Bob Barnard Track Engineering

So welcome to 2011, wasn't that the sequel to "2001 A Space Odyssey?" At least we do not have HAL running the cars yet. But as Rubens Barrichello said in his interview with Autosport, "As a driver we're just concerned that we're going to have to press so many damn buttons that it's going to be tough!" Rubens was talking about the 2011 Williams which he believes will be a more "aggressive" design thanks to his input. With over 300 races under his belt he certainly has the experience, and with top teams, and it is nice that the team at Williams are listening. I'm sure most of us fans have a soft spot for Sir Frank and wish him well for the new season.

Luca di Montezemolo is not giving up on the four cylinder turbos for 2013 and is looking for "friends" to help him get it changed to at least a V6. Cosworth are saying it will only cost 30m Euros to design, only? I suspect teams like HRT would like that as a budget. What happened to cost cutting? It's like the ethanol deal, it seems to be "green" until you look at what it takes to produce it.

I talked about losing the sound of F1 and Mark Hughes of Autosport also raised the likely sound of these new four cylinder cars. "A 12,000 rpm turbo four will sound flatter in tone and lower in volume." Perhaps that is another "green" agenda? Noise is a bigger issue for tracks than fuel economy, but it seems that people living near tracks will accept the major events such as F1, NASCAR, V8Supertourers etc, it is the daily use all year long that gets to them. When I ran Phillip Island the locals asked if we could just have the MotoGP thank you.  They certainly make enough money from that one event, it is a pity that the tracks do not. So, do not mess with the sound of F1. Wait till we have electric cars racing, they will have to have extra horsepower to run the "boom boxes" providing the noise.

Talking of noise, I always loved the sound of a Ducati, so distinctive, so I am glad that they say they are not out to produce a Yamaha "replica" with the GP bike, despite Rossi and his crew coming into the team. I've not had the pleasure of hearing the GP bike so maybe it does not enjoy the same notes as the street versions.

Not me, Joe Saward. Joe has decided that as there is so little going on he may as well stop blogging for a couple of weeks. Well I am not stopping except for Christmas and New Year, but excuse me if the news is slim to none.

There are still important items like Petrov being confirmed at Renault, can't quite get used to Lotus Renault yet. That's a good move, and let's look forward to a really competitive car again from them, Kubica certainly deserves it.

It seems the residents in the area where the Rome F1 street race is supposed to be staged are not very happy with the prospect. A very good Italian friend of mine suggests there is more to this story than an F1 race, in fact it has little to do with an F1 race, so let's see how this plays out. Mr. Flammini is a close relation to Machiavelli.

The ACO has released next year's Technical Regulations with the all important "performance leveling" clause that lets them adjust the weight, restrictor size etc to keep the petrol cars within 2% of the times of the diesel cars. Now I know us fans want to see close racing, but this smacks of going down a spec racer path. Sports cars are seen as the last bastion of technical innovation now F1 is so restricted, and I would say many of its fans do not want this stifled. The promotion of new technologies is also the much sought after "green" racing, so why penalize Peugeot and Audi for introducing the diesels ? Let's encourage the petrol cars to improve. What's to stop the diesels from sandbagging in the early races to make sure they stay within two seconds, or just take their bat and ball home if they are not winning? They have invested a lot of money to get to this point, much more than Aston or the other petrol cars I would suggest. When Ford GTs and Ferraris were slugging it out in the sixties did anyone suggest it was unfair on the others? No we just enjoyed the fight. And when the Porsche 956 and 962 were the only car to have, did we complain? Le Mans is always about different classes of cars competing on the same track, so what is wrong with the diesel and petrol classes?

There is also the gentleman racer bit in the LMP2 class and two level GT class. OK to have two levels there I note. Gentlemen racers, i.e. amateurs, usually rich amateurs, have been part of Le Mans forever, think back to the "Bentley Boys." They pay for the cars that pros drive, and make for an interesting strategy mix. Now there are probably some that should not be out there, and that is why there are license standards. Now when I read the reported rules for GT Pro it says that the class is unrestricted whereas the Amateur class must have one gentleman driver and a year old car. So does unrestricted mean just that, it can also be a one year old car and a gentleman, or does it mean three pro drivers and a new car, and who is paying for it? And oh yes, we have performance leveling there as well. Why? It has been the closest fought class for many years now between makes, what do they think will change?

Ducati are concerned with Rossi's potential fitness problems during the testing for next season following his shoulder injury. The interview with the team principal seemed very weird to me, suggesting they would limit his miles on the machine. Surely that is the best way to improve his fitness?

There can only be two stories today. Rossi rides the Ducati, which has Rossi fans lathering at the mouth. Could they really not have painted the bike red? Lot of discussion about how far off the pace he is, but it's November, so what does it matter. Vale will go off and have his operation and come back all new and refreshed, then we will see. Did Jeremy and all the Yamaha boys all just change shirts overnight as well? Sorry to hear Stu Shenton has been let go by Suzuki, he is too good to be walking the street, but then again aren't we all?

The other is Red Bull and team orders. The team owner says there will be no team orders, he would rather lose the championship than win it that way. Well said, but there are a couple of people asking if it were Vettel who was in front of the two on points would the answer still be the same? A few others have echoed my thoughts that Red Bull would rather Alonso have it than Mark Webber. Talking of Alonso, I would have thought he would have done well to keep his opinion to himself on team orders. No one commented on my questions as to team orders in motorcycle racing?

