Bob Barnard Track Engineering

One person not on vacation is Bernie, he continues to speak out on topics and is obviously still hard at it making deals. That is what he loves to do, so I guess that is as good as a vacation.

Turkey are desperate to get themselves back on the calendar and their negotiating ploy is a bit unusual." The Sports Minister is "ready to do everything" to keep the race. Music to Bernie's ears I would think. The "everything" includes "publicity and promotional campaigns to raise attendance and earnings." Well there's a novel idea, pity they did not think of this for the last 6 or 7 years, they might not be in this position.

Bernie is back talking about next year's calendar and giving a hint that Turkey could get back on. He is suggesting that the calendar could grow, and says that the teams would accept it if one of the ones to be dropped were to be Monaco or another team favorite. Nice one. The last seven races next year take place on four continents over ten weeks, the worst back-to-back being Sao Paolo and Austin, no direct flights. All this to be nice to Bahrain he says, "They" didn't want it up front apparently. Now the article seems to suggest that "they" were the Bahraini Gov't, but they seem happy just to have the race back as long as it is not in summer. From my recollection it was the teams who did not want to risk another embarrassing fiasco at the start of the season if the situation in Bahrain was not settled, but obviously felt that a race at the end could quietly be dropped. Now the teams are complaining about the logistics of those last seven races. Can't have your cake and eat it too. 

There was an odd reference as a footnote to this story about Austin and the State of Texas approving the funds. The State funds can only be distributed a year in advance, so presumably within twelve months, not a calendar year. So that $25m is not available until November, and presumably someone has read the contract to find out when Bernie's fee has to be paid. The writer suggests that this will delay the construction of the circuit, but this is not construction money so I don't get that.

On a positive note Robert Kubica's thumb has regained full movement, very necessary to push all those buttons. In similar news the likelihood of seeing Barrichello in a Williams next year is diminishing fast. I think Rubens is very disenchanted with the way the team is run.

The Renault chassis involved in the fire in Hungary has been written off, and the explosion explained as the air bottle that drives the valves getting too hot. The fire was caused by a cracked exhaust as a result of a "slightly different engine mapping in qualifying." Now I thought engine mapping had to be the same for qualifying and the race since Valencia, so are they saying they changed the engine mapping for both qualifying and the race? Strange way of saying it. No one noticed the crack which then got worse in the race and finally caused the fire after raw fuel was being burnt in the exhaust while it sat at the pit stop. No word on the marshal though.

Stating the obvious the Virgin CEO said that the fans will decide the success of the Sky TV deal. "From the point of view of the commercial model there are potential mismatches between a broadcasting that maximises viewers and one that maximises revenue." And we all know which one is more important don't we? He goes on to say that 90% of his income comes from sponsors and partners, which could be hurt if the audience goes down, but we are only talking of Britain here, so why is this getting so much play from the teams? Is the British market so dominant to the sponsors? Hard to imagine. 

Have we finally discovered the true identity of Murphy the Bear! In his recent column Murphy says that Grand Am is greener than ALMS because there are no spectators using all that gas to get to events. Now I have had a rant about this silly green nonsense and the amount of gas used by say the Tour De France spectators, and now Bernie has picked up on it. In a release today Bernie suggested that F1 could be greener by reducing the capacity of the tracks by 10-15%, and mentioned the Tour and soccer as examples where more gas is used by those watching than F1 uses for its races. Perhaps I am Bernie and Murphy?

Bernie is always happier when there are fewer spectators. It is so much easier to get in and out, and you can put billboards anywhere without worrying who's view you have blocked. Just look at Turkey today and Phoenix in years gone by. It is just a coincidence that the "gate" is the only income stream he does not get a piece of, it is only the poor old promoter who is going to subsidize this green initiative.

Talking of subsidies, the Texas legislature is doing just that about the $25 m for the Austin F1 race. Apparently that has not been removed from the budget, yet, but there is plenty of opposition to it at a time of a budget shortfall in the billions. It seems some of the members doubt the $300 m economic benefit from the race each year. The first $25 m is to come from a State events fund, and then the increase in sales tax from the event is supposed to cover future payments. Now they are forecasting a crowd of 120,000. This is mainly a one day crowd, and a lot of them rich Mexicans. Really. Now the 1989 Australian Motorcycle GP had a real attendance over four days of 220,000. If you don't believe me watch the coverage and see the campgrounds. An independent survey showed a gross benefit to the State of $44 m, of which if I recall correctly, $2 m was sales tax. So good luck Texas. As one of the lawmakers asked, if they can raise private money to build the track, why can't they raise another $25 m to buy the race? I think we all know the answer to that.

