Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Well despite all the suggestions that Red Bull had it wrong with gear selection Vettel won again. There seemed nothing wrong with his top end speed, driving passed Alonso to reclaim first place in a very ballsy move around the outside of the Curva Grande, two wheels on the grass. Alonso and Schumacher did Vettel a huge favor by firstly Alonso jumping past Hamilton and Vettel off the line, and then Lewis falling asleep at the restart after the safety car and letting Michael past. Lewis was probably the only one with the pace to bother Vettel today, but was trapped forever behind a vintage Schumacher who had to be told by Ross Brawn to stop weaving around before Charlie and the FIA did. I know he is fighting for position, but he goes beyond what is reasonable. Always has and gets away with it, whereas other unnamed drivers get called up to the Stewards. 

Lewis showed incredible patience during all this, to his detriment, while Button showed again that he has some grit this year. Mark Webber can't take a trick. You cannot believe his team did not tell him his wing was stuck under the car during the time it took to drive from the first chicane to the Parabolica, and how did he actually make it that far? So a good race which at times made me think the boys had all gone a little bit crazy with some of the moves, especially the first few laps. Luizzi's excursion down the grass was like watching a bowling alley, but he only made a spare. Team mate Riccardo's weekend carried on as it started, the car going into anti-stall at the start and taking 18 minutes to get right before joining the race. Daniel finished by so far back he did not complete enough laps to qualify.

Great to see the fans enjoying the race so much, even if Ferrari did not win. Tracks in America need to look at where they put the winners rostrum so that the fans can see it, and get near it. Too often it is tucked away in a paddock purely for TV and sponsors. Just look at Le Mans and Monza guys and see how it should be done. One of the many things Montezemolo has talked about this weekend is to make sure fans can afford to go to a race, not price it more than an around the world air fare. Of course that comes back to Bernie's promoters fees. Luca also went on again about teams running three cars or selling cars to lower teams so that we don't have the second class citizens running around 4-5 seconds off the pace. A bit like the old days in MotoGP when we had several teams with competitive bikes, and this is after all how Toro Rosso have survived and grown, so maybe not such a bad idea. He is continuing his concern that aerodynamics play too big a part in the cars these days, and how limiting testing forces too much reliance on simulation. As David Coulthard said during the BBC coverage, simulation will get you in the ball park, but you cannot simulate the real thing. That's why we run the race.

Tony Fernandes echoed Eddie Jordan's comments that the three new teams need to lift their game, no more excuses. Sounds like heads will roll at Team Lotus, or is that Caterham, if next year is not better. Having said that he has re-hired Jarno Trulli. What is that saying about doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? So the seats are being filled. Red Bull is set, McLaren is unlikely to change even if no one is rushing to sign Button's option, Ferrari are probably set, Massa doing just enough lately, Mercedes have re-signed Rosberg and Michael wants to continue, Force India might replace Sutil with Hulkenburg and keep di Resta, Williams will keep Maldanado and A.N.Other who can bring some money, Sauber are keeping their two. Toro Rosso have new investors/sponsors/owners so look for a Spanish driver there, like Alguersuari, and Ricciardo? HRT also have new owners and will want a Spanish driver, and Luizzi probably has not done enough to stay on, so an opening for two new boys. Virgin will keep Glock and perhaps D'Ambrosio, with Lotus sticking with their two. That leaves Renault, where Petrov will keep his seat and we have to wait to see what Kubica can do.

So maybe three or four seats available. Grosjean seems destined for one of them, and then we have Bianchi, Vergne and some of the other GP2 brigade of hopefulls.

Thankfully Bernie has played down the chances of an Iran F1 GP, there being others in the queue already. Notice he did not say never.

Now some of my readers have suggested that my blog is late because I went back to sleep after the F1 race. Not at all, the second half of the Silverstone 6 hour was live streaming on Audi TV so we watched that. Made for a good morning, and now we have football. Peugeot won comfortably from Audi, but only after one of their cars and one Audi were both delayed early on and fought back through the field, but could not stop a petrol car from coming in third. The petrol cars had a good race between them as predicted, with the result coming down to who needed fuel at the end. The GTE Pro and Am classes both provided great racing, with the Ferraris coming out on top in Pro, and Porsche in the Am. Porsche had a good weekend, but the BMWs failed to live up to their qualifying form, but coming back in the latter half of the race to finish fourth in Pro. Audi pulled off one of their by now expected quick change acts, replacing the rear bodywork, wing, and undertray in just over a minute!    