Murphy the Bear has his latest offering about the state of sportscar racing and the omission of the Petit from the Intercontinental Cup. I think we would all like to know what that is about, sanction fee, TV rights, dates? The TV schedule for the ALMS is whacko, I'll be watching on live steaming and listening to Radio Le Mans I think, if there is anything worth watching. Sounds as if the GT class will be the thing, even more than this year.

What is going on with the whole Lotus thing? Do the Lotus Group i.e. Proton and the Malaysian Gov't really dislike Tony Fernandes that much? Why would they sponsor the Renault team when by stopping the stupid fight over the name they can have the existing team running around with their name on it, or is it an embarrassment at the moment? That is likely to change, and with a Renault engine. As Mike Gascoyne said "If they want to advertise their road cars, why spend so much money on it?" he told Auto Motor und Sport. "With us, they could do it free of charge."

Then there is the rumor that Virgin might be bringing in Russian backers, Sir Richard's exit strategy?

So the deals done. $40m a year for five years in Sochi on a presumably new Tilke track for 2014. Then there's India, Rome, Austin, who's for the chop? Anyone who cannot manage $40m a year I guess.

The teams met in Japan to discuss how to make the Grand Prix's better. Make them two day events was one option being considered as it would be much more attractive for the fans. We could just run Sunday and make them even better on that logic, or perhaps just have a two hour race for the ultimate experience! They thankfully agreed that was not really such a good idea, but thought that they could move inspection to Friday to save them arriving so early in the week. Now that would be a great show for the fans. C'mon guys, you are supposed to be the geniuses running this sport, surely you can do better than this. Fans come to watch cars on track, racing, remember that? These need to be "events", let promoters run some decent supports like the V8Supercars in Australia and give the fan value for money. Look at the Goodwood Revival meetings to see how its done, or Adelaide in its hay-day.

It's nice to hear Massa has the team's full support. Usually that is the last sound someone hears before he is shown the door. Helmut Marko, the Red Bull motorsport genius says that Kimi is not coming through with the PR value for the money he is being paid. What other rally driver to hear about apart from Loeb, especially as Kimi is not winning and still getting coverage? Marko said Kimi crashes, well so does you golden boy Vettel, but I do not hear that you think he is not worth the money. Talking of Vettel it seems he and Webber are still at odds. A friend commented on Mark's body language in the parc ferme after Japan, and apparently Mark was off to the helicopter straight away without waiting for the normal team victory photo. I wonder how this is going to play out? I know Mark has signed a contract for next year and there does not appear many options open, but how can you see this going on for another season?

The MotoGP is gathering at Phillip Island for the Australian GP and Casey Stoner is looking to make it four in a row. If he can keep his Ducati upright it would be a good start, but he has shown in the last few races that it is competitive, so good luck Casey. Let's hope the rain stays away. The Island can be a cruel place at this time of year and the ground is still saturated after the winter. One famous quote from my September race in 1990 was that if you brought a car "you would be as popular as a Russian submarine in New York harbor." This was from a motorcycle magazine, really helped with my ticket sales! Always a good race at that track so make sure to watch.

On a personal note, how is it I can build a track like that and stage the first and best GP's, and be sitting here underemployed and undervalued? I despair of building a track again the way it is going.

Here we are on Sunday, and I do not know if it is just me, but there is not much getting my juices flowing. Congratulations to Casey Stoner for his win at Aragon, and just maybe Valentino has made a brilliantly timed move to Ducati. He is talking about missing the last two races to get his shoulder operated on, sounds like a very smart move to me.

I mentioned the discussion on LinkedIn the other day about the loss of TV audience for NASCAR. I commented, but I am having my doubts as to the value of such discussions. I am amazed at the lack of knowledge or analysis that people in these groups have about the sport that they profess to follow. It is as if they just watch the races and believe everything they hear from either commentators or promoters without question. I am seriously considering stopping my involvement, but then they will all talk to each other and promote more disinformation.

So, back to the racing. IRL went to Motegi because Honda supplies the engines, I doubt the number of spectators made the trip worthwhile. I watched a little of the race towards the end, but cannot get excited by it. Have I been spoilt or just getting jaded and old? DTM, WTCC, FRenault3.5, BTCC, FIAGT, and Superleague all raced, but we do not see any of it here despite having a dedicated race channel, sorry NASCAR channel, so it is hard to follow these and comment. The Fords have been winning in BTCC, but stirring up controversy over their engine package. Sounds like good racing, but it is going the way of most series with spec body shells by Toyota and engines by the series. Formula Ford or Formula Vee have been delivering close racing for probably over twenty years, but who watches?  Nice to see Donnington back in action though.

There are signs that the honeymoon for the new CEO of the IRL, Randy Bernard, is over. It seems the team owners are not happy about the new car for 2012, and I admit to being wrong when I said that teams like Penske and Ganassi would dominate because they had the money to design and build the aero for the bodywork. Penske has come out and said he will not be producing his own aero kit as he would have to commit to selling it to any of the other teams who want it, so we are back to a spec car again because they will buy the best package from whoever comes up with it. That whole idea sounded goofy to me when it was announced.  The Indy boss also wants to go back to Milwaukee because they have a tremendous fan base there. That is why the last couple of promoters at the track went broke.