Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Well it would be if it wasn't so serious for the teams that have to repair the cars. I asked the question a while ago why anyone watches Indycar, a rhetorical question, but the one that follows is why would Baltimore want to stage a race on a terrible race track that has for three years now shown the city in nothing but a bad light. Some people would give them a pass in year one, not me, but some would and did. But by the third year they have learned nothing, and done nothing to resolve the safety issues. Doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result is the basis of stupidity. 

So we have damaged cars, lost points, and short "races." The cost to the teams would pay for the improvements, and if I were a spectator I would be asking for my money back for the amount of racing I saw. The Indycars were hard pushed to do a lap before running into each other, and let's not talk about the ALMS start! If possible there were less spectators on Sunday than Saturday, maybe they saw enough Saturday to know what to expect Sunday. As Gordon Kirby rightly says on his race report for Motor Sport magazine, when are Indycar going to realize that putting your show on at bad tracks does no one any good. I think I have said this a few times myself. Like staging Sinatra in a pig stye. 

It was a big weekend of racing with WEC at Sao Paulo, MotoGP at Silverstone, and NASCAR at Atlanta. WEC lacked any real interest once the Toyota was punted off. The most exciting time was the Ferrari catching fire, and being destroyed due to the lack of effective fire response. Not good enough for a World Championship. MotoGP put on their usual good show, but let's hope there are more competitive machines next year. Marquez is an obvious worthy Champion and following in Kenny Roberts footsteps in what he is achieving in his rookie year. NASCAR was the usual biff and barge, but good to see Kyle Bush winning. With Tony Stewart a real racer. Good to see Kyle Larson getting a ride too, well deserved, he has driven just about anything he can get into this year. Chip Gannassi has had him under contract for a while it seems, but still not sure why Ryan Newman is out when Danica can only run midfield at best. Checkbook race politics. Kurt Busch deserves the chance after what he has done with the Denver Mattress car this year. 

Not sure Daniel Ricciardo has done enough, but I hope to be proved wrong. At least it answers one question about who goes where next year. Kimi was never going to Red Bull, but Ferrari? He was pushed out if you recall, so he might enjoy going back to prove them wrong, but will Alonso really want him? Alonso had everyone going last weekend with the tweets on a big announcement, and great to see him support his local cycling team and hopefully get them up winning with the top teams.

We are still waiting to find out about whose tires F1 is using next year, and where we will be racing, and of course the new engine and car package will shake up the pieces. In the meantime we have Monza to look forward to.

Let us spare a thought for all those who have given their lives and continue to serve to protect our freedom. As we have graphically seen in the Arab world, and especially in Syria, how precious it is and how people are willing to sacrifice their lives to get it for others. I am grateful to have been born at a place and time that has not asked me to make that sacrifice.

So to Abu Dhabi and the F1 race. I did not watch it I confess, I am ploughing through thousands of pages of evidence in a fatal accident to develop an opinion, and it will not be pretty. So I have to go on the reports which have Hamilton and Button quickest, but it is only Friday. Rosberg is doing his usual trick of being amongst the slowest. You would think that signing a contract extension with Mercedes would have sparked him up. So the driver market is slowly being set, but there are a bunch of young hopefuls including Canadian Robert Wickens who drove this morning hoping to impress. 

Alonso and Vettel found the fence at Turn One during the second session. I think I have remarked before how no one had hit the wall here in two GPs, which indicated to me that the drivers were not real happy with the proximity of them and like a street track were keeping a bit in hand. Not so today it seems.

Talking of street tracks, it seems the promoter of Baltimore cannot pay his bills. Despite a very good crowd it cost more to stage the race than they paid to see it. A lesson for New Jersey where the fee is many multiples of what Indycar and ALMS would have asked. They did not have a sponsor you will respond. And how much would that be? It makes no difference, in F1 you don't get the money, Bernie does.

Bernie has finished his time in court and jetted down to Abu Dhabi. There is a lot more to come in this case, none of what Bernie says make sense, especially the arch deal maker being shaken down by a banker. 

Seems Mallya's airline is in big trouble, can't pay its gas bill or leases on planes, and the share price going down faster than his Force India cars. Sorry Sahara Force India.

There are at least two versions of this video from the start of the Baltimore Indycar race.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-WtU2ONNjw&feature=share

Now I know there are a few people out there who have worked with me who think I am a bit over the top about following the rules. One that I insist on is that no one should drive in the wrong direction on a race track. Drivers get penalised for it, the recent Nurburgring 24 hour being a good example, so why should race control and the safety crew do it? This could have been fatal. Now I am not saying I have not had near misses when in race control, but at least all the vehicles were going the same way.

