Bob Barnard Track Engineering

The numbers are out and the German GP lost 13.5 m Euros last weekend after paying Bernie a fee of 20 m Euros. That's some pretty fast work to put those numbers together. The promoter said before the race he expected a crowd of 65,000, and that's what it looked like, a lot of empty seats despite 6 German drivers, and one that should have been expected to win. That's pretty bad. On those numbers you can't really see the point apart from ego. The 24 hour race on the old track attracts four times that many people and there are probably no fees to be paid to anyone. 

Now Bernie is saying he will cut them a deal the same as Hungary, which is much cheaper apparently. It would have to be. The Hungarian GP has been with us for about 25 years on a track that no one really likes and in one of Europe's smallest countries, so how does it survive and why does it get a break from Bernie? The doings of F1 are strange to behold when Hungary has a race and France does not. 

In an equally puzzling piece it seems the City of Austin is submitting to the Texas Comptroller for the $25m for next years race, and the Comptroller has 30 days to think about this. The puzzling piece is the statement that "it is unclear when the funds need to be paid to F1 officials." I would suggest someone read the contract, I'm sure it is pretty clear there. Why would you say something like this?

Now for something completely different. Regular readers will know of my scepticism about electric vehicles, mainly because at the moment they are still fossil fuel powered, just one step removed. Now that step is causing a problem as an article I read yesterday explains.