It’s the kind of to-and-fro that would really benefit from some kind of official explanation. Instead, it got this HRT statement:

“After Sakon Yamamoto gave a very positive performance in Silverstone, the team has decided to give the Japanese driver another opportunity to drive the car alongside Bruno Senna. Karun Chandhok is still part of the Hispania Racing, HRT F1 Team family and is likely to be in the car at some later races this season.”

That’s cleared that up, then.

As far as anyone’s been able to establish, Senna’s absence from the Silverstone event was a disciplinary matter, but there may have been an element of bad fortune too.  Senna’s drive is not dependent on him bringing sponsorship to the team, while Chandhok is required to bring sponsorship funds as part of his deal.  Chandhok’s backers are thought to have been late on a scheduled payment, with the result that Yamamoto – who, unlike HRT’s other, much quicker test driver Christian Klien, has plenty of Yen behind him – was to be promoted to the race team for Silverstone.  So far, so simple.

Just prior to the Silverstone event, Karun’s sponsors came up with the necessary funds.

Suddenly, HRT found themselves with 3 race drivers and 2 race cars.  It’s believed that at around this time, and with no knowledge of the driver situation, Senna composed an email in which he was critical of the management style employed by team boss Colin Kolles, an email which the unfortunate Brazilian then sent to Kolles in error.  The Romanian-born businessman has a history of rubbing folk up the wrong way, but it’s perhaps a little unwise to load your cannon of criticism and fire it squarely into your own foot.

At this point, the idea of having two funded drivers became more attractive than the thought of running one funded driver and a suddenly insubordinate teammate.  It wouldn’t do, of course, to have Chandhok get away completely unscathed after the late arrival of his cash injection, so the loss of his drive for Hockenheim is the penalty.

Their driver situation for the rest of the season remains fluid, with the possibility that HRT’s driving staff, Klien included, will see themselves rotated through the rest of the year.

Oh, by the way…the saga to date is documented, in a slightly more profane fashion, by Top Gear’s script editor here.  I’m not in the habit of pimping other sites but Sniff Petrol is never less than amusing.  Makes you wonder how the same chap can be partially responsible for Top Gear’s descent into badly scripted, tediously predictable rubbish.

Didn’t it?

After qualifying at the Manama International Circuit, the scene of 2010’s opening Grand Prix, the picture looked a little different.  Red Bull had an advantage thanks to Sebastian Vettel, a man who’ll be King one day, being chased hard by Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso, a pair of Ferraris looming ominously in the young German’s mirrors.  Everyone else was nowhere, but nobody really seemed to mind.  They give out the trophies on Sunday afternoon, not Saturday.

The new teams were an entirely different kind of nowhere, but since this was their first race weekend, that was to be expected.  The Virgin’s hydraulic system went on strike every 10 minutes but the car seemed reasonable whenever it wasn’t breaking down, Lotus were similarly paced but more reliable, and Hispania – sorry, HRT – were tugging around 10 seconds a lap off the pace with a car that hadn’t turned a wheel before this weekend.  One of their cars, that driven by Karun Chandhok, didn’t move at all until halfway through qualifying, the Indian starting the race with exactly 3 laps of track time under his belt.

That was all interesting enough for those who care about that kind of thing, but the majority were looking forward to a titanic scrap at the front, and the majority were to be disappointed.  What you’re about to read is what happens when someone tells me they’re expecting a rip-roaring blog entry and I realise I’ve got absolutely nothing of note to say.

----------------------------------------------------

Lap 1: F1 2010 is go go go!  Where’s Murray when you need him?  All fairly orderly at the front, Massa being outfumbled by Alonso around the outside of turn one while Schumacher puts an identical move on Webber to take 6th.  Webber’s car is paying out a lot of smoke, the unsighted Kubica and Sutil making contact in the fog.  Bad news for Renault and Force India, but both teams have another driver going strongly – Petrov up from 17th to 11th on his debut while Liuzzi runs 9th.

Lap 2: Vettel leads by a couple of seconds from Alonso, Massa’s another couple of seconds behind.  Rosberg’s jumped Hamilton after an early error from the Brit, with Schumacher, Webber and Button in close attendance.

Lap 3: Chandhok’s in the fence.  Front wing torn off the HRT, Karun having lost control on a bump.  First retirement of the season.  Another debutant off the road, Hulkenberg getting the Williams a new and exciting shade of sideways, over-correcting the slide and booming into the scenery.  He’s back in the running, though.  At the same place, in the same moment, a Virgin retires with what looks a lot like a hydraulic problem, Di Grassi’s debut lasting barely any longer than Chandhok’s.

Lap 5: The recovering Sutil passes my old mate Cakey Hovaloaven.  Follow the link for an explanation and a terrible joke about Bunsen burners.  You don’t get this on autosport.com, do you?  Cakey’s in a Lotus, though, so not even in the same race as Sutil.

Lap 6: Don’t take that too literally.  It is the same race, he’s not got lost, but the Lotus is a sitting duck for all the established teams.  Running solidly so far, though.

Lap 7: A train of cars forming behind Kobayashi in the Sauber.  De la Rosa is in there.  Alguersuari and Buemi too.  Could be some action there shortly.

Lap 8: Chandhok’s giving an interview.  Says he didn’t know the bump was there.  No, really.  Nothing much going on at the front.

Lap 9: Kobayashi, de la Rosa, Alguersuari, Buemi.  No action at all there.

Lap 10: Due some pit stops soon.  Liuzzi’s on the harder tyres, about 20 seconds off the lead, and he’ll be staying out a while longer so the leaders need to be sure they can stay ahead of him when they pit.  Action there, maybe.

