This past weekend, the GP3 Series held a standalone weekend at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia. Although it sounds like a relatively new concept, it has been done many times before, most notably with GP2 in Portugal in 2009 and in Bahrain several times.

But why? I put that as a question, because I struggle to understand the rationale behind standalone weekends. The GP3 weeekend was promoted as ‘#AllEyesOnUs’ and was free for people to attend. Despite that, the grandstands all around the circuit were empty. For any motor sport event, I find that a sad sight. On GP3’s behalf, bad scheduling is one factor. As Simon Hill noted in commentary, there was motor racing in Jerez and Barcelona – MotoGP was at the latter. You don’t go to a country, hold a race in that country if it already has big motor sport events scheduled for that weekend. You could argue that the event was free so the series organisers would not have made any profit anyway, but it does not make for good reading when you publicise an event for free, yet still very few people bother to turn up.

Some creativity from organisers was needed to get more people along. Why not have a Formula 1 track demo in between the two races to get more people into the venue? The event may as well have been in Bahrain and we wouldn’t have noticed any difference. Even though GP3 is essentially the third tier of motor sport, I would have thought publicising it for free would get people along. I do think on the whole, having the race at Valencia was a bad move, as a circuit it does not bring out the best in single seater racing thanks to the nature of the track. As a fan, you can see the entire circuit from the majority of the grandstands, but the circuit really is only good for motorbikes where there are plenty of opportunities to overtake.

Unfortunately, the ‘standalone problem’ is not immune to GP3, I remember vividly back to the days of A1 Grand Prix where some venues struggled to fill grandstands (Lausitzring, anyone?). GP3 runs alongside the Formula 1 calendar in Europe, and as a result sticks to their schedule. The benefit of that is that GP3 plays out in front of Formula 1’s crowds and is also shown during the Formula 1 weekend – meaning that it can benefit as a result. I know that I am more likely to watch the feeder series live if they are immediately before and after a Formula 1 event than any other weeks of the year. I suspect therefore that a lot of people who would normally watch the feeder series around Europe did not realise that there was an event last weekend, and I also think less networks shown last weekend’s race as a result. In essence, there were, to quote the hashtag not many eyes on them.

This event suffered from bad planning and organisation in my opinion. Standalone events can work though, as GP2 proved in 2009 at Portimao in Portugal where the attendance was healthy. Portimao is also unique because of its elevation changes, which is a rarity on modern day circuits. Instead GP3 went for the unchallenging Valencia circuit with not much to offer for single seater racing. Had, for sake of argument, last weekend’s standalone been held in the UK, I imagine the attendance would have been significantly higher. I assume that to hold a standalone weekend, the FIA Circuit Grade needs to be 1, 1T or 2. I don’t know how many circuits fall under that category within the UK.

Would I have expected GP3 to sell out Valencia this weekend? Absolutely not. But I would have expected there to have been a few grandstands relatively full. Overall, I do think the idea of standalone weekends is a good one, but in the case of GP3, the standalone weekend this past weekend was badly executed.

Whilst the Formula 1 season heads into round four, as with 2012, the main headlines focus not on what is happening on the track, but instead an attempt to divert the situation to the events that are occurring off the track. The Bahrain Grand Prix is again a talking point as the media wonders whether Formula 1 should be in the country racing, or not. For the purposes of this blog, I’m not going to answer that question, mainly because I do not know that answer. I am not in Bahrain, nor do I have on me the facts or figures that led those in a position of power and Formula One Management (FOM) to choose to race at the Bahrain International Circuit this weekend. The purpose of this blog is mainly to address a few gripes of mine, but also to try and understand the reasons behind it.

The main gripe concerns journalists appearing to jump onto the Formula 1 bandwagon, only to criticise the sport. On Twitter last night, the example I gave was senior BBC Sport journalist Dan Roan, who does not follow the Formula 1 circus. The problem I have is that journalists such as Roan do not appear to praise Formula 1 and only seem to criticise where necessary. For example, Roan was not present at last month’s Chinese Grand Prix, nor did he interview Sebastian Vettel or Mark Webber following the team orders’ controversy. As far as the current season is concerned, that is definitely the biggest story so far with many possible ramifications, yet journalists such as Roan were not present to follow that story. One Formula 1 team member told me last night “it feels safer here than [in] London”. So why do journalists such as Roan go to Bahrain?

The answer is fairly complex. Roan, as a BBC Sport journalist would go to Bahrain with the written intention of reporting on the Grand Prix. Once in Bahrain, however, he and his team are free to do what they like and report on whatever they see, regardless of where it may be within the country. Who wins or who loses this Sunday is not an issue for him or for his particular story – the only purpose of the ‘Sports journalist’ tag in this context is to get him into Bahrain. Had BBC sent out a correspond with the ‘Middle East journalist’ tag to report on the issues in Bahrain at any other time of the year, they would have been arrested on the spot. Last year, Channel 4 News’ Foreign Affairs Correspondent Jonathan Miller was arrested and deported. Today, ITN’s news team and a France 24 correspondent were arrested and released earlier today. It is a catch 22 situation. I may not like that, because it brings a lot of bad publicity towards Formula 1, but it is the only way journalists can get into the country to report on the countries issues.

