Bob Barnard Track Engineering

What a busy weekend. I have asked before, who schedules this stuff? F1 qualifying on during the first stage of the Tour de France, and then the race on Sunday, not to mention the Wimbledon Finals and the World Cup. Crazy weekend, made worse by Daytona being rained out and run on Sunday so trying to watch Indycar from Pocono and Daytona. Tried to fit in a life between all this. Thank goodness for a long weekend. 

So Indycar at Pocono for a second year, and the race being extended to 500 miles did nothing for the size of the crowd. No wonder they reportedly do not want to finish the contract, there was no one there. Best part of the race was Montoya winning. It was sad to see the footage from back in the 80's when CART raced there to packed grandstands, but then it was Danny Sullivan winning and not a Columbian beating a Brazilian and Australians. Americans love to see Americans winning, look at the US Soccer team and how America stopped to watch them at the World Cup. When asked how to fix Indycar Robin Miller said remove pit speed limits. Really? The racing on the track is boring so let's see them race in pit lane? Is that the best you can come up with? Paul Tracy said when asked on air that he could not say or he would get fired. By who? He works for NBC as a commentator, or is NBC the series promotion company as I suspected. Come on guys, no one wants to watch spec racing with a bunch of drivers no one knows or cares about. Yes it costs more to go back to what worked, but you would then have an audience and sponsors would follow. Someone needs to invest.

Nice to see that Mercedes can share the problems around and keep the Championship alive, but it would be better if the could change Lewis' wheels at the same speed as Nico's. Good race and a full house. The English want to see their men win just as much as Americans. Nasty hit for Kimi though and it would be nice if for once the bridge was built long enough so that the verges do not have to neck in to accommodate it. Personally I would have placed a stack of tires in front of the damaged guard rail and got on with it. The chances of having that accident again were pretty remote. And dare I say it, once again Vettel is beaten by Ricciardo, who did not have to whinge and moan his way past other drivers.

Formula One returned to the A-1 Ring in Austria. Call me old fashioned but I am old enough to remember when they raced there before and Red Bull Ring does not do anything for me. This sign of obvious consumption has become somewhat odious to me. So quite happy when their cars failed to perform. It is strange that they were so far off the pace at a track with high speed corners that you would think would suit their good aero and road holding.

I have always liked this track, I guess due to the good use of the topography. Tilke did not do too much damage to it except to provide acres of asphalt and gravel run off. Pity he did not use some of that asphalt on some access roads by all account. Still, the crowd arrived and it was good to see, a bit like the Hungaroring in the early days. I expected overtaking to be difficult and limited to a couple of spots, but no, we were treated to some great moves. The best has to be Hamilton on Alonso at Turn 8 on the first lap, massive commitment on a fast corner. This track with 9 corners showed that you do not need 20 corners to provide a good race.

I do have a couple of issues though. Pit in should start before Turn 8, not after it, and there were a few close calls. Repainting the white line was like changing deck chairs on the Titanic. And then there is the asphalt emergency access strips at the exit of Turn 9 which almost caught out a couple of cars and launch them into the barrier. Shades of the BMW at Mid-Ohio.

Surprising that Mercedes struggled with overheating again. I expected a team with such an engineering base would have got on top of that immediately after Canada, and they had announced they had. Back to the drawing board.

Sorry readers of my blogs, I have had a busy time in May with three weeks away. Spent a week in Orlando at an Expert Witness conference and training sessions, and then two weeks in Monticello NY trying to finish paving the new kart track at the Motor Club. A combination of circumstances made this a less than perfect experience, and then the weather forecasters added to the delays by telling us it was going to rain when it did not. So spent Memorial Day weekend holed up in a hotel.

Still, had plenty to do with a request for a concept master plan for a motorsport park in Cambodia, and some alterations and upgrades requested to be looked at by the Motor Club on their main track. We finally laid the top course on the Thursday so I could drive home Friday. Turned out nice in the end.

