Bob Barnard Track Engineering

So the first day of the 2011 season has come and gone and what did we learn? The usual suspects are at the top of the time sheet, surprisingly perhaps in the shape of McLaren. They obviously did something special in the second practice as they found around two seconds. It is still a lot like testing, we won't really know I fear until the race who has the best race set up. The tires did not seem to give up as quickly as I expected, with drivers setting fast times after three laps on them. There is still an unpredictability about what to expect every time you go out on a new set, and the Stewards authorised the use of additional tires after there were problems with mounting some. Does not sound like good quality control, more like a lottery.

Chandook said he was glad to be back in F1, all 50 seconds of it. That's how far he got in the Lotus, Turn Three to be exact before plonking it against the inside wall courtesy of a heavy right foot, cold tires and damp track. Lotus must have regretted that decision. They are strangely off the pace they showed in testing where it seemed they had dragged themselves to within two or so seconds of the fast guys, but here they are back where they were last season. Gascoyne says there is a lot more left. Let's hope so, they are barely in front of the 107% rule.

Not so lucky are Virgin who are still 6 seconds adrift, only faster than HRT because that mobile, sorry bad choice, embarrasment only managed one lap with one car right at the end of the second practice. They are due an "early bath" as they say in soccer, barring a miracle. Aussies love a battler, but this is way beyond that now.

The good news for McLaren is not so much the pace they are now showing, it is the reliability that was sorely missing in testing. All the top runners looked good in that respect, and Mercedes seem to have resolved their problems. Rosberg looked like setting the morning's fastest time on a couple of laps, only to run wide and lose time, and Michael is sixth fastest on the day. Massa seems to be struggling, and Alonso did not appear until very late in the morning session for some reason, but was right on the pace immediately, impressive. Renault were strangely off the pace they threatened in testing, but new boy Perez  was an impressive eighth, a second faster than his more experienced team mate.

Adrian Newey says he is confident that they are still up to half a second faster than the pack, and if anyone knows he does. Still tires are going to play a part. Vettel had a large chunk out of a front tire that Red Bull say was due to running over debris on the track. Let's hope so. Domenicali from Ferrari is concerned about the amount of traffic in pit lane if each team is making three stops, and the new pit entry is really tight to accommodate the V8Supercar garage brought over from Homebush. I guess Tony Cochrane did not want his series to look like second class citizens.

It was interesting watching the movable wing in operation during practice, but the FIA are still playing with the rules so it is hard to keep up. The overtaking zone in Melbourne will now start BEFORE the last corner, not sure how that helps, you need the downforce to get through the corner I would have thought, and as soon as you bolt on intermediates you can no longer use the wing. They tried a race simulation during the last half hour of second practice just to totally confuse the crowd. And there are suggestions Red Bull did not use it in practice, so who knows where the times are.

The WSBK is at Donnington Park this weekend and Carlos Checa continued where he left off at Phillip Island topping the first free practice.

Le Mans Series cars tested at Paul Ricard yesterday, with the Aston Martin still to turn a wheel. The first race is next weekend. I did see a piece about the FIA talking to Peugeot about another flip by their new car. It has  had more than few big accidents during testing, although it ran faultlessly at Sebring, and the FIA are concerned about the aero on the car.

I am a little concerned about a report from the Portugese Rally special stage where a wheel came off a car and struck a spectator, and all the driver was reported to say afterward was "I can't believe I have been that stupid." To have crashed I suppose, but I would have thought he might have asked about the condition of the spectator and expressed some regret, or is rallying a sport where the spectator takes their chances?

It seems like the day for stating the obvious. In Melbourne it is raining and the forecast is for changeable weather. Anyone who has been there knows that this is the Melbourne weather forecast every day, "If you don't like the weather, wait half an hour." HRT is in financial trouble. Stunned and amazed I am, and apparently the dampers were not the only things missing on the car and would have come by truck from Germany anyway so no customs required. Wages also seem to be something that is missing for the team. Now I do not wish anybody ill for trying, just for lying.

Something that is also changeable in Melbourne is Bernie's man Ron Walker. Despite Bernie saying a few weeks ago he was coming to Melbourne to put some spark into it as he is such a celebrity, he now is reportedly going to New York to meet Mayor Bloomberg. Nice negotiating ploy that Bernie. So Ron is quoted on one web site as saying the sky is falling, look what you've done Mayor of Melbourne, and on another he has an option on a five year extension and the race is safe. So much so he wants the Government to dole out another bundle of money to build a permanent track at his old mate Lindsay Fox's Avalon airport. If it's good to spend on a Tennis Center then why not.

