Bob Barnard Track Engineering

I owe a shout out to my good Aussie mate, Bruce Polain, scourge of CAMS, who run motor sport in Oz. Bruce and I met in around 1979 while racing at Amaroo in Sydney. I say we met, I was racing my Morgan and Bruce had his Ausca, and we swapped places for a race. After I built the Adelaide track Bruce invited me to Sydney to the Seaforth "Round the Houses" where for fifteen minutes they let loose anything anyone has brung on the local street. Andretti's Lotus 79 to a Grand National Dirt car! That is when we worked out we had raced each other that day, and that we had the same disrespect for ignorant authority.

Bruce will stand for no cant, and is a regular letter writer to the head of CAMS, and anyone who will listen, about insurance, management of the "Club" as that is what it is supposed to be, and track safety. He provides me both sides of the correspondence for my amusement. Of course he cannot win, the suits always win, but that is no reason to stop trying. If Bruce were here in the US he would have a field day with the tracks we have, and the lack of anyone enforcing any standards. There would be no one to write to.

Bruce's latest campaign is about Turn 7 at the Bathurst track. Now this is a road course in the true sense of the word, controlled by the Bathurst City Council, who think because they have had a race for years they know how to design a track. When I first went there in 1985 or 6, long time ago, the concrete walls had not appeared, they were installed for the abortive World Touring Car Championship, and the useless "Chase" was not there. Most of the track was lined by wire strand farm fence, as that was the property usually lining the track. Here and there were odd lengths of guard rail, but most too short to do any good. As a journalist colleague drove me around it dawned on me that these pieces were stuck in after there had been an accident, not because of any overall safety plan. When I mentioned it my colleague was obviously struck that I was right, he had not thought about it.

Well it seems not much has changed, the City is still doing what it thinks is OK, and have placed walls at Turn 7 that both make it a blind apex on the inside and leave no room on the outside. Despite Bruce having photographic evidence and in his inimitable fashion chiding CAMS for not following their own rules he is of course being ignored. The significance of all this is Turn 7 was the scene of Mark Porter's fatal accident in 2006. What have we got to do to stop people dying unecessarily on race tracks?

D'Ambrosio does, or he will till he drives it. So another shoe has dropped and we are left with HRT and Force India, barring surprises. It seems D'Ambrosio, odd name for a Belgian, has won the ride on merit and not his wallet, and no Russian driver in sight.

So "Lotus Racing" has rebranded itself as "Team Lotus." All semantics to us plebs. I'd be just as supportive if they called it Air Asia. I know the brand is valuable, but not when we know it isn't really Lotus and it is being devalued all the time with the current squabble.

It seems that we are going even further back to the future with "tea tray" front wings from 2013, i.e. flat and short, not the convoluted things we see hanging out in the breeze waiting to be knocked off these days. This is something from the early eighties to go with the eighties turbo. Patrick Head and Rory Byrne were tasked with coming up with the regs for 2013, which will see even smaller rear wings and more downforce from under the car. Hang on, isn't that called "ground effects" and didn't we ban that as too dangerous? The worst part of this whole story, which I had to check the date on to see it was not April 1st, was the quote from Patrick.

"(In 2013) We are only going to have roughly 65 per cent of the amount of fuel and a (limited) fuel (flow) rate - that was a given," Head, engineering boss and co-owner at Williams, confirmed.

"We were just told ’That’s what it will be, you’ve got to come up with a car spec that is not going to be more than five seconds a lap slower than a current F1 car’.

So slower than a current GP2 car? What are we doing here? As Montezemolo said the other day "This is Formula One which should be the spearhead of technological development."

Murphy The Bear has a new posting which gets even more gloomy for ALMS and LMP1 cars every time. Why don't we just run the series for GT3 cars and enjoy it without having to worry about those other cars coming past and pushing them off the track? Murphy has a worst projection of two cars and a unlikely max of five. Why bother for other than the Sebring and Petit races?

If you think that the row between the Australian GP and the ASN, CAMS, is over, then watch this space. Last straw comes to mind for some people down under.

So Daniel Ricciardo topped the tests in Abu Dhabi and one second under Vettel's pole time! Someone sign this guy up. He did very well in FR3.5 this year so he is not just a flash in the pan, winning Championships on the way up. As I said let's hope he gets the financial backing to keep moving up, and if Red Bull let him go they must be mad. Place him in GP2 next year and let him take Mark's seat when he retires. Or maybe Vettel's seeing as how he has would prefer Mercedes or Ferrari. How can you come out and say that after Red Bull have just made you World Champion, or are you so egotistical to think it was the other way around? What an ass. Is Sebastian going to be another of those drivers that you respect their driving but not them as a human being?

Great week away in Cologne, but nice to be home in some sunshine. How do those Europeans put up with that long, grey winter? Excellent Forum with tracks and speakers from 5 continents and top people Like Salman Al Khalifa, CEO of Bahrain Circuit, and Sharmila Nadrajah, COO of Sepang Circuit in Malaysia. Add to this the new track in Moscow, NRing, a new country club in Germany, all the top track designers and suppliers then you have the best and latest information being made freely available. Not to mention kart circuit operators and local tracks like Oregon Raceway Park who all learn vital information on how to operate successfully. This forum should be a must do for anyone involved in or planning to be operating tracks. Derek Muldowney, the head of ISC's facility development group, gave us some great insights into planning and developing a major speedway and repaving Daytona, and we had attorneys giving us good advice on sponsorship contracts and branding. The next forum is in Los Angeles in April, so book your time to attend.

