Bernie and Bahrain
Thursday, May 26, 2011 at 06:33PM
What is it with Bernie and Bahrain? Apparently he had a meeting with the Teams and said "They are happy, but there is a problem with the date: that is the only thing." Oh, that's the only thing is it? When asked about safety he said "I don't know. I've no idea. It can be safe on the Friday of the race and on Sunday...I don't know." So how on earth can you "hope" that the new date will get approved by the FIA? All this supposes India is going to give up its date in October and move to a December date. December 4th is the one being bandied about, but flying the circus from Brazil to India in one week is a stretch. It probably can be done, although some teams doubt it. That would put the race back to Dec 11th, which really stretches the friendship for the workers, so expect a push back on that. All this cannot just be about the money? By the time October comes around Bahrain may as well wait until the start of the 2012 season.
There is scuttlebutt that Bernie may be assembling his own group to buy back F1. It is like a pea and thimble game the way he sells and buys it, and makes money every time. Can it be related to Bahrain?
It has been an odd day, that's why the blog is late. Woke up at 1 am to watch the live streaming of first practice to see if the asphalt patch worked, which it did nicely. Hats off to the Monaco team. Only problem with the track was a water main leaking in the middle of the start straight, so a little man from the water board had to come out with his large valve key and tighten it up, under a red flag of course. Back to sleep at 2:30 am so recorded the second practice and have not had time to watch all of it yet. Working on the next venture to construct a couple of country clubs here in the US. So, I will have to rely on the results and reading the blogs. Monaco is interesting in that it has so much less reliance on aero and more to do with the drivers skill and attachments, if you get my drift. It levels the playing field, except that the top teams have the best drivers. But there is Alonso in the Ferrari that was lapped last week. No problems with hard tires this week. Mark Webber's bad luck continued with gearbox issues keeping him in the garage this morning and KERS issues keeping him down in eighth this afternoon. As Barry Sheene would say "If he had a duck it would drown!" Mind you Vettel is only in fifth at the moment, with Rosberg looking very racy today. Everyone moved to the super-soft compound this afternoon, their first experience with these. It was said they waited to try them until the track had "rubbered in," but one trait of these Pirelli's is that they do not lay rubber, so go figure. What is hard to figure is that with no testing you would think the teams would be on track from the green light in the first session, but no, those that ventured out did one lap and came back to the pits. OK, so they want to make sure the car is good to go, but it was the last half an hour before they all got serious, and then of course they were being balked by traffic. HRT at nearly 7 seconds off the pace again look in trouble with qualifying if one of the top teams goes for it in Q1.
Daniel Ricciardo had a busy day, driving the Torro Rosso in the morning and then taking pole for the FR 3.5 race. Canadian Robert Wickens was second fastest and American Alexander Rossi fifth. GP2 qualifying sounds like a real crash fest due to drivers slowing at the end of a lap to try and get a clear run. Massa nearly caused Alonso to run into him doing the same thing. Something needs to be done to stop this around here as most corners are unsighted.
It seems we are to find out who really is Lotus tomorrow. Did they bring spare bodywork with different colors?
There is scuttlebutt that Bernie may be assembling his own group to buy back F1. It is like a pea and thimble game the way he sells and buys it, and makes money every time. Can it be related to Bahrain?
It has been an odd day, that's why the blog is late. Woke up at 1 am to watch the live streaming of first practice to see if the asphalt patch worked, which it did nicely. Hats off to the Monaco team. Only problem with the track was a water main leaking in the middle of the start straight, so a little man from the water board had to come out with his large valve key and tighten it up, under a red flag of course. Back to sleep at 2:30 am so recorded the second practice and have not had time to watch all of it yet. Working on the next venture to construct a couple of country clubs here in the US. So, I will have to rely on the results and reading the blogs. Monaco is interesting in that it has so much less reliance on aero and more to do with the drivers skill and attachments, if you get my drift. It levels the playing field, except that the top teams have the best drivers. But there is Alonso in the Ferrari that was lapped last week. No problems with hard tires this week. Mark Webber's bad luck continued with gearbox issues keeping him in the garage this morning and KERS issues keeping him down in eighth this afternoon. As Barry Sheene would say "If he had a duck it would drown!" Mind you Vettel is only in fifth at the moment, with Rosberg looking very racy today. Everyone moved to the super-soft compound this afternoon, their first experience with these. It was said they waited to try them until the track had "rubbered in," but one trait of these Pirelli's is that they do not lay rubber, so go figure. What is hard to figure is that with no testing you would think the teams would be on track from the green light in the first session, but no, those that ventured out did one lap and came back to the pits. OK, so they want to make sure the car is good to go, but it was the last half an hour before they all got serious, and then of course they were being balked by traffic. HRT at nearly 7 seconds off the pace again look in trouble with qualifying if one of the top teams goes for it in Q1.
Daniel Ricciardo had a busy day, driving the Torro Rosso in the morning and then taking pole for the FR 3.5 race. Canadian Robert Wickens was second fastest and American Alexander Rossi fifth. GP2 qualifying sounds like a real crash fest due to drivers slowing at the end of a lap to try and get a clear run. Massa nearly caused Alonso to run into him doing the same thing. Something needs to be done to stop this around here as most corners are unsighted.
It seems we are to find out who really is Lotus tomorrow. Did they bring spare bodywork with different colors?
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