Bob Barnard Track Engineering

There are a couple of items today about the plight of promoters. This has gone on since my day and the series promoters neither know no care, promoters are like buses, there will be another one along soon. In the case of MotoGP probably in Spain and the US. Damon Hill, former Chairman of the BRDC and therefore of Silverstone raises the issue, as well he might. They have been one of the very few to make a quid out of a GP, but Bernie's demands for improvements have beaten that. As Chris Pook told me a long time ago, "If Bernie thinks you are making money he will put the price up." Not the best business model one would think.

I have long compared F1 to NASCAR, and Joe Saward has a nice piece on the cost and rewards of being a track owner in each series, but of course it helps in NASCAR if you own most of the tracks when you cut them some slack.

http://joesaward.wordpress.com/

It now turns out that Bahrain had already paid Bernie for this year's race, and no they did not want it back thank you. Very magnanimous of them I'm sure. Why would they do that do you think? I wonder if they have paid for next year's race?

It now seems that the British Parliament is not to investigate the BBC/Sky deal after all. Good news you would think, but Pit Pass who broke this are running a poll on who is likely to buy a Sky subscription, and so far 90% say they won't. Not such good news. 

More news on Bradley Smith who turned down a move to MotoGP next year. Tech 3 have agreed to run him in Moto2 next year and then MotoGP in 2013. A sweet deal for Bradley and the English hopes of another World Champion at last? Reports that Stoner could wrap up his title at Phillip Island, that will be sweet!

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.

 

Interesting qualifying session today in Hungary. Vettel's car was worked on all night, breaking the F1 curfew, as he was not happy with it, and was fast this morning in P3 and just pipped Hamilton for pole. Obviously the team did not work on Mark's car, he is stuck down in sixth behind the McLarens and Ferraris. I bet that feels good. Hamilton really pulled one out of the bag at the start of the Q3, having got there without using the super soft tire, and must look good for the race with that sort of speed on the prime. Strangely Lewis had a poor P3 and never did set a time on the super softs, complaining of brake problems. The durability of the super soft is questionable, so it should be an interesting race. Lewis will probably start on the dirty side of the track, so it will be tough to jump Vettel at the start, but who knows, Red Bull have not been great off the line lately.

Button showed a renewed pace here and his driving style should suit this place, with Massa out qualifying Alonso for the first time in a while. Contract time? Talking of that, Trulli has come alive and is now very happy with the power steering. Did they fix it or his attitude? Kovalainen did eventually out qualify him and was only about 0.3 seconds off the Toro Rosso of Buemi. Everyone qualified inside the 107%, which did not look likely earlier on, with HRT beating D'Ambrosio in the Virgin.

The fall out from the news of the Sky/BBC deal continues, but it seems the Concorde Agreement did not quite prevent Bernie from accepting a pay-for-view broadcaster as long as some of it was still "free-to-air." Of course the extra TV income helped the Teams get over their conscience about the poor viewers now having to pay 470 pounds to subscribe to Sky. That is a lot of money, and as one journalist points out you could actually buy a ticket to six GP's for that. A poll in Britain shows around 81% of readers on one sports reporter's web site would not pay the extra to watch F1. A major point still unclear is whether the BBC is going to show highlights of the races it does not cover live, or a delayed coverage. Whitmarsh says Bernie has told him that they will definitely show the whole race, but that is not what the BBC are saying. Bernie says the delayed coverage is better anyway as who wants to get up at 4 am to watch races? Well actually I have to Bernie, but it is nice of you to care. Who wants to watch a delayed race when in this day of Twitter and Facebook it is impossible not to know the result?

The delayed date for Austin is seen to have a couple of benefits other than the weather. As I said the other day the Texas Comptroller is only just considering the application for the $25m fee for Bernie, so moving the date back presumably delays when that is paid, if anyone has read the contract. The other is time to finish the track with buildings yet to start, the last we heard they had not been approved. I loved Nick Craw's comment after a recent visit, "a great deal of dirt has been moved."

Spa 24 hour just started and www.audi.tv.com has live streaming.

As always it is necessary to watch what Bernie does rather than what he says. Not long ago the Big Bogie Rupert Murdoch was going to steal F1 and heaven forbid put it on Sky! That just cannot happen, we have to have it on free-to-air, whatever that means. I pay for SPEED to show it so it is certainly not free-to-air here and we have to put up with ads, lost of ads, and Bob Varsha! Lo and behold, Sky is now the best thing to have come along, it is "super for F1," Bernie says, "it will mean a lot more coverage for the sport." Not sure how that can be as Sky only has 24 million households while the BBC covers everyone. The key words here are "super for F1." Note it is not super for the fans.

