Bob Barnard Track Engineering

I trust all my American friends had a great Thanksgiving, I certainly did. Spent it with Aussie mate also from Adelaide and we watched the movie made of the set up for the first Adelaide F1 GP that I recently managed to obtain a copy of.

It is sort out time for the remaining seats in F1 next year, so let's look at who's where and who might be. McLaren is set with Hamilton and Button, and it looks like despite everything Webber and Vettel will be back at Red Bull. Christain Horner is tipping Mark for the title, so he must think he will be back. Ferrari will have Alonso, but is Massa safe? Who is available that is a better #2 to Alonso? Kubica and Webber have been mentioned, but neither look like moving and would not want to be a number 2 anyway. Mercedes has Nico, and maybe Michael. He says he likes the Pirelli's, and I don't think his ego is going to let him give up that easily. If they wanted a German driver there is Hulkenburg or Heidfeld, or even Glock, that would do as good a job or better, but Michael's name is great marketing for Mercedes. Renault has Kubica and looks like it might keep Petrov. The car is improving all the time so Kubica will stay, and Petrov did well at the end of the season, and with the Russian connection it seems smart to keep him. Force India is likely to keep Sutil, another German that Mercedes could take, but it seems Liuizzi might be replaced by Hulkenburg which would be a smart move.

Williams are retaining Barrichello, how long can this man go on, and I presume Maldonando with his sponsorship, although that is not announced.  Torro Rosso has given a big hint that Buemi is not coming back and could make room for Ricciardo. When was the last time Australia had two F1 drivers? Answers on a postcard please. Sauber has Mr. Overtaking, "I do not see the other cars" Kobayashi and the young Mexican driver Perez. Lotus, or whoever, will have Trulli and Kovalainen back, but the other two new teams are still up in the air. Glock will probably stay at Virgin, or whatever it is next year, with just maybe a Russian partner, Aleshin. HRT will take whoever has a big check book, and will anybody care?

So the GP2 winner may again not find an F1 seat, and drivers are bypassing it from FR3.5 and GP3 etc. Far from being a stepping stone it is becoming a support series for F1 for drivers that are not quite good enough.

On a final note, Bernie was mugged entering his home last night. Some journalists are unkind enough to repeat Bernie's comments after the attempted muggings in Sao Paulo, "They look for victims, they look for anyone who looks like a soft touch and not too bright," Bernie said in Sao Paulo. "People who look a bit soft and simple, they will always have a go at." I cannot for one moment subscribe to Bernie being "a soft touch and not too bright" so it seems no one is safe.

So Daniel Ricciardo topped the tests in Abu Dhabi and one second under Vettel's pole time! Someone sign this guy up. He did very well in FR3.5 this year so he is not just a flash in the pan, winning Championships on the way up. As I said let's hope he gets the financial backing to keep moving up, and if Red Bull let him go they must be mad. Place him in GP2 next year and let him take Mark's seat when he retires. Or maybe Vettel's seeing as how he has would prefer Mercedes or Ferrari. How can you come out and say that after Red Bull have just made you World Champion, or are you so egotistical to think it was the other way around? What an ass. Is Sebastian going to be another of those drivers that you respect their driving but not them as a human being?

Great week away in Cologne, but nice to be home in some sunshine. How do those Europeans put up with that long, grey winter? Excellent Forum with tracks and speakers from 5 continents and top people Like Salman Al Khalifa, CEO of Bahrain Circuit, and Sharmila Nadrajah, COO of Sepang Circuit in Malaysia. Add to this the new track in Moscow, NRing, a new country club in Germany, all the top track designers and suppliers then you have the best and latest information being made freely available. Not to mention kart circuit operators and local tracks like Oregon Raceway Park who all learn vital information on how to operate successfully. This forum should be a must do for anyone involved in or planning to be operating tracks. Derek Muldowney, the head of ISC's facility development group, gave us some great insights into planning and developing a major speedway and repaving Daytona, and we had attorneys giving us good advice on sponsorship contracts and branding. The next forum is in Los Angeles in April, so book your time to attend.

