Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz has come out in defence of Mark Webber and said he will have a seat at Red Bull next year despite ignoring Horner last weekend. Where else is he going to go, and who else could be as good for the team, was his prescient comment. I'm sure Mark is very annoyed by the team orders, he is continuing to talk to the press about it saying he understands the team wants points, but so does he, and is confident that he and Seb can race each other without crashing. They managed to pass their other rivals so what's the problem? The problem for Mark is that a number one seat is not available at any team likely to give him a competitive car, so what do you do?

Rupert Murdoch's woes continue to mount and he has now been forced to withdraw his bid for the rest of BSkyB. This gives him a bunch of available cash, but the latest revelations are unlikely to persuade Jean Todt that he is a fit and proper person to own F1.

On the basis that any news coverage is good news Adam Parr has come out and said that the weekend's shambles over the blown diffusers is good for the sport. Not totally sure I agree, but as he said the fact that the press were all over it only reinforces how important F1 is. As he said to a journo, "you're not off in Wales covering darts are you." 

On the same basis the "Circuit of the Americas" aka Austin, must be important. Following on yesterday's news it seems the approval for the buildings is imminent. Let's hope so, it is now eleven months to the scheduled race, and therefore eight months before the FIA inspection. Now that is still time, we did the work in Daytona in less than six, but there was a greater sense of urgency than I am getting out of Austin. 

As was predictable the Indycar series has come out and poured cold water on Ron Walker's threat that the F1 tracks would go to Indycar if they did not get their way on the new for 2014 engine. Why would Indycar suddenly abandon their base and go trotting off around the world until the tracks got their way and dumped them? Yes we have seen that Long Beach did well by ditching F1 and going to CART, but that's here in the US. Surfers Paradise tried to take on the F1 GP with a CART/Indycar race, but gave up and are running their home grown V8Supercars series. Japan has not exactly embraced the Indycars even though they have Honda engines, and CART tried Europe a long time ago and failed. A far better threat from Ron would be to say they will all go with a breakaway series by the Teams, but I'm sure Bernie's contracts are all over that. Basically the tracks have no clout, there are always others waiting to take their place, that is why Bernie can get away with his outrageous fees.