Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Well we at least have some GP racing going on at Brno, and Honda in the shape of Pedrosa is again leading the way. Stoner and Simoncelli are there as well so Lorenzo is running fourth fastest, but apparently working on race set up and doing consistent laps. Team mate Ben Spies was sixth despite a pinched nerve in his neck, can't be much fun. Rossi was happier with seventh, but still over a second off the pace. Rumors are that Ducati are thinking of going back to an aluminum frame instead of the carbon fibre. We've seen this before with the Cagiva in 1990. I can't help believing that a carbon frame and stressed engine is the way forward, it is just such a big step that it rewrites the set up and needs time to sort out. I'd hope they are given that time.

Suzuki are the surprise package with Bautista in eighth and ring-in John Hopkins right there in tenth. As Bautista said, nice to have John as long as he is slower than me. From there on down there are a bunch of guys making up the numbers. 

Elsewhere desperate web site are reduced to re-runs of THAT race at Dijon with Arnoux and Villeneuve, Gilles that is. Silverstone unveiled a very ambitious planning proposal for the site which will be great if they can fund it, but perhaps they should look carefully at what has happened at the Nurburgring with similar ambitious plans. Pirelli has raised the issue of qualifying tires for next year. Not sure I like the idea of going back to special tires, surely that is going to alter the set up on the car which has to be kept for the race? Anyway, the issue is teams saving tires during qualifying, so just give them extra sets of the race tires to use just for the qualifying rather than make something different.

Grand Am racing at Watkins Glen tomorrow, and Indycar at New Hampshire for something different.