Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Well it is better than Indy Retirement League. Actually it works well, most people know what an Indycar is in the US, not sure anyone knew what a "Champ Car" was. Indycar has woken up from it's winter slumber with a raft of rule changes which will just make it harder for us to understand what is going on, but of course it is for the fans. Engines are the news as in F1, with efficiency being the watchword. The move from V8's to V6's makes sense as most road cars here are running V6's, but to reduce the capacity from 2.4 to 2.2 liter hardly seems worthwhile. Who makes a 2.2 liter? And did 0.2 liters really make it lighter and more efficient? We are still running E85 even though the case for ethanol being "green" has long since been discredited, but I guess if they get sponsorship from Iowa's corn farmers it makes sense. Oh, and we opened an office in LA, just so we can be closer to the media industry. Just what we need is more Hollywood in our racing. If you have a great product they will come to you, it's about the racing stupid.

Christian Horner is assuring us that Red Bull did not break the Resource Agreement, but FOTA are checking anyway. Domenicali said "that he was sure that all the signatories to the agreement would have respected it, although there are always questions of interpretation to be taken into account." I bet there are. That's the problem. Not that I agree with this BS anyway. No one questions Bernie's resources or how much is spent on the tracks and their viability, so why bother with the teams? If a team has broken the Resource rule it seems the recourse is to take that out of future spending, ouch! But is it only a gentleman's agreement or does it have teeth? That always presumes there are gentlemen involved. Domenicali also commented on how quiet the politics were at the moment, but with the new Concorde Agreement yet to be signed there is the dreaded (or welcomed) breakaway series apparently still hanging around , which is there to get a better deal presumably. Domenicali also questioned whether the movable rear wing is going to be better or not, and as I have said, are the fans going to know who is doing what and why.

It turns out that Kimi is going rallying with his own team, Ice 1 Racing, with a Citroen DS3 and his own sponsors. He has run his own team before in F3, so he is no stranger to doing it.

The Nextgen Auto web site has an article with more on our friendly banker Gribkowsky. "It has emerged that the German magazine Stern in its latest edition on Thursday will link the payments to Gribkowsky with a company called Petara — a word made up from the names of Ecclestone’s daughters Petra and Tamara. It is claimed that Gribkowsky’s company GG Consulting was registered on 22 February 2006, a day after he was made a director of Petara." Now is that a stretch linking Petara to Bernie's daughters names? Watch this space.

Norbert Haug has no sympathy for Red Bull complaining about their Renault engine being down on power and wanting "equalization." F1 is not about equalization he says. Here here.

It is a bit sad when the news includes items like "Santander ups Ferrari presence with a cap deal." A salary cap perhaps? No, they now have their logo on the front of the Ferrari Official Cap. Now I guess they paid a lot of money for that privilege, but personally I don't give a toss. The front of a Ferrari cap should say "Ferrari" or better still the prancing horse.  Santander are certainly throwing their money around at a time when I heard the Spanish banks are not doing so swell.

Is anyone else fed up with the non-stop nonsense about HRT, horrible racing team. They have left or been thrown out of FOTA, they do or do not have more money coming, they are suing Chandook, and they are going to run an "updated version" of the 2010 car this year, i.e. we have no money to make a new one. They need to just go away, as Bernie said, they are an embarrassment. If they were the real deal surely Santander would throw a few caps their way?

According to Helmut Marko every man and his dog are trying to steal Vettel away. This is another man who just needs to shut up and go away. After the Turkey affair who cares what he thinks anymore.

One of my friends commented on the Rossi photo from "Wrooom" that he looks like a clown. Certainly an odd combination of colors, and he has always played the fool to his adoring crowd, perhaps that is part of his attraction. Apparently his shoulder is taking longer to heal than expected. More games, who knows anymore. No I am not a Rossi fan any more than I am a Schumacher fan. There are some people who may be excellent at what they do, but I just do not like who they are. Watching the BSC Bowl game last night I can admire Farley for his ability, but with so much ability he does not need the attitude.

Kimi Raikkonen has been entered in the WRC by Citroen so that ends the "will he or won't he" that has been going on about returns to F1, driving for Ford, or not driving at all. Now I know people say Kimi has no personality, and on occasion may not "turn up" but I still miss him. When he wanted he could really put on a show and F1 is poorer for not having him.

The "Great Leap Forward," sorry that was Chairman Mao not Vice Chairman Atherton, for ALMS coverage this year has met with mainly negative reactions. This I guess is indicative of how the die hard fans feel about it, so whether it really is the way we watch sport in future we will have to wait and see. The Last Turn Club has a nice thoughtful piece on the pros and cons, http://lastturnclub.com/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

I've watched Le Mans and Sebring and Petit on the web the last couple of years and actually prefer it as I can tune in to Radio Le Mans and be spared the TV commentators. The Radio Le Mans guys are passionate fans, and always seem to know exactly what is going on, not being distracted by an infomercial. I guess I will have to buy an HDMI connection to my flat screen.

