Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Some people just do not know when to shut up. We have some great examples today.

Bernie said that his mate Briatore was "In no shape or form .... involved in this." He then went on to tell the Daily Express. "He did make a payment for me but only because I asked him." ? I know when to say nothing.

Then there is Adam Parr, he who is telling disgruntled fans how expensive it is to run a team. He does it again today and I'm sure the fans appreciate being told that if they just accept the need for budget cuts in F1 then the teams would not need all that money and the TV and admission costs would go down. Well, he did not actually say the last piece, and we all know that the money will just go somewhere else. The teams could reduce the cost of the show whenever they want, just getting rid of those monstrous "hospitality" units would save a few million, each. No, Adam goes on to say that if each team spends 100m pounds a year to run then the cost of the show is 1.2 bn pounds. Well it is a lot more than that Adam if you add in the cost of building the tracks and staging the races, but let's just look at his maths. Each team has sponsors who foot part or all of that 100m pound bill, but let's say half, so now we are down to 600m pounds by his reckoning. Then there are the fees paid by the poor promoters, say 25m each by 20 races, that nearly covers the rest. You could almost put this on TV for free, but that does not include Bernie's cut or the CVC rape.

Adam continues with his "racquets and plimsoles (tennis shoes to you and me)" analogy, and then makes it worse by comparing the cost of admission to Crique de Soleil" at 100 pounds to the local circus for 10 pounds where you only get to see "a couple of mangy elephants and a rather droopy clown." Nice one Adam, just endeared yourself to the circus industry. Anyway Adam believes the fans will understand. I would not bet on it. At least F1 does not have a slogan of "For the Fans." The next FOTA forum in England should be a doozy, they could sell the rights to that for a lot of money, help defray the cost of running the races. 

Then there is India and the GP, which yesterday had 6000 workers going day and night with 250 engineers to finish the track. Today we are told its all done bar the top layer of asphalt and they were ready for and expecting Charlie last Monday, but he decided to leave it till August 30th. Now I am happy it is ready, but why tell us a story?

Last but not least we have another reported intent to stage an F1 race in the streets of New Jersey with Manhattan as the backdrop, with a race in 2013. Bernie and Martin Whitmarsh must be pleased. It is a private investment, so the question must be why? These are smart businessmen and must know what the costs are, but perhaps know better than I what the income will be, but I would check with Melbourne first. It is one thing for the City to fund this and reap the "economic benefits," but unless these guys own a bunch of real estate in the area it is hard to see the rational.

Here we are, Monday morning after a GP, Spa 24 hour and WSBK and not much to stir the blood.

A couple of things caught the eye. Yamaha is withdrawing its WSBK factory team. This is despite currently running third and fourth in the Championship. They have obviously taken notice that Ducati are leading the Championship with Checa despite the works team dropping out for the first time this year. Yamaha say they are going to support private teams, which clearly works. I think back to what I see were the good days of GP when Yamaha had several "private" teams running their equipment, Kenny, Ago, Sonauto with Sarron, and all were "works" bikes and we had good racing. Honda had a works team, but also Kanemoto, HB and Cabin, and Garry Taylor ran Suzuki for Schwantz. This to me is the right way for series to run, not just one "works" team for each and really only three or four guys likely to win. Not a bad model for four wheel racing either, like we saw at Spa, six Audis in three private teams racing each other, which is how McLaren are going with the GT.

The other is the ongoing Gribkowsky deal, with the six others being named, and behold there is Bernie's friend Briatore, the man banned from F1 helping Bernie out.

The furore over the Sky TV deal continues, with Pit Pass suggesting it is not poor Bernie's fault, nothing to do with the high cost of TV rights and everything else to do with F1, no it is the Teams' fault. They should do something, but what? He suggests that the teams subsidise the Sky fee for F1 fans. And how are you going to identify them? And 10 m households at 475 pounds apiece is a rather big ask. Why not the teams accept less TV money, say $20m, and reduce the cost of the rights to BBC? But that won't work either as then you set a precedent for all the other broadcasters. But if "free-to-air" is so important for the sponsors? If that were the case then F1 would be on Network TV here in the States and we might get a few people interested in it, and cheaper than building a track and running a race. How about funding Alexander Rossi in to a good seat as Red Bull are doing, then you might see some interest. But no, all these spend money, and of course the poor teams just need more and more. As Adam Parr said it is expensive for them to go racing, you can't just buy a tennis racquet and some shoes. I thought that was what sponsors were for. So are we really interested in building a sport or making money? If the Sky deal loses audience then we will see. This whole series is run on unrealistic income streams that if one or two start to fall by the wayside could fold up like a house of cards. If Bernie cuts a deal for Germany what does he do for Oz and Valencia, Barcelona, Spa etc? 

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.

This soap opera is going to run for a while, and keeps getting stranger by the day. Today it seems there are to be six more people charged over this, but no names. Gribkowsky's original lawyer looks set to go in the frame though. Bernie has told Pit Pass, who I have suspected of being Bernie's back door mouthpiece, but that is not consistent, that he did not give Gribkowsky 27m pounds, only 14 m. Now that begs the question, where did the rest of Mr G's money come from? Bernie goes on to say he did not "launder" it through the offshore companies, but paid it into a bank account, the number of which Mr. G gave him on a piece of paper. Wait for it. The payment "bounced." What, Bernie was overdrawn! So Bernie then said he gave the money to the lawyer, who is then presumed to have washed the money through the offshore companies and  therefore becomes entangled and likely to be charged. But I thought it was reported that those offshore companies could be traced to Bernie, or are they just sounding that way? It is confusing, and probably designed to be. 

What of CVC in all this I hear you ask? Well they have been talking to London's Financial Times complaining about the lack of communication. They are not complaining too hard though as it seems they are prepared to put up with anything as CVC "has simply shown such great returns." Oh well that's OK then.

Back to real life, or almost. Sauber has as expected announced it is keeping Kobayashi and Perez. Webber has yet to sign on at Red Bull but Horner says that is a formality. Well yes it is, and an important one too. VW have announced they "could" enter F1 in 2018! So why is everyone running this story? And what is so magical about 2018? Who knows what the regs will be by then, or the world come to that. Look at the last seven years. "We have enough good brands that could do that," the story goes. Well yes they do, they do right now, so what? Is this corporate planning in the extreme, and are we so desperate for news, or for another manufacturer to come and go that we need to get in a lather about it? 

Just for fun, you have to love headline writers. "Hamilton to race in BTCC." No Lewis is not quitting F1, This is Matt Hamilton, but it made me look. Then there is, "V8's stick with Dunlop tires." Let's hope they do.