On Thursday I went karting at the Kurburgring again, this time with a carrier bag holding my shoes, earplugs and a spare pair of gloves. My brother didn't kart this time but he and Dad spectated. The staff on reception remembered us well from last time. It turned out they'd even read my blog and liked it, which was nice. 

The briefing this time focused more on the correct lines to take around the circuit because the marshal leading it reckoned I could improve if I could get my lines right more consistently. Given that my times on my previous visit had ping-ponged to some extent, I could understand that line of thinking. To this end, one of the other marshals offered to show me the correct lines.

For the first 20 minutes of my allotted half-hour, I had company on the track. Two other people were already there when I headed out. The marshal was not among them. I got going and tried to get into a rhythm. This happened surprisingly quickly. The first lap was not a complete embarassment and the second one a 34.518 - faster than all but 6 of the laps I'd done on my previous visit.

The next seven laps showed slow but steady improvement, apart from one where I lost the rhythm of the lap entirely. I was faster than the other two karters on circuit and was gradually catching them.

Lap 9 of my run involved a big jump in performance. Having previously done 34.4s, I went down to 33.424, which was 0.4 seconds faster than my previous lap record. I was getting close to one of the other karters and starting to plan how to do the overtake...

The next lap was even faster (33.301) and I was nearly on the guy's rear bumper as I noticed another karter join the track a short way behind me. Knowing that overtaking was forbidden into the banked Karusell, I tried to take a cautious approach into the hairpin. Unfortunately I forgot to take into account that karts don't steer so well when driven slowly. The driver in front of me had a poor line into the turn and was slow coming back onto the power. We both crashed, leaving the somewhat bemused marshal looking back at us with "What did the pair of you think you were doing?" body language.

It took a while for us to get going again. So what do I do next? Crash at the same corner next lap, all by my little lonesome! After that, the marshal caught up with me and I was able to follow him for a few laps. My times went all over the place - as I tried to learn the improved lines for different parts of the circuit, I would lose track of what I was supposed to be doing for others. It's difficult to track another kart closely and maintain quality of driving in your own kart simultaneously. Eventually, I turned in a lap that was considered acceptable and the marshal motioned for me to go past.

A few minutes later, everyone left the track except me because I had 10 minutes more to go. This was going to be a great opportunity to put what I had learned into practise. Except that my fingers were getting tired. I was struggling to turn the kart. I responded to it by slowing down, which of course made the kart gradually less responsive to the turning I was managing to do. I ended up stopping for nearly 4 minutes to let my fingers recover.

After I got going again, I nearly matched my previous fastest time and managed to consistently be within 0.4 seconds of that time on the other laps. I could feel things were much better after my break. On the penultimate lap, I thought something in the glove had worked loose, but carried on regardless - no sense stopping again...

After the chequered flag, I had a "debrief" with Dad and my brother.  They reckoned I hadn't managed to get everything right on a single lap; every time there was at least one corner where I'd made an error. If I'd managed to string my best corners together, they reckoned I could have been over a second faster. Still, the "acceptable" lap turned out to be 33.104 seconds. An improvement of 0.6 seconds on my fastest lap and 1.88 seconds on my average (non-crash/break) lap was good work.

The "debrief" got interrupted when I got round to removing my gloves. Nothing in the glove had got loose. I had simply got a thumbnail-sized blister on the base of my right hand, which had popped. I heard motorsport was dangerous but that wasn't quite what I had in mind... Just to make it worse, I'd left my first-aid kit in my karting bag at home. Good thing the reception staff had plasters.

I am now the 7th-fastest woman to have driven at the Kurburgring, just 0.6 seconds slower than one of the members of staff. Just in case anyone thinks I should replace Felipe Massa, I should point out that there is a junior who, despite using a kart with less than half the engine displacement of the kart I used, has a fastest lap 0.195 seconds faster than me. Clearly I have targets at which to aim...

I've had a fortnight of not really wanting to blog for some reason. I promised mageshmagi this blog entry on Mercedes and Schumacher's underperformances before I went on unintended hiatus.

