Bob Barnard Track Engineering

At last the Bahrain Government has seen sense, or at least the writing on the wall, and voluntarily withdrawn for this year. That was the sensible thing to do all along and hope that by 2012 they will have come to some reasonable agreement with the opposition. They are on the 2012 calendar as the first race, but realistically that should be a provisional like Turkey depending on things getting sorted out there. Nice that Jean Todt is now throwing Bernie under the bus, "the commercial rights owner should have sorted this out." Gutless the lot of them. Interesting that Martin Whitmarsh says there's a lot of things he would like to say once the politics have settled down, Can't wait for that. There is certainly enough blame to go around in this farce. India must be wondering what it got itself in to.

Talking of 2012, Bernie is supposedly waiting for an election in Turkey to renegotiate the deal. One suggestion is Bernie gets the admission money as well! Where is this nonsense going to end?

Over in Montreal, where various Government agencies chipped in to pay Bernie's fee, our world champ added another name to the "Champions Wall" in first practice. Still he did that in Turkey and it did not slow him down one bit and is doing well in the second session so far. Rosberg is not slowing down either being fastest in this morning's session by over half a second from Alonso and then his team mate Schumacher. Early days, but this could be interesting. I started to watch the live streaming on SPEED.com, but work got in the way so I saw very little of it, and I'm probably not going to see much of this afternoons session. Still, got to keep my strength up and eyes rested for the 24 hours!

In England it is raining, shocking I know, but it is not raining on Casey Stoner's parade. He is well clear of Simoncelli with Nicky Hayden  and Cal Crutchlow both doing well. It looks like a lot of the guys played it safe, otherwise they are in trouble if the race is wet. The way Stoner and the Honda are going they are in trouble whatever the weather.

Day off in Le Mans, WSBK at Misano with Checa in his usual spot on the time sheet. Looks like all three championships will be decided early at this rate.

Can it be that Jean Todt has been set up over Bahrain? It is the Bernie and Max double act in a reprise of their previous performances. Bernie has done one of the fastest U Turns in history and is now saying it is "of course not on" and reiterating Max's statement that the WMC cannot change the calendar without FOTA's agreement. He is now saying he will send his own man to go check out the situation which might have been a good idea in the first place. As I said Todt looked inept at best in the TV interview, and is now isolated. The FIA is being likened to an "old boys club, where cash - in this case the Bahraini royal family's - can buy you anything." It is now being pointed out the Todt's son's GP2 Team is co-owned by the Bahrain authorities, not that anyone is suggesting that is a factor, but as I said the other day these guys have put themselves in the Middle east money's pocket, and are now reaping the "benefits."

Gracia is trying to justify his visit and report, which smacks of an episode of a send up of the Sydney Olympics, "The Games." If you have not seen it try and find it, it is both extremely funny and extremely true. In this particular episode about Y2K, remember that, a Spanish Olympic rep is sent to make sure Sydney has the problem solved. After a brief discussion in the board room and receiving some dubious guarantees that all is well he decides to go eat.

Well I guess Bahrain has given us something to talk about for a few weeks because there is not much else going on. Le Mans free practice is on at the moment with the first qualifying late tonight France time. Remember you can listen in on the web at radiolemans.com and there is some coverage on fromsportCOM.com from 6 pm Le Mans time.

Just four days after the "unanimous" decision on Bahrain both Bernie and Todt are saying we will have to keep an eye on the situation and rethink going to Bahrain! How can these people have any credibility? I saw a clip of an interview with Jean Todt on the BBC last night, and he looked a bumbling fool. He kept looking over his shoulder as if to check with someone that what he was saying was OK. Who would that be, Bernie or the Bahrain Royalty?

Pit Pass has a couple of pages that say things more eloquently than I:

http://www.pitpass.com/43844-Comment-WTF

The next one is a report from inside Bahrain that raises some very pertinent points. Like "Odd is it not that you can be fined $100m for stealing someones designs but kill a few people and it is OK." I paraphrase, read the whole piece at:

http://www.pitpass.com/43834-Greetings-from-Bahrain

Max Mosley raised the point that the WMC cannot just change the calendar without the unanimous agreement of the teams, and the teams have finally broken silence, albeit in a private letter to the FIA and FOM, and asked for India to remain on Oct 30th, and let Bahrain go to the end of the year if at all. That way I guess they can say when the time comes we are not going.

