Bob Barnard Track Engineering

The buy out of CVC continues to be the main story with some interesting side bars. The timing of these cannot be a coincidence. Ferrari has come out with a statement that "Ferrari believes that big decisions need to be made soon about the future direction of Formula 1 - as it suggested more needs to be invested by its chiefs to promote the sport." They say that they are impartial on ownership, but if CVC stays then they must invest in promoting the sport. Clearly the teams think that News Corp with their media muscle will do a better job on this score, and I have first hand experience of what they can do when they worked with me on promoting the Australian Motorcycle GP back in '89. Domenicali has made a number of statements in the past few days, continuing the push about F1 being too dominated by aerodynamics and not about engines, which is inversely proportional to the road car business. There are reports that "teams are indeed setting out plans for simple and stable rules post 2012, the revival of key European venues, reduced ticket prices and the modernizing of media platforms for the younger audience." Admirable goals for true enthusiasts I would think.

There are some clear messages being coordinated here, more promotion, stable rules with more emphasis on other components of the car, keeping the current engine, and reviewing where they are racing. There is a meeting scheduled in Stuttgart of Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Red Bull to discuss the buy-out, and it is suggested to join it. And at last an un-named team boss has come out and said what I have been saying, KERS as it is used now, is not "green." Only used for acceleration, increases the car's weight so uses more fuel, and then you have to dispose of the batteries. Someone had to say it. KERS is like the DRS, there to spice up the show, so stop pretending it's green. Capturing wasted energy is a worthwhile objective, but not like this.

Meanwhile, there is some real racing going on at Spa with the Audi fastest on the first day. It is all very close among the diesels, but the best petrol car, the Rebellion Toyota is 5 secs off the pace. In the GT class it is all Ferrari.

Virgin says it hopes to "turn the corner" in Turkey. I hope so, there are lot of them.

The FIM "clarified" the claiming rules teams,CRT's, at Estoril. How many of the 16 new MotoGP teams for 2012 will be CRT's I do not know. CRT's are defined as anyone the GP Commission decides, and not one of the Motorcycle Manufacturers Association. They must be "prototypes," so presumably built from scratch, not a rehash of an existing machine. Teams only get CRT status one year at a time, and that status can be removed during the season with one race notice by the GP Commission! How do you put a team together and sponsors on that basis? Why would the GP Commission withdraw the status? Because they are winning? And then what, they become part of the Manufacturers race? We are going to have two class racing in MotoGP it seems. Someone out there must know a potential CRT team and can comment on this.

The other main news story is about News Corp and Exor, the Italian group that basically owns most things Berlesconi doesn't, including Ferrari, so a lot of what was being scoffed at as just ill informed gossip is actually true. CVC has confirmed that James Murdoch has talked to them about their "friendly" intentions. Now there are all sorts of scenarios being put forward for the motives of all these players, so you can take your pick, but those of us who have seen Rupert go from an obscure afternoon paper in Adelaide to a major media player know not to underestimate him.  The choice of words in the News/Exor release is interesting and revealing. They are "creating a consortium with a view to formulating a long-term plan for the development of Formula 1 in the interests of the participants and the fans." Suggests that they are looking to do things differently, and as one scribe said, these words are very similar to when FOTA was looking to form a breakaway series. As I said, is this a backdoor way of doing that?

Interesting weekend coming up with F1 in Turkey, for the last time? Then there is the next round of the Intercontinental Cup at Spa which will see the big boys in sportscars back out for a final warm up for Le Mans, all except Aston Martin. WSBK is at Monza, so plenty going on for everyone. Wonder if the Kawasaki team will get there?

In other news the Indycar teams want to delay the introduction of the different aero kits that were to be possible for the new Dallara chassis. Seems the teams do not want to spend the money it will take to R&D and produce these just so the cars can look different. Why not let them be different? No self respecting top class series can be spec racing. Even Grand-Am has more than one DP chassis, just.

So the FIA made a firm decision not to decide on Bahrain. Let's give them another month. What a bunch of champions. Don't wait for Bernie to tell you what is going on, or the rulers, send someone down there to see for yourselves! Better still, ask the media people who are there already. This is not difficult. It should have been dropped a long time ago. Who says there are no politics in sport, anyone who has dealt with a National or International Sporting body knows it is nothing but politics. These guys are elected like normal politicians, and make the same deals to get there. For a while there when Bernie really did run things decisions were made and we got on with it. What happened to Jean Todt, did he forget how to do it?

The story about the Kawasaki Team trailer with the load of drugs, and a gun and ammunition, even worse than drugs in England I would have thought, is an odd one. The team are now saying they knew nothing about any of it, someone snuck into the trailer in Assen and left them there. On the table reportedly, and no one noticed. What was the person who left them thinking? No one will notice, I'll just slip over to England and into the team workshop and pick them up when no one is looking? Big problems for all teams from now on one would think. Can you imagine unpacking one of these at Dover? When I was twelve my family came back from a trip to Europe in a Hillman Minx and I saw what the customs did to that.