We hear over the last couple of days that Imola wants and F1 race back now the track is licensed for it, and Thailand wants one. How many does that make? As Joe Saward points out, Thailand is the home of Red Bull, so it has more than a sporting chance. We could hold all the races in Asia and the Middle East, cut down on the shipping cost. Or perhaps we will have a whole calendar of alternating races.

Bradley Smith, the up and coming English rider in Moto2 has decided to do the smart thing and stay there for another season. So that leaves a seat open at Tech 3 now Colin Edwards has confirmed he is going to a new team, Forward, next season. So who is going to step up? Bradl is down for a Honda in MotoGP already. Marquez, or someone from WSBK?

The Baltimore Indycar weekend has been run and won as they say. As an event it appears a success. As with most street races they had a great party atmosphere, which it should have given the location. Not sure they really needed an Indycar race to show off Camden Yards ball park, I would bet there are a few baseball fans who might have seen it anyway.

The races were pretty much non-events for me. Very few cautions, no red flags, and not much action. We were treated to lap after lap of the second and third place GTC cars during Saturday's ALMS race. That tells me the boys did not like the look of the track much and were running to avoid contact. No one as much as brushed a wall that I saw. It is a typical US street track, built down to a price and not up to a standard. The track was designed to avoid the obstacles rather than the other way around. You really could not move that traffic island at Turn One?

We had the manhole cover come up despite being welded and/or bolted down, but I have to give them points for fixing it in a timely manner. More than I give for the coverage. When we were first treated to live streaming of ALMS on ESPN3 it was great. Very few ads, the Le Mans radio boys commentating, and a lot of racing. This weekend may as well have been Speed. It was clearly shot to allow the minimum editing for Sunday's highlight show on ABC. We were three laps into the race when they went to an ad, except we did not get an ad, just a blank screen, and then after what would have been an ad break we got the ad. It carried right along with infomercials and repetitive ads and annoying commentary.

Over in Misano Mr. Lorenzo has kept the Championship interesting by winning in MotoGP with Stoner demoted to third by his team mate. As I say no team orders in MotoGP. The Moto2 race again sounds like the one to watch with Marquez beating Bradl to close that title race down. Scott Redding and Ianonne added to the fun. In the 125cc event Terol won by 22 hundredths passing Zarco on the line. At the Nurburgring, not Brno as I incorrectly said, Biaggi withdrew from both races due to a foot injury in practice, leaving Checa to win the first race, and coast in the very wet second race to eighth. With a 72 point lead it looks all done and dusted for Checa this year. Staying with motorcycle racing, Indianapolis announced it has extended its contract with MotoGP until 2014. So, are we to see three US MotoGP's after all, or is Laguna in trouble?

In other racing Josef Newgarden looks like he has wrapped up the Indy Lights Championship, while in British F3 Kevin Magnussen won the final race but team mate Felipe Nasr won the title. It will be interesting to see where these three go next year.

The start of proceedings for the Baltimore "Grand Prix" have been delayed. Oh how Americans love to devalue that Grand Prix title, it's about time Tavo put his foot down as he has the only four wheel GP in the US next year. It can be done, I did it for the US Motorcycle GP at Laguna in '93. Anyway the story is the track is ready, they just have to put the perimeter fence back up that they took down for Hurricane Irene. I don't really believe that but I am not there, but some good friends are. Of course we have the now compulsory tram tracks to cross a la San Jose and Detroit to name two. Do we not learn? Traffic is a mess so the natives may not think this is such a good idea. Let's see what happens when we do get some racing. USF2000 supposed to be on track about now but it is not looking good.

Lorenzo is on track in Misano leading the way in the second practice session, but only just. Interesting that Yamaha see this as a "home race," the team is based just down the road. All the usual suspects at the top of the time sheets, with the factory Ducatis way down behind even the privateer team.Over in Brno Checa lead the first practice but was just pipped by Biaggi in the first qualifying session. Biaggi desperately needs to win here with Checa well behind or DNF to have any chance of winning the title this year.

News out today that the British Parliament is to hold hearings on the BBC/Sky TV deal. Seems the story coming out of Bernie and the one from the BBC is not one and the same, and MPs are not happy. As they rightly say only having half the races on BBC is like being slightly pregnant, if you want to watch the other half of the races on Sky you do not get a 50% discount on the fee.

Stories also out today link Toro Rosso with either improved sponsorship from Cepsa, the Spanish oil company owned by an UAE investment group, or that the UAE group has bought Toro Rosso and will move it to Spain. Either way Toro Rosso will get a large boost to its fortunes, in more ways than one.