Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Bob Varsha was in fine form today during practice for the Hungarian GP. As he said himself most of it was useless trivia, designed to show his extensive knowledge of things none of us actually care about. And then there are all the promos for things coming on Speed, which if I really cared about I would go to the guide to find. In between this we did get a bit of the practice. Bob needs to learn that if you have nothing to say then keep your mouth shut. Commentators do not have to talk all the time, we are quite happy looking at the pictures. If not we would be listening on the radio. I particularly liked his put down of how Andrian Newey designs his cars. Oh my gosh, he still uses a pencil, like a "cave man drawing on the cave walls with a stick" to quote Bob. So what does Bob use? I happen to use a pencil to draw my tracks, it is a process of creation, it is a tactile thing. The "design" that the two hundred guys behind Adrian are doing on computers is pure mechanics, if they could create what Adrian does then they would be doing it. Inspiration comes in its own ways.

Whatever Adrian is doing it is working much better than anyone else at the moment, the Red Bulls being in a different class to everyone except the Ferrari, and you suspect there was a bit of sandbagging going on there. Lotus again had hydraulic problems. C'mon all you tech guys out there, how can that continue for all these new teams. Mike Gascoyne is no newcomer to this, so why all the issues at every race?

Interesting to hear Ron Dennis say how ticked off he is to hear his drivers complain about lack of speed in qualifying. According to Ron, McLaren have purposely gone for race speed not qualifying, and seeing as how they have both won races and are leading the Championship, then he would like to hear a lot less complaining thank you.

Cypher have announced they are not pursuing their F1 entry, no money. Not surprising given the USF1 debacle, they cruelled it for anyone following for a while I suspect.

Nice piece on www.lastturnclub.com about ALMS and Lime Rock, well worth reading as it raises some broader issues with tracks being selected on purely commercial grounds despite their unsuitability, and the lack of any centralized or coordinated licensing system for tracks in the US.

World Superbike at Silverstone this weekend, and nice to see someone other than Biaggi on pole. In fact five different makes in the top five grid spots, interesting.

Here in Arizona the project web site is due to go live tonight, so watch for the address here tomorrow. Another overseas approach for a track overnight, and another here in the US. If only a couple of these come about I am in trouble, busy enough as it is.