There is a mess at Williams. This should not happen to Sir Frank, but the SS Williams looks like the Titanic at the moment. Patrick Head is abandoning ship with his bag of loot from the sale of his shares, which are sinking faster than the teams results. The Captain, Parr, has offered to go down with it, but the owners want him around, so it is Sam Michael and Jon Tomlinson who are to be thrown overboard to appease the ocean gods. Enter the evil villain Mike Coughlin to the rescue. Just kidding, I always thought Mike naive and stupid, and a scapegoat for the "spygate" scandal at McLaren, so he has done his time and is getting another turn in the engine room. Let's hope he can get up enough steam to save her. Sorry about getting carried away with the ship analogy.

Meanwhile, over at superliner Ferrari. Upgrades for Turkey have been tested in a straight line at Vairano, but not until after another of those "filming sessions" that Ferrari seem to be famous for. Amazing how these Italian teams can get away with testing on two and four wheels.

Going on that is. The Indycar race was concluded this morning, still raining and crashing, and did anyone watch? The "who's buying F1 and will anyone stop them" saga continues. The latest is Ferrari being involved, possibly as part of the News Group takeover. Now that would give Montezemolo a way to kill the small engine. Is this a team takeover by the back door? Not sure how the other teams would feel about Ferrari being part owner, but it would probably be no different than when they had a secret veto.

Simoncelli blames cold tires for his crash. Why would his be any different to all the others? Didn't he expect his tires to be cold on the first lap?

Still nothing definite on the Bahrain GP despite the deadline passing. Bernie is desperate to run this race. It cannot just be the money.

Well wasn't that interesting! Like chinese checkers with everyone passing and re-passing and not knowing how it was going to play out. Everyone seems to have enjoyed it, but I found it tough to follow. A number of factors played into that. I did not watch it live, midnight Saturday night here and we were off on a road trip early Sunday, hence no blog. So taped it as SPEED are not letting us record to disc, so quality is bad and graphics unreadable. Finally watched it in bed at 8pm last night after a couple of glasses of red, so not fully on top of my game. Lastly we have Mr. Varsha and co. doing the commentary, and I bet Coulthard and Brundle kept their viewers better informed.

Anyway, I think I am not feeling happy because I don't just want to be entertained, I want to understand what is happening and watch it unfold. To do that now it seems I need to be watching the timing screen and doing a lap chart while trying to watch the race. Doesn't sound much fun to me. Joe Saward said after Malaysia that following the race is not hard because he does a lap chart, but that's his job, not his entertainment. I am struggling to find a comparison. At the moment NASCAR is the closest where who changed how many tires when seems to decide the race. It would be like watching a soccer match where you can sub the players like basketball, and you take Ronaldo off for a spell and then bring him back at the end when the defence is knackered. Probably just me prattling on as an old purist.

Great result for Lewis, and even more amazing for Webber. He did avoid the problems of being in amongst the back end of the grid and drove a great race. "Just doing my job" he says in true Mark fashion. As it seemed in practice the Mercedes are lifting their game, but Ferrari are in trouble. Strangely it is Massa that is handling it better. It is telling when you see the fastest race laps that Trulli in the Lotus was quicker than Alonso! Very good for Lotus, finally beat a mid field team on pace. Pretty amazing that there was only one DNF and that was for a wheel not being put on correctly. There was the same amount of marbles as we will now become used to, but drivers are going out there anyway, especially Webber, it did not seem to faze him. It was interesting that there was probably more overtaking away from the DRS zone than in it, the combination of KERS and tires are having more effect.

Montezemolo says the Ferrari form is totally unacceptable, and in a speech like he was practicing for being President, he said, ""This cannot and must not be the team's level," he said. "It's a very delicate moment. I expect our engineers to act with determination and know-how, unleashing the maximum of their capacity to improve the performance of the car in a short time. I want Ferrari to be at the level that both we and our fans demand it should be." Rah, Rah.

Peter Geran responded to my comments on attendance in China and how it is now a major market for manufacturers, but I believe that has happened in spite of the GP, not because of it. Rumors continue this morning about the Indian F1 track not being finished. Here we go again.

Over in Assen the Checa show hit a speed bump in the first race with Rea winning on the Honda, but normal service resumed in the second race and Carlos now has a handy lead in the Championship. BMW fared better in the race than practice, but that's not saying much. Good to see young Australian Mark Aitchison finish tenth in the first race, his best finish in his rookie season on not the most competitive machine.

I caught a few minutes of the Long Beach ALMS race at odd times on live streaming, and there always seemed to be a caution out. Very sad race. Why not just run a GT Championship and get the other cars out of the way for them?