The BBC said it could not afford to continue so it seems a deal was done to keep half the races on the BBC and all of them on Sky. I'm sorry, but this is like having a race every other year. If it is worth having for half the races then why is it not twice as valuable to have all of them? Prestige to have any it seems, what BS. At least the Brits will have an ad free broadcast from Sky for their money. 

And what do the teams make of this with all their posturing about how important it is to their sponsors to have it on free-to-air? Martin Whitmarsh says they must withold judgement, and he was the one who said the other day that F1 must broaden their reach to the new media. Adam Parr is more honest. If they get more money from the TV deal to compensate for any potential loss in sponsorship then he is happy. Of course he is, it's all about the money.

Meanwhile, back at the track Lewis Hamilton continued where he left off in Germany by topping the timesheets in both sessions, but in race simulations it seemed very close between McLaren, Red Bull and Ferrari. Mercedes continue to struggle and Ross Brawn says it's all his fault. Ricciardo is ahead of his team mate by half a second, while Trulli's wake up call has him a similar distance in front of Kovalainen. 

Bernie has revamped next years calendar moving Bahrain to the end of the season so they can sort their problems out. So it starts in Melbourne, then Malaysia, China and India before a three week break which could include in-season testing. Turkey is missing, and as Allen Petrich said, there goes Tilke's best track. Austin is moved back to team with Brazil, but as someone pointed out this now competes with the NFL season, so good luck with viewers watching that.

BMW took pole for this weeks Spa 24 hour, and I need to find a live stream for that. In the Intercontinental Cup Aston Martin have given up of the new car and will run the old car for the rest of the season, very sad.

On the "green" front, a couple of snippets to share. It seems we are not all going to fry anytime soon from global warming, or as they say now, "climate change," as it seems to have not got any warmer lately.

http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-data-blow-gaping-hold-global-warming-alarmism-192334971.html

And to follow on about my thoughts on hydrogen, I saw a piece on TV yesterday about a new German stealth submarine that runs on hydrogen fuel cells. No moving parts, no noise, and no heat signature, very clever. Hydrogen and oxygen stored in tanks on the outside of the hull so reducing the danger of an explosion in the hull. Damn smart, good job they only just worked this out.

So Red Bull are pulling the plug on their NASCAR team at the end of this season. As someone else asked is the writing on the wall for NASCAR, or is Red Bull just seeing a better opportunity at the US F1 GP as also suggested? Even so that suggests they see NASCAR as on the decline as its viewing numbers must still far exceed F1. They certainly have not conquered NASCAR like F1, but then again they do not have the Adrian Newey of NASCAR.

The FIA has gone a step further in its clamp down on engine mapping by placing the qualifying engine mapping in the parc ferme situation between quali and the race. It seems some teams, Red Bull for example, have been using some pretty extreme mapping for quali, but have to dial it down to last the race. Valencia and beyond is going to be interesting. Ferrari is suggesting that we will see a Championship in two halves. You watch, some bright spark will work out how to remap the engine sitting on the grid, or at the first stop.

Talking of Red Bull, well Torro Rosso actually, they were in Hong Kong for one of their demo runs, amidst rumors that Hing Kong wants an F1 race. Monaco and Singapore have one so why not? Then there are Mexico and Argentina apparently wanting races. Bernie has to be loving this, but I thought "The Circuit of the Americas" was supposed to draw all those Mexican fans to Austin, so why do they need a race? A 25 race calendar anybody?

In an interesting move Ducati are to run this year's engine in next year's chassis in an attempt to fix their current problems. Never been tested so the first practice should be fun to watch.

Engines are back on the table in F1 with a meeting of the F1 Commission tomorrow. Bernie is saying the vote by the FIA to go to 4 cylinder turbo was not valid because Todt bypassed the F1 Commission. The fallout from this is going to be interesting as someone is going to be unhappy.

Going back to the BBC and F1, I had a comment off-blog so to speak that Sky would be the alternative and it is not free to air. ITV is still there, unless someone tells me otherwise, and was until recently the F1 broadcaster. So did they let it go to the BBC as it was not worth the cost so are unlikely to want it back? It is academic, Bernie will just drop his fee won't he? Is that a pig just going by the window?