This whole sorry saga is taking on the image of a French Farce, and must also call into question the ability of those theoretically in charge to continue running the sport. Perhaps Rupert can do it better? In the meantime how would you like to be promoting the Indian GP and selling tickets? And where are those bunch of heroes who own F1, CVC, they are deafening in their opinion of events. Perhaps their investors include some middle east money as well?

Hopefully we can actually get to some racing in the next few days. Who says there are no politics in sport!

Very little to talk about today. Bahrain decision continues to draw criticism, "like the 1936 Olympics" being one comparison. As Joe Saward said, it is a shame that the decision overshadowed a lot of good decisions made by the Council. Two that bemuse me a little are the new World Sportscar Championship, and the amalgamation of the GT classes to run under some equalization formula. So are we to have an FIA GT Championship and the WSC with the same cars?

Scrutineering started at Le Mans and if you ever get a chance to go to the race be sure to arrive early to do this, it is a great show in its own right. It then gives you a couple of days break to go and tour the Normandy Beaches, a must for anyone to understand the price of freedom. Busy weekend coming up with the Canadian F1 GP and Le Mans, no sleep Saturday night!

Yes I am going to go on about this again. Mark Webber is the only driver to come out against going to Bahrain at this time, no surprise that he is the one to speak his mind, and it is a measured reasoned response. Read it at the Autosport web site:

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/91981

Pity Bernie cannot follow his example. I had a comment elsewhere that the airlines are still flying so why not go? Mussolini made the trains run on time, but that was no argument to go there. On the other hand there are suggestions that the sponsors will not want to be seen on the cars, but I bet they are all doing business there anyway.

That is the point. I and others have said this has to be about something more than the money. Well here is my theory and it is about money and politics, but not race fees. In the last ten years F1 has got itself into bed with the Middle East. Daimler is part owned, and Ferrari and McLaren also have Arab investors. Look at Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi and you can see the extent of the connections. There are rumors Torro Rosso is being bought, and I'm sure there are other teams with Arab interests. The FIA and the World Motorsport Council have strong political ties, how else can you explain a "unanimous" vote, and of course Bernie has profited by both the huge fees paid for races and the monuments to excess they build to race on. He has used these as a stick to beat other would-be and existing Promoters for more money and more luxurious tracks. Now they are all reaping what they have sown. They cannot be seen to insult their friends.

FOTA says it is going to meet. Let us hope they can show some guts.

There are the suggestions of course that this is all games about the contracts. No one wants to be the one to say it is off, not Bahrain, Bernie or the teams, for fear of being sued for non-performance. That is why there was all that nonsense earlier and we had to wait for Bahrain to call it off. Bernie magnanimously dropped the penalty and fee, but Bahrain are now smart enough to say everything is fine and start a new game of chicken. It is suggested Bernie will wait till close to the race and then say conditions are not safe. But then India moved for nothing?

On a much brighter note the World Motorsport Council voted to do a deal with the ACO, organizers of the Le Mans 24 Hour, to turn the Intercontinental Cup into what it actually is, The World Sportscar Championship. Nice to have you back, now to see who is on the calendar. Le Mans of course, Spa and Silverstone, Sebring and Petit, and a race in the far east? That opens the question about the cost of a World Championship Round, there was some delay in including the Petit this year, and the tracks will have to be Licensed by the FIA as a Level 2 track.

The Council also agreed to possibly delay the 2013 F1 regulations, so the 4 cylinder may not be "set in stone." A 21 race F1 calendar was approved, with Turkey as a "to be confirmed." USA pairs up with Canada as expected. Bahrain starts the season off, but we will see, won't we.

Over in Barcelona Simoncelli met with the Race Direction about his aggressive style, said he had thought long and hard about it, and then took pole. The "private" Honda is giving the works team some grief. Let's see if he can keep it going for a whole race and avoid running into someone. The replacement for the 125cc class was unveiled in Barcelona, a spec class Honda 250 cc four stroke, but a nice looking piece of kit and at a good price to. Still sad to see the two strokes go though.

Just to return to F1 and money, there is a report out that F1 income is due to double in the coming years. Part of the reason is the built in escalator for race fees, at 10% it doubles in 7 years, and it was stated that fees for new races would hit $100m. How can you say that? Tracks are baulking at fees around $25m, and there cannot be enough Middle East countries to fill the calendar at those prices. This is looking more like the housing bubble. When will it burst?