Bob Barnard Track Engineering

I hope you all enjoy my posts, but you should also be reading Joe Saward, I always do. It is not just that we agree on most issues with F1, but he has been there longer than most and still has his soul intact. Today's is a gem:

http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2014/03/18/f1-kowtowing-to-vultures-and-the-padding-used-in-ballet/#comment-184235

On the subject of track owners working together I tried without success to do just that at a meeting of the MotoGP promoters in Geneva back in 1991. This was at a time of turmoil with the FIM and I could see that someone like Dorna or Bernie would step in and we would go the way of F1. Maurizio Flammini was at the time the head of the promoters organization, but also ran World Superbike, so had an interest in not upsetting the FIM, so killed the idea. Not before I had the Japanese and several other promoters convinced that all we needed was the teams to make the show. The FIM and now Dorna just take money out. I doubt that promoters will ever agree, just like the F1 teams. At least in MotoGP the teams have IRTA to act as a single voice.

I commented the other day that if Boullier wanted Grosjean in F1 then he should give him a seat at his team, so what does he do? He hires Fauzy, a 28 year old Malaysian who has shown nothing in his previous trip to F1. Must be the long arm of Proton the Malaysian car maker backing Lotus cars, and they need some backing. Joe Saward in his blog today presented their latest earnings (losses) figures and the need for $64 in finance with a $700m loan being sought. These are the guys who intend taking over the world?  The naming court case is due to start Monday, so they had better get talking if they want to settle this as Bahar says.

While the Canadians are expressing concern over the Lotus fag packet livery Marlboro confirms it will continue to sponsor Ferrari and Ducati. How does that work? Are the Canadians color blind. Do they not sell Marlboro in Canada so it's OK? More power to Marlboro, if it is legal to sell them then it should be legal to advertise, or is the tax too convenient? I am no fan of smoking, in fact if cigarettes were banned it would suit me just fine, but I have been on the receiving end of this hypocrisy.

Qatar seems to be quietly taking over motorsport, along with some of its Gulf friends. Qatar Holdings LLC. is buying more of Porsche, and strengthening links with Williams. Joe again believes that this is a move to bring in VW-Porsche to F1, but that was countered by Porsche saying today that Le Mans is more interesting, affordable and a lower risk of failure than F1. I am old enough to remember the last time Porsche ran in F1, and it was not pretty.

The Mayor of Rome now says he wants the Olympics in 2020 rather than the F1 race, so I guess that is over. Can my Italian friends keep an eye on Flammini's land deal?

A1GP is to be resurrected it seems as A10 World Series, whatever that is. Never quite understood what A1GP was about except losing bucket loads of money. This has to rely on a big series sponsor and the promoters paying lots of money to have a race, without any "name" drivers, at least none that the general punter would know, and in spec cars. "The ethos is completely different in terms of the business model." a spokesman for A10GP said. It had better be. The series will run in the off season in non-European countries, so perhaps these racing starved people will not care who is driving? Now I know there are a bunch of Englishmen who just love "Our Jens," but I have never bought in to the jingoistic "our nation is better than yours" concept in motor racing. I, and I would believe most fans, like drivers and cars from wherever. Drivers I admire because of their ability and character, not nationality, and cars for their engineering and style. I can admire both the Peugeot and Audi equally at a Le Mans race without being French or German, and in the case of A1(0)GP we do not even have the difference in nationality of the cars, other than the color, and who really cares about that? We already have the Superleague based on soccer teams, which probably has more chance of motivating followers, although despite the success of my soccer team's car, Tottenham, I personally am unlikely to walk across the street to watch it. Good luck.

I loved yesterday"s quote from Lotus Renault designer James Allison who said the design of this year's car "would be on the brave end of brave." That's what we want to see, and Chapman would be proud. Or was it Lotus drivers who were the brave ones?

Sung by Dean Martin originally, but by Bernie today. He has written to the Mayor of Rome to tell him there should only be one F1 race in each country. Never mind Spain has two, don't bother me with details, and Mallorca is an Island like Singapore. So given the Mayor's commitment that he would not push Rome if it means Monza losing the race, it's arrivederci. I wonder if Flammini's  little city redevelopment scheme will go the same way?

There is a curious piece from Marussia Virgin today telling us they have doubled the computing power of their CFD, and "With the new CFD facility due for completion in the next few weeks, Wirth believes his team will be unmatched in terms of how much it uses computer simulation to design its 2011 car." With the first test a couple of weeks away I would have thought that it is a bit late to be using this new simulation power to design the 2011 car?

Ian Gow is all up beat about the British Touring Cars for 2011 with the inception of their version of the "Car of Tomorrow," the NGTC, i.e. next generation. The cars will be better looking, better looking all the same, and "We are not trying to make a race car out of a production car, it is a proper race car underneath," Oh good, it just looks like a Toyota Corolla on the outside. We will put on our X-Ray glasses to see it is a real racing car underneath. More spec racing is what this is about, and he should ask NASCAR how the CoT worked for them. Now I am not saying people will not pay to see a bunch of biffing and barging, BTCC is good fun and good TV, so maybe I'm just an old fashioned purist. I can see DTM taking over the world.

According to Auto Motor und Sport in Germany only Ferrari, Red Bull, McLaren and Mercedes have their finances in place for this and future years. That leaves eight teams they see as struggling to survive, and given the numbers for those they are not in danger of worrying the RRA anytime soon.

Not many compliments going around about the Rossi/Ducati color scheme. Rhubarb and custard seems to be the theme.

