Bob Barnard Track Engineering

No not the TV show. What a difference 24 hours makes. Friday Hamilton and Button were bemoaning their lack of speed, problems with tires, could not work out what was going on. Saturday Hamilton dominates practice and qualifying! And then there was Alonso, competitive again, the Ferrari seems like a switch, either on or off. I have not watched the F1 race from Canada, OD'd on Le Mans so will save it till later, but it seems like it was an interesting race. Sold out crowd, so maybe you do not know what you've nearly lost till it's gone? The track resurfacing sounds like what we did in Adelaide in '85. Paranoid about it breaking up so overkill and end up with a hard, smooth surface with not a lot of grip.

Le Mans was another "what a difference a day makes" 24 hours. Great race, with the Peugeots on paper unbeatable. All four could not fail. could they? Yep, that's why we run the race. Congratulations Audi, typical Audi win, never ever give up, give it all you've got. Somehow Peugeot seem to assemble a bunch of very quick drivers that never come across as a team, or a group that understand what this race is about. I know this is a strange thing to say, but of the two teams Audi comes across as the more human. Is that because we have got to know them longer, or a different chemistry despite being German? The attitude is reflected for me in the disparate attitudes of Kristensen and Davidson to their separate events with slower cars. Davidson's dismissal of the Corvette's accident borders on criminal, while Tom is remarkably forgiving about the BMW that put him off and ultimately cost him the race.

Not that we got to see much of the race here in the US. It should be the Le Mans 6 hour on Speed, as I'm sure that is all we got to see. Excuse me all you readers who are lucky enough not to have to suffer Speed, but thank goodness for Radio Le Mans! I do not understand why they even bother to show the race. First up we saw the start and then left after 3 1/2 hours. We left for NASCAR of course, which even delayed the F1 qualifying because the Camping World Truck Series is so exciting! So at 6 pm they came back and proceeded to fill the show with all the usual BS. The same ads every 6-7 minutes with no respect for what is happening on the track. I am sure this is all pre-programmed, there is no director watching what is happening. If there is he should be fired. Most of them are for other Speed shows, especially NASCAR races of course. Now we are race fans, but not necessarily NASCAR fans. So either we know it is on or we do not care. I am not going to watch it just because you advertise it every 5 minutes.

We have the obligatory interview with Scott Atherton, and the "infomercials" for Michelin and an empty tent full of tires that we talked about for five minutes, a tour of the Chevrolet pits, and David Brabham's home movies. Justin Bell wandering through an empty track Village at 3 am looking for some drunks to talk to, and we saw the Art Car, the painted up BMW feature at least four times. And the art car did so well didn't it, not! However this was painted it was a dog, at least some of the earlier cars performed well. Thankfully it stopped early, but not before wandering across the track in front of Kristensen, what was Priaulx thinking of? Why didn't they take the BMWs from here in the US run by Bobby Rahal? They have been competitive, which is more than you can say for the Jaguar. Yes I know I have beaten this to death, but 4 laps? Only the England goalkeeper put on a worse display!