HRT have either left FOTA or been thrown out for non-payment of dues depending on who you listen to. HRT are complaining that FOTA only looks after the interests of big teams, and that the distribution of the money is not fair. Who ever said F1 was fair? It has ever been so that the successful teams get more money. This is not the USA where the draft system tries to even up the competition, this is Bernie's world, and in Bernie's world you sink or swim. Aside from Ferrari think about where the other teams have come from. Sir Frank used to do business from a public phone box. These guys paid their dues and made it, they are not about giving the sucker an even break. F1 is merciless competition, on and off track. Having said that it seems Red Bull over spent by 60m Euros! That's more than the small teams spent, let alone overspent. That's probably HRT's real concern. They were lured into F1 with promises of resource limitation, and the RRA is certainly more "enabling" than restrictive.

Here in the US Monday Night Football was a huge success and has since been followed by Sunday and Thursday night games. Someone worked out that people are at home in prime time, and there is not much else to watch in "prime time." Now Luca di Montezemolo is at it again stirring things up, don't you just love him, by suggesting that 2 pm starts should be moved to 5 pm as "most people are on the beach." In a European summer that would work, and if not there are always lights. Not sure what that does for the Asian races though. Luca probably does not realize that people like myself record the races anyway so we can watch them when it suits us and we can skip through the ads.

Talking of moving times of races, I commented a couple of months ago that the Phillip Island MotoGP was always intended to be run in March/April, it was only the fight over tobacco that moved the race location and date. But of course now the F1 GP has moved from Adelaide to Melbourne, and November to April, so the GP Board, who promotes both races, have a problem. It seems Dorna, after twenty years, have decided the MotoGP needs to be in that time slot, and have threatened that the FIM will not license the track if it is not moved. Don't really see what the date has to do with a track license. I have heard of licensing a track for different levels of competition, never for different times of the year?  As I said before, move the F1 race to November and run it with the Melbourne Cup, what a week for partying!

I don't know if any of you have thought through the ramifications of the arrest of Gribkowsky, the banker who managed the sale of the shares to CVC, but if it is true he took a bribe then the person who paid it would also be in trouble presumably, and perhaps the whole deal could be in jeopardy? The bank that sold the shares is State owned and has lost a bundle in the last few years, so I am sure the State would like to get some of that back.  I am no lawyer, but this could get really messy, or just maybe it will get the sport out of the hands of people who care nothing for the sport and only its earning potential.

Senor Carabante of HRT has been ordered to pay an ex-partner an amount of 47 m Euros, that's a lot of dollars! With HRT already strapped for cash it will be interesting to see what this does. Still, they have money in from Tata for Karthikeyan's ride and another seat to sell, and there is always a new investor coming with these guys.

Practice for this year's Rolex started today with the two Ganassi cars at the top of the time sheet, no surprise there. Watch for the Aten entered Ferrari 430 run by my buddy Tony Dowe. This is the first outing for this car, but Tony has a good driver line up and is no slouch in long distance racing.

Even if the 2013 engines do not make a lot of noise the decision to go to a four cylinder turbo certainly is. Bernie is the latest one to chime in on the possible lack of an F1 sound and how that would hurt the sport. It's OK though because Jean Todt has said it will be, " the smaller engine is very important to the manufacturer."  Number one it should be what is important to the fans, without them there is no F1, and since when is the FIA a department of the MIA, the Motor Industry Association? It is there to promote and regulate the sport, it is time to bring FISA back to look after it. Who are these manufacturers? The ones who left F1 or have never been in it? We currently have Ferrari, who yes are owned by Fiat who make a lot of 1.6 lite engines, but Ferrari are the most vehement in their opposition. Then there is Mercedes who probably make a small engine but that is hardly their brand image, and Renault who does build small engines, but are in the process of downsizing their interest to an engine supplier. Cosworth will build whatever someone will pay for and don't care about road cars. So who are these manufacturers? VW? Or maybe Tony Fernandes' Toyotas and Hyundais? Todt clearly has an agenda, it would be nice if he let us in on it, or better yet ask us if that's what we want to watch. He should look over the wall to his mates at the FIM and see what the manufacturers have done to that sport.

Now we have Mallorca wanting an F1 GP, presumably Valencia's. If Valencia is having trouble filling seats then why would Mallorca, an island, do any better? I can hardly imagine it needs promoting as a tourist destination. Still Bernie says to go ahead with their plans, he just loves to have promoters waiting so he can squeeze the existing ones. His mate Phillipe Gurdjian is involved, the guy who planned that white elephant at Abu Dhabi.

Looks like Chris Dyer is the scapegoat for the Ferrari screw up at Abu Dhabi, despite years of great calls he is to be punished for one bad one. As someone asked about me once, "do you think he forgot how to do it?" Maybe time and circumstance played a big part.

There are signs that McLaren might be dropping the silver paint job now Mercedes are not a big part of their team other than an engine supplier. So, what will the colors be? I think I mentioned a great article about watching paint dry, about McLaren and how they paint the cars. Still worth a read. http://en.espnf1.com/mclaren/motorsport/story/27211.html?wrapperetype=print