Alonso says he is most afraid of Michael in 2011. "There will be five world champions on the track and the most dangerous champion for me is always Michael." After Michael's move on Rubens last year I'm not surprised.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about how the Rome F1 GP may not be all it seems based on some information from an Italian friend. I did not go into detail, but today there is a statement from the Promoter,"Flammini argues that a Grand Prix would revive the neighbourhood by not only drawing attention to it, but also by restoring the Tre Fontane sports grounds with a total investment of $200 million from private investors. All that the city would have to provide for the event would be construction permits for the work, which would create a new park in which there would be venues for volleyball and skating and two theatres." Now this fits with my connection who said this is more about getting hold of this property and construction permits than running a GP.

As I also wrote a couple of days ago, how are we bloggers supposed to work if every rumor turns out to be wrong? Now McLaren are saying they are not changing their silver and red livery, just the merchandise. Not that I blame them, always thought the silver jackets etc looked tacky.

Your friendly banker is now in custody as a result of his dealings over the sale of the F1 shares to CVC, a nice little earner that seems to have been. $50m seems to have been the going rate, and CVC vehemently deny any involvement or knowledge, so the question remains who else stood to gain? This has the ability to turn very ugly if true. It is hard to see Mr. Gribkowsky taking the fall for this on his own.

As noted on Superbike Planet, running a non-profit does not mean that someone is not making money. The AMA certainly pays its' Chief a bundle, which I guess is the way you avoid making a profit. There are several other examples of this if you look around. My wife worked at a track that ran five major events a year, including a very large CART event, and did it with 13 staff. Now they run three events, non of which match CART, and need 30, go figure? In a similar vein I received a press release from ALMS yesterday about their TV contract for 2011 which involved the VP of Communications, the Director, and the Manager. Now ALMS is not F1, so it is hard to see it takes three people to do this job, and I suspect the Manager is managing others. So many tracks and series cannot help themselves, they just keep creating jobs and spending money. When I ran Phillip Island, and yes it was before the Internet, aside from the GP I had a Manager, lady in the office and a security guard. No wonder there are so many "non-profits."

Speaking of ALMS and their TV, it hardly seems a giant leap forward, sorry "a game changer," if your major event the Sebring 12 hour is now shown not live but the next day and the "ABC will feature race telecast coverage." Whatever that means, but I suspect not all the 12 hours. We can watch all the races live on ESPN3.com, which I for one will probably prefer, certainly if the broadcast TV is the sort of made for TV "documentary" we saw last year. Puke!

Cytosport are to contest the LMP1 class in a new Aston Martin, which will be a welcome addition to that class, if there enough cars to call it a class. Greg Picket is down to drive it again, but hopefully not often or for long. No offence Greg but this car deserves to be driven by the other great drivers you have. Maybe Lord Paul Drayson, if he is racing in ALMS this year, and yourself can have a separate race?

Not me, Joe Saward. Joe has decided that as there is so little going on he may as well stop blogging for a couple of weeks. Well I am not stopping except for Christmas and New Year, but excuse me if the news is slim to none.

There are still important items like Petrov being confirmed at Renault, can't quite get used to Lotus Renault yet. That's a good move, and let's look forward to a really competitive car again from them, Kubica certainly deserves it.

It seems the residents in the area where the Rome F1 street race is supposed to be staged are not very happy with the prospect. A very good Italian friend of mine suggests there is more to this story than an F1 race, in fact it has little to do with an F1 race, so let's see how this plays out. Mr. Flammini is a close relation to Machiavelli.

The ACO has released next year's Technical Regulations with the all important "performance leveling" clause that lets them adjust the weight, restrictor size etc to keep the petrol cars within 2% of the times of the diesel cars. Now I know us fans want to see close racing, but this smacks of going down a spec racer path. Sports cars are seen as the last bastion of technical innovation now F1 is so restricted, and I would say many of its fans do not want this stifled. The promotion of new technologies is also the much sought after "green" racing, so why penalize Peugeot and Audi for introducing the diesels ? Let's encourage the petrol cars to improve. What's to stop the diesels from sandbagging in the early races to make sure they stay within two seconds, or just take their bat and ball home if they are not winning? They have invested a lot of money to get to this point, much more than Aston or the other petrol cars I would suggest. When Ford GTs and Ferraris were slugging it out in the sixties did anyone suggest it was unfair on the others? No we just enjoyed the fight. And when the Porsche 956 and 962 were the only car to have, did we complain? Le Mans is always about different classes of cars competing on the same track, so what is wrong with the diesel and petrol classes?

There is also the gentleman racer bit in the LMP2 class and two level GT class. OK to have two levels there I note. Gentlemen racers, i.e. amateurs, usually rich amateurs, have been part of Le Mans forever, think back to the "Bentley Boys." They pay for the cars that pros drive, and make for an interesting strategy mix. Now there are probably some that should not be out there, and that is why there are license standards. Now when I read the reported rules for GT Pro it says that the class is unrestricted whereas the Amateur class must have one gentleman driver and a year old car. So does unrestricted mean just that, it can also be a one year old car and a gentleman, or does it mean three pro drivers and a new car, and who is paying for it? And oh yes, we have performance leveling there as well. Why? It has been the closest fought class for many years now between makes, what do they think will change?

Ducati are concerned with Rossi's potential fitness problems during the testing for next season following his shoulder injury. The interview with the team principal seemed very weird to me, suggesting they would limit his miles on the machine. Surely that is the best way to improve his fitness?