Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Ben Spies breaks through and wins his first MotoGP at Assen today. I've been critical of Ben's performances this year, but perhaps he has just worked it out. I was in Hungary when Mick Doohan won his first race after trying for most of two seasons, and never looked back. Perhaps this is Ben's moment. His team mate had a Simoncelli moment and has called for a ban on him for a race or two. Sounds like the Hondas never got comfortable with the tires and Stoner had his mind on the Championship. Rossi's race went better than qualifying, so let's see what they do with this new chassis in future races.

Reminded me of when I worked for Kenny and we were at Assen. Schwantz led the race with Wayne Rainey in second and leading the Championship with Kevin no threat. I was foolish enough to compliment Wayne on running a smart race, and in Wayne's inimitable fashion he gave me an earful and said he wasn't being smart, he !!!!!! couldn't catch him.

In Valencia the engine mapping restriction made no difference it seems, with Vettel putting in the fastest lap ever seen here to take pole from his team mate Webber. Still with that half second or so over the McLaren of Hamilton, who has to be getting a bit tired of this. Rumor today of Webber to Renault, so a spare seat at RB? We again saw drivers sitting out or limiting their time on track to save tires, so let's hope common sense prevails and Pirelli get the OK to provide more tires for qualifying.

Watching the Nurburgring 24 hour on a German TV live streaming and listening to Radio Le Mans. As fun as it is I will not stay up for the 24 hours this time.

Practice for the Valencia F1 race and qualifying for the Assen MotoGP this morning. Caught the second F1 practice, but not much to excite there, can't say I like this layout. Most interesting thing so far is Schumacher's continued good form following Canada. Tomorrow will tell if the engine mapping restrictions will have an impact on Red Bull's qualifying speed. The back end of the grid is the usual suspects, HRT, Virgin and Lotus, and surprising to see Lotus still over 4 seconds off the pace, as is Kobayashi. There is a big gap to his team mate Perez of 1.5 seconds, did Kobayashi not use the super soft option?

Over in Holland the works Hondas all had crashes in the morning which left them a bit tentative in qualifying. Simoncelli had no such worries, it is the race that's his problem. Ben Spies nearly pipped him for pole in a reversal of form which saw him outqualify Lorenzo for the first time. Rossi's switch to the 2012 chassis does not seem to have done him miuch good as he is down in 11th, outperformed by Abraham on the privateer Ducati in 7th.

The news out of Austin continues to suggest ongoing problems with local politics, but the organizer's attorneys statements seem designed to scare the locals into supporting the project, so not sure how bad this really is for Tavo and the boys.

No not that great piece of British engineering, the City in Texas, where three individuals are suing the State Comptroller to stop the $25m payout to the F1 promoters. The basis of the suit is that the comptroller approved the payout before receiving official approval. As my contacts in Texas tell me, this is far from a done deal despite all the earthmoving going on.

In an amazing piece of self delusion or wishful thinking, not sure which, the Chief Executive of the Bahrain Circuit said that the cancellation of this year's race "was nothing to do with Bahrain, but there was an internal battle between Bernie and the FIA." He stated that he expected the demand for tickets for next years race will be much higher due to the disappointment of not having a race this year and intends to add more grandstands. Good luck, if you keep trying Shiites and putting them in jail then next year may also be a disappointment.

Over in Holland one of the consequences of going to four strokes made itself evident with the second three practice sessions for the MotoGP cancelled due to one Moto2 engine blowing up. IRTA were always very nervous about me running Superbike races for local competitors as part of our race program and made very sure I understood it was on my head if this happened. I wonder how they feel now, especially as it seems Assen cannot clean up an oil spill in an afternoon!

News is in that Eric Lux has filed suit against Sutil over the incident in China, and Sutil says he will fight it in court and should have nothing to do with his driving. It is interesting to me that the action is a criminal complaint for GBH in a German court when the "crime" was committed in China. Lawyers out there explain this? Both German citizens?

Tony Fernandes is having a good day in court with Justice Smith refusing Group Lotus the right to appeal, and granting Tony costs.

One of the suggestions now the engines for 2014 have been set is that McLaren will build its' own, now that it is building engines for its' road car. Martin Whitmarsh played this down as being too costly for a company producing 4500 cars a year, but what of Ferrari?

Does anyone else find Sergio Perez's illness in Canada odd? Now he is saying he will see how he feels in practice in Valencia. He is either fit or not, and the Doctors say he is, but how about mentally? Pedrosa seems to be having the same issues over in MotoGP with his shoulder, which despite being seen bowling, and riding supermotard, won't let him race in GP. This when Colin Edwards finishes third with a plate in his shoulder in the rain!

Hello everyone, missed you yesterday but I was at an event in San Diego, driving a Lamborghini Superleggera and Aston Rapide. All very nice and not on a track.

So Vettel is on pole again and by a big margin, but why did he sit in the car so long after qualifying? Webber's qualifying was a complete disaster, and going by the last two races he is going to have trouble staying out of trouble and moving up the field, especially if the KERS is not working and the car is now in parc ferme. Hard to see how the McLarens are going to beat Vettel on this pace unless he has a problem. Rosberg looked good through practice and qualifying, as did Michael, which is encouraging, it would be good to see Nico up there and challenging. The Ferraris are way off the pace again, but can they repeat their Malaysian trick in the race? Lewis played it canny and kept a set of softs for the race to avoid last weeks problems. I discovered the problem with my recording the sessions, SPEED are coding the broadcast so it can't be recorded on DVD, VCR works OK but of course the quality sucks. Does anyone else have this problem?

Still on F1, it seems that HRT have found enough pace to avoid the nasty 107% rule, so long as Vettel does not feel like turning it on in Q1. Pirelli came out prior to the event to say that the cooler conditions should result in fewer "marbles." Well not from what I saw after just 15 minutes of Q1 when presumably they were mostly using the hard tire.

Alexander Rossi won the FR3.5 race at Motorland Aragon, onward and upward. He has joined the Lotus, the Malaysian one's young driver group. That court case is supposed to have a verdict handed down this week.

The ALMS race is at Long Beach with two, yes 2, LMP cars, four of the spec series challenge cars and then the GTs. Oh how the mighty have fallen. Scott Tucker's two LMP2 cars did not set a qualifying time so will they race? There are really only 16 cars that should be out there aside of the grid fillers. Thank goodness for GT. Not that you can watch it anyway.

Montezemolo has continued his war of words with a warning Ferrari will stay in F1 as long as it is not "artificial" which he considers it currently is, mentioning that in 2012 the Concorde Agreement runs out. Pit Pass also has a piece about Mercedes and a breakaway series, which PP believes is never going to happen. Bernie has been to have a nice chat with the German Authorities and all seems to be well apparently, but Pit Pass has more on this. They have some very good sources or excellent researchers. Go to http://pitpass.com

David Coulthard stated the obvious, China is not interested in F1, and Malya said of India getting interested it was like playing cricket in Italy. Nice one.

Checa again took pole at the Assen WSBK round, with the BMWs surprisingly off the pace.