As with every week, a lot has gone on in the world of Formula One racing.  Here are a few interesting highlights.

•    The Chinese Grand Prix was raced on April 19, and the results were interesting.  Lewis Hamilton ended up coming in sixth, while the top two spots were claimed by Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber, both driving for Red Bull Racing.  Brawn’s Jenson Button claimed third.

•    The FIA has decided that neither marketing costs nor driver salaries will be a part of their new £30 million budget cap for the 2010 season.  Despite this, some, including Max Mosley, are afraid more F1 teams may leave the sport.  A number of new teams, however, are posed to fight for the three spots created for new teams in 2010.

•    Despite losing in Shanghai, Lewis Hamilton did post the top speed in Friday’s free practice in Bahrain.  His time of one minute 33.647 seconds set the pace for the first day of practices for the Bahrain Grand Prix.  Perhaps he will bounce back?

•    Speaking of Bahrain, the head doctor who is to supervise the Bahrain Grand Prix was suspended from his medical duties due to the inquiry into a patient death.  His suspension, however, will expire three days before the Bahrain race, and FIA officials say he will serve as the race’s chief medical official despite the inquiry.

•    Finally, F1 fans will soon be able to take any of their favorite cars for a spin provided they own a PSP or a Wii video game system.  Codemasters is releasing F1 2009 for these systems soon, and F1 2010 is in the works for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.

As we get further and further into the 2009 F1 racing season, more and more interesting news bits come up.  Here are some of the topics from this week.

•    The lying scandal surrounding McLaren and caused driver Lewis Hamilton to be disqualified at the Australian Grand Prix continues.  This week, Ron Dennis, McLaren’s chief executive, resigned in response to the scandal.  He will be replaced by Martin Whitmarsh when the team appears before the F1 committee in Paris on April 28.

•    First, there was concern over driving into the sun in Malaysia.  Now there are some issues concerning the tyres that the tired Bridgestone are brigning to Chinese for the Chinese Grand Prix are not the best.  Many, including Renault and Brawn team members, have made it known that they believe these medium and super-soft compound tyres are not the best for the Chinese course.  In fact, several drivers had issues using the super-softs in Melbourne and are already anticipating the same kinds of problems in China.

•    Despite the controversy surrounding Lewis Hamilton, he has recently been nominated for the Laureus Award.  The award recognizes the top names in global sports achievements each year.  Driver Sebastian Vettel has also been nominated for “Breakthrough of the Year.”

•    Finally, the diffuser issue that has plagued the F1 for the past several weeks has been settled.  The FIA has declared that the brand new diffuser design that three F1 teams (Brawn, Toyota, and Williams) used in Australia is legal.  An appeal against this decision was made and has been rejected by the FIA, leaving the matter pretty much closed.