It does not sound like Lewis Hamilton wants to change anytime soon, "Red Bull is just a drinks company." Not a real race team like McLaren and Ferrari.

As we approach the first race the "noise" level from the drivers about too many buttons and too much to do in the cockpit is increasing. Martin Whitmarsh is again saying they are still testing the movable rear wing idea and it is subject to "tweaks," and the Technical Working Group is already reviewing the steering wheel overload to try and reduce the work inside the cockpit for the drivers as soon as next year. Bernie is still twittering on about sprinklers and is surprised at the support he has from people like Tavo, and other tame promoters. I'm not.

Well I joined Chairman Atherton's brave new world yesterday and watched the 12 hour on espn3.com. I have to admit to being a sceptic and was actually pleasantly surprised. After connecting my lap top to the TV via an HDMI cable which I already had, and some teething problems, it ran faultlessly all day. Could not use the lap top for anything else, but hey, I was watching the race. Not sure why some folks cannot get espn3.com? This is the first time I've been on it and it won't be the last. When I first connected my soccer team was being shown live.

The Radio Le Mans commentary added to the enjoyment, I turn the sound off on Speed and listen to these guys anyway so I was pleasantly surprised by it. The only jarring note were the required female and American in pit lane for the ABC highlights show presumably. When will they learn to keep their mouth shut unless there is something worth saying, and no we do not need to be told that the fuel goes in first at every stop. I particularly liked being told that the windscreens had to be cleaned because of the "daylight sunshine." That nightime sunshine can be deadly to. Mind you John Hindhaugh, the main man at Radio Le Mans has his Murray Walker moments. After a couple of hours of great racing John admitted he "could watch this all day." Well John it's a 12 hour race so your in luck. But I knew what he meant and love his passion and knowledge as we loved Murray's. Motor Sport had a great interview with Murray this month in which Murray said that commentators could not fake excitement or enthusiasm. Take note Lee Diffey, and no one could accuse Bob Varsha of faking either, Mr. Bland. I was amused by the number of comments on how hot it was. I guess if you come from the north of England it is, in which case do not come back in a couple of months time John.

To me it was more enjoyable watching this broadcast than Speed. Much less interruption for commercials, although the two we had got old very quickly. There were the inevitable "infomercials", but again these seemed less intrusive, perhaps because we were seeing so much of the race. Why oh Why does Atherton feel he has to talk to the commentators at every race, and who cares? Is it an insecurity complex? As I said before, Bernie never feels the need, nor Brian France. There were too many extended in-car camera shots, as good as they were, and static camera shots like the camera crew were on break, but this is nit-picking.

The race was a cracker, with three cars capable of winning down to the wire. Great to see Hughes de Chaunac's Oreca Team win it, and the tears in Hughes eyes are a testament to his passion for the sport despite the many years and great success he has had. Not to mention the incredible job done by Highcroft to finish second and nearly steal the race, in a petrol Honda that only turned a wheel a week ago. Well done Duncan, Brabs and the rest of the team, and on to Le Mans. Peugeot finished third in their new car, but both Peugeot and Audi ran into problems and each other, but let's not take anything away from Oreca and Highcroft, they were on the pace and not just lucky. Hard to see what the ALMS is going to do for LMP1 cars though, and the LMP2 were disappointing to say the least.

Not so the GT's who put on their usual performance with 5 or 6 cars running together most of the race. Well done Bobby Rahal and BMW, but we can expect the new Ferrari's to come back strong. Corvette avoided the debacles of last year to finish strong, so we are in for a stellar year, again. It is hard to accept, as the pit lane reporters seemed to do, that overseas professional teams did not know the rule book because it was their first time here. I'm sure Tony Dowe would not be making these mistakes wherever he went.

Corvette showed their in-car video display from the rear facing cameras which lead me to the question, why not build them into the wing mirrors?

The track played its part in the proceedings as is normal for Sebring. At what point do the bumps, that is a mild term to describe them, stop being "character" and become dangerous? We saw cars being destroyed thanks to Turn Seventeen particularly, and we were fortunate we did not see serious injury to Johannes van Overbook  when his Jaguar was tipped into the fence through no fault of his own. It is time Don dipped into his wallet and spent some money to maintain this place.

