Bob Barnard Track Engineering

I think it is time for me to retire if Korea is an example of what a modern race track needs to be. Mark Webber says "We are really clutching at straws to be able to try and criticise anyone here." Personally I cannot find anything I actually like about the track from either a racing or safety point of view. It is as I have said before, if they think the track owners know nothing but somehow manage to get it finished, and that is relative, and get it half right, then they have done a "remarkable job." If they think you should know better then nothing is good enough. Just when was it OK not to have a verge between the white line and the wall? Some people compared it to Valencia, but it is far worse.

I enjoyed the streaming web based coverage of first practice, no commentary and we could hear the cars. Picture quality was great too. Not that the SPEED boys did a bad job on the second practice, for once it was not all gushing over a new track. I thought their comments were spot on about that last corner complex and pit entry, not sure about pit out either, and all those corners just running together. We saw in practice how impossible it is to overtake through those. And it is bumpy, despite the McLaren engineer's comments yesterday about how smooth it is. I guess if you are walking at 4 mph it looks OK.

The pavement has stayed down so full marks for that. I suspect the dust helped that, and the track surface is so hard, like we had in Adelaide, that the tires are not getting a grip and that is why we are seeing so much graining from tires sliding. When Keke Rosberg won the first race in Adelaide he had to keep stopping for tires as he was spinning the rear tires so much he was ripping them to shreds.

There is so much wrong here I do not even know where to start. It is like when I inspected Mosport after Don Panoz bought it. I believe that this is the worst Tilke design so far. Shouldn't he be getting better? I can only surmise that he was told to build a street circuit to suit the future city. So he designed around obstacles that are not there yet, instead of designing the track on a blank piece of ground, and then telling them to design the city around it. Perhaps he does not like to tell clients when they are wrong, but as a professional that is what we should do. Perhaps that is why he has all these projects and I do not. It is certainly why I do not work for Don any more, he got tired of me telling him what he could not do.

On a different note I read a comment from Ferrari that based on recent races they had done the right thing by backing Alonso over Massa. Sort of a self fulfilling prophesy don't you think?

And what about Lewis? Sits out most of practice and goes out and bangs in fastest lap.