Lap 11: Pedro de la Rosa slices past his teammate Kobayashi into turn one.  I could kiss him, I really could.  Koba’s losing 4 or 5 seconds a lap to the leaders on some laps, and they’re still sat queueing up behind him.

Lap 13: Senna pits the sole remaining HRT.  No great rush to change the tyres, and Bruno can’t find a gear as he leaves his pit.  A polite observer would call that pit stop ’steady’.

Laps 14-18: Pit stops for the front runners.  Still Vettel, Alonso, Massa at the front, still evenly spaced.  Hamilton takes 4th from Rosberg, the German being delayed by traffic in the pit lane.  Kobayashi’s in to retire with a hydraulic problem, and Petrov’s debut is over too.  Some sort of suspension problem.  Virgin and Lotus are having a fine old scrap for 17th place, resolved in favour of Lotus when Glock slows suddenly.  Twenty quid says the hydraulics have packed up.

Lap 19: What we’re left with, then, is Vettel leading Alonso and Massa.  Hamilton’s 4th, nowhere near those ahead but with a decent gap back to Rosberg.  Schumacher’s keeping a watching brief just behind, Button’s a few seconds off the back of that, and Webber’s clearly faster than Button but equally clearly can’t overtake him.

Lap 20: Senna’s out, a wispy trail of smoke and a bloody awful noise signalling his retirement.  Look at his eyes through his crash helmet and he looks eerily like his uncle.

Lap 21: Speaking of his uncle, here’s something I wrote nearly a year ago.  Be forewarned that I can be incredibly pretentious sometimes.  Oh, and those videos – yes, that really is Jonathan Ross narrating the first one, and no, I’ve no idea why people overlay Robbie Williams songs over the top of racing videos.

Lap 22: By the way, you know I mentioned how Liuzzi might interfere with a few races?  None of that actually happened.

Lap 25: The circuit is longer this year than last year.  They’ve added a horrible new twisty section in the middle of the lap, designed to encourage overtaking.  If you like, go back over what I’ve written so far and see how many overtaking moves you can spot.  While you’re at it, I’m going for a cup of tea.

Lap 30: I was back three laps ago.  It’s milky yet reasonably strong, thanks.  No, no sugar.  Pedro de la Rosa’s about to exit, and it looks a lot like the same issue that sidelined Kobayashi earlier.  Every team wants their race to go off like a military operation, and if the Charge of the Light Brigade is the closest they can manage, who am I to criticise?

Lap 31: Is that reference going to travel very well?  Just in case…

Lap 34: Vettel’s slowing down, and his engine sounds sick.  Alonso drives around him into the lead, Massa takes 2nd place down the start/finish straight.  The Red Bull is still moving, and going well through the corners, but it’s custard down the straights and Hamilton’s only a few seconds back.

Lap 37: Vettel’s on the radio to his engineer.  “Rocky, is there anything you can do to fix it?”  I welled up a bit there.  He sounds heartbroken, and he’s easy meat for Lewis Hamilton, who takes his McLaren into 3rd position.

Lap 40: Drama!  A vibration at the front of Hamilton’s car!

Lap 41: Hamilton sets his quickest lap time of the race so far.  As you were, boys and girls.  Nothing to see here.

Lap 42: I should probably also mention that yes, it is Mother’s Day in the UK, but that none of this is costing me Brownie points because she’s sat on the other side of the room watching the race with me.  She’s currently a bit disappointed because Alonso’s walking away with it now, and she doesn’t like Alonso.  She is, however, happy that Lewis Hamilton is doing fairly well, and also feels really sorry for Vettel, whose pace has suddenly started to improve again.

She’s fab, my Mam.  Hope you’ve all been good to your Mam, Mum or Mom today, and that none of you have postponed that meal you were taking her for in favour of watching this tripe.  The morals of it all are fascinating, and it’s time you’re never going to get back.  Frankly, you deserve this, you selfish get.

Lap 44: Red Bull have got Liuzzi’s name spelt wrong on their pit board.  Liuzzi used to drive for Red Bull, you know.  Presumably he was a popular lad there.  Yes, it really has come to this.

Lap 45: Trulli’s laptimes have fallen off a cliff in the other Lotus.  He’s 30 seconds per lap off the pace now, carrying some kind of (*dum-dum-dummmmmm!*) hydraulic issue.  Cakey’s now up to 16th, best of the new team runners on account of being the only other one left.  He’s only 3 seconds a lap off the leading pace now, though, and going brilliantly.

Lap 48: The gap had come down to less than a second but now, all of a sudden, Vettel’s pulling away from Rosberg, duff engine and all.  There’ll be a perfectly good explanation for that, and you should let me know as soon as you find it.  Elsewhere on the circuit, Buemi rolls to a calm, measured stop.  There’s no smoke, no fire, nothing’s fallen off the car, and the whole scene contains absolutely nothing of note.

Lap 49: Alonso wins first time out for Ferrari, with Massa following him home in his comeback race and showing no ill effects at all from that horrific accident in Hungary last year.  Hamilton’s 3rd, some distance ahead of his new teammate Button in 7th.  Vettel hangs on to 4th somehow or other, trailed by a pair of Mercedes, Rosberg a couple of seconds ahead of Schumacher.  Webber’s 8th, Liuzzi and Barrichello round out the points scorers, and it’s finally over.

----------------------------------------------------

If the powers that be manage to gather up 24 of the best racing drivers in the world, some of them genuine superstars destined to leave a permanent mark and one of them a man whose place in history has long since been guaranteed, and that’s the best race they can manage to serve up, we’re in trouble.

Sorry to all those who wanted some kind of informative report on this afternoon’s race.  I did sit down to write one, but in the end it was either give the race this kind of treatment or not do it at all.  In future, unless things change very dramatically very soon, ‘not do it at all’ is going to win out.