I was appreciative of the reception to my presentation and the session on track engineering that I put together. The session on the future of track design went well, but as an open forum it covered a wide range of topics not necessarily about the future. It seems that we are going back to the future with the old tracks like Spa and Nurburgring providing the basis. To make tracks more interesting to drivers it seems we need to go outside of the FIA guidelines in respect of maximum grades and cross fall to match these great old tracks, without jeopardising safety of course.

While I have been away it seems CAMS and Australian GP have kissed and made up, at least for this year. Sad to say as an Australian but I cannot see they will have a F1 GP for long, there are too many other countries with far larger markets wanting races so someone has to go. The political backlash on the ongoing losses is growing and will result in what happened to Adelaide, Bernie will see the writing on the wall and move it.

Seems the Pirelli tires met with approval from the drivers so now we can get on and finish next years cars, which could be quite different without the F-duct and diffuser. Are they really going to use a moveable rear wing? Perhaps we will see who is finally driving for who next year.

On a final note, does anyone else think it is weird for a team to put a solid wall between their two riders? I can understand Rossi and Lorenzo this year, but Spies and Lorenzo? Just tells me there are two teams at Yamaha again next year. As much as Senna and Prost did not get along, and Vettel and Webber this year, they were still one team.

No, not the things that go around in your engine, The Confederation of Australian Motorsport. They are having a major bust up with the Australian GP organizers, particularly one Ron Walker, mate of Bernie's. Ron is complaining that CAMS is charging the GP too much for providing the race control and marshal services now that they are losing so much money. He says they are a monopoly and should be made to bid for the work like all the other "service" providers. So CAMS is threatening to tell their mates at the FIA not to let Ron have the race next year if he does not stump up. Ron has gone to Abu Dhabi to tell his mate Bernie and the FIA what a nasty monopoly CAMS are. Hang on, isn't the FIA a monopoly? And aren't they the ones who dictate that there can only be one recognized motor sport body in each country? That other well known monopoly, Bernie, says he is the only one who can say if Ron has a race or not. This is getting funnier by the minute.

My contacts in Australia have been keeping me abreast of CAMS and their goings on. Unfortunately like most of these bodies they come to think they exist for the good of the staff, and not the members. This is basically a big club, a "Confederation" of States and clubs. There has been ill feeling between members and CAMS since before I left Australia, and a rival body has been set up ostensibly to provide an alternative to CAMS insurance, but has grown to be a problem for CAMS, which has just said it will ban any senior official who works at a rival event. Shooting yourself in the foot time.

Now when I ran the Motorcycle GP for Kenny at Laguna Seca the AMA did not want us to run at that track on that date, conflicted with one of their National Rounds! What is important here? Fortunately Bernie and DORNA controlled motorcycle GP's with the FIM rubber stamping, and I did not need AMA's approval, did not ask for it and did not get it until halfway through the year when they rang me. I arranged the race control staff and marshals which suited me, I could pick who I wanted. So, if I could do that with an FIM race, why cannot Ron do it in Oz? He probably can, CAMS are saying they have to provide these people because of their expertise, but they cannot have a monopoly on that can they?

Is it just me or does the Abu Dhabi circuit look like a container terminal or industrial park this year? When I saw it today during practice it seemed to have lost its' "glitter", which is all it had last year. It just seemed a dusty parking lot with a lot of light towers, a lot like the Port of Miami container terminal where I worked back in 2003.

I know Alonso says he does not care if he wins the Championship by seven points or less, but it will be a very cheap title if it only cost Ferrari $100,000 to win it. I said at the time that Germany equated to $14,000 a point, cheap at the price, but a title, priceless. The Stewards should have taken the points away, that is the only thing that made sense, then we would not have this situation.