So, is the "game changer" a success? Well for me as an enthusiast and a professional involved in the sport it was actually an improvement, but how many average fans are going to go to the trouble to do this? OK, the next generation are being brought up on live streaming on handhelds, but are they interested in motorsport anyway? The evidence says not. Is a two hour highlights show on ABC today going to bring new viewers? Perhaps, the average sports fan is brought up on a diet of two or three hour games, so watching twelve hours is unlikely. The viewing figures will tell the story, but again, will the average fan think our sport unimportant if not worthy of live TV?

Elsewhere the MotoGP season is underway in Qatar in what should be a good race, at least for third as Julian Ryder said. C'mon Aussie! Bernie is up to his games again saying this could be the last F1 GP in Australia this week, he has to drop two races anyway to make way for Austin and Russia, so it may as well be Oz. Nice negotiating position. Vettel is making noises that if the drivers are not happy with the rules this year they may withdraw their labor. He needs to talk to the drivers who tried that on in South Africa a couple of decades ago. Bernie's position on drivers is like buses, there will be another one along soon.

Sorry about yesterday, my software would not let me in.

The FIA is continuing its nonsense about the Bahrain GP, promising to "respect" the May 1st deadline for a new date to be decided. There are people dying in the streets or had they not noticed? How can you condone even contemplating staging a race there.

Bernie has also come out fighting, but only verbally. He has come out against the 2013 engine rules as not being what the spectators want. Nice of him to care, I had not noticed that we were high on his agenda before. He says that talking to the businessmen he meets, he would hardly talk to one of us, noise and Ferrari are the two things they want. Ferrari are of course the most outspoken of the teams, "Not Formula One" is Montezemolo's comment. So the businessmen are afraid that Ferrari will not participate if the engine rules are not changed. But as Joe Saward said in his blog today, the deal is done. Also from my memory the 1.5 liter turbos were louder than the current cars. But as I have said, this is back to the future stuff, hardly cutting edge and "green."

Bernie is also fighting back about the Gribkowsky bribery case, offering to go to Germany to assist the investigation, but only if they promise to let him out again. However this turns out you have to admire Bernie, he can make money coming and going. He sells his shares and eventually gets a "Finders Fee" of $61m for helping the poor bank that is now stuck with the shares to find a new buyer in the form of CVC.

Continuing the money theme, there are reports today that the Belgian F1 GP is saved by Shell buying the sponsorship for the race. Now it is my understanding that signage and sponsorship are Bernie's, if not all then a fair chunk, so how does Shell tipping money in help Spa? Maybe Bernie will cut his fee by this amount? Nah, can't see that can you?

Australia in the shape of Melbourne are vowing to be tough with Bernie over the cost of the next contract. The Major Events Minister says they want the race, "but we're not going to be bunnies in contractual negotiations." Lambs to the slaughter I would say, and Easter is coming.

Over at Superbike Planet the AMA has issued a lengthy press release to explain the debacle at Daytona. After reading it I for one think it sounds even more of a circus.

Sebring officially kicks off today, and we can all watch qualifying tomorrow via ESPN3.com.

Happy St Patrick's Day everyone.

So Vettel has ended the going to Ferrari stories for now by signing a new contract through 2014, but what then? Well, Alonso may have said enough by then so who knows. While Red Bull can give Sebastian winning cars why would he leave? Surely money cannot be a reason, prestige? Vettel is concerned that the rules for the overtaking zone in Melbourne, that area where you can trim the rear wing, are confusing. Due to the short straight and the complex of corners leading into it the FIA have decided that the one second gap is to be measured at the third corner before the straight, not the last one. As Seb says, what if I close the gap through that last complex?

HRT are assuring everyone they will be in Melbourne with their "new" car. After people commented on the similarity to the old car they admitted the chassis was the same, "but 95% of the parts are new." So what does that mean?

In Qatar another World Champion is not having such a good start to the year, although Rossi says the Ducati is getting closer, even if he did fall off during testing. The Honda boys are having no such troubles and continues to dominate, but Yamaha are not so far away. This weekends GP should be interesting with the "semi works" bikes being closer in performance than it seemed last year.

With MotoGP and Sebring this weekend hopefully the news and gossip will increase. Of course if you actually want to watch Sebring you need a good cable to connect the computer to the TV, or just watch it on the computer.