Bob Barnard Track Engineering

What is it with Bernie and Bahrain? Apparently he had a meeting with the Teams and said "They are happy, but there is a problem with the date: that is the only thing." Oh, that's the only thing is it? When asked about safety he said "I don't know. I've no idea. It can be safe on the Friday of the race and on Sunday...I don't know." So how on earth can you "hope" that the new date will get approved by the FIA? All this supposes India is going to give up its date in October and move to a December date. December 4th is the one being bandied about, but flying the circus from Brazil to India in one week is a stretch. It probably can be done, although some teams doubt it. That would put the race back to Dec 11th, which really stretches the friendship for the workers, so expect a push back on that. All this cannot just be about the money? By the time October comes around Bahrain may as well wait until the start of the 2012 season.

There is scuttlebutt that Bernie may be assembling his own group to buy back F1. It is like a pea and thimble game the way he sells and buys it, and makes money every time. Can it be related to Bahrain?

It has been an odd day, that's why the blog is late. Woke up at 1 am to watch the live streaming of first practice to see if the asphalt patch worked, which it did nicely. Hats off to the Monaco team. Only problem with the track was a water main leaking in the middle of the start straight, so a little man from the water board had to come out with his large valve key and tighten it up, under a red flag of course. Back to sleep at 2:30 am so recorded the second practice and have not had time to watch all of it yet. Working on the next venture to construct a couple of country clubs here in the US. So, I will have to rely on the results and reading the blogs. Monaco is interesting in that it has so much less reliance on aero and more to do with the drivers skill and attachments, if you get my drift. It levels the playing field, except that the top teams have the best drivers. But there is Alonso in the Ferrari that was lapped last week. No problems with hard tires this week. Mark Webber's bad luck continued with gearbox issues keeping him in the garage this morning and KERS issues keeping him down in eighth this afternoon. As Barry Sheene would say "If he had a duck it would drown!" Mind you Vettel is only in fifth at the moment, with Rosberg looking very racy today. Everyone moved to the super-soft compound this afternoon, their first experience with these. It was said they waited to try them until the track had "rubbered in," but one trait of these Pirelli's is that they do not lay rubber, so go figure. What is hard to figure is that with no testing you would think the teams would be on track from the green light in the first session, but no, those that ventured out did one lap and came back to the pits. OK, so they want to make sure the car is good to go, but it was the last half an hour before they all got serious, and then of course they were being balked by traffic. HRT at nearly 7 seconds off the pace again look in trouble with qualifying if one of the top teams goes for it in Q1.

Daniel Ricciardo had a busy day, driving the Torro Rosso in the morning and then taking pole for the FR 3.5 race.  Canadian  Robert Wickens was second fastest and American Alexander Rossi fifth. GP2 qualifying sounds like a real crash fest due to drivers slowing at the end of a lap to try and get a clear run. Massa nearly caused Alonso to run into him doing the same thing. Something needs to be done to stop this around here as most corners are unsighted.

It seems we are to find out who really is Lotus tomorrow. Did they bring spare bodywork with different colors?

Allen Petrich explained that unlike F1, Indy has always been the car that qualified, not the driver, so swapping drivers is not uncommon. I can see that an owner could decide to substitute a driver, even in F1 if a driver is injured like Kubica then another driver comes in, or as might happen at Torro Rosso a driver is replaced for not performing. That does not happen between qualifying and the race though. Given Paul Tracy's comment I think what is uncommon is one team buying the spot, sponsorship and all. Do we know if they are going to race AJ's car, as it qualified I guess they have to.

As I surmised, Kimi is off testing at Virginia International Raceway prior to his Nationwide debut, which may now be in doubt, but not in a Nationwide car, a Cup Car, Robbie Gordon's Dodge. Kimi's Cup debut is rumored to be at Sears Point in a few weeks time. Now that makes some sense and will be worth watching. Talk about a fast track to the big time. Piquet Jr. must be wondering what he is doing still driving a truck?