How great to see a Williams on pole again! I must confess to a soft spot for Sir Frank's Team, as I think most people have. Mine started when Alan Jones won the championship and then to see how Sir Frank has battled his own personal problems and the struggle to stay competitive is an example to us all. Let us not forget it was Hulkenburg and not Barrichello that did it, well done Nico, and what a great way to repay Sir Frank's comments about your ability of just last week. Maybe it was the confidence boost he needed. Interesting qualifying session with nothing between the Red Bulls again, and if Nico had a wet set up then he will probably go backwards fast in the race. Interesting to read his comments of Friday that they would be lucky to make it into Q3.

Hard to see Lewis doing anything other than trying to stay in touch and Alonso, who knows, but both of these guys need the Red Bulls to break again. Mark looked in a determined mood, and it looks more and more like my predictions over the last few months may come true and Mark will leave at the end of the season. Horner's "Mark needs to focus on the job" sounds like a "shut the **** up" to me. Let us hope tomorrow is dry and we can see a straight fight.

On the engine front there are more opinions from Cosworth and Renault that the proposed 2013 engine regs need to be very tightly framed to prevent a runaway spending war, or leave the V8's alone. All is not settled.

HRT has a new partner to help with the money as was suspected, so let's hope for a better season next year. The talk of using the Toyota chassis does not gel with me as the rules change again next year. I think the discussion with Toyota is probably more about using their engineering consultancy they have set up at the old F1 base. I can be wrong though, after all I did not pick Hulkenburg for pole.

Stoner took pole in Valencia so we should be in for a good race tomorrow with Lorenzo, who despite being a Spaniard, says he does not like Valencia. Spain is a bit like Australia, not so much a country as a collection of States. Nice to see Checa managed not to be slowest, just. But he is getting closer to the top lap times.

In Zuhai the Peugeots start at the front. The really interesting thing at Zuhai was the announcement of the Intercontinental Cup calendar for 2011. No Petit, just a "race outside Europe TBA" in October? Sebring is listed. In the GT class the big story is the Porsche Hybrid qualifying second, although it does not actually qualify for points.

There is action across the globe this weekend with F1 in Brazil and the first practice saw the usual suspects at the top of the time sheet, except for Ferrari. Is this just the normal Friday laid back approach? Massa apparently fought his set up all morning, when you would think he would be on top of this place from the get go, and Alonso stopped at the end of the session with engine problems. Ferrari said they were going to change it anyway before the second session. Really, that's a lot of work between practice sessions. Are they so short on miles they could not run one session on that next engine? Both cars are way off the pace, but we have seen this before.

Mark Webber used some choice Aussie language when asked about the team and Vettel. He said it was ******** obvious that the team emotionally supported Vettel, and Horner immediately emotionally hit back that both drivers had had equal treatment, not quite what Mark said. Can Mark really stay at Red Bull next season?

Responding to Bernie's "cripples" quote, Virgin Team Principle John Booth asked if Bernie said it " to embarrass Sir Richard Branson, one of the country's leading entrepreneurs?" I would have thought Sir Richard had embarrassed himself.

In Zuhai for the final round of the Intercontinental Cup the weather is bad, rain and fog, or is it smog? Oddly the second Peugeot is three seconds slower than its pace setting sister car, that's a lot on a short circuit like this. The two Audis split them, so we could be in for an interesting race, particularly as the weather is not supposed to get any better. It is the monsoon season, nice scheduling.

In sunny Spain Lorenzo leads the way after second practice just ahead of Casey Stoner. Colin Edwards is doing well so far, and Ben Spies is sixth despite his ankle problem. Rossi is not doing so well, sandbagging or just cruising to finish his time with Yamaha? Just perhaps Yamaha would rather the guy wins who is staying next year?

In Korea, for those of you that did not follow up that story, it seems $50m is unaccounted for during the development, and the Government would like KAVO to tell them where it went. It also seems that the "mobile" stands, I presume the temporary seats, do not meet code for the F3 race. Funny code that. The seats were OK for an F1 race, but not for an F3 race?

To all my English fans "Happy Guy Fawkes Day." Where is he when you need him?