First of all, it was always going to be difficult for Mercedes to match its precedescor's antics. Brawn managed to win the one driver's and constructor's title it entered with considerable aplomb. Nonetheless, it had to do so with an unusual resource distribution. When the car was designed in mid-2008, money was practically falling from the sky, but by the time it hit the track the primary funding source (Honda) had reduced dramatically. It funded the season's running costs (albeit only for a much smaller operation than the one it had been when the team was called Honda), but did not fund  the creation of the 2010 challenger. Therefore the 2010 car was hamstrung by a serious lack of funds.

Then Ross Brawn made an intelligent move. By hiring Nico Rosberg, he gained a driver who is intelligent and ready to take a step up from his previous team - the plucky but gracefully-declining Williams. He'd been team leader there for two seasons and proved to be a good team leader for Mercedes.

That wasn't the plan. The plan had been for Rosberg to ably back up a seven-time world champion who would break all records and be a legendary touchstone for all at Mercedes - Michael Schumacher. He was duly hired, to the astonishment of most of the F1 community. He said the right things (though I was somewhat worried that how he said them didn't match how he'd said them before) and testing wasn't terrible for him.

Just as well it wasn't terrible for him because it was quite clear that the Mercedes W01 had suffered for its lack of development funding.  It wasn't a dominating influence or even on the pace of the likes of Red Bull. This was going to be a tough season. The engine was beautifully fast but the chassis didn't respond well to its tyres. Michael and Nico (along with Felipe Massa at Ferrari) frequently noted that the front tyres did not support their driving styles, which tend to involve quite hard braking.

Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello, who'd been at Brawn in 2009, both have much gentler braking styles and would have suited the Mercedes W01 better. However, neither of them were options for Mercedes. Jenson wanted a fresh challenge and Rubens had been harbouring a desire to race for Williams for quite a while. Still, without a hard-braking driver to ask for tips during development, it is easy to see why this significant flaw appeared in Mercedes' first car.

What is more difficult to understand is why the 2011 car met a similar fate. After all, Felipe's 2011 Ferrari is much more to his liking. There was a major reshuffle in the factory staff towards the end of 2010, which delayed completion of the W02. There was also a decision made to start with a basic car and upgrade it a lot as soon as possible, even though that didn't really work for them in 2010 either. An upgrade can fix many things but not a fundamental weakness in the car.

Due to that philosophy, we may see considerable improvement across the season. Upgrades can fix minor problems. Even though the problems with the Mercedes' tendency to consume tyres rapidly do not constitute "minor", things can be done to reduce that flaw and fix less noticeable difficulties such as a lack of downforce compared to Ferrari and Red Bull. The engine's still strong (unsurprising due to engine sorbet regulations) but it's not enough.

Michael Schumacher does not seem to have adapted to being in an imperfect car very well. He tends to make more mistakes in that situation than we were accustomed to seeing in his previous time in F1. Hence he tends to hit cars instead of passing them, impairing his performances in an already non-optimised car. He's also started to show tendencies towards crumbling in whichever qualifying session is his last one in a given day. This is the very effect he used to trigger in other people back in 2006. It's the sign of a driver that, for all his determination, diligence and innate skill, has gone from the hunted to the hunter - and vastly preferred being the hunted.

If Michael ever wants to see a podium again, let alone a win, he needs to re-assume the mentality of the hunted - the one who leads and is forever trying to escape, willing to experiment to improve but ever holding their nerve while doing so. Perhaps Mercedes may benefit from a little of that too, but mostly it just needs to put more emphasis on getting the car right the first time.

This weekend, Viva F1 has organised the third Blogger's Swap Shop. It is a fantastic idea where 15 motorsports bloggers write for each other's blogs. An entry from me will appear at The Formula 1 & Motorsports Archive today. La Canta Magnifico Blog is honoured to host a guest entry by Maverick of Viva F1 (please ignore the entry by-line as I haven't figured out how to get it to change yet).

Formula One has more than its fair share of rules. There's not even a single rule book - please refer to the International Sporting code, F1 Sporting Regulations and F1 Technical Regulations as well as all the attached appendices while not forgetting the Rules of the FIA International Court of Appeal [and the Concorde Agreement - ed]. Undoubtedly the vaguest of all the rules, and quite deliberately so, is Article 151c which concerns "any fraudulent conduct or any act prejudicial to the interests of any competition or to the interests of motor sport generally." In other words, ‘bringing the sport into disrepute’.