Nasty incident at Ste-Devote in Monaco, and the race isn't until tomorrow! A truck preparing the track caught fire and burnt the asphalt, a promoters nightmare. Always really difficult to get a patch to match the rest of the track, and in a critical spot. I know the best experts are available so even given the extremely short cure time this should be OK. I might be tempted to use concrete to make sure it stays down, but then the grip would be so different, so not a good solution. Trucks on racetracks always make me nervous, fuel leaks being the usual problem, but on a street course what else can you do?

Bernie is ramping up the rhetoric over the new Concorde Agreement. If the teams won't sign it then fine, we will not have one and they can all pay a large fee to come and race. That is always assuming they want to come and race Bernie. The News Corp takeover has all gone very quiet, moves behind the scenes perhaps?

The Financial Times has come out and published accusations that Bahrain sacked a quarter of the circuit's staff. Not only sacked but "detained" with all the connotations that go with that word. This follows on stories of journalists being "detained," so with June 1 a week away it seems the pressure is going to stay on for Bahrain to remain off the calendar.

Trulli has come out and said qualifying is dead now thanks to the tires. Hard to see that in Monaco teams will risk saving sets at the sacrifice of grid position given how hard it is to overtake anyone around here, but after Monaco? Remember, Monaco first practice is Thursday.

Just as I thought, there is a Nationwide Toyota waiting for Kimi to drive this weekend at Charlotte. It appeared in Joe Nemechek's shop and will be entered by his team, Kyle Bush does not have a Nationwide team, yet. Kimi has a guaranteed start due to Joe's owner's points in the series. Is he going to test beforehand? I would think the Nationwide car would be easier to adjust to than the truck, but what do I know, that's where they all seem to start. This is a marketing dream for NASCAR, even bigger than Montoya.  Perhaps I'll watch the Nationwide race this week?

Renault are saying it is unlikely that Kubica will return this year, which is no real surprise. Let us just hope he can return at all.

Bernie gave the Crown Prince of Bahrain an audience at Barcelona.  How important must Bernie feel when he has Royalty coming to see him? Of course the Prince came to give Bernie the message that it is safe to come back, but I doubt the teams feel that way. Ross Brawn is against the extension of the season, says his guys need a break. Nice way to not go.

Pirelli media celebrity, Paul Hembery, announced himself happy that the hard compounds did not wear. Did not grip either according to the drivers, especially Alonso. Steel tires would probably not wear either, and we would not have the "marbles" that were still very evident at Barcelona.

No protests after the race, but Colin Kolles of HRT is telling the teams they need to fix their engine mapping or he will protest in Monaco. Their supplier, Cosworth, have joined the "do not change the engine in 2013" brigade as they fear their teams cannot afford it. My buddy Peter Geran pointed out that in the Motor Sport article I quoted the other day the Audi engine chief had been in on the FIA panel advising on the new engine. As Peter says, how does someone who has no investment in the sport get to help make decisions? But from my experience that is how most of these decisions are made. When I was running Moto GP's the Road Race Commission was comprised of FIM elected members not one of whom had a dime invested. Still, you can see where Todt was going with this, let's get some more manufacturers involved, after Max's reign where he tried to get rid of them. There could also be a darker motive as Allen Petrich has hinted at. Todt said the other day that the 4 cylinder is going to be the engine of the FIA's top series, and if they do not like it they can go and race in another series. Is this how he breaks the 100 year deal with Bernie?

I watched a little of Indy bump day, thanks to the rain that's all there was. Can't say I found it very exciting, and judging by the lack of spectators not many others do either. The most interesting thing all day was the look on Michale Andretti's face when Marco bumped his other team car right at the end. "How do I explain that to the sponsor" was the look I saw.

So the race was not quite the procession we expected, but Alonso in the Ferrari being lapped was something no one expected! I want to be a fly on the wall when Montezemolo talks to the team. Yes the race was exciting at times, but we are back to the days of refuelling and sprints between pit stops to decide who leads. Think about it, how many actual passes were there between competitive cars? Alonso passed Webber at Turn Ten, only to be re-passed. The DRS zone did not work. Even with Vettel struggling with KERS Lewis could not get close enough to trouble him using the DRS. The Mercedes underperformed again, with Michael beating Nico, for the first time? Nico blamed the lack of the DRS system that quit on him for not being able to overtake Michael. Sad. The highlight of the race for me was Michael getting out of the way for Vettel and Hamilton when being lapped, not what I expected at all, but well done Michael. Keep that up and I might become a fan.