 I was joined for the start of the trip by MSI colleagues Jonathan Clark, and Jono Voudouris from Australia. We spent time walking the main track and going through the theory and practice of track design and construction so that they can carry on the good work. Jono has returned to Australia where he already seems to have a project. 

Motorsport continues on without much change. Marquez and Mercedes are still winning, Bernie is still on trial, and crowds for NASCAR and Indycar are sparse. Still, we have Le Mans to look forward to and an exciting prospect of Audi, Porsche and Toyota going head to head for 24 hours. The Canadian F1 race could be interesting with Massa getting in amongst the Mercs. Canada looks to renew its contract while new races continue to join the series. Baku has a GP next year and I was interviewed over the phone on my way back from Monticello about F1 by a Russian web site. Interesting who finds me.

Many years ago when I lived in England I went to a waxworks which featured among other things a history of torture. One that stuck in my mind was "the death of a thousand cuts." These were just small flesh wounds, on their own not much problem, but 1,000 eventually bled the person to death.

Is this is what we are seeing in the new "unified" sports car series in America? This was no merger between ALMS and Grand-Am, the Doctor sold out to the ISC, and presumably to keep the fans and teams happy we were to see both series cars included with balance of performance. The DP is of course a NASCAR style derivative, and the LMP1 of Le Mans was way too quick to have a place, so we had LMP2 cars in the prototype class with the DPs. Last year the LMP2s were a lot quicker than the DPs, so we had to have a balance of performance to even things out, except as we have seen in the three races so far the DPs have won and the LMP2s struggled.

So what do LMP2 car owners, who are largely doing this for fun remember, decide when they are having no fun? They take their bat and ball home. Was this the plan all along, the death of a thousand cuts? Small nicks that seem slight at the time but in the end kill the class? So Grand-Am wins in the end.

Sure we have the GT Le Mans class, and thank goodness for it. They produced the best racing in the last few years of ALMS, and that's where the manufacturers are, so I don't see ISC killing that off, but you never know. Their GT class was modeled on the NASCAR culture of tube frame cars, so why would they kill that off. Just maybe the owners of those cars might feel like the LMP2 owners and just fade away.

Dyson racing have teamed with Bentley to go race in the Pirelli World Challenge. Got to be more fun than being beaten in Tudor Sports Cars. Strange decision though by Bentley. The Dyson team has been conspicuous for its lack of reliability and results in recent years. Still, it will be great to see the Bentley here in the US.

Back in the real world the WEC kicks off this weekend with the 6 Hours of Silverstone. First chance to see Porsche go head to head with Audi and Toyota. F1 is in China and Ferrari's new Team Principle is at hand, although what he is going to bring to the team other than another politician I don't know. Alonso seems to have pulled his finger out in the first days practice, new manager syndrome? It is early days though and we will see tomorrow just how close he can really get to the Mercedes.

It is reported that Gene Haas and Colin Colles will be granted the two extra F1 team slots today by the FIA. Why they would want them is the bigger question. Colin Colles can't help himself. After the HRT experience why would he think this one can succeed? He just wants to go racing, as long as someone else is paying it seems..

Gene Haas is a much more serious proposition though. With a successful CNC business, a NASCAR team with Tony Stewart, and an interest in the Mooresville wind tunnel he has the money to back this and the know how, but again why? HRT demonstrated the likely out come,and both Murussia and Caterham are shining examples of how hard it is for new teams under Bernie's winner take all payment scheme. The "owner" of Marussia, Cheglakov, has given up on his supercar plans and F1 it seems, so Gene could buy that as a cheap way in. Tony Fernandes has warned that this year could be the last for him to pour money into without results. So the omens are not good for a new team.

Then there is the current state of F1. Bernie's case starts soon, and he is running around talking about a "new" GP1 series based on GP2 cars. So where would that leave Gene with his new team? There must be a more secure and possibly cheaper way of promoting his business. With the current state of motor sport I'm sure there are lots of teams in WEC, WTCC, GP2 etc that would love to put Haas on the sides of their car. Or if he wants world wide coverage go and sponsor or buy a soccer team.