie screenings open in July and August, check it out.

After leaving Montreal Canada the Formula One season returned to Europe in Valencia Spain.

The circuit has been designed around a docklands type area where yachts can berth parallel to the racing track and the apartment suites overlook the best part of the straight making great party atmosphere venues for this unique race.

The Red Bull team continue to dominate with Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber qualifying on the front row of the racing grid for Sunday’s race just gone. A good start was had by all, with all 24 cars to finish a race. The young German taking the win with Mark Webber gambling on the use of the medium tyre losing second place to Ferrari rival Fernando Alonso on his last pit stop.

Mark was in third behind Alonso on his new medium tyres as Alonso stayed out longer on used soft tyres. Webber’s gearbox started playing up and Mark was short-shifting to keep the revs and pace up as his team informed him to stay safe, not push any harder, and try to finish the race. He held on to finish third.

Mercedes were perplexed with Nico Rosberg finishing seventh and his team mate, seven-times world champion Michael Schumacher, one lap down, ended his race in 17th place.

Sebastian Vettel leads the world championship on 186 points, with Mark Webber and Jenson Button second with 109 points each.

The constructor’s championship is led by Red Bull Renault, then McLaren Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault, Mercedes, Sauber-Ferrari, Toro Rosso-Ferrari, Force India-Mercedes and Williams-Cosworth.

Latest news on my old team Williams is that they may re-enter a new agreement and change to Renault engine power for 2013, perhaps 2012.

Mugello hosts the next round of MotoGP on July 3 where Casey Stoner will look to increase his championship lead, also welcome his injured team mate Dani Pedrosa back after collar bone surgery.

No doubt Valentino Rossi who lives nearby, will be looking to improve his season ride on Ducati and perhaps go for a win.

Keep an eye on it at One.

Anything you need on F1 or MotoGP contact me at my website www.alanjones.com.au.

Enjoy the rest of your week and the weekend coming up.

Well Mark Webber came back well after flying through the air upside down in Valencia with his Red Bull F1 two weeks ago to win the British Formula One Grand Prix from the front row of the grid.

A great start over his team who lost the race to the first corner as Mark Webber led the entire race from then on in excellent conditions, with record crowds in attendance. Friday the Brits turned out in their numbers to make a day record of 85000 as Sunday delivered 115000 fans with a healthy market in the UK for motorsport.

Over the race weekend Mark Webber was quick in all practice sessions only to see a change in team strategy before the all important qualifying on Saturday afternoon. A new design front wing was placed on both cars for practice 3 leaving just two hours to qualifying. Webber was okay with it after practice 3 and happy to retain the new design for qualifying, bearing in mind, their closest rivals, McLaren, struggled up to then on track as the Red Bull team felt confident of a front row to themselves. During practice 3 Vettel, Webber’s team mate, had a problem with the front wing as it came away from the anchor bolts, forcing him to return to the pits. A team management decision was made to take Mark’s front wing and give it to his team mate, along with the whole setup from Mark’s car. They replaced Webber’s car with an earlier design used font wing just before qualifying started. This forced Webber and his race engineer to revise their planned strategy and fortunately for the Webber crew it was almost perfect with a second place start of the grid beside team mate Vettel who took pole position.

There was no doubt whilst Webber was starting from the dirtier side of the track he would go hard to claim the first corner. That’s exactly what happened, with super fast 4+ second pit stops, the Red Bull Webber team won the race to the chequered flag. Mark has the mental strength to win the battle inside the team and should keep focused on winning every race until we get to the season end, then I hope it will be his first Formula One World Championship. I am very proud of Mark’s efforts and his ability to compete against all odds as a professional racing driver.

Casey Stoner will leave Ducati for Honda next season, where we may see a three bike team at Honda. Casey won his 2007 MotoGP World Championship on a Ducati, to leave only says things are not to his liking there with the bike’s development, and Honda have offered a greater future so we will have to wait and see if they deliver in 2011.

Germany will host both F1 and MotoGP this month at different tracks with great TV slow motions clips, so tune in as we blog after the MotoGP and F1.

Our two Aussies competed in the Indy 500 on the weekend, with Will Power coming home in 8th place, a DNF for Ryan Briscoe unfortunately.

In the world of Formula One, at the Istanbul Circuit yesterday, Mark Webber was on his way to a trifecta of victories only to have his team mate on lap 40 take control of what he only saw on the track, expecting Mark Webber to just move aside with no warning whatsoever. In these circumstances, you often hear over the radio by the chief or driver engineer, to move over, well prior with some notice to help keep both cars on the track. In this case, there was no reason for that directive, because both were racing to win on the day.

No doubt the other Red Bull driver, Sebastian Vettel was at fault considering the way he came through on Mark’s left and moved onto Mark’s side pod without reason. Vettel took himself out of the race and left Webber to try and grab third place after leading the race for the 40 laps prior.

Next weekend we are off to Mugello in Italy to see if Casey Stoner can win on his Ducati. Then we will see a few more Aussies competing in the annual Isle of Man TT Bike race before more Aussies compete in the 24 hours at Le Mans in France.

Mark Webber leads the Formula One World Championship by five points ahead of the McLarens with his team mate fifteen points back now fifth in the championship after starting the race equal first.

I wish all of our Anzac diggers and all returned service men and women a great Anzac Day on Sunday, we thank you.

Formula One’s round 4 at Shanghai delivered as expected with mixed weather, good and bad.

The guys who were on the front row didn’t finish in the same place let me tell you, it was a classic race with multiple pit stops for wet then intermediate then wet then dry tyres. The drivers in fourth through to sixth took the podium away from Webber, Vettel and Ferrari’s Alonso.

It was almost a swap from qualifying to the race result except Mark Webber finished in eighth. Those drivers who failed to finish had a run of issues to deal with, like some hydraulics and clutch failures, engines expired and a few had accidents on track. Everyone is ok, just a few repair bills mounting up for teams like HRTF1, Lotus, Sauber and Toro Rosso.

The volcanic ash forced the FIM [MotoGP’s governing body] to defer Motegi from this Anzac weekend to be the first of three in a row starting the first weekend in October, where we go to Japan, then Malaysia and Australia. We have a tour going to Malaysia if you are keen to join us leaving Australia on 5 October for six nights staying in the city and at the rider’s hotel, returning to Australia on 12 October. For more details go to www.gpshop.net or email info@gpshop.net

Since the China GP all of the teams spent most of their weekend chasing down the best way home for their crew, the race gear and how best to get ready for the next race as the series returns to Europe. A big contingent took the Trans Siberian railway into Russia and then another rail link to London via Paris. One photographer made a journey to Malaysia, Egypt and then into southern Europe to get home. It took him three days instead of one, ended well after he paid three times the normal cost to get there. And he certainly was not on his own!