I commented at the time about a fastest lap being set while the yellow flag was out for Kovalainen's accident, and it is nice to see that the Stewards took note, even though they only gave a warning this time. We've seen guys lose their qualifying times for this sort of thing.

The pace of the McLarens was surprising given the practice times, and Red Bull may as well take the KERS off the car, they can win without it and would be even quicker if they took it off and lightened the car, or at least moved the ballast where it does most good. The other surprising thing was the empty grandstands. If it wasn't for the people on the grass banks it would look like Turkey, not a good omen for keeping the race here.

I don't know if Pirelli are just paying SPEED a lot of money or Bernie is leaning on the TV to talk them up, but Paul Hembery, their chief, is getting more airtime than the drivers and there are "infomercials" during each broadcast. In a time when the FIA is trying to appear green, how can you justify the waste of resources on tires? Give them one set for the race and let's see who can manage their tires.

Is anyone else tired of this nonsense with bad tyres? One of Bernie's best ideas was the three stage knockout qualifying to make teams put cars on track. Now we have the situation where they are once again sitting in the garage during qualifying to save tires. Of course it is made worse by the domination of Red Bull and to some extent McLaren. Why not just give them one or two more sets? In the race they are still going to have to use both compounds, and gamble on a two or three or four stop race. Better still make the tires better. As the editorial in this month's Motor Sport says the current gimmicks are a band aid to cover up the basic problem with the current car specs.

Then we have Lewis Hamilton admitting in the post qualifying press conference that he will not be able to challenge the Red Bulls tomorrow as he has to look after his tyres! Great racing this is. We also have Vettel admitting his KERS did not work in Q2 & 3. Good, can you imagine how much more than the one second advantage they would have? Let's hope Mark can put on a show, otherwise it will not matter how many DRS, KERS and bad tires there are, it will be very boring.

You all know I am no fan of KERS and the whole green racing deal on the basis that racing is about efficiency anyway. It is nice to read the piece, again in Motor Sport, about the new Audi for Le Mans. Dr. Baretzky, the Audi engine Chief, puts it nicely. Talking of hybrids and why they are not planning to use it he said that at the moment the extra weight on the car would need more fuel to propel it than you are gaining from its use. "The system should pay for itself...Motor Sport should be about the truth: the more efficient, quicker, better car should win, and the rules should be made according to that. The ACO says we have to encourage this technology. Why? If this technology is a better solution, it will come. If we have to encourage it and it turns out to be the wrong route, it is a waste of energy and time." Here here.

The FIA has announced that DRS is so successful we are to get two zones of it at Canada and Valencia! Personally I never saw that Canada has a problem with overtaking with Turn 1, the hairpin and the last corner being full of action in the past. Valencia now is different, it needs all the help it can get. They have also decreed that the DRS cannot be used in the tunnel at Monaco, or Eau Rouge.  It would be a very brave, and stupid, man to try it through Eau Rouge. The tunnel might entice some to try. Why all this manipulation of where and when? If it is so good then rely on the drivers common sense and self preservation to decide when to use it. Or are we protecting the drivers from themselves?

So who watched Kimi at Charlotte? I did, and was very impressed. He kept it going in the right direction unlike some of the much more experienced drivers out there, including his team owner Kyle Bush. Kimi never saw Charlotte until Friday morning and raced there that night! He certainly was not intimidated by running in close company, and the other drivers did not seem to have a problem racing around him. Great job, not that I expected anything less. So now what, Nationwide?

Back at Barcelona we potentially have the situation where the Cosworth teams could protest the engine mapped exhaust blown diffusers. This the off and then on again ruling by the FIA, which leaves the door open as they did not say its use was legal, just that the teams had a stay of when they needed to undo it. That would be a nice mess at the end of the race wouldn't it?

As reported a few months ago the success of the greens in recent German elections has made the support for the German GP unlikely to continue past 2015, two more races at the Nurburgring as it alternates with Hockenheim so that track only loses half as much!