Bob Barnard Track Engineering

It's Memorial Day here in the US this weekend, the traditional start of summer, and a big weekend in motorsport. Not that you would know it for the lack of news. Bahrain continues to provoke strong feelings, even if the paddock is quiet about it other than Bernie. If you have any doubts about why F1 should not go there read today's Pit Pass offering:

http://www.pitpass.com/43742-A-plea-from-Bahrain

As I said the other day, things can be "normal" if all the dissidents are locked up and the press suppressed.

The Kimi/Bush partnership seems to be short lived with Kimi already bored with truck racing and looking to move up, while Kyle is a bit stretched to do this. Kimi practiced the Nemechek car and ran  16th and 18th, not too shabby. Looks like he runs better in this than the truck. The race is Saturday evening here and I wonder if it is live in England like the truck race?

A busy weekend with F1 at Monaco, NASCAR at Charlotte, Indy 500, WSBK at Miller and Grand-Am at Lime rock Monday, and oh yes, Champions League final Saturday morning. Not sure when to sleep or eat. Did I miss anything?

The Lotus judgement has been handed down, and good luck working out what happens now. Both can use Lotus, Lotus Cars can use it on its own, with black and gold livery, and Tony Fernandes can use Team Lotus in green and gold. By now I think we can all work out who is Renault and who is Team Lotus, so who cares? Of course there will be appeals.

The British Touring Car Championship has reportedly seen a huge increase in viewing figures for the first couple of races. "Unprecedented" is the word used. It seems I am wrong, someone does like spec racing. I don't think anyone knows why yet, it will be interesting to find out.

Sung by Dean Martin originally, but by Bernie today. He has written to the Mayor of Rome to tell him there should only be one F1 race in each country. Never mind Spain has two, don't bother me with details, and Mallorca is an Island like Singapore. So given the Mayor's commitment that he would not push Rome if it means Monza losing the race, it's arrivederci. I wonder if Flammini's  little city redevelopment scheme will go the same way?

There is a curious piece from Marussia Virgin today telling us they have doubled the computing power of their CFD, and "With the new CFD facility due for completion in the next few weeks, Wirth believes his team will be unmatched in terms of how much it uses computer simulation to design its 2011 car." With the first test a couple of weeks away I would have thought that it is a bit late to be using this new simulation power to design the 2011 car?

Ian Gow is all up beat about the British Touring Cars for 2011 with the inception of their version of the "Car of Tomorrow," the NGTC, i.e. next generation. The cars will be better looking, better looking all the same, and "We are not trying to make a race car out of a production car, it is a proper race car underneath," Oh good, it just looks like a Toyota Corolla on the outside. We will put on our X-Ray glasses to see it is a real racing car underneath. More spec racing is what this is about, and he should ask NASCAR how the CoT worked for them. Now I am not saying people will not pay to see a bunch of biffing and barging, BTCC is good fun and good TV, so maybe I'm just an old fashioned purist. I can see DTM taking over the world.

According to Auto Motor und Sport in Germany only Ferrari, Red Bull, McLaren and Mercedes have their finances in place for this and future years. That leaves eight teams they see as struggling to survive, and given the numbers for those they are not in danger of worrying the RRA anytime soon.

Not many compliments going around about the Rossi/Ducati color scheme. Rhubarb and custard seems to be the theme.

Alonso says he is most afraid of Michael in 2011. "There will be five world champions on the track and the most dangerous champion for me is always Michael." After Michael's move on Rubens last year I'm not surprised.

The only thing running this weekend seems to be sports cars, although we do have BTCC at Silverstone, which I am sure is fun to watch, but we do not see it here in the US. The most interesting thing from them is that they are going to a common body shell, and one made by Toyota at that, even though Toyota does not compete in the series. Other manufacturers, if there are any works teams left, or privateers can add their own or the series motor and accessories, with presumably a silhouette body shell, a la "the car of tomorrow" from NASCAR. Makes the racing more affordable for the teams, but is it any more than another one make series?

Le Mans Series is at Hungaroring this weekend, but practice is starting today so no results yet. Big news is the return on "El Leone", and the Mansell boys. Let's hope they get a better run than at Le Mans.

ALMS is at Road America with private testing yesterday. The Dyson car, fresh off it's win at Mid-Ohio, is quickest, with the Cytosport Porsche, with Timo Bernhard added to the driving line up, is second. That car could be the potential winner now they have an all pro driver team. Corvettes quickest in GT2 with BMW and Porsche right behind them. The Risi Ferrari did not get a mention, did they not test? Anyway, we do get to see it live this time on Speed at 3 pm Eastern.

That's all folks.