Pit Stop

I don't get excited by sports cars, supercars, souped-up cars or any other form of blinged-up petrol-head nirvana. It's a shame really. When I lived in Dubai it was posh car heaven.

My next-door-but-one neighbours were two Saudi boys. It might only have been a two-bedroom, semi-detached villa they lived in, but outside under the car port was a Lamborghini and a hideously expensive Mercedes.

There were only two things of interest in the Lambo - the throaty roar of the engine could wake up the whole street, but this supercar could barely get over the speed bumps outside its front door.

The cars were everywhere. It seemed that if you had a bit of cash - or a large loan - you had to have a Porsche or Ferrari or American muscle car. Even the 4x4 of choice was the Porsche Cayenne. While I will never get too excited about expensive sports cars, I am excited about the prospect of Porsche entering Formula One.

Autocar has reported that stablemates Audi and Porsche are looking to make a splash in both sports cars and Formula One. Audi has been competing in the Le Mans class for more than 10 years and is working on a new car for next year. That would suggest Porsche will be the company looking towards Formula One.

It's a mouth-watering prospect. Whether you fancy a Porsche on your doorstep or not, it would be great to have them in the paddock. The German company has a fine reputation for technical brilliance and that would sit perfectly at the pinnacle of motorsport.

However, if you are already salivating at the thought of Porsche lining up on the grid next to the Prancing Horse of Ferrari, you may be disappointed. Indications are that Porsche is thinking of getting involved as an engine supplier. Although that might be great news for some of the smaller teams that need customer engines, it would be a great shame if the cache of such a great brand didn't have its name over one of the pit garages.

Do you know what a blue flag means during a race? You would do if you happened to drive for one of this year's new, and extremely slow, teams. It's waved at backmarkers to tell them to get out of the way of faster cars. Marshalls start to wave them when they are within three seconds of the approaching car. The backmarker has to let the other car pass in the next four corners.

Now there are calls for the blue flag to be binned. You won't be entirely surprised that these calls are coming from the new - and slow - teams.

Richard Branson, the money behind Virgin Racing, is the latest to make the case. He was backing up earlier comments from Lotus boss Tony Fernandes. Both feel the front of the field should work a bit harder to get pass those at the back.

Branson contends that the blue flags 'make a mockery of the sport', and points out sagely that overtaking is supposed to be part of the sport.

The blue flags make slow teams even slower. Virgin feel their pace is decent until they have to give way under blue flags. This makes their lap times look much lamer than they might be.

But really they should stop bleating and get faster. The only reason that a blue flag is produced is because you are about to be lapped. Given that the average lap is well over a minute, it's a lot of time to be giving away, especially as some cars are two or three laps down at the end of the race - should they finish at all.

It's an embarrassing distraction for teams that would be better advised to spend all their energies getting to a point where they might actually overtake somebody of note.