Red Bull owner, Dietrich Mateschitz is the latest to wade into the Pirelli discussion after watching Sebastian Vettel struggle to a fourth place finish in Spain. According to Autosport, the Red Bull boss was locked in a 45 minute private discussion with Bernie Ecclestone and then followed this up with scathing comments about Pirelli’s tyres.

Go back to 2011 and everyone seemed to be in love with Pirelli. It was a season that featured entertaining race after entertaining race, for the first half of the year at least, even if the championship itself failed to live up to their heights. Now, four races into their third season since returning to Formula One, the relationship seems to have cooled, with a growing group criticising the tyre supplier. So what has changed?

Much has been written about the Malaysian Grand Prix but really, one man’s unchivalrous pass is simply other man’s ruthless desire to win. In many ways what bothered me more about Sebastian Vettel’s weekend was his performance after the race – Oscar winning it was not. However, it was events on the pitwall that most fascinated me – all-in-all, it was not a great week to be a team principal.

Force India’s confirmation that there second seat has been filled by Adrian Sutil in preference to Jules Bianchi finalises the make up of the grid that will form up in Melbourne in 17 days time. Or does it? Rumours about the future of Luiz Razia’s drive at Marussia continue to circulate as he once again sat out testing…

While Formula One gets down to the serious business of testing its latest batch of finely tuned chargers, behind the scenes things would appear to be not so rosy. Global viewing figures are down, the last few months have been dominated by headlines bemoaning an influx of “pay drivers” and HRT finally put its hands up in surrender and was carted off by a scrap dealer. Yet is the sport really in such dire straights?

2012 presented a closely fought season that went down to the wire in Brazil as Sebastian Vettel pipped Fernando Alonso to the Drivers’ Championship. In the UK, at least, it was also a season of major change in the way Formula One broadcast as free-to-view gave way to Sky’s premium subscription service with only half the races broadcast live and free. Despite the titanic championship battle, television ratings inevitably took a hit.