Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Tires are in the news today with Pirelli saying their tire will mean two or three stops during a GP. Hardly green is it, and I am not convinced it is good for the show, we are back to sprint races. Some of the best races last year were when someone made their tires last much longer than the opposition thought. In fact you could argue Ferrari lost the Championship because they did not expect Vettel et al's tires to last. We know Button can extend the life, and didn't Webber win in Hungary by making the softs last and Vettel ran the whole race in Italy to finish fourth. Now we are back to "wait for the pit stop" to overtake.

Hankook have been announced as the official tire of DTM. It is not long ago that the idea of a South Korean tire manufacturer supplying race tires to the DTM would have been laughable, but not anymore. I am actually having Hankook fitted to my street car, before hearing of the DTM deal. The reports from other users are great and the price is certainly right. Falken have been running a car in GT2 in ALMS and are stepping up with Derek Walker taking over the team for 2011. They put in some good performances last year that tended to fade away as the race progressed, so it will be interesting to see what they learned and what Walker can do. All adds to the interest of the GT2 class.

Well we are nearly at the end of the winter wait, with the first F1 test due in 15 days. Not that the tests are always a good indication, but it will be great to have some action on track again. The Rolex is due to run the weekend before that, so we can get our sportscar fix starting in just over a week. The "Lotus" court action is due to start next Monday, but this is not the sort of action I think we wanted to see. Can't Bernie bang their heads together?

It seems the Tobacco Police in Canada are not happy with the new (old) Lotus Renault paint job. JPS fags are still sold in Canada, so any likeness to a cigarette packet is against the law. This is just the sort of nonsense I went through at Phillip Island twenty years ago. I doubt anyone else would have noticed if they had not raised it, and since when has a driver been used to promote smoking? What other color schemes are suggestive of cigarette packets? Are they to be banned too? This is just what the Victorian Government wanted, a "white out."  But I suppose there is a white fag packet somewhere in the world.

So Paul Di Resta survived the Shanghai track to win the DTM for 2010, well done. Pity the race had to start behind the safety car for three laps and then have yellow flags at the first three corners to try and make it safe at the start. DTM needs to have a serious look why it is racing at such venues when there are perfectly good permanent tracks to go to, even in Shanghai.

The GP2 musical chairs ended today with the results being mixed up again. Alexander Rossi ran 4th in the last session after an 8th place in the morning. Surprising to see Karun Chandook so low down in the timesheet, and Joylon Palmer struggled to repeat his form of yesterday. This is the end of the testing until next February, by when I guess we will know who has taken their checkbook where.

Bernie said  that the muggers went over the top, he would have given them the money, watch and the jewelry without the agro. One of my friends was bad enough to suggest that the muggers were a promoter trying to get some of his money back.

DTM is staging their season finale in Shanghai. Yes I know it is the German touring car series, go figure. They sell a lot of Mercedes and Audis in China, probably more than Germany. This is not their first visit, and the street track was used previously by A1GP I think, with similar results. Problems with the layout. Lots of crashes during the last two practice days, including one terrible one by Maro Engel hitting the end of the pit lane wall. Maro is OK, but most of the front of the car is gone. They changed this and a few other barriers Friday night, and the DTM is going to make more changes tonight. Did they not look at this track before they started? Did the Chinese learn nothing from previous years? Who designs/inspects this? There are a few of us who have done this before, there is no excuse just because it is in China or one of their first races. It is a sad way to finish a season with the race potentially decided by an accident caused by a bad track.

I am organizing a session at the Professional Circuit Owners Forum in LA in April next year to look at the responsibilities and liabilities of designers/owners/inspectors, and the role of the insurer/sanctioning body and the legal profession. This is an ongoing problem here in the US and we need to air it out instead of ignoring it. The program will be out in January so book some time mid April to be there.