The ‘disrepute clause’ gives rise to concerns not only about its ill-defined and wide-reaching nature but also about its potential for abuse. So vague is the clause, who is to define what is and what isn't against the interests of the sport? Furthermore, having lost the case, while there is scope to challenge the decision in the Court of Appeal how can you possibly argue that it didn't bring the sport into disrepute? It's an immeasurable concept. Taking a case even further, with notable exceptions, the courts are generally reluctant to intervene in the internal disputes of voluntary associations and not inclined to review the decisions of tribunals.

Last month, the FIA scrapped the team orders rule but with the caveat that "any actions liable to bring the sport into disrepute are dealt with under Article 151c of the International Sporting Code and any other relevant provisions". So are team orders banned? Ferrari's decision to manipulate Michael Schumacher past Rubens Barrichello on the last lap of the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix induced boos from the watching spectators and widespread condemnation from the media. It ultimately led to the banning of team orders, but how would it be dealt with today? It clearly sounds like a case of bringing the 'sport into into disrepute' but at the time, the WMSC "recognised the long-standing and traditional right of a team to decree the finishing order of its drivers in what it believes to be the best interest of its attempt to win both world championships" and hence took no action. Does tradition trump public opinion?

Moving onto 2010 and Hockenheim and this time it was Felipe Massa who was giving way for Fernando Alonso. The stewards acted by issuing the maximum fine allowed to them but the WMSC chose to not extend the penalty, instead going as far as recommending that the ban on team orders be abolished, which it subsequently was. However, what about bringing the sport into disrepute? There was uproar amongst groups of fans and the media, so was there a case for turning to Article 151c? The trouble is that while large parts of the media were unhappy (the Brazilian castigation of Massa being particularly venomous) it certainly wasn't the case everywhere. The Italian media sided with Ferrari, the Spanish media sided with Alonso and the German media, seemingly conditioned by the Schumacher-years, coolly seemed to think that it was business as usual - which in reality it probably was.

Another example from 2010, which might have resulted in Article 151c being brandished in anger, was Ferrari's and Alonso's claims that the European Grand Prix was fixed. If this was football there would have been repercussions - earlier this week, Liverpool's Ryan Babel picked up a £10,000 fine for retweeting a link to a mocked-up picture of referee Howard Webb in a Manchester United shirt after Liverpool lost 1-0 to their rivals. The stewards may have done a poor job that weekend but for drivers and teams at the centre of it all to suggest bias at the FIA could easily be seen as damaging to Formula One.

On the other hand, others may suggest that it was the actual stewarding that was damaging - which begs the question of whether the FIA themselves should be able to be found guilty of ‘bringing the sport into disrepute’? While many fans have been suggesting that for years, the nearest anyone on the inside has come to suggesting such a thing in recent years is in 2008, when Mark Webber accused Max Mosley of damaging the sport following allegations about his private life.

In the end, the Hockenheim result is forgotten largely thanks to a combination of a close-fought Championship and the fact that Alonso didn't take the title thanks to those points gained in Germany. How might the issue have rumbled on down the years if 'Alonso's title' had been questioned by some? Of course, one whole problem with the question of ‘bringing the sport into disrepute’ is that public exposure is central to the accusation and yet, by simply pursuing an issue, the FIA can generate even more publicity for a case, causing further damage. Yet, does it all really matter?

Formula One thrives on controversy, the politics is as much a part of the drama as the racing - an ongoing soap opera. Admittedly, the politics occasionally takes too much precedence over what is happening on the track (Max Mosley and FOTA's wranglings at the end of his reign being a prime example). Yet has any of it really damaged F1's reputation? Renault were found guilty of manipulating a race but fans never stayed away from the subsequent Singapore Grand Prix. McLaren were found guilty of stealing Ferrari information but Formula One is still seen as a glamorous sport. In short, the concept of the ‘disrepute clause’ seems like a misnomer as far as Formula One is concerned. Perhaps it comes down to that image of glamour - a bit of palace intrigue is expected to be part and parcel of the show?

But then maybe Bernie Ecclestone already knows that - a man who could probably earn himself three or four disrepute charges a year.