I was appreciative of the reception to my presentation and the session on track engineering that I put together. The session on the future of track design went well, but as an open forum it covered a wide range of topics not necessarily about the future. It seems that we are going back to the future with the old tracks like Spa and Nurburgring providing the basis. To make tracks more interesting to drivers it seems we need to go outside of the FIA guidelines in respect of maximum grades and cross fall to match these great old tracks, without jeopardising safety of course.

While I have been away it seems CAMS and Australian GP have kissed and made up, at least for this year. Sad to say as an Australian but I cannot see they will have a F1 GP for long, there are too many other countries with far larger markets wanting races so someone has to go. The political backlash on the ongoing losses is growing and will result in what happened to Adelaide, Bernie will see the writing on the wall and move it.

Seems the Pirelli tires met with approval from the drivers so now we can get on and finish next years cars, which could be quite different without the F-duct and diffuser. Are they really going to use a moveable rear wing? Perhaps we will see who is finally driving for who next year.

On a final note, does anyone else think it is weird for a team to put a solid wall between their two riders? I can understand Rossi and Lorenzo this year, but Spies and Lorenzo? Just tells me there are two teams at Yamaha again next year. As much as Senna and Prost did not get along, and Vettel and Webber this year, they were still one team.

Seems I stirred someone up over the CAMS issue, thank you Laynie. It is actually a world wide and multi sport problem. That is why the GP's went to Bernie and DORNA, Tennis the ATP and golf the PGA. I was going to write my thoughts on what is wrong with motor racing but got side tracked by the book. One chapter was to be "The Suits," the accountants and corporate types and yes "sports business consultants," who come in to a sport because it it successful and then control and change it without understanding how it got there in the first place.

Then there are the "Blazers," the sporting office holders who spent their whole life in meetings, getting elected, making political connections, and working their way to the top, forgetting what it was like to compete. Others are too busy competing to spend the time to do this. They turn up at the events in their blazers and badges and think they are important. And who pays for the trips?

How do you change it? There are more of them than us and they have time. There was a great Dilbert a week or so ago where Dilbert asks the smart garbage man why is it the stupid people get to make the decisions, and the garbage man tells him it is because the smart ones are too busy doing the work. Too true. I saw it at my last job, my "boss" spent all day in the client's trailer or our head office trailer making himself look important. I could never work out how he had the time. But perhaps they are the smart ones?

Qualifying at Abu Dhabi was excellent and we should have a good race tomorrow, it is still anybody's to win. The manager of Abu Dhabi says he wants a MotoGP there as well. I'd like to hear the riders' opinion on that.

No, not the things that go around in your engine, The Confederation of Australian Motorsport. They are having a major bust up with the Australian GP organizers, particularly one Ron Walker, mate of Bernie's. Ron is complaining that CAMS is charging the GP too much for providing the race control and marshal services now that they are losing so much money. He says they are a monopoly and should be made to bid for the work like all the other "service" providers. So CAMS is threatening to tell their mates at the FIA not to let Ron have the race next year if he does not stump up. Ron has gone to Abu Dhabi to tell his mate Bernie and the FIA what a nasty monopoly CAMS are. Hang on, isn't the FIA a monopoly? And aren't they the ones who dictate that there can only be one recognized motor sport body in each country? That other well known monopoly, Bernie, says he is the only one who can say if Ron has a race or not. This is getting funnier by the minute.

My contacts in Australia have been keeping me abreast of CAMS and their goings on. Unfortunately like most of these bodies they come to think they exist for the good of the staff, and not the members. This is basically a big club, a "Confederation" of States and clubs. There has been ill feeling between members and CAMS since before I left Australia, and a rival body has been set up ostensibly to provide an alternative to CAMS insurance, but has grown to be a problem for CAMS, which has just said it will ban any senior official who works at a rival event. Shooting yourself in the foot time.

Now when I ran the Motorcycle GP for Kenny at Laguna Seca the AMA did not want us to run at that track on that date, conflicted with one of their National Rounds! What is important here? Fortunately Bernie and DORNA controlled motorcycle GP's with the FIM rubber stamping, and I did not need AMA's approval, did not ask for it and did not get it until halfway through the year when they rang me. I arranged the race control staff and marshals which suited me, I could pick who I wanted. So, if I could do that with an FIM race, why cannot Ron do it in Oz? He probably can, CAMS are saying they have to provide these people because of their expertise, but they cannot have a monopoly on that can they?

Is it just me or does the Abu Dhabi circuit look like a container terminal or industrial park this year? When I saw it today during practice it seemed to have lost its' "glitter", which is all it had last year. It just seemed a dusty parking lot with a lot of light towers, a lot like the Port of Miami container terminal where I worked back in 2003.

I know Alonso says he does not care if he wins the Championship by seven points or less, but it will be a very cheap title if it only cost Ferrari $100,000 to win it. I said at the time that Germany equated to $14,000 a point, cheap at the price, but a title, priceless. The Stewards should have taken the points away, that is the only thing that made sense, then we would not have this situation.