GP2 try outs going on with drivers swapping seats faster than musical chairs. Young Joylon Palmer has stepped up from F2 and is running well, while a lot of the usual suspects are up the top of the time sheets whichever car they are in. Brendon Hartley is still tyring to make it past GP2, but I fear he is one of those I mentioned yesterday that are destined to not quite make it. Roman Grosjean, the great French hope that had a shot at F1 is mid pack, while rising American star Alexander Rossi is setting similar times. With the swapping of cars and drivers, are the drivers with money auditioning the team, or is the team looking for the best driver?

Speaking of rising stars, Daniel Ricciardo has been announced as the Friday driver for Torro Rosso at every race next year, so he will get a good bit of seat time. Buemi therefore seems safe, until he messes up. Daniel is to continue in FR3.5 with the aim of winning it in 2011. This is a better deal than going to GP2 and does not throw him in the deep end. Where to in 2012?

Four in a row for Casey Stoner at The Island, and he made this one look so easy. Lorenzo showed the way to his current teammate Rossi who had a great dice with his future teammate Nicky Hayden. The interest was all in the 3-6th places as unusually for this track the first two were able to break away. Still a great track though after 20+ years. Decent crowd too considering the weather.

My apologies to my followers but it is all very quiet on the racing scene. Nice crash on the first lap at Hockenheim for the DTM cars, and looking at that corner I'm not surprised. Given the different configurations at that track, and even that corner, it is hard to see why they chose that one. You'll find it on Youtube. Grand Am announced that they were delighted with the likely link up with DTM, and who wouldn't be? What is that going to mean for their GT class though?

Things should liven up soon as the teams arrive in Korea for their first GP, so let's look forward to an interesting week.

Is this about Bernie? No, he already has that with his latest signing of the agreement in Russia with Putin present no less. No it is about the DTM. BMW have finally got off the fence and announced their commitment to what has been a two horse race series between Audi and Mercedes, and no worse for it in the vein of the V8Supercars in Oz. Rumors have abounded about tie ups with both the Japanese Super GT series and Grand Am, but now it seems it will go further than that. The Japanese are to adopt the DTM rules for car preparation, so presumably manufacturers can compete in both and would not that be something to see. Nissan, Lexus and Honda mixing it with Mercedes, Audi and BMW, and with some of the best drivers in the world. What a show! It gets better. The plan is not to run in Grand Am, but to run as a separate series of twelve races in the US, six with Grand Am events and six with NASCAR events. Look out ALMS, we're coming through, and BTCC and WTCC are going to look a bit sick. No spec cars here with the same chassis and engine. Could even give NASCAR a run in the US as the DTM guys biff and barge as the old NASACAR boys used to do. Did you see Dijon last year?

Down at Phillip Island the conditions were the talking point among the riders and the spectators. Rain delayed practice and wind was another big problem. A racetrack next to the sea looks great on a nice day, but when there is nothing between you and Antarctica it can be awful, I know I lived there. For once I am glad I am not promoting that race. Pedrosa was in more pain than most with his freshly plated shoulder, but the wet conditions made it a bit easier for him. Very courageous men these riders. Lorenzo celebrated his World Championship with fastest time in Friday practice. He has vowed to put on a show now he does not need to worry about points, so it should be fun. Casey Stoner was next with his teammate Hayden third. Most riders saw little point in pushing it in the conditions, with Ben Spies presumably just touring around seventeen seconds off the pace.  The weather can change several times a day there, so tomorrow can be quite different, although running the race this time of year is always going to be a gamble. It is promoted by the Government who presumably do not want it to compete with the F1 GP, but a race early in the year is really the way to go.

A couple of nice articles to read. Last Turn Club has a review of the Petit which is right on the money, and ESPN  F1 discusses the never ending march of Bernie through more and more countries and asks where will it end?

"If the promised races go ahead, then the real losers are likely to be the established venues, mainly in Europe. Bernie deals on the back of massive financial guarantees from the tracks. The new venues he has unveiled - some good, some appalling - have almost all had the benefit of huge funding from local or central government. The older circuits simply cannot match the money being thrown at Ecclestone.

When Bernie faced with sentimentality, or even public opinion, against cash, there will only be one winner."