Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Formula Renault 3.5 was at Silverstone this weekend, and with the talent in that field it looks like it is becoming the main series for stepping up to F1. As I've said before, GP2 looks like a series for guys who are very good, but not quite good enough. Grosjean will wrap up that championship at his second coming and will probably get another crack at F1 with Renault. But there are a lot of drivers that won't progress.

F3 has traditionally been a great breeding ground, and drivers like Senna made the jump to F1 on the basis of a great season in it. Not sure that is likely these days. But back at FR3.5 you have Canadian Robert Wickens winning both races to take over the lead in Championship over fancied French driver Jean-Eric Vergne who finished sixth in Sunday's race after a bad pit stop. Second was American Alexander Rossi from new F1 driver Daniel Ricciardo. You get the picture? This is a field packed with talent and winning here means people are going to take notice. Watch out for these guys. And it is likely to get better with Grosjean demonstrating the new car, more horespower, better downforce, lighter and more adjustable.

We had a few races this weekend as the summer break is nearly over, Spa F1 next weekend! That Aussie Marcos Ambrose won again on Saturday in Montreal in the Nationwide series. Another road course to show off his talents, but winning becomes a habit. I saw an article about where are the next generation of NASCAR drivers coming from, Australia perhaps? Still in Montreal the Grand Am boys shared the bill and for once Ganassi's team did not have it all their own way, but can still wrap up another championship at the next race. Dan Gurney's son Alex won for Gainsco with Wayne Taylor's team, trying to catch the Ganassi boys, second. The big news is the test of the Grand Am Ferrari 458 at Daytona for next year's championship. I wonder how Ferrari are going to like losing to Mazda?

At Road America we had the ALMS 4 hour race with four LMP1 cars of which only two are contenders, and one LMP2 car. Sad. GT's were where the action and interest was at, with the Risi Ferrari 458 taking its first win of the season despite a few glitches. Nice bit of synchronised spinning at Turn One with the Corvettte. Nice driving actually by both drivers to avoid serious contact and keep it on the track and not lose a place. Not sure I like the safety car procedures. I know it is the interest of fairness, but who said life is fair, and it extends the yellows and makes for boring periods for spectators. And opening the pits for the LMP1 &2 cars? There are only four, let all of them come if the pit lane is long enough as Road America should be. I can understand it at Lime Rock, but we saw the weekend where yellows went on for lap after lap when the car that caused the yellow was long gone.

Finally, there is an article on Autosport about how F1 can maybe learn from MotoGP. Now I think it is mainly aimed at the pricing and access, but seriously, have they really looked at the state of MotoGP? 17 bikes at the most and some of these are make weights, and moving more and more to street bikes and spec racing. And as I said the other day commentators like Mat Oxley are worried that the lack of overtaking is looking increasingly like F1. Yes F1 needs to look at its business model as it does not look sustainable, but let's not go down the MotoGP road where the manufacturers wag the dog. Although having said that we almost got there with 4 cylinder engines!  

Nice to see another Aussie doing well in motorsport last weekend. Well Monday actually as the NASCAR race was rained out and run Monday morning, so by the time I remembered it was over. Marcus Ambrose had a break through win at the Watkins Glen road course, now we need an oval win. Confirms what I always thought, the V8Supercar drivers are as good as any tin top drivers in the world. Just look at how drivers from other series struggle when they come to Bathurst, very few have been successful.

That other winning Aussie Casey Stoner tested next year's MotoGP bike along with most of the others and was still fastest. They all enjoyed the extra grunt from the 1000cc engine. Casey and Lorenzo seem to be waivering about not going to Japan, you can imagine the pressure from their teams, while Rossi now says he probably will not go. Riding for an Italian team lets him make up his own mind presumably. Interesting to know how many Ducatis are sold in Japan though. Just maybe Ducati won't mind one GP where they are runnning around out of contention?

Over at Mercedes Michael says he will definitely be back next year, and Haug says they cannot expect to win for a while. Are the two related? Norbert says it took Red Bull 5 years to get there, but this was a team that won the Championship two years ago, so how does that work?