Whilst the F1 world focusses on Michael Schumacher, events in Russia are giving cause for concern.

For the second successive day the Russian city of Volgograd has been targeted by terrorists. On Sunday 17 people were killed in a suicide bombing at the city's central rail station. Then, earlier today a further 14 were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up on a trolleybus.

The two events have virtually paralyzed public transport in the city, with officials suspending civilian flights from Moscow to Volgograd.

The attacks come just six weeks before the start of the Winter Olympics in Sochi - which is also due to host the inaugural Russian Grand Prix in October - and there are fears that the two bombings are the start of a campaign aimed at attracting global to the unstable North Caucasus region where insurgents have waged a campaign against rule from Moscow for almost twenty years.

Though nobody has claimed responsibility for the attacks they come months after Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov called for attacks on civilian targets in Russia, specifically the Sochi Games.

Volgograd, formerly known as Stalingrad, is 425 miles northeast of Sochi and the attacks are the first since a suicide bomber killed 37 people at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport in January 2011.

The bombings are highly reminiscent of the series of attacks in the mid-2000s which saw suicide bombers blow up two airliners in mid-air just a week before the Beslan School siege in which more than 300 people, including 186 children, were killed.