Glock and Barrichello are two unhappy drivers. Glock says he was taken out of context when he said he may as well go for a coffee as test the car. Seems he was talking about the tires.Rubens says he is not coming back if Williams do not improve. Rubens, you and Michael should buy a couple of old F1 Ferraris and go race for fun somewhere. Or join Kimi in the Camping World Series.

So Bernie is going to let the Crown Prince decide whether it is safe to stage the Bahrain GP. At least he is not asking the opinion of a cameraman. Maybe Bernie is playing the politics and "letting" the Prince look like he made the decision, or hoping the Prince will cancel so he does not sue Bernie for breach of contract. There are suggestions that the teams have agreed not to go, but do not want to say so for fear of breaching the Concorde Agreement. Insurance is apparently a problem when there are travel advisories by the UK Foreign Office and other like bodies, so there is a "force majeur" situation there that could resolve the teams issue. It looks like a situation where no one wants to make a decision in case they are held in breach of contract, they are all dancing around the subject. The FIA, apart from a couple of inane comments a week ago, are missing in action on this one, afraid of upsetting the Arab voting block I guess. The only people with the courage of their convictions are the demonstrators.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the teams are continuing their Barcelona test. It is hard to read anything into fast laps, especially between different drivers on seperate days, but AT&T Williams keeps a running tally of all drivers on all days, which is interesting if nothing else. Check out http://www.attwilliams.com/test-timings

Rosberg is quickest overall with Vettel, Petrov, Alguersuari, Hamilton and Alonso and Barrichello within one second. Trulli in the Lotus is 2 plus seconds off the pace, which is much better than last year, with HRT and Virgin both over 3 seconds off thanks to Luizzi. Without Luizzi HRT would have been nowhere so they had better sign him up. The consensus is still Red Bull in race trim, but it is still any one's guess.

For those who like to see pairs of cars run around nose to tail for 4 or five hours then Daytona is on today, and yes they changed the rules again making the radiator slot bigger this time, just so they can last 500 miles? Can you imagine F1 doing this, or Le Mans? Just cut a bigger hole in a piece of tin plate boys, all sounds like amateur hour.

So welcome to 2011, wasn't that the sequel to "2001 A Space Odyssey?" At least we do not have HAL running the cars yet. But as Rubens Barrichello said in his interview with Autosport, "As a driver we're just concerned that we're going to have to press so many damn buttons that it's going to be tough!" Rubens was talking about the 2011 Williams which he believes will be a more "aggressive" design thanks to his input. With over 300 races under his belt he certainly has the experience, and with top teams, and it is nice that the team at Williams are listening. I'm sure most of us fans have a soft spot for Sir Frank and wish him well for the new season.

Luca di Montezemolo is not giving up on the four cylinder turbos for 2013 and is looking for "friends" to help him get it changed to at least a V6. Cosworth are saying it will only cost 30m Euros to design, only? I suspect teams like HRT would like that as a budget. What happened to cost cutting? It's like the ethanol deal, it seems to be "green" until you look at what it takes to produce it.

I talked about losing the sound of F1 and Mark Hughes of Autosport also raised the likely sound of these new four cylinder cars. "A 12,000 rpm turbo four will sound flatter in tone and lower in volume." Perhaps that is another "green" agenda? Noise is a bigger issue for tracks than fuel economy, but it seems that people living near tracks will accept the major events such as F1, NASCAR, V8Supertourers etc, it is the daily use all year long that gets to them. When I ran Phillip Island the locals asked if we could just have the MotoGP thank you.  They certainly make enough money from that one event, it is a pity that the tracks do not. So, do not mess with the sound of F1. Wait till we have electric cars racing, they will have to have extra horsepower to run the "boom boxes" providing the noise.

Talking of noise, I always loved the sound of a Ducati, so distinctive, so I am glad that they say they are not out to produce a Yamaha "replica" with the GP bike, despite Rossi and his crew coming into the team. I've not had the pleasure of hearing the GP bike so maybe it does not enjoy the same notes as the street versions.