Now I was pretty good at mathematics at school and college, so I have to wonder what subjects the new COO of Nurburgring took? He used to be the COO at Hockenheim and negotiated the "good deal" for that track with Bernie. He is looking to do the same at Nurburgring to save the race now the Government is not footing the bill. What is this deal you ask? Well Bernie reduces his fee but the track gives him a % of the ticket sales, which is basically their only revenue. Now isn't this just paying Bernie his fee another way? OK, Bernie may be taking some of the risk if no one turns up, but in my world Bernie is pulling a pea and thimble trick here.

In similar news the Oz GP is reporting a loss north of $50m again, which is strengthening the calls to let it go. I wonder if Bernie can do them a nice deal like Nurburgring? I know we do not have six drivers, but we have two good ones. Bernie is actually very busy with tracks, saying he is talking to Barcelona and Valencia to alternate the GP in Spain. Is there a GP that is not in financial trouble? And I do not see the point of alternating, yes you only lose money every other year, but then you only reap the benefit every other year, and if there is no benefit why are you running it in the first place? There is a report today that there is a "serious" buyer for the Spa circuit, and they do not even have a driver. Has he done his maths on this?

The driver silly season is hotting up. Red Bull are saying they are keeping their two drivers, well Horner is anyway. Should be announced this weekend in Hungary. Renault nee Lotus appear to be running out of love for Heidfeld and Grosjean seems to be heading back to F1. Williams are being coy about whether Barrichello will be back in 2012, so who else would they bring in? Frank seems to like Maldanado but is he ready to be a number one? HRT appear to be favoring a Spaniard for Luizzi's seat, maybe before the end of the year, but where will Ricciardo go for 2012? Toro Rosso? Paul di Resta did not seem sure of where he will be next year when interviewed in Germany, but unless Michael retires why would he go anywhere else? Michael is doing OK as a back up to Nico, who must be wondering when he is ever going to get a competitive car. Ferrari seem to be keeping Massa for one more year, waiting for Bianchi to get experience in GP2? Italian drivers in Ferrari are under enormous pressure though, but if he could do the business can you imagine! Virgin have Glock but D'ambrossio is not a certainty to stay. Team Lotus are playing musical chairs but Kovalainen should be safe, Trulli must be a question mark, and I'm not sure Chandook really has what it takes. Sauber should keep their two and Sutil will stay at Force India as there is nowhere else to go, and why would he? McLaren will surely have Lewis and Jensen. All Lewis needs is a fix of winning now and again to keep him there, and as with Sutil, where else can he go? The are a lot worse situations to be in in life.

In a headline that just struck me as funny Pirelli announced it was changing the shape of its tires in 2012. Oval or square? Neither of course, just the profile on the rears to get more contact, but it gave me a laugh.

The big news is that Gribkowsky has finally been charged over the sale of the F1 rights and his role in it and the bribe. Now depending on which web site you read Bernie has been charged, accused or named for his role in this. It seems Bernie and his Bambino Trust collectively earned $66.5 m for commissions, and then paid Gribkowsky $44 m for his role. Now the legality or otherwise of any of this is for a court to decide, but Bernie says he is not bothered about going to the German GP this weekend, so must feel confident. Whichever way this goes, $66.5 m is a lot of money to pay to anyone for assisting in a sale. I should be so lucky.

Montezemolo has announced that Massa will be there in 2012, so the options for drivers at the sharp end seem to be drying up. Red Bull appear to be keeping Mark, and where else would he go? Similarly Lewis appears to have no option but to stick it out with McLaren. Mercedes have Rosberg and probably Michael, although I would move him over for Di Resta for all his promotional value. Renault aka Lotus Cars should have Kubica back and Petrov has earned his seat. What of Toro Rosso? Ricciardo has not been put in HRT for the fun of it, and who knows what the new owners of HRT will do next year, they are already clearing house.

Murphy the Bear has a new column today and suggests Kolles moving to Williams aimed at an eventual Audi takeover of the team. All very complicated, but makes for a good read, and Kolles did get the R10's to run after Audi replaced them. The rest of the column is a pessimistic take on where ALMS is going, if anywhere. I had a good discussion with Tom Kjos who writes the Last Turn Club web site the other week about what we thought should be the path forward for sports car racing here in the US, but who would listen to us anyway?

Pit Pass has a resident cartoonist who has a good take on the Murdoch scandal:

http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_gallery_image_display.php

For those of you that do not recognize them the three in the background are Briatore and Symonds of "crashgate" fame, and Mike Coughlan of "spygate."

In other news Alguersuari is looking for a poor qualifying so he can save his tires! Great way to go racing, maybe he will like the new shape? McLaren are denying Martin Whitmarsh is in trouble, usually a sure sign someone is on the way out, and are looking forward to having their blown exhaust back after loosing what they believe to have been nearly a second a lap at Silverstone. We shall see if they are competitive in Germany.