Bob Barnard Track Engineering

So Martin Whitmarsh believes that Abu Dhabi needs to make changes to the track to correct the "flawed" design. I think I may have been saying that from the start, but most people were blinded by the hotel and marina and all the other pieces of the development that have nothing to do with the quality of the race track. Apparently Whitmarsh saw the problems from the beginning and presumably said nothing or no one listened. As he said "There is a massive commitment here to make this a great venue, so in the scheme of things priority should be given to looking at the circuit." My emphasis. Richard Cregan the circuit boss says that "we are looking at different circuits..and we will pick the best bits and improve the circuit." Seeing as how Yas Marina is almost the last track built I would ask why they did not do that before they built it? As I said in Germany, we are being left with a legacy of a generation of bad tracks.

We enter the dark days of winter, well for most of you anyway, it is still sunny and 70 degrees here, so finding interesting items to comment on may be difficult, but there will be driver changes and team news, so I will endeavor to keep you amused and thinking. Congratulations to Jimmy Johnson for his fifth Sprint Cup Championship, not that I watched much of it, and I was surprised that Homestead had empty seats given the three way title fight. Taking nothing away from Jimmy, and obviously he and his crew chief do a great job, but it is difficult for me to reconcile the number of very good drivers in that series who cannot beat Jimmy to the title.

The Porsche hybrid cleaned up at the awards dinner in Cologne last week. Williams won for their KERS system which is fitted to the Porsche GT3 which won the car of the year and was designed by the person who won the engineer of the year. Is that a full house or royal flush?