Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Joe Saward, an F1 journalist I have followed assiduously for many years, has a post on today's blog about an ethical challenge facing the FIA. Now I presumed he was talking of Sochi, about which there is still no comment from anyone. But no, he is talking about Bahrain.

http://joesaward.wordpress.com/

So it has taken two years for someone to actually raise the F1 race in Bahrain with the FIA as an ethical issue. Now as bad as the situation is there, they have not invaded their next door neighbor. I personally find it disturbing that Joe has not even mentioned the issue, but there again who has among the media, FIA and FOM. Are Gary Hartstien and I the only ones to care. I suppose they all think this will blow over by the time the Sochi race comes around. I would not bet on it. Putin will want East Ukraine soon to protect the Russians there. And then what, the Baltic States?

The purported sale of the Nurburgring raises more questions than it has answered. What was actually sold, and to who? In anybody's money the price paid of around 80m Euros seems very cheap for an F1 racetrack, but I suppose it does not matter how cheap it is if it only loses money. So why buy it?

That was the title of a piece on the ESPN blog about Bahrain a year or so ago, and we are hearing the same about Sochi. Has the FIA or FOM nothing to say? Not even "this is sport and not politics," as lame as that is? Ask Putin if the Olympics or F1 are about sport.

So India is not going to be on the 2015 calendar, what a surprise. They fell for that one. Now what are they going to do with that white elephant of a racetrack? The fate of Turkey, Valencia and Korea in recent times does not stop would be promoters it seems, with Azerbaijan getting a race according to Bernie. What with Long Beach still trying to decide, and a raft of others waiting in the wings there are plenty of people and countries who think they are smarter than Bernie and all the other F1 race promoters.

To assist those people I have recently connected with a group called Meet The Crowd, MTC, who specialise in strategies for would be and existing race promoters, and economic impact assessment, to assist with analysing whether to bid for an event or to renegotiate an existing contract. Our combined experience of organizing and promoting such events is now available. Check out their web site:

http://www.meetthecrowd.com/

In two wheeled matters it seems that Dorna is making up the rules as it goes along. Not a good basis for keeping teams in a sport. As soon as Ducati decided to do what Dorna wants and go to the open class they make up a new class for "works" teams in the open category, a class of one so far. Nice one. I bet Ducati are well pleased with that. Dorna has managed to upset both Ducati and the rest of the open teams, and is annoying Honda about them using the common ECU. If they keep this up they will be as popular as the FIM was in the early 90's.