A secondary issue I don’t like is how Formula 1 is used for political purposes. Formula 1 is primarily a sport and entertainment spectacle. It should not used as a political tool for or against the regime in charge. I do not believe that this is an issue this year, but it definitely was last year with the “UniF1ed: One Nation in Celebration” poster. To bring that poster to perspective, it would be the equivalent of the British Grand Prix supporting the current government. The situations of course are extremely different in nature, but the promotional tool used would be identical. So then you may ask, why is Formula 1 racing in Bahrain? If it brings bad public press, then surely Formula 1 should just stop racing there. If journalists are going to enter Bahrain at the same time as Formula 1 every year, then what benefit does Formula 1 bring to the country? If you are to argue that their human rights record means that they should stop racing there, then couldn’t the same be said for Brazil or China or multiple other countries? I don’t know.

The sad thing is that after this weekend the journalists will soon move back out of Bahrain and the people of Bahrain will be left without an international voice for another year. It all seems to be a rather sad state of affairs that Formula 1 has – again – become embroiled in.

There is always a lot of debate when a Qualifying session or a Race gets stopped in Formula 1, with the usual debates being brought in. Today, we have had this reoccur again with the Australian Grand Prix, the 2013 season opener. There were two separate delays here. The first delay eventually meant that Q1 went ahead half an hour later than schedule. The second delay was to Q2, in ten minute intervals, before it was decided that Q2 and Q3 will take place on Sunday morning. But was it the right decision?

Personally, I don’t think you can question the delay to Q1 really. Before the session started, it was pretty evident that there was a significant amount of standing water, some kerbs being left under water, so this was a very sensible move by the FIA. There is no point of sending out cars if all they are going to do is tip-toe around the circuit. I don’t think there is much to debate here.

The problem, for me, comes with the second stoppage. The track at the end of Q1 was drying, drivers were setting competitive lap times and were clearly in the intermediates window. After the session, there was a spell of heavy rain. Would that spell of heavy rain for two to three minutes left the track in a worse condition than what it was in at the start of Q1? I don’t think so. If the drivers had gone out at the normal time (seven minutes after Q1 for Q2), the track would have been driveable. From the pictures, it looked like the drivers would have been able to use the racing line created towards the end of Q1.

It felt to me like a knee-jerk decision. I did not really understand the reasoning either – FIA were waiting to see what the predicted heavy rain showers would do and some of the lines were proving tricky. Is Formula 1 not meant to be a challenge? These drivers are the best of the best, the weather conditions after Q1 looked driveble in my opinion. The FIA’s reasoning about the predicted weather I don’t agree with, they would not delay a race if rain was predicted, so why delay qualifying? They should have started Q2 and let the drivers clear the track. If the drivers miss the window, then that is their fault. I think FIA have set a dangerous precedent by delaying Q2 because of potential rain.

A final point is with regards the start time for Australia and Malaysia. Malaysia is next weekend, and I hope we don’t find ourselves in the same situation. Malaysia use to be an early afternoon race, until 2009 when it was moved to early evening. It smacks of over-commercialisation to cater for European audiences. As someone who lives in the UK, I have benefited from it, but on the counter point, it won’t help them break until America who are starting a new broadcasting deal this weekend. With the changing climatic conditions, delaying sessions or red flagging races appears to be becoming an occurrence once every year.

I don’t think postponing Qualifying due to the rain does Formula 1 any good. Martin Whitmarsh talks about Formula 1 moving away from the television model and looking towards the internet. Someone should point out to Whitmarsh that people can watch other motor sports via the internet. Other motor sports that would have raced in the conditions Formula 1 did not this evening. It doesn’t make the sport look good, in my opinion. There needs to be a ‘level’, a few years ago, we were at the perfect ‘level’ between safety and entertainment. Now, on days like today, it feels we’re veering towards safety too much, to the detriment of the sport.

This week has seen the 2013 Formula One season get under way in full force with the now traditional car launches, with each team inviting the worlds’ media along to make their launch stand out the most. Some go for glitz, whilst others go for the old fashioned, but still perfectly adequate method of launching their machinery in pit-lane. Unfortunately though, whilst some launches have been good, others have turned into a blatant PR stunt and one launch turned ugly.

