2. Max Mosley — Even some of the FIA president’s longtime friends doubt he can hang on after getting spanked by the sex-for-hire party video, where the Nazi element is (apparently) more than casual. There’s little belief in any conspiracy theory within F1 as suggested by Max himself. He’ll fight to the bitter end, according to one observer deep in political experience, because, “What else does he have to lose?”

3. Unification — Despite the problem of some teams trying to hoard Dallara chassis parts (alas the Italian company tracks the parts by computer and thus is able to retrieve them), everybody continues to be more than happy about being back together. That includes the city of St. Petersburg, which has extended its current contract to host the IndyCar and American Le Mans Series through 2013 at the picturesque course that lies between the city’s yacht basin and small craft airport.

4. The Audi R10 TDI — Until the final qualifying session for the IndyCars, the pole time of Marco Werner in the diesel Audi was the quickest of the weekend. This from a car weighing over 450 pounds more than the single seaters. (Audi Sport remains cagey about just how close their hefty, long wheel-based Le Mans charger is to the minimum weight of 925 kilos.)

5. Roger Penske — The Captain was in classic form on the pit road after the final ALMS practice, because an accident had ripped the right rear corner from the Porsche Spyder of Romain Dumas. Penske stood above his crew and cracked off the orders for a little more than 40 minutes. They finished just in time to start the prototype qualifying session, where Dumas earned a front row starting position.

About the only thing that didn’t go to form was Penske Racing’s runner-up finishes on Saturday and Sunday.

6. Ana Beatrix — For once, Danica Patrick did not dominate the women in motorsports category, although she was involved in two incidents aboard her IndyCar and had to fight to stay on the lead lap. Ana Beatrix had the second recently re-named Indy Lights race won on Sunday before her teammate spun her car in the closing stages to take the win (and post-race penalties for rough driving).

7. De Ferran Motorsports — Gil de Ferran will return to the cockpit in an Acura starting at Round 4 of the ALMS in Salt Lake City in mid-May. Now that the Acura factory teams number four, those in the know (i.e. the teams themselves) are wondering who is going to get the assignment to help Honda test and develop its new LMP1 challenger for Le Mans. De Ferran, by the way, has yet to name his co-driver. More than a few would like to see the return of J.J. Lehto.

8. The weather — It was supposed to rain on mid-afternoon Saturday, but the precipitation didn’t start falling until the evening. That meant a boffo and sunny, albeit crash-happy, race for the ALMS. On Sunday, again it was supposed to rain. This time, the intermitant rain created a whale of an IRL race before the skies opened up late in the afternoon with a real frog strangler.

9. The starting times — Andretti Green Promotions and the city of St. Pete moved up the starting time for both races this year and got lucky with the weather. It’s far better for the ticket holders and working participants to race in the early afternoon, but as usual one suspects ABC’s live coverage was the prevailing factor. If only the TV guys (i.e. the usual idiots) would continue to recognize early afternoon races work best for viewers at home, too.

10. The Le Mans rules — At a meeting in Paris last week, the organizers at Le Mans agreed to allow participants to build either open or closed cockpits for its new rules package for 2010. Audi and Porsche had pushed for being able to stay with open cockpit designs while the Le Mans officials had wanted only prototypes with roofs for better series identification versus single seaters, i.e. F1. It now remains to be seen which version of a prototype Honda and Corvette choose to build. The new designs will be eligible to compete starting in 2009 and mandatory for the following year, says the Automobile Club de L’Ouest.