The launches have, mostly, been good. The week started off with Lotus launching their E21 car at their headquarters in Enstone on Monday. Initially though the launch did not go according to plan, high winds thwarted their original plan, and the team were forced to relocate inside to the factory. Nevertheless, after a quick turnaround, the team were back on track, launching their car at 19:15 UK time with Craig Slater overseeing proceedings. McLaren, like Lotus, launched their car at their headquarters in Woking. Although the first half hour were filled with Vodafone related PR material, the last thirty minutes picked up significantly, with a touching tribute to Bruce McLaren, along with cars from the past 50 years being driven around the McLaren lake. Lotus and McLaren definitely, for me, fell into the good category.

Force India followed up on Friday morning and, like in 2012, took the old school route launching their car actually at a race circuit, a few minutes away from their base at Silverstone. Ferrari and Sauber launched at their bases’ respectively, although if you were a Formula 1 journalist wanting to go to every launch, you would have to pick between them given the close timescale and long distance between the launches. Not very handy, although it is understandable why a team like Ferrari would prefer launching at their base in Maranello in Italy than England, for example.

At the aforementioned launches, the journalists were invited, they got to ask questions and could take photographs. The fans could watch via some form, whether it was via that teams’ YouTube channel or Sky Sports News, so they too felt involved. Mercedes and Red Bull had different ideas. Mercedes took the route that involved the fans, possibly a little too much. Now, whether this was deliberate on their behalf though, and therefore a blatant PR stunt, is open to interpretation. On Saturday, Mercedes tweeted that they would “engage fans with a unique F1 W04 online reveal”. Basically, the name of the game is that fans tweet, the more they tweet, the more the garage door opens, leading to the reveal. Unfortunately, what the did not anticipate is that the fans would overload their servers’, crashing their website. Or did they? Because late yesterday evening, they tweeted “keep retweeting #F1W04Reveal and the car will be unveiled progressively between now and Monday”. So, in other words, there is little point of retweeting #F1W04Reveal, because the car will not be unveiled any earlier, the launch remains on Monday. Yes, there are grainy pictures out there as a result of the garage door opening more, but it won’t fully open until Monday. Which, I suspect was always going to happen. Unfortunately, for Mercedes, this goes under the category of ‘blatant PR stunt’, which a significant group of fans and journalists fell for. If anything, the egg is on our faces, and not Mercedes.

Thankfully, Mercedes’ launch did not resort to physical violence. Unlike Red Bull’s, which nearly did. The purpose of car launches is to invite the media to said launch, they take photographs, they ask questions, the fans get to watch online and the teams get a bit of PR out of it. That is a ‘win win’ situation for everyone. Red Bull, at the last moment or not, we don’t know decided to ban media from taking photographs, while the online launch never appeared. To prevent the media from taking photographs, G4S were assigned the role of security at the launch. Respected Formula 1 technical journalist Craig Scarborough tweeted “Red Bull are aggressively stopping photos being taken, threaten[ing] to take cameras away.”, whilst Keith Collantine on the F1Fanatic.co.uk website said “G4S nearly snatched my phone off me.” May someone need to remind Red Bull that this is a Formula 1 car launch event and not a press conference full of international delegates? Yes, Formula 1 cars may live in a top secret world from time to time, but threatening to take cameras off people, at an event that you expect them to give you good PR for, is absolutely ludicrous. It is even more ludicrous when you consider that the Red Bull car will be in the public eye from Tuesday around Jerez. What will they do if the car breaks down? Steal the cameras of anyone that has taken a picture? As a point of clarity, for what it is worth, this poster on AUTOSPORT Forum said that they had problems with the online launch and that no cameras were taken away – even if the first point is true, they could have explained that on their Twitter feed which made no mention of said problems.

Compare the Red Bull launch to the McLaren one, where we were treated to a fantastic video with Gary Anderson and Suzi Perry intrinsically looking at the 2013 machine on the BBC Sport website. The problem is, whilst the McLaren launch is fantastic for the fans, the Red Bull one is not as fantastic with their secrecy. Another problem with all, but one, of these launches is the time of day the launches happen. Maybe it is about time that all the launches took place all in one evening, with every team getting a 20 minute slot to showcase their cars. Unfortunately, each team has their own political and sponsorship agenda that would let such an idea ever taking place as they like to be the spotlight, an event like that would mean everyone is on a level playing field, which teams would not like. It is a nice idea though. Hire out a big arena such as the O2 Arena or the NEC in Birmingham, have the worldwide media there along with 200 or so fans being invited, an FOM World Feed to stream to the likes of Sky Sports F1 and BBC online so that it is accessible to everyone, all in one place meaning Formula 1 is forefront of the spotlight. You could go one step further, and make Birmingham (or whichever city in Europe), the ‘host city’ for the weekend where Formula 1 activities take place during that weekend, from car demonstrations to driver signings. With the focus on that city and the world’s motor sport media descending on that location, it may be a small money spinner. It also would reduce travel costs, all the media would travel to one launch instead of having to take flights to multiple launches at different locations.

At least, then, you wouldn’t have certain teams